As far as I can tell, they learned that people who bother to sign up for forum accounts ("pseudonyms", in their terminology) make more return visits/contributions than people who use least-effort ways of logging in (existing Facebook account, or anonymous contribution).
Well, that's a surprise.
The major insight was that pseudonyms yield significantly more quantity and quality on the network. May seem obvious to you but wasn't so for many, including a number of us who've been with Disqus for years. The conventional wisdom was that anonymous comments would rank highest in quantity and FB comments would score highest in quality.
(p.s. your backyard is awesome)
How do you avoid selection bias, particularly in regards to frequency of comments? For example, a source of technical bias could be that it is a simpler process to log into a Disqus pseudonym than to authenticate with Facebook when posting. Usability is incredibly important in attracting repeat users, so if it is easier to post under a disqus username then it is not surprising that pseudonymous users post more frequently. Another source of obvious selection bias is the disqus branding: I expect people who have Disqus accounts are both more likely to frequent blogs, and are more likely to recognize that they can easily comment on a blog with a Disqus comment section. By way of contrast, Facebook users may not even recognize that they have the credentials to easily comment, and may be reluctant to share their credentials with your third party service except in cases where they have a strong opinion about a piece of content.
I can see the data on comment quality being more objective and interesting, but even here there is probably selection bias: if most of the indicators of quality come from Disqus accounts' appraisals, then you may be measuring whatever bias Disqus users have as regards comment quality from Facebook commenters.
I may be wrong (as I'm not on the marketing side of things), but I believe when we're saying pseudonym we're saying "not Facebook". Things that let you choose whatever name you want, and not require your real name/singular identity.
Oh, and since I seem to have zeeg's attention ... why is it that every site I care about works just fine on my browser (Chromium/incognito mode/AdBlockPlus) but Disqus comments never load (I just get a "Disqus" spinning/loading GIF for ever)? I have stopped commenting on BoingBoing because it switched to Disqus and I don't care enough to debug.
This is, IMO, likely due to the fact that people can't be held accountable for their comments if nobody knows their true identity.
Personally, I have made it a goal to only use alias variations including my name for the sole purpose of being held accountable for my actions online; good or bad. It's a better moral compass than acting on behalf of some made up "pseudonym" (i.e. alter-ego). If I wouldn't say it in public, odds are I shouldn't be saying it online.
Note: In the case of my HN alias, I've always included my full name in the profile page. The alias references a domain I started years back and was originally intended to help push traffic. It slowly morphed into my personal account as I bridged the gap between reader and contributor.
I've been working on social sites for years, and I disagree with completely. There are many reasons, but here's one. What I think when I'm 20 is not a good indicator of who I am when I'm 40. I remember I posted with my real on some pantheist site when I was young, about why I was a pantheist, and for many years that was one of the top results for a search for my name. I regretted it, and luckily it's falling off of google.
Or, here's another example. I've made a small little community site (yakkstr.com) and lately there has been a lot of talk about non monogamous relationships and our feelings about them. I doubt people would be honest about this if they were using their real names rather than pseudonyms, and the value of the conversation is much greater when people are being honest.
Zuck: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard
No, the data doesn't support that conclusion at all.
The data shows that most comments are made under pseudonyms. While it would be correct to say that the hypothesis that people are more likely to comment when their identity is masked would produce this data, the hypothesis that more people post using pseudonyms (though possibly less frequently) also supports this data. Therefore, the data as given can be said to support neither conclusion.
Of course, there's no indication of methodology, and there's nothing to suggest that those who post under a true identity would post more frequently if they were pseudonymous.
(I'm only a single data point but..) I'm more likely to comment on something the more I can use my real identity as a by-line. Demonstrating one's involvement or knowledge in a certain area can be valuable (think HN or Stack Overflow).
To me, it seems the sort of comments that would be encouraged by anonymity are those that are particularly controversial, negative, or that break confidences.
- Some segments are arbitrarily taller than other segments (makes them look bigger)
- Some segments are deeper than other segments due to where they are in the bubble.
"Real identity" is listed as 4% of the graph, but it's not clear if they intended for it to be 4% of the volume, top-down area, or horizontal distance on the graph.
It's the worst kind of chartjunk: not just unnecessary, but actively misleading.
Images can have greater.... imagery? Can't think of a good word for it right now.
They presumed the effect they are trying to measure. It is easy to draw a conclusion when you start with it as a premise!
Since most sites would not proscribe using your real name as a username, this definition makes the most sense.
I can see one major bias (albeit inferred) - they consider anyone posting using Facebook to be using a "real name" - and assuming that anyone posting using a "real-like" name outside of Facebook is a pseudonym.
If this is true, they're really only measuring and comparing the quality and quantity of Facebook-identified commenters vs other commenters.
So while it's true that it's basiaclly comparing Facebook-identified commenters to other commenters, only Facebook-identified commenters are required (assuming they sign in with their actual account) to have a real name.
The only people pushing "real names" are Facebook and Google, and they are doing so because it helps them build a better profile of you and make more money. Building community is a secondary concern.
I selected a pseudonym, put in an email and a password, made a few comments... then I realized that some girl's photo is next to my comments! Apparently I hijacked her account.
Reddit and HackerNews are two sites on the internet, each with their own community of commenters. Let us assume for the sake of argument that Reddit users enjoy inane off-topic humor in their comment threads, and HackerNews users enjoy thoughtful posts with occasional dry wit. Let us also assume that Reddit users can post on HackerNews using their Reddit credentials, and vice versa.
After some analysis of their comment threads, Reddit makes the following claim: Reddit users drive communities! After all, nearly all of the comments on the site are inane banter from Reddit users. People from HackerNews rarely comment on the site, and Reddit's indicators of comment quality show that Reddit users generally post higher quality comments. They get so many upvotes!
But on the other hand, HackerNews claims that HN users drive communities! After all, nearly all of the comments are thoughtful and insightful posts from HackerNews users. People from Reddit hardly ever comment on HN articles, and Paul Graham's indicators of quality show that HN users generally post higher quality comments. Reddit comments tend to get downvoted to oblivion.
Anyways, I just wanted to show by this example that if you take a service that caters to a particular demographic, and ask its users to rate each other, of course you will find that the demographic comes out in a positive light.
- Would be interesting to see deviation bars on those values - my hunch is that real identity is not different from pseudo.
- It's false to suggest that pseudonymous users contribute more comments. You need comments per user data for that. Your graph just shows that pseudonymous accounts are easier to use.
- Why is everyone here attacking their data. Disqus is huge, this is an interesting topic and it would be interesting to have more data from them
- While writing your blog post, please also report separately the number of responses a comment evokes, or the length of the comment. It would also be interesting to have the number of edits per comment.
- Also post comments per user for different login sources
Perhaps this could be as much an analysis of the quality of a comment left by your typical FaceBook user. I know that as the Shepard of my own digital identity I'd much rather register www.myname.com and have a blog than use FB on a regular basis. Perhaps those of us that have been posting online for longer still live in the days of 'doing it ourselves.'
It wouldn't be surprising if FB adoption is higher among web novices than web pros simply because FB wasn't there when web pros started. This is then reflected in web pros leaving more useful comments for a variety of reasons.
In addition, as other commenters point out that pseudonyms are not just another form of anonymous posting, often with more personality than the poster's actual name. Being forced to give a real name requires a lot more commitment from many posters.
Whether or not this report is comprehensive, and I believe it to be pretty airy, this is still extremely fascinating.
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/4chans_chris_poole_face...
http://www.ted.com/talks/christopher_m00t_poole_the_case_for...