Will other sites follow the Independent in banning anonymous postings?

Among the raft of changes announced when the Times and Sunday Times launched their new websites yesterday was the news that the sites were to block anonymous comments on articles.

Presumably this will be easier once the paywall goes up and users have to log in to access the site.

This appears to be part of a trend – Independent.co.uk announced yesterday that it was making a similar move.

The digital media editor, Jack Riley, wrote in the Independent Minds blog explained that the site was move to a new commenting platform, Disqus, that it hoped would be more open and positive, as well as reducing spam. Users will be able to log in using logins linked to their Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo or OpenID profiles – which make them much more likely to use their real names (although they could still use pseudonyms).

Riley wrote:

Spam aside, there have been many reasons for the problems we've had with the tone of commenting on independent.co.uk, and chief among them has been the relative anonymity with which users have been able to comment. With our new system it's possible to log in with Facebook and Twitter, and for the social network-phobic there's an email address only option from Disqus. We're encouraging people to use credentials linked to their personal profiles not just because openness and accountability are great, fundamental things which underpin good journalism as well as good commenting (and why should the two be different?), but also because by introducing accountability into the equation, we're hoping the tone and standard of the comments will go up.

Online editor Martin King continued the theme in a comment piece titled "A fresh start for comments on independent.co.uk":

Websites have been encouraging cowardice. They allow users to hide behind virtual anonymity to make hasty, ill-researched and often intemperate comments regardless of any consideration for personal hurt or corporate damage.

They may be fun to read, but all of us need to reconsider how they appeal to our baser instincts - and whether they actually threaten the future of free speech rather than prove a valuable demonstration of it.

Could the Times and Indy's move be part of a trend for newspaper websites? And does banning anonymous postings raise the tone of online debate?

Sources: Independent.co.uk/Jon Slattery