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Comments Published Using The Name/URL Option Are Anonymous Comments

Blogger allows for several levels of authentication - including no authentication - to allow blog owners to select what degree of anonymity they are willing to permit, in the comments published to their blogs. In Settings - Comments - "Who Can Comment?", we have several selectable authentication levels.
  • Anyone - includes Anonymous Users
  • Registered Users - includes OpenID
  • Users with Google Accounts
  • Only members of this blog
People posting comments, without providing any authentication (when allowed) are considered Anonymous commenters.

To provide convenience, and encourage some amount of sharing, Blogger provides a selection in the "Comments as:" list, to let anonymous commenters provide a link to any one of their blogs. The "Name/URL" selection lets anonymous commenters setup a temporary profile ("Edit profile") for the comment being published, without coding HTML.

Some bloggers think that the "Name/URL" selection provides some degree of authentication, and that people who post comments and provide a "Name/URL" entry for their comments are identifying themselves. Some blog owners even express a wish to have a separate authentication level for this.
  • Anyone - includes Anonymous Users
  • "Name/URL" Identification
  • Registered Users - includes OpenID
  • Users with Google Accounts
  • Only members of this blog
These blog owners have probably never seen a Joe Job dispute in their blog comments.

The "Name/URL" selection is purely a convenience for your readers who wish to publish comments anonymously, and who wish to provide a link to a blog / website, without the bother of knowing HTML code. This option, when used, does not provide any authentication. It simply provides unauthenticated identification, and should be regarded with some amount of discretion.

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