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Commenting - Locked Down, Ever So Slightly

If you're accustomed to leaving anonymous comments on other folks blogs, selecting "Other" for Identity, and entering your Name and URL, you'll have to change your procedure - that option is now gone. In its place, you may find (at the option of the blog owner) a selection to use OpenID comment authentication.

If you have an account for LiveJournal, WordPress, or many other blogging platforms, you'll be able to comment transparently. Without an OpenID account, you'll only be able to use "Anonymous" (again, at the option of the blog owner). And leaving a BackLink, in the URL field, is now a thing of the past.

This may make comments a bit more secure, but a lot more unfriendly. Not everybody who reads your blog will have an OpenID account. Those who don't will be unable to leave anything better than an anonymous comment, and that if you enable anonymous accounts.

Try it out - you may as well get used to it.



Click on Google - Blogger In Draft, in the sidebar to the right. This leads to http://draft.blogger.com/.



Now you're in Draft mode. See the Blogger icon at the top? So, click on Settings, for any blog that interests you.



And there are the new Comments options.



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Comments

Anonymous said…
OpenID is awesome! I've enabled it and it makes non-blogspot users commenting easier
MatGB said…
But any URL in the world can be set up to be an OpenID using a proxy server—I'm already doing it for some blogs that I use Blogger for.

I welcome this move, but it'll need some support and write ups from Blogger and others about how to make your blog an OpenID, I've done it easily and walked others through it, it only needs a little bit of coding nous.
Nitecruzr said…
Mat,

Maybe any URL in the world can be setup to be an OpenID. And maybe you or I can do that.

Most bloggers won't do that. And note that the folks who would leave URLs as part of anonymous comments may not even be bloggers, just readers of blogs produced by bloggers.
MatGB said…
Most bloggers won't need to though. Wordpress.com, Typepad, Blogs.com, Livejournal (+clones) and Vox already are OpenIDs. Blogspot and other Blogger hosted blogs probably will be very soon. Wordpress self installs and Movable Type installs either are or will be OpenIDs depending on version number.

So that's the overwhelming majority of bloggers having an OpenID already, without needing it. Others can sign up for an ID platform that supports it (Technorati, for example).

Confused though—why would an "anonymous" commented want to leave a URL if they're not linking back to a website of their own?

I view this as a positive developement because it'll help cut back on spam and, more importantly, stop sock puppets and faking IDs—I've seen comments from one person faked to look like another Blogger id, and that could've got nasty. Is it being perfectly implemented? Nope, but that's why it's in draft, it'll be fixed when it goes live properly.

And I personally would rather have an OpenID comment than a 'profile disabled' Blogger registered comment.
Nitecruzr said…
Mat,

You are a blogger (maybe Blogger, maybe another), and you likely have an OpenID account. Your readers may not be bloggers, and my not have OpenID accounts.

Some of your readers may have web sites (either their own, or a friends) that they want to post a link to. They won't be posting those links, any more.

So if I can setup my own OpenID server, what's to stop me from setting up an account on it, spoofing your identity? Or is there a central identity registry, in which case there is now another opportunity for identity theft? What do I do if someone else setup "nitecruzr" on TypePad?
Cyril said…
YOU ROCK!!!
Bernie O'Hare said…
Comment Notification seems to be gone. Today, 12/5, I am getting no email notification when someone posts a comment
Anonymous said…
If anyone should read this (it's been years since the original post :)), I'm confused -
when logging into the openid.net/ web site, it's asking me to register for a fee (no free option(s), anywhere).

Has this always been that way? :-0 Or am I missing something, or is it that: comments are free, but the main web site is the place for developers - looking for their API? o.0

Anyway, not big deal! Just read the post and checked out their site.. Gonna (try to) figure it out, tnx 4 reading. :-)

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