78% of Anonymous Commenters Will Leave If Forced to Use a Real Identity
Credit: Christian Newton – CC BY 2.0
Livefyre released a study on anonymous commenting last week. Their conclusions are generally in favor of allowing anonymity on your blog. They found that when you require a real identity, you also say good-bye to more than three quarters of people who would normally comment anonymously.
I spent a lot of time looking at the numbers, and before we discuss them, it’s important to understand the sample size. I found some of the information confusing, but Skyler Rogers of Livefyre was very accommodating in answering my many questions. Thank you, Skyler.
While the Livefyre infographic says they surveyed 1,300 U.S. consumers aged 18-65, that isn’t the full picture. They actually surveyed 3,496 people. They asked those people if they had ever left comments online on an article or blog post. If they said yes, the survey continued. If they said no, the survey ended. 1,388 said they had left comments online.
Who Comments and Who Comments Anonymously
This means that, by their own admission and definition, 60.3% of people have never left a comment on an article or blog post. Livefyre didn’t mention this number as their efforts focused on anonymous commenting, but I still found it interesting.
Of the 39.7% (1,388 people) who have left comments online, only 39.7% (or 553 people) have done so anonymously (including under a fake name). This means that only 15.8% of U.S. consumers admit to having left an anonymous comment online.
Among those who comment anonymously, 88% also use their real name at least part of the time.
Why People Comment Anonymously
The 553 people who said they have left anonymous comments online were asked why they do so. They were presented with some choices as well as a text field where they could enter a reason.
The most popular multiple choice option selected was “feeling I can be more open and honest than if I identified myself.” There were a number of reasons that people provided for being anonymous, including:
- Concern that professional connections would judge them based on their opinion.
- A desire to not want to be judged based on their identity.
- The freedom to reveal personal and intimate information.
- Being a public figure.
5% of anonymous commenters provided this as a reason: “making mean-spirited comments that don’t point back to my real identity.” In their infographic, Livefyre summed this up as bullying, although I would say that making a mean-spirited comment is not necessarily bullying. Of course, then you run into the issue of deciding how many people who actually bully would admit to doing so.
Not surprisingly, 50% of the people who leave anonymous comments say they do so on news articles. This is followed by politics (45%), personal blogs (19%), entertainment (17%), sports (12%), other (11%), travel (7%) and celebrity gossip (5%).
How Many Comments Do You Lose by Requiring Real Names?
This question is only partially answered. 78% of people who have left anonymous comments will not comment if they are forced to use their real identity. Extrapolating that number further, if 1,388 represents 100% of people who leave comments online, then you will lose at least 431 people or 31.1% of the your commenters by requiring real names.
This is a partial answer because it doesn’t represent what percentage of people you might lose amongst those who haven’t left anonymous comments (seems odd, but possible – requiring real names can lead to people who use real names taking different types of abuse). I suppose it also doesn’t include people you might gain from the group who don’t leave comments at all (likely a small number, if at all).
How Do Anonymous Comments Harm the Credibility of Your Site?
This is another question that is partially answered. Among those who have left a comment online, anonymous or not, 59% see anonymous comments as being equal to or more valuable than comments made with real names. But that doesn’t account for the larger web audience, including the 60.3% that don’t leave comments at all. This is really a question I wish had been asked for the 3,496.
My expectation is that if everyone had been asked this question – rather than just people who leave comments – the 59% figure would have been lower.
Moderation Makes the Dream Work
Livefyre’s Samantha Hauser makes the case that anonymity isn’t so much the cause of terrible comment sections as much as a lack of moderation strategy. I definitely agree with that. If you want a sense of community, you have to fight for it.
I would think that anybody wanting to post anonymously would just use a fake name and email address, as you have alluded to. So, they are being asked for their real name but don’t give it. How do those kinds of posts affect the question and answer process?
It is very difficult to draw hard conclusions from statistics such as these. They are useful in the sense that any additional information is useful and gives an idea or indication of people’s views, but should all be taken lightly and within context if possible.
Personally, I almost never post comments on blog/article/personal/community websites when the site requires a connection to facebook or some other online profile, but then I have experienced situations where abuse from somebody who disagreed with my views on a website somewhere leaked into quite severe problems in my personal life away from computers.
On my own sites, anybody can post comments. If they use their facebook login then their comments go live immediately but will be moderated when I have time. If they want to use an alias then they are still asked to submit an email address which will not be displayed, and then the post will only go live once it has been moderated. I do not check authenticity of email address.
The idea is to allow anybody to post but to protect the site from abuse.
Anonymity isn’t what prevents me from commenting on a blog most of the time. It’s the requirement to create an account and/or use Facebook or other social media service. I just want to leave a comment. Why make me jump through hoops to do that? It’s like all of these online retailers that want to give you a physical before you buy their product. No thanks. I’ll go somewhere else.
Hey Kal,
Thank you for the comment. As I wrote this piece, I asked a lot of questions. Skyler actually told me the question they used to determine whether someone had commented anonymously. It was: “Have you ever commented anonymously or made up a fake name when leaving a comment on articles or blog posts online?” So they did cover fake names and that would be included in the anonymous figure.
Thanks,
Patrick
Hey John,
Thank you for the comment. I definitely understand your perspective – a lot of people share it. There is a case to be made for making it harder to comment, as opposed to easier. It’s not necessarily a case that most should or need to follow, but there is a time and place for it.
Thanks,
Patrick
Interesting. I have not really made commenting anonymous, but got rid of the Facebook commenting structure on the website for a inbuilt one. Though I did see some traction with the Facebook commenting system, I think being linked to their FB account is what stopped people from leaving a comment.
Since I’ve effective wiped out all comments from the website by changing the system used, I need to now see how many comments the website receives.
Thank you for sharing your perspective, Abhi.
We tried FB commenting system for awhile and found that our comments indeed… tanked. We then just switched back to WordPress and people happily started commenting again. :)
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