Login to paid account with OpenID

[jqp]

Title:
Login to paid account with OpenID

Area:
Login

Summary:
I would like to use an OpenID URL and password to log in to my Dreamwidth paid account.

Description:
I have a paid Dreamwidth account. I also have an OpenID URL. I would like to use my OpenID URL and password to log in to my paid Dreamwidth account.

This would allow me to use my OpenID for its (as I understand it) intended purpose: de-cluttering my mind of username/password combinations.

Poll #927 Login to paid account with OpenID

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 39

View Respondents

This suggestion:

View Answers

Should be implemented as-is.
4 (10.3%)

Should be implemented with changes.
1 (2.6%)

Shouldn't be implemented.
29 (74.4%)

(I have no opinion)
5 (12.8%)

(Other: please comment)
0 (0.0%)

Per-journal ban of anonymous comments from specified IP

[azurelunatic]

Title:
Per-journal ban of anonymous comments from specified IP

Area:
comments, bans

Summary:
Allow bans within a journal or community for anonymous comments from specific IP addresses, while allowing other anonymous comments, and also allowing logged-in comments from that IP, and not affecting that IP's ability to comment in other journals from which they have not been banned.

Description:
Allow a journal owner to prohibit a certain IP address from making anonymous comments in their journal. All people using that IP address would be prohibited from leaving an anonymous comment in that journal, even if they were not the individual who had originally offended; if the individual who originally offended were to connect with another IP address, then they would still be able to comment anonymously until the new IP was banned or anonymous commenting was disabled. The ban would only affect the journal on which it was set, and would need to be set separately in a community to which the user posts, or in a second account belonging to that person. The ban would only affect anonymous comments; someone connected from that IP address could comment while logged in.

There are valid reasons in assorted journals to allow anonymous comments, but one anonymous commenter not playing by the ground rules can spoil the fun for everyone.

Individuals being jerks do not really fall under the oversight of anti-spam efforts: it's not a commercial activity, it's not automated, and it's not the site's responsibility to get in the middle of personal disputes even if one of the parties is acting anonymously.

Giving the journal owner the power to ban anonymous comments from the offending IP would at least stop the journal owner from having to clean up after that particular IP, with a greater precision than disallowing any and all anonymous comments.

This is not going to stop a particularly determined jerk who knows how to get a new IP address (contrary to popular belief, most residential internet customers are not assigned a single IP address that is theirs forever and ever: power cycling your cable modem usually lands you a new one; there are also anonymizing services, et cetera). In a battle with a determined jerk, you may wind up blocking hundreds of IP addresses individually before either they give up out of boredom or you give up and block all anonymous comments.


Pros:
May allow some degree of have-your-cake-and-eat-it too with regard to anonymous comments.
Could be reasonably effective in the hands of someone who knows what they're doing.
Users who know what they're doing could theoretically use it in connection with a blacklist more severe than the ones Dreamwidth uses
Less work cleaning up after one or two characters who are attempting to spoil things.
Potentially fewer non-spam items in the antispam team's queue
Being competitive with self-hosted blogging solutions
Would not block logged-in users


Cons:
The technically naive believe that an IP address is magical and 100% accurately identifying, and this could help further that belief.
D is against it (see con #1)
Innocent parties who have a) got the same IP assigned to them, and b) are trying to anonymously comment in the user's journal would not be able to do so.
Incredibly trivial to evade if a guilty party knows what they are doing.
As demonstrated in the "M. the Webmaster is still unpopular" scenario, a ban list can be ridiculously large and still ineffective against unpleasantness; a ban list cannot be increased beyond a certain point or else it will start to affect site performance.



Terms of service enforcement: ToS should not even attempt to enforce ban evasion from anonymous IP-based banning, as this is laughable; it would be provided as a preemptive cleanup convenience only, and to halt anonymous abuse, one should screen or disable anonymous comments entirely.

Poll #928 Per-journal ban of anonymous comments from specified IP

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 44

View Respondents

This suggestion:

View Answers

Should be implemented as-is.
20 (45.5%)

Should be implemented with changes.
3 (6.8%)

Shouldn't be implemented.
15 (34.1%)

(I have no opinion)
4 (9.1%)

(Other: please comment)
2 (4.5%)