Yes, it would. If IP logging isn't on at the time a comment was made, it's not possible to retrieve that information without direct database access, and the people who have direct db access (and know how to tickle the information out of the db; it's not obvious) don't have a lot of time to do lookups like this. It wouldn't be a problem for antispam, since when an anon comment is deleted as spam the IP address information is then shown in the antispam system, but it would make things difficult for the ToS team; IP address information is never used as a sole proof of identity (nor should it be since it's so easy to work around) but it can be indicative.
More relevantly, though, the default setting for newly-created DW accounts (anon commenting off, IP logging on) was chosen because we thought it was better for the default to be more protective, rather than less protective, and we thought it was better to allow people to choose to be less protective if they wanted to, rather than having to choose to be more protective if they wanted to. That keeps people from being vulnerable because they didn't know enough to change the settings, while allows people who want to preserve more of their commenter's (perceived, see below) privacy can do so if they want. It also can help to eliminate at least one go-round with the Terms of Service team in the event of harassing comments; the first thing the ToS team will say is "turn off anonymous commenting, turn on comment IP logging" and having them set from the beginning can help.
Another thing that having comment IP logging enabled by default (and anon commenting off by default) helps with is the issue of abandoned accounts. It's pretty common on any service to see a drop-off of people creating accounts and then wandering away because they decided the service isn't for them, and on LJ it was (and still is) pretty common for those abandoned accounts to become nothing more than spam graveyards. Comment IP logging is less of a spam deterrant than no-anon-comments-allowed, but it can still help. We were trying to make our initial settings be protective enough to make abandoned accounts less of an "attractive nuisance", so we set them as restrictive as we thought we could reasonably justify while still not going over-the-top and restricting commenting entirely.
Also, since obtaining the IP address of visitors to your journal is trivially easy, turning off IP logging can give people a false sense of security; IMO it's better to explicitly have the "this account is set to log the IP address of everyone who comments" notice than to not have it there and people think they're 'safe' while the account owner has a custom mood theme that logs all accesses, etc.
All of these are, I think, very good reasons to keep comment IP logging the default behavior (and, of course, continue to let people turn it off if they wish) -- especially the last one, since I am very firm that sites shouldn't give their users a false sense of security -- and I almost, almost rejected this suggestion based on that (which is why it took so long for the suggestion to make it out of the queue, heh). It will take some very strong arguments to convince me otherwise. But eventually I decided it was worthwhile to give people a chance to make those arguments, and to give them a chance to convince me.
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More relevantly, though, the default setting for newly-created DW accounts (anon commenting off, IP logging on) was chosen because we thought it was better for the default to be more protective, rather than less protective, and we thought it was better to allow people to choose to be less protective if they wanted to, rather than having to choose to be more protective if they wanted to. That keeps people from being vulnerable because they didn't know enough to change the settings, while allows people who want to preserve more of their commenter's (perceived, see below) privacy can do so if they want. It also can help to eliminate at least one go-round with the Terms of Service team in the event of harassing comments; the first thing the ToS team will say is "turn off anonymous commenting, turn on comment IP logging" and having them set from the beginning can help.
Another thing that having comment IP logging enabled by default (and anon commenting off by default) helps with is the issue of abandoned accounts. It's pretty common on any service to see a drop-off of people creating accounts and then wandering away because they decided the service isn't for them, and on LJ it was (and still is) pretty common for those abandoned accounts to become nothing more than spam graveyards. Comment IP logging is less of a spam deterrant than no-anon-comments-allowed, but it can still help. We were trying to make our initial settings be protective enough to make abandoned accounts less of an "attractive nuisance", so we set them as restrictive as we thought we could reasonably justify while still not going over-the-top and restricting commenting entirely.
Also, since obtaining the IP address of visitors to your journal is trivially easy, turning off IP logging can give people a false sense of security; IMO it's better to explicitly have the "this account is set to log the IP address of everyone who comments" notice than to not have it there and people think they're 'safe' while the account owner has a custom mood theme that logs all accesses, etc.
All of these are, I think, very good reasons to keep comment IP logging the default behavior (and, of course, continue to let people turn it off if they wish) -- especially the last one, since I am very firm that sites shouldn't give their users a false sense of security -- and I almost, almost rejected this suggestion based on that (which is why it took so long for the suggestion to make it out of the queue, heh). It will take some very strong arguments to convince me otherwise. But eventually I decided it was worthwhile to give people a chance to make those arguments, and to give them a chance to convince me.