Anonymous Notes

There has been a great deal of discussion in the notes on this diary, and in e-mails to us, about the nonexistence of anonymous (unsigned) notes here on Open Diary Plus. Unsigned notes have both a bad side (of which I, and many others are painfully aware), and a good side (which I am being reminded of by many of the noteleavers and e-mailers).

The bad side is that opening up diaries to anonymous notes means that anybody can write anything on your diary, with no fear of recourse. When I originally added notes to Open Diary three years ago, none of us expected that they would become such a powerful facet of our diary site. Now, it is obvious that the notes (and the communication between our diarists that they engender) have become a very central part of the power of this site.

Originally on Open Diary, all notes were unsigned – because I had seen notes as just a way for community members to communicate with each other. However, after a while, people started to receive unwanted or nasty notes – and the terms sniper and driveby noter entered the vocabulary of our site. Too often, the unsigned note was used as a way to hurt a diarist, or for somebody to leave their unwanted thoughts where they knew it would be seen. To us, unsigned notes were causing more trouble than they were worth. So we added signed notes, and let our users block unsigned notes, if they wanted.

The good side of unsigned notes is, of course, that if you have a friend or family member who doesn’t have a diary, they can still communicate to you through your diary. There are many diarists who use the unsigned notes in just that fashion, and for them it is a great benefit. I would hate to stand in the way of somebody whose parent or best friend or children want to leave them messages, and that is the downside of eliminating anonymous notes.

We’ve given this a lot of thought here over the last few days, as we’ve watched this discussion going on. We’ve received a lot of e-mail from people, saying that not having unsigned notes is the one thing that is keeping them from signing up for OD+. We’ve also received a lot of mail and notes, saying that unsigned notes were a huge detriment to the community spirit of original OD.

My inclination at this point is to continue our current policy – to not allow anonymous notes on OD+. I know that one of the arguments is, that if it is an option then any diarist can choose to turn it on or off, as on OD. However, this doesn’t consider that the person receiving anonymous notes has a diary that is also read by other people in the community – and whatever inappropriate notes get posted there become a part of the community as a whole.

The bottom line is that I want people to have a better experience here than in the past. I want all the members of our community to feel that they can be comfortable in this site, and we will continue to strive for that. We’ve already added the capability to accept notes from OD, which was something we hadn’t originally intended. However, so many people wanted that feature that I felt it would have been a disservice to our members to not include it.

I am prepared to offer an alternative to those who wish to have unsigned notes. This was a feature we had intended to implement in the future, anyways – the reader’s password. A reader’s password will allow you to set a password for your journal, which you can then give out to friends who you want to grant access to. The password will be powerful – it will let the person holding it access your diary, even if it is set as members-only. It will also allow the person holding the password to leave you notes, if you have a members-only or public diary. I see this as the best solution, because it will still allow diarists to receive notes from non-members, but it will also allow them to control who has access to their diary and notes. In addition, if you have a private diary, it will allow you to grant access to selected people only.

As I said, this was something we were going to implement anyways, so the work on it is mostly done. However, I’d like to hear your thoughts on this issue, since there are many people involved with many different opinions. So please, feel free to use this entry for a civilized discussion of how you feel about this.

Oh, and one more thing – not trying to be anybody’s dad, or anything – but I really wish people would stop referring to the original site as “OD-“. A lot of people put a lot of time and effort into that site (diarists as well as staff), and I hate to see it demeaned. It also makes other people think that OD+ members are being elitist, something I don’t think we should be. I prefer to just call it OD, or I’ve seen other people use OD Free or OD Classic.

Thanks in advance for your input about the notes.

UPDATE: (because somebody asked) people receiving a reader’s password would only be able to access the diary that the password went with – not any other private or members-only diaries.