@RevEng said:I agree that comments, particularly those on the front page articles, should require registration."John Gabriel's Total Fuckwad Theory" hits the nail right on the head. With tens of thousands of people viewing these articles, there will undoubtedly be many hundred who feel the need to say something stupid. These are the same people who draw pictures in the bathroom stall, because who is going to stop them?However, by requiring registration, you are a) asking for their name (which is usually enough to make them think that they are accountable for what they write, though you could always use a fake name), and b) raising the initial energy required to post. Now, somebody who comes here all the time and wants to comment on something, they probably won't mind registering; after all, they'll likely use it in the future. This is especially true if registering gives you added incentives, like email notifications or filters and such. On the other hand, your typical vandal (and really, that's all that worthless comments amount to) won't want to waste the time to register, any more than he would go back to his dorm room and grab a marker to write in the bathroom stall.Certainly there will be people with meaningful comments who don't want to register, but I'm confident that the number of people turned away who would write good comments is far smaller than the number of people turned away who would write bad ones. I agree with that...while i dont post often, i come here every day if possible and used to read the comments to the frontpage articles, lately though, the only thing i read is the sidebar and occasionally general discussion. I find the comments in the back pages or even the sidebar on topic more often than the ones on the front page articles. Now if you don't mind, i'm going to go back to reading general discussion and pretend the front page doesn't even exist.