New York Times Trusted Commenter, Facebook Policy I wrote the other day about our comments policy and warned readers that moderators look out for obscenity, irrelevance, spamming, trolling, Hitlering and just plain uncalled-for personal meanness. Our community manager wrote a follow-up post answering some of your questions. And that, of course, led to even more questions. You had lingering concerns about how we choose "trusted commenters," a term we are about to change to something that will, I hope, seem less judgmental. You also wanted to know why we require a Facebook profile to gain that status. I asked our comment moderation desk for answers. Here they are. Q: Why is Facebook the only option? We have always planned to add more alternatives to Facebook - including Google+, LinkedIn and possibly a system that doesn't require any third-party site - but we simply couldn't get to it before launch. In the coming months, expect to see more options. Q: I'm a subscriber. I shouldn't have to connect to Facebook in order to become a verified commenter. Our intention was to do just that, but it turns out to be more complicated legally and technically than we suspected. We're working on it, and hope to have a tie-in to our registration system soon for subscribers. Q: Third-party social sites like Facebook or LinkedIn aren't a 100 percent guarantee of real identity, are they? But we want our moderators moderating comments, not verifying people's identities. And given the number of commenters, and the need to reduce the workload of the moderation desk, they are the best option available to verify real identity automatically, and at scale. Yes, it is possible to create a fake account on sites like Facebook, but relatively few people do. Fake accounts are also quite easy to spot. Q: Why are we insisting on real identity at all? Real identity has been shown again and again to be a very effective way of maintaining a high level of conversation without moderation. Anonymity is the enemy of civility. We think that it is both fair and reasonable to ask our verified commenters to post under their real names in return for the privilege of posting directly to the site. Q: What do you do with my data? What we are asking for is a one-time connection to import your name, picture and location. That is all the data we will access, and we will not connect to your account again for any reason unless you initiate it. We will not maintain an ongoing connection for the purposes of sharing anything on your behalf. We are interested in your identity, and that's it. Q: What if I don't have a Facebook, LinkedIn or Google+ account and don't ever intend to create one? We may in the future have a manual process to verify your identity without requiring you to connect. But keep in mind that verification will take time, perhaps days, weeks or even months depending on how many people there are in the queue. But it is equally important to note that no one is requiring anyone to connect with Facebook or any other site. No one is required to accept an invitation to be a verified commenter. Readers are completely welcome to continue commenting as they always have. As we move more and more of our most prolific commenters into the verified commenter pool, you should see nothing but improvements in the system overall: faster moderation times, more commenting opportunities, etc. Q: Are you receiving any money or other compensation from Facebook?