From the Recent Farce of "Zhou Yu Hitting Huang Gai" on the Forum, On the Necessity of Implementing Real-Name Registration

These past couple of days, some people have been performing the classic ruse of "Zhou Yu hitting Huang Gai" on the forum -- some performing, some cheering them on -- making the forum a filthy mess. The forum always has a group of bored people who are not here to discuss issues. They spend all day watching click counts; they accuse everyone of being someone's sockpuppet while actually maintaining a pile of sockpuppets themselves; they follow certain people around all day like sycophants, going "great post, great post," turning the forum into their personal stage show -- playing good cop and bad cop, thieves crying "stop thief," framing and entrapping others, and putting on ghostly airs.

Having click counts displayed behind posts was already a pointless feature to begin with. One solution would be to hide click counts so nobody can see them, which would prevent the jealousy-fueled quarrels of certain people. As for so-called hot posts, the moderators can manage this based on internal click data, or simply abolish the hot post feature entirely. The forum is meant for discussing issues -- what matters is the issue itself. Besides, isn't truth said to be in the hands of the few? Having people constantly saying "great post, great post" in the comments might still just be foul air.

But the ultimate solution is implementing real-name registration. With real names, sockpuppets would be impossible. More importantly, it would eliminate the possibility of certain people creating disturbances by falsely accusing others of being sockpuppets. Second, with real-name registration, everyone would be more responsible for their behavior, and the cliquish behavior of singing in chorus like a theatrical troupe would be eliminated, giving the forum a fresh atmosphere. With real-name registration, those irresponsible remarks about who is receiving Japanese yen, US dollars, or rubles would become impossible -- if anyone talks nonsense, they can be taken straight to court. With real-name registration, it would further cultivate civic consciousness and showcase the achievements of free speech, shutting the Americans' foul mouths.

Last week, this young lady already wrote "Real-Name Registration Is the Best Way to Solve Forum Desertification and Free-Market-ification." Here it is necessary to raise this suggestion once more. The Strong Nation Forum is a fine place for freely expressing opinions. Everyone must cherish it, but it also needs institutional improvement -- and real-name registration is what is necessary.