The BBC has opted for a registration system for comments on blogs and forum areas citing protection against spam as a deciding factor in making the change.
“It [registration] seems to be an effective balance between maintaining access to the blog and the standard of debate,” Giles Wilson, editor of the BBC News blogs, wrote in a blog post.

Wilson said similar systems implemented by The Guardian, Telegraph and Boing Boing had been taken into consideration by the corporation.

“…we’ve thought long and hard about the best thing to do, and believe that this is likely to be the most effective and efficient way of publishing as many comments as possible.”

Registration will be common across the site, said Wilson: once users have signed into one community area they will not have to repeat the process in separate sections.