This week, Onward State will be implementing a pilot program to see how our website’s community would benefit from Facebook integration with our comment system. We have a hunch that asking our readers to use their Facebook accounts to comment on posts will bring forth a new dawn of accountability and thusly raise the level of discourse on our website. You’re still welcome–encouraged, even–to accuse Kevin Horne of being a virgin in our comment section, but know that now we’re going to “poke” you when you do.

Of course, we will concede that there are downsides to such a move… It’s disconcerting to give more of our freedoms and liberties over to Billion Dollar Zuck. Some of our most beloved/notorious commenters would likely argue the shroud of anonymity allows them to speak freely and candidly. To those dissenters, I would point you to the many other locations in the Penn State community you can deface anonymously—bathroom stalls in Willard, for instance.

We want Onward State to be an open forum for the Penn State community. We encourage participation and engagement from our readership, and we hope that increased accountability will lead to more thoughtful and substantive comments. At the end of this week (or, like, beginning of next week, I guess), we’ll reassess the comment system and decide whether it’s something we want to implement permanently, or whether we should continue to tinker around to make Onward State the best it can be.

Disagree with this move? Want to harken back to the Wild West commenting days of yore? Feel free to sound off in the comment section below (consequently, I will friend you and tag you in pictures of kittens playing) or submit a post for our community page.