Well, at least now I have a better idea of why I’m not going to get it, which is a Good Thing. And I know that I’m not completely alone in my views, which is another Good Thing.
So, two Good Things in one thread. Sometimes, life is good.
But what is the price of anonymity in your estimation?
I don’t think computer nicknames are anonymous in the first place. Although delphica isn’t the name on my birth certificate, it is the nickname I use here, and elsewhere in life. If my name was Elizabeth, and I introduced myself at a party as “Bitsy,” would I be anonymous? Not truthful? Even if I had been called “Bitsy” since the age of 6? In my view, the Straight Dope isn’t government work, it’s a social gathering, where things like “hey, call me Bud” are perfectly acceptable. Plenty of Dopers know my real name and various stats. I’m not hiding anything by using a nickname.
And I believe that even forums such as GQ are primarily social, in that all the information exchanged is akin to very intelligent people chatting at a cocktail party. SDMB users are routinely cautioned not to look for specific medical or legal advice in GQ, because a message board is not a professional setting. I would not visit a doctor who wouldn’t provide his or her real name or credentials, likewise, I don’t expect people at cocktail parties to provide a c.v. before I will listen to what they have to say.
Loss of credibility. No matter how trivial, when I say something I mean what I say - and exposing myself to the ridicule of my nearest and dearest should I say something completely boneheaded in this forum is the best way for me to project that attitude.
Similarly, if someone ventures an opinion on a topic I am not familiar with, I am more likely to consider it seriously if I know the person’s name, with the same reasoning.
“Never say in private what you would not say in public; never say in public what you would not say in private.” I can’t recall the originator of that quote, but it’s a good rule and being accountable through identification is a very handy method for enforcing self-discipline.
Granted, these fora are social settings. But at most social settings, you can find out just who somebody is fairly readily … you can ask the host whether the guy spouting off about … um … ethics in the securities business can be expected to have some idea of what he’s talking about or whether he’s just wildly speculating. And the analogy to a cocktail party cannot be taken too far: “flaming”, plain BS-ing etc. are much rarer when someone knows his social circle will have all the details in the near future.
Well, this is really the crux of my suspicion of pseudonymous posting. If you tell me your bosses are sexist pigs … well, they might be. Or you might just be whining because you didn’t get the last available promotion, or whatever. You’re not accountable for what you say, so you are free to say anything.
On the other hand, if you say your bosses are sexist pigs and sign your name, thereby signalling to me your willingness to deal with whatever consequences may arise from this then I am much more willing to take you seriously and let my future actions be influenced by your claim.
Although I think this is an honorable position, I don’t necessarily think it’s altogether realistic. I mean, my handle is apparently in uncommon usage in France. Does that mean it’s my real name, or at least the name of my Gallic ancestors? How can you tell? Obviously, when somebody names himself “anal scurvy,” you know it’s a nom de plume, but what about the gray area? And even if my handle were “Richard E. Greene,” how would you know that’s my real name?
The point I’m making is that, on the Internet, there’s no way to know anything about anybody. You describe how what you say is visible to those who know you, and that that forces you to be honest. Well, I’m known online by people who also know me IRL, so your condition applies to me as well. And presumably, the people who know you in real life already have an opinion of you, so even if you get hinky on a message board your non-line (to coin a phrase) acquaintances will have some context.
But there are people in my real-world circle who don’t know my online handle, and who don’t know certain things about me – say, that I trim my pubic hair, for one. That’s hardly an important secret, but it might get me a couple of weeks of uncomfortable razzing at my job, for instance.
Part of the magic of the Straight Dope community, and on a selected minority of other Internet boards, is that we have the freedom to discuss things that would never fly if we were forced to stick our names on our messages. Sometimes they’re just weird (wasn’t it oldscratch who confessed to rimming a golden retriever), but at other times these discussions are important for their very confidentiality. Look at the infrequent but not unknown threads in MPSIMS where people discuss wrenching personal problems and solicit advice; the anonymity allows other users to chime in with their similar tales and provide some perspective. Obviously, there’s no way to know if these stories are legit, but with time, it becomes possible to distinguish between attention-whore trolls (the not-to-be-named person with the allegedly dying child, for example) and those who are participating seriously.
And time, too, is very important in terms of making one’s mark. Just as when you join a group of new friends in real life, it takes a while for them to get to know you and to learn to respect your opinion (or the opposite), so it goes here. This is absolutely a community, with long-term respected members whose opinions and advice are well-regarded, and people who haven’t been around that long who may yet have some dues to pay. That isn’t to say that all newbies are automatically distrusted, but somebody without a track record is, of necessity, an unknown quantity until a body of comments has been built up.
But there’s something else, too: The massive and hugely entangled databases being created to monitor our identities have been pushing their tendrils into all sorts of new places of late. I don’t think they’ve gone as far as indexing names on message boards, but I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s on the to-do list. The majority of these databases are being created for marketing purposes, to monitor our purchasing habits and create profiles so merchandise can be targeted more effectively, so don’t think I’m dropping into some wild-eyed black-helicopter fantasy. The point is, once these data-mining corporations have my identity, I have almost no control over what happens to my information, so I’d rather not help them any more than I have to, thank you very much.
And finally, yes, the freakazoids are out there. Not everybody who sends anonymous threatening email will follow up; I’d say the threat level is maybe one person out of every thousand messages who might be capable of actually carrying out their threats. But I get enough psychotic email from people who disagree with my movie reviews (see sig) that I’d rather not allow anybody to connect my online identity with my walkin’-around self.
Just my two cents on the subject.
And a very good two cents it was, I thought.
Well, in my particular case, my eMail address is from my business, which has a site (and even a picture!) … so if I’m hoaxing, it’s pretty elaborate, cross-connecting as it does with all sorts of things. In your case, you’re at least referencing another important part of your life … and if I was sufficiently motivated I would send an eMail to the address listed there asking you confirm that you’re one and the same. And I can note, approvingly or with horror, your views on movies and take a view based on that whether to accept your recommendation of a book you might enthuse about here. This helps to provide the context you reference.
I am one of a minority who do not mind the data-mining-marketing too much. I’d rather get ads for stuff I might be interested in rather than women’s lingerie catalogues (no matter how interesting they might be!), for the same reason as I like Amazon’s correlation based marketing. I can only look at so much stuff and I prefer it to be relevent - and if it gets to be too much, just deleting or trashing the stuff is easy. But that’s a matter for another thread. Your basic point about not wanting to allow cross-referencing of your information is well taken.
My point, however, is that there is a price to be paid for making it difficult for the marketers and I am surprised that so many people pay that price so cheerfully.
On the first few news groups I used you were automatically assigned your email address as a name. (Actually they were email groups, because no one really had a dedicated server, we just shared email lists, and produced huge band width pollution) I got harassed by nut cases so much that I wrote my own twit filter to reply to any email from users on list I maintained. As time passed, and technology improved other options were available.
I still follow the rule I learned on my earliest systems, where other people’s hardware, and data, were a part of my security considerations. I don’t use my real name on message boards. But, I don’t want to be anonymous, so, I always use the same one.
However, now I have games, and some photos as my entire at risk consideration, and I could reload my software in a day, so it is pretty much habit, rather than real security concern. I am Triskadecamus because I am better known on line by that name than my own. Some of the folks I have met face to face call me Tris anyway, even though they know my legal name.
None of this, however is really of importance. Multiple posts will appear for any given user name. In most cases, that will be the words of one user. The process of assigning such characteristics as rationality, knowledge, reason, and pertinence to a pseudonym is identical to the process in the case where the legal name is identified.
To put it bluntly, if you’re an asshole, your real name is of no interest. If you are an interesting corespondent, then you are one, even if your cyber handle is FlamingAsshole. Including trivia, such as age, sex, or race doesn’t have any bearing on the points you make, or fail to make.
Tris
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” ~ Aristotle ~
I appreciate your right to use whatever criteria you wish to determine how you evaluate the posts you read. However, I don’t see people as more or less credible based on legal name vs. nickname selection. I’ve never interacted with anyone who didn’t take me seriously because I use a nickname. I’m pleased (she said modestly) I have been able to provide helpful information to people a few times during my tenure here, and the nickname issue never came up. This potential loss of credibility doesn’t seem to be a widespread problem on this board. I haven’t noticed it being a problem at any of the other internet communities where I participate.
For me, the best way to project the attitude that you describe is to avoid saying anything boneheaded in the first place.
Probably because, like me, they consider this price as being minimal. From your previous post, I understand this price would be a loss of credibility. If I’m not considered credible here, then what? Will it seriously worry me? No. At worst, I will be a little pissed off for a moment because I’m not taken seriously.
My credibility can be important in many instances in my life. But hardly so concerning my comments on a message board. So, as far as I’m concerned, the price I’ve to pay for my relative anonymity is close to zero. On the other hand, being hassled by some stranger could be really annoying (or worst). So, making things more difficult for a potential nutcase is certainly worth the cost of a credibility I don’t really care about.
I think, jiHymas, you may be misunderstanding the very nature of this place.
The anonymity that our screen names provide is not a cover, a cloak to hide behind. Instead, it is an opportunity to be taken for who we really are. In the course of a poster’s career here, they have the opportunity to impress thousands of strangers with their knowledge, their eloquence, their philosophy, their humor, and their intelligence. For once in our lives, we have a chance to find out what we’re like without being judged on such minutiae as our titles, rank, clothing, race, sex, or appearance. We can achieve, if we try, the respect of a group of people engaged in a similar endeavor, and in doing so, build a community of people based on the true contents of our character.
What you’re misapprehending as subterfuge is actually the most open form of honesty I’ve ever found in a community.
The only situation I’ve ever found that was analogous was a nudist colony I stayed at, years ago. I’m not a nudist, and didn’t understand the culture, but through circumstances I spent a few weeks in the buff. (As you might imagine, a long story.) One night, late, I had stayed up to watch a lunar eclipse that I was excited to see. So, I was lounging in a hot tub, in the darkness, watching a shadow creep over the moon, when a man asked if I minded if he joined me. I agreed, and we proceeded to have a very pleasant, in-depth conversation on astronomy, science, and predictions about space travel in the future, all while watching the moon recede, then reappear from the Earth’s shadow. Once the show was over, we exchanged names, and went our separate ways.
I found out later that he was a well-known, well-off corporate lawyer. I, at the time, was a homeless ne’er-do-well. Neither of us, in other circumstances, would have spoken to the other, if we’d known. And yet, because we had no way of telling who we were, we found a common ground for discussion, and had a wonderful conversation, from which we both emerged enriched.
The anonymity you see is, for the most part, not a disguise. Instead, it’s a way of saying “Look. This is me. Without fashion, without rank, without riches or poverty or skin color. This is simply my substance, my expression. Judge me by that, and by that alone.”
It’s honesty.
I have a handle, but only so my name isn’t available to the casual observer. I often sign my posts with my first name, and from my e-mail address I suspect anyone could find out my real name with minimal effort (maybe half an hour of trying, 5 minutes if they have a Cambridge hermes account). I don’t particularily care though, I’ve just gotten used to using kitarak as my screen name.
Well, this is an interesting perspective, to say the least!
While I can see the attractions of this approach, I must say the “honesty-through-lack-of-accountability” argument doesn’t impress me much. Quite frankly, I see it as simply an extension of the “escapist” argument…
…in which one can create a persona more akin to what one aspires to be rather than the (for most people, including myself) mundane person one really is (which will include rank and riches!).
There’s nothing wrong with escapism; no more than there is anything intrinsically evil about pseudonymous posting. But if, for instance, someone wants to tell what it was like to live his Horatio Alger story, I am much more likely to take the points seriously if I can look him up and find that yes, he did get his start selling newspapers in front of the orphanage. The Pulitzer Prize awarders, for instance, put great stress on the separation between actual circumstance and composite, speculative circumstance - which is a good model.
Fact or fiction? Well founded opinion or wild speculation? The more someone puts on the line, the easier it is to give the benefit of the doubt.
James,
I am not an anon (or don’t think of my sig as being one), and I fail to see your point here. For most of what we discuss in these forums what does it matter that you know my real name or occupation or social standing? If I am commenting on something having to do with my career (pediatrician) or allegedly using some real life experience to bolster my argument, then, maybe, being able to independently verify my credentials and honesty would be important. I DO think that I would be more honest about more things if I WAS anon … like I said before, I am not going to share personal stuff or get too “inappropriate” when there is some chance of it being associated with my professional self. So there is actually less of “me” as a result of my not wearing the mask to this particular ball.
If we were dispensing financial advice, certainly, I would expect you to check on the credentials of everyone involved. If we were giving medical diagnoses, likewise. However, that sort of activity is discouraged on the boards.
Instead, what we are doing here is sharing our experiences, our stories, our anecdotes, our witticisms, our tastes, our characters. Such things have no more authority coming from a person you know to be a U.S. Senator than they do coming from your high school janitor. You take wisdom, in my opinion, from wherever you can find it.
Now, when it comes to assertions of facts, you’ll note that, at least in Great Debates and General Questions, and to a large degree in other forums, if a fact is put into play in an argument, it is either backed up with a cite from an authoritative publication as soon as it’s made, or the poster is called on to do so almost instantly. When we are arguing facts, we get the facts verified. We don’t know who is posting the assertion of fact, we can’t tell if it’s the Pope or Governor Jesse Ventura, and the thing is, it doesn’t matter. No matter who posts an assertion witout factual backup from a reliable source, it should be called into question. Because arguing on the basis of your authority, rank, or status alone is rhetorically weak.
So, what you have in the end is a community of very honest people, who are also very skeptical and very intellectually rigorous. And without the anonymity of screen names, that would simply not be possible.
Let me give you a brief breakdown of how I’ve found things work around here.
Did you believe my story about spending time in a nudist colony?
You have no more to go on than my assertion that it’s true. (Which it is.) But it could be completely fabricated. Why not question it?
Because, in short, it doesn’t matter. It was the background for a story with a moral, and even if it were false, it would have no negative repercussions, would not cast anyone in a bad light (except for me), and would have no impact whatsoever.
If, however, I was to post about nudist colonies, and the depraved lifestyle that they encourage, and used my experience as a basis for arguing that they should be eliminated, then the posters on this board would be all over me, wanting to verify every assertion that I made in the course of my post. Likewise if I advocated the adoption of nudism as a universal standard. Why? Because then it matters; if I am taking a position that makes a judgement that affects others, then every fact that I base that on needs to be backed up by reliable sources. Every experience that I cite in reference to the issue needs to be proven, and then the relevance of extending my experience to cover the entire spectrum of people involved will be called into question. I will be asked, in short, for cites. The more outrageous the assertions I make, the more cites I would need to prove them.
It’s a style of debate that divorces the issues from the authority of the participants, and puts an emphasis on facts, not personalities. Whatever authority you have in real life, whatever your professional credentials or your reputation in your field, if you post here, you’re going to be asked to back up your claims. Which, in my opinion, is a great thing, because experts can be wrong.
So, if you post here and simply share opinions, and tastes, and stories, and jokes, you can do so with impunity, and if you choose to lie about things, you may or may not be caught. But in those circumstances, it hardly matters, and usually people can only maintain a facade in social circumstances for so long, before their complex tangle of lies becomes obvious to at least some of the thousands of readers. Take a look at how long it takes folks around here to spot a sock puppet, for instance. It’s amazing how well people here know each other.
But if you’re arguing issues, you won’t be asked for your credentials; you’ll be asked to back up your position with facts. Which beats the heck out of credentials in my book.
Fair enough, and I will admit that I have been more disputatious in this thread than had been my original intent. My intention is primarily to understand why people would use screen names in this or any other forum - it would never occur to me to do so.
So why, with a world of possibilities to choose from, have you chosen DSeid as your handle?
I don’t understand how anonymity becomes a pre-condition of rigour - but this was essentially the topic of our last round, so it would appear that we’re just going to have to live with our differences.
We’re supposed to have CREDIBILITY here? Dammit, that wasn’t in the Agreement when I signed up.
I come here so I can be a pompous windbag without having to provide background information in triplicate. I have enough of that mulch in my real life…
Needs work, Doc. You have the windbag part down, but I’m just not feeling the pomposity.
My username doesn’t afford me much privacy. I have only had one “threat” for someone to come and get me, ironically another SMBD poster who used what I presume was his real name as a username. I didn’t take it seriously. Now my crazy condo neighbors who threaten me everytime I raise a ruckus about the corruption around here I take seriously.
I do find that using my own name keeps me in line making my posts. I have more incentive to avoid looking like a jerk. (Trust me, it would be worse if I was anonymous.)
Okay, jiHymas.
Tell me; how exactly are you more accountable than anyone else here? Anyone who, say, confessed to a federal crime here could be tracked down through IP address, with the cooperation of their ISP. Anyone here has an email address through which management can contact them if necessary. Most people have an email address through which they can be contacted by the population of the board.
So, you use your real name online. What does that tell me? Nothing. Are you about to post your resume? Will you give the your biography in outline form? Copies of your birth certificate?
You’re no more accountable than anyone else here. Sure, I could track you down in Toronto, if I wanted to, and if I did some research. But anyone going through my old posts could track me down easily; nobody stays on the boards without dropping some personal information that could be used to track them down by someone with the time and motivation. How are you so different?
Anonymity isn’t a pre-condition of rigour, it’s a big part of what creates an environment in which people feel they can be honest. The rigour is a balancing factor, which keeps people from simply posting whatever they want to, unquestioned. Read my posts again for a more detailed explanation.
It’s beginning to seem to me that you are convinced that your screen name gives you a superior moral position from which to witness against anonymity. I tell you again; I don’t base my opinions about people online on their name. I base my assessment of people on their online behavior. You may be more accountable than anyone else here, but the more you assert your position without addressing the arguments brought against you, the less respect I’m going to have for your position.
That’s the way things work around here.