Why have so many people here got a problem with being anonymous on an Internet messageboard?

"i'm sooooooooooo soooorrrrrreeeeeee"

most (if not all) of the anon/logged out posters never seem to make a point when they start threads. it tends to be intentional flaming or spamming designed to provoke abuse and annoyance (i wouldn't mind if it was actually funny but it never is). strikes me as frivalous, discourteous, disrespectful.

(is that a dig, mark p? Save it for the threads where I'm a cunt)

A Bush-supporting ilxor writes...

(kiddin')

I am, in the conventional sense, anonymous - because I do not reveal my 'real life' name. However, I have adopted a consistant nom de plume that people may readily identify and connect to my other postings. As Aimless I have an identity. People appreciate that.

When posters decide to dissociate their usual identity from their views, it is an indication that they do not want to be identified with them. It begs the question as to why.

I rather doubt it is because they fear physical harm or retribution. They might justly fear some measure of verbal abuse. That leads to the question of whether that fear should be characterized as cowardice or prudence.

I've been on message boards where I caught a large measure of verbal abuse from people who decided I held unfit opinions and should be hounded and denigrated at every turn. It did not matter what I said, I was tainted in their eyes. This is unpleasant. It is why I have since appeared on message boards only under an assumed name.

For myself, once I have assumed a consistant identity, such as Aimless, I prefer to speak my mind and let the chips fall where they might. I can see why others, if they've suffered or witnessed similar abuse, might choose to protect an identity from such ill use. In my view, risking an assumed identity is a small risk, and the verbal abuse I might receive on a message board is a minor (though real enough) pain. Not everyone would agree.

I think anonymous posts are only justifiable when it's about personal experiences, like if there's something in your life that you'd just rather not have associated with you, not even just your internet persona. But those are extreme, rare cases.

even if you're subsequently right about other things, people will dismiss your opinions with "yeah whatever, BUSH SUPPORTER" or similar easy putdowns like that.

If you're too afraid to own up to your views, you shouldn't even bother stating them.

That's just exactly it Daniel Rf.. i mean, it depends where you want to draw the line, at the end of the day.

xposts

I'm annoyed by anonymous posters (unless it is about a personal problem, in which case no-one complains anyway) becuase it implies that I am a person who is prejudice, who is hateful and likely to insult and blindly attack people. I'm not, and I don't believe the majority of posters are or would put up with such an attack. It's a matter of good manners to stand by your opinions, and to expect the best of those you are speaking to. If people want to insult people but don't want to take the consequences there is no other word but cowardice.

(also, it's a misunderstanding that the purpose of the secret ballot is to hide who you are voting for from everyone - it's to prevent exploitation, bribery, physical attacks on opposition supporters etc. It's not so you don't have to take responsibility for how you vote, which you will regardless. I hate it when I ask someone to vote at they say "I'm not telling". Don't you believe in what you vote for?)

xpost I was perhaps a bit vague: by "personal experiences" I meant stuff like being abused as a child, having been involved in a crime (again, two very distinct examples that of course have nothing to do with each other, but each works here)....you know, dark stuff in their past, personal life, not voting Dubbya or thinking ILM is too twee or anything like that.

p.s. i haven't given in at all. I wear limp bizkit tshirts to clubs :)

xpost well yeah but some people are stupid!

If someone says something stupid, people will call them out. If someone says something stupid but is too chickenshit to even own up to it, that bears commenting on too.

I partly use my real name (from lots of the things I've told it wouldn't be too hard for anyone who knows me to make the connection) I've posted a lot of corny and lame stuff on ILX and I have just recently come to realise that some people I meet in the future or some of people I already know may stumble across the perfectly wrong post of mine and be like "Hey look that's A---- Nairn, it must be! hahaha he's stupid" or "That is the new applicant for this job, it looks like he has wasted a lot of time on the internet. We better not hire him."

in otherwords how long will ILX be on the internet?
and how much will it cost for a moderator to delete me?

Does anyone else have these fears?

xpost

a) how often does this actually happen?

b) when it does, and it's not clearly flame/spam, what kind of response do they tend to get?

this is something that can be largely attributed to anon/logged out posters (they started it! ;)

did you not read Markelby's reasoning upthread? did you not understand it? or do you just not agree with it? and if not why not?

Not necessarily enhanced but changed. Which is my point.

haha x-post, me = pwnd by stevem.

Your pseud is brilliant tho, stick with it!

On the weekend, I'll dress entirely in pink and won't have an English name at all, I'll insist on being identified by a specific sequence of tongue clicks and stomping feet.

I was making teh funny.

Re: internet rockism, well, it all depends on how much you care about the personas you're interacting with, and to a lesser degree how much these bleed into the real life persons you meet. I started off lying about my identiy when I first came to the internet (I lied about my age, mostly, cos I thought I wouldn't get respect if I admitted my real age), but after making a few net-friendships it just didn't feel ok anymore, cuz there's always the possibility that I'll meet these ppl in real life, or talk on the phone, and even if I don't, they're, y'know, *friends*, and it'd feel rotten lying to them. But if you see ILX less as real social interaction and more as just abstract entertainment of course that doesn't figure in. Both approaches are valid.

But back to anonymous posting: at the end of the day, I think it might just be a question of practicality...yes, it's *possible* that the anonymous poster might not be a troll, but looking at how many anonymous threads *are* quite obviously just flame-bait, it doesn't seem very likely, so I think it's still ok to be wary.

(I am aware that I've flip-flopped here a bit.)

Poster posts something sensible anonymously: you react to it as you would to a conversation starter at a dinner party by the dude on your left who you've never met before - polite, interested, but fairly formal, cautious*

Regular who posts something sesible: you react as you would to a friend, incorporating your knowledge of them, their opinions, past pronouncements, private jokes, public jokes, non-defensive honesty.

*obv in practice you *could* post aggressively or negatively - for the sake of this argument I'm just differentiating between the two types of reaction

Exactly.

personally i think the whole "if you don't own up to what you say you're chicken shit" argument just furthers the frat-house/school playground bully vibe ILE has continued to feel over the past 2 years or so

I don't think so, I think it has a lot more to do with accountability. I am not afraid to stand by my words, and if you want to call me names such as frat boy or bully because you don't agree with what I say I can live with that.