Good? Bad? Trip- and capcodes only sensible for mods and admins? Useful for suggesting more contributors than just Sling!XD/uSlingU? Good for a community with no vanity and attention whoring? Or promoting trolling and DQN behaviour?
Discuss!
Many of my best posts(or those that got the best reaction) were made anonymously. At the time I wouldn't have made them if I had to use a name, because I was afraid of being wrong.
>Useful for suggesting more contributors than just Sling!XD/uSlingU?
That requires more sources of material to contribute.
>Good for a community with no vanity and attention whoring?
Yes, with some light moderation. Zero moderation and you end up with Usenet.
>Or promoting trolling and DQN behaviour?
I think trolling is only promoted as readily as the community bites the flamebait lures. I get the impression that on futaba trolling is largely ignored and/or embraced, if that makes any sense.
Anonymous wins the internet. Let people ID themselves if they want, but don't force them.
As for suggesting a big community, personally I look at the quality/quantity of posts instead of who posts them. Do people REALLY care who posts stuff on an imageboard where 99.99% of the stuff isn't by the poster anyway?
> I get the impression that on futaba trolling is largely ignored and/or embraced, if that makes any sense.
It does. There's entire boards on 2ch.net devoted to collecting kopipe (like the Yoshinoya rant), trolling material and strategies and so on. You could say that the Japanese are pretty much familiar with their usual forms of online communication (never seen anyone on Futaba ask What's sage? ^^) - somehow the same does not seem to hold true for the west / rest of the internet.
>>2
I completely agree with you about fear of being wrong getting in the way of non-anonymous posting. I'm also afraid that if I end up being right, I'll become falsely committed--obliged to being committed, even--to what I said. Even if I'm open-minded and admit to being mistaken, it'll be difficult for me to politically back down from an old stance if my name is attached to it.
>>4
The western world has few usual forms of online communication. The brand-obssessed North American culture likes to distinguish itself at every available opportunity instead of building on others' existing work.
Everyone has their own forum, their own commenting system, their own skins and interface quirks, their own unwritten rules, their own memes, and so on. Unlike 2ch's function as a huge melting pot that blends every culture into every other culture and produces a kind of meta-culture where everything more or less fits in, western online communities are less expansive and less forgiving of elements that don't conform to expectations.
If 2ch culture can be described as a de facto standard, then western online culture may be described as many warring standards (PHP/Perl, DVD+R/DVD-R, PDAs/handsets, you know the sort).
There used to be Usenet. There still is, but it's long since stopped being relevant to anyone except old Usenet people and a few people who stumble in on Google Groups.
Me, I always felt web forums were a huge step backwards from Usenet. But 2ch-style boards aren't too bad. Much more simplistic than Usenet, but that might not be a bad thing.
And Usenet doesn't require registration.
Usenet isn't as anonymous as a 2ch-style board. As long as a message can easily be traced to its source, there will be things that are left unsaid for fear of commitment or retribution.
That said, I don't use Usenet enough to know about how different newsgroups and their users interact, compete, cooperate, or such.
Any message board that logs the IPs of posters is no less anonymous than Usenet...
Heck, actually, it doesn't have to be the message board doing the logging; it can be the web server itself. Just about every web site out there logs the IPs of its visitors.
>>12
Well, yes, but then you'd have to manually sort through the server log and timestamps and correlate particular posts or posters to particular IPs, and factor in transparent proxies and all that fun stuff.
Usenet gives you an email address, a message ID traceable back to a specific user, an IP address, and a user-agent right in each message's headers.
Even 2ch logs. however, with boards like this you are still anonymous. Proxies. Mavelous things. Bounce off a couple and huzzah, tracking you down is 20x harder. Do it from a public place: even harder. The internet is more anonymous than people realise.
The only thing worth all that work is something that you can never be caught at, like child porn.
I have been considering making some sort of truly anonymous message board, with strong crypto for transmitting messages and identity proofs, plus certain countermeasures to traffic analysis (padding messages so that they're always the same size when transmitted, so that somebody eavesdropping can't connect you to a message by its length, and possibly also delayed posting to stop identification by posting time). That would still require setting up the web server not to log, and also it would require users to trust that you did this.
It's an interesting problem, but not one I have much time to work on.
>>15
the internet is less anonymous than you realize... most proxies log the ips of people who use them, and most public proxies aren't configured very securely...
as far as posting from a public place... there are fairly easy ways of tracking you down even then, but you'd probably find out someone's trying to track you down before they would find you...
Well, if you truly wanted to go anonymously, you'd probably have to look into systems like Share, Waste or Freenet, which are mainly used for filesharing - but could still be used as some vast dump of encrypted proxies, sending, receiving and hosting entries in order to create some kind of otherworld usenet.
I don't need absolute, guaranteed anonymity. I just want enough of it to not have to be concerned about whether voicing a controversial opinion is going to kill my future. Freedom of speech is moot if I constantly have to watch what I say or risk tainting my reputation for all time.
>most proxies log the ips of people who use them
many open proxies are actually worm infected boxes where the user is totally unaware of being used as a middleman. one can also chain the proxies so that it's virtually impossible to know what ip belongs to the original poster
Simpler is better.
Do we need a name field at all? What should it be used for?
Id'ing people with knowledge. A rep isn't always a bad thing, esp. if they need to be known, i.e. WAHA, assorted mods.
>>28
Interesting how some people's attitude will change completely when they know who they're talking to. Sounds to me like you're talking more about ownership than reputation, though.
>>30
What if I'm also an anarchist, a humanist, a behavioural psychiatrist, a plague bearer, a blasphemer, and a person who slips down slopes?
I always wanted to be a person who slips down slopes.
Also, what if I know who I am talking to even when the other person is anonymous?
> Also, what if I know who I am talking to even when the other person is anonymous?
Blasphemy!
>>Also, what if I know who I am talking to even when the other person is anonymous?
Ahh, the mysterious knowledge the interbutt imparts on us...
> Also, what if I know who I am talking to even when the other person is anonymous?
Refer to everyone and everything impersonally. The >>number equals the idea and the idea equals the >>number. There is no "who", only "what".
Zen? why not Buddhist in general? Yeah, you'd have to exempt Pure Land Buddhism, but those are a bunch of nutballs anyway.
I really like how they enforce Anonymous on Futaba's /b/: No name field, no subject field and both are missing in the actual post as well, only the date remains which can then be added to with a sage or something else through the e-mail field. Awesome!
I think it's funny how pretty much every westerner who is new to Futaba/2channel style boards is chosing a nickname by default. This can be observed pretty well at the increased posting rate on the iitran discussion board ever since they started doing the Emma anime fansubs.
There are three possible reasons I can come up with why this is the case:
> They don't want to be Anonymous
thats it, but its not like everyone acts like that.
Hey, a cool thread. Who was that guy asking where the analysis and study was..? </rhetoric> This is it!
I feel the difference between anonymity and ID is a difference in purpose. The "entities" (seeing as we're disconnecting the human from the equation) that remain anonymous are here to express pure thought and ideas. It's just like a public square where you walk into a discussion and make comment.
Part of the reason could also be lazyness, but that doesn't apply when the form autofills, and I don't think anyone here posts so voraciously that they can't stop to enter details.
And those that give an identity? As >>39 said, perhaps people don't know about the option to stay anonymous. I'd agree that newcomers perhaps don't know about the choice.
Force of habit? Sure. I know that's the case for me. But there must be more to it than that...
We don't want anonymity. I think we've definitely hit the nail on the head here.
Choosing anonymity means foregoing any sort of identification. I'm heavily interested in security, and I'm always security concious, but I still choose to take an identity, as you can see.
So what is it? Perhaps it's a sense of community? I know I like to come in and I laugh gently, something usually like "Oho, more quality posts by Sling". We like to imagine we know people. I'm sure many of you have very fucntional (open to interpretation) relationships with people online that you've never met before. It's everywhere, not just here. Online game clans, for just one example. It's there alright. But it goes deeper than that, I'm sure...
When we eschew the cloak of anonymity, we take on an identity. This is inescapable. We are someone, whether we acknowledge it or not. The fact is, humans want an identity. Nay, they need it. Humans are by their very nature a social animal. Now that, is a real meme (unless we've recently found a gene for "society").
Humans need other humans. Society is what makes us whole. But without an identity, all humans are similar. We may look different, but it is our capability for individual thought that sets us apart. If you dissolve that individuality, as tends to occur in communist society, humans lose their sense of identity.
Contrast this to a meritocracy (something like capitalism). Now, your identity is everything. Your acheivements mean nothing without an identity to associate them with; the stronger the better.
With the loss of other identifiers that the internet has brought with it, an identity is now more important than ever. Without things like a voice or a face or a body to represent you, your entire presence is within this fragile identity. Outside this board, neither you nor I exist. Not in the same way.
It's intersting to note that while an identity is needed in "The Wired" (to borrow a term), that identity is often disparate to that present in what we understand as reality. Many people are very different in the Wired. Part of this is clearly the fascination that comes from reinventing oneself. But it also further highlights the fact that humans want an identity. Many online identities are far "stronger" or overt than in reality. What we see is people struggling even harder to create an identity for themselves.
These identities are naturally transient. Nothing lasts forever on the internet. Not really. Posts will age and be pushed off this board. Companies and websites collapse; people change. Nothing will compare to the length of a human life. Is it this temporary quality that makes our identites in the Wired burn ever so much brighter?
Anonymity is a concept. It is a tool, it is a weapon, it is a shield (it may well save your life, depending on your actions and where you live). But it is not absolute. Humanity can never embrace anonymity; not totally. Otherwise, humanity would cease to exist.
I wish. How about we just say I think too much?
>>41 would fail sociology if he studied it.
> Humanity can never embrace anonymity; not totally.
I guess you need to take a trip to 2ch.net.
>Contrast this to a meritocracy (something like capitalism). Now, your identity is everything. Your acheivements mean nothing without an identity to associate them with; the stronger the better.
Or something like an image board, where your only worth is in the text or images you supply to the whole. Only in this case anonymous achievements can mean something, if an idea can catch on.
>Humanity can never embrace anonymity; not totally.
Internet forums hardly encompass the entirety of the human condition.
People want to be the big name, the well-known poster. They want to be recognized by their online buddies and lord it over the "noobs". On almost every forum of that other kind, postcounts and registration dates become a mark of seniority which influences the reaction to anything put forward by the author. Now, not every member in any forum behaves this way, but enough do to make the pattern noticeable. In most general discussion forums you'll often find one or two extremely long threads dedicated to inane little games that are little more than an excuse to keep traffic flowing. They are usually dominated by a small circle of regulars who seemingly have little to do but play message board games. (see also shii's second bullet point http://shii.org/shiichan) Recently this kind of thing has expanded into posts earning points towards RPG-like stats, displayed under their names for all to see as if to say "look at me! look how much time and effort I've dedicated to this! respect me!".
There are a lot of people with tripcodes on 2ch. They even introduced a system recently which enables you to register an account on the site.
>>46
Yes, but mainly the tripcode users are registering, and it's still 70-90% anonymous.
> They don't even know about the option to stay Anonymous on these kind of boards.
I think that's a lot of it. They're prompted for name and email (or recently "link") so they fill in the form because they're not sure how the forum works. It doesn't say those fields are optional.
> People want to be the big name, the well-known poster. [...] respect me!".
What was your point with this? We already know trinket-laden forums encourage junk posting... it doesn't mean that's the only way things can be.
and I suspect >>41 would consider a telephone number to be an "identity".
>>44
Like I said, I don't study it. But I am going to proffer my thoughts on the matter.
>>45
Yes, or an imageboard. I was highlighting the differences between (for example) capitalism and communism, of which imageboards could be considered a hybrid in terms of the ideologies found there.
Movements/ideas/concepts don't need a figurehead, but the gist of what I was saying is that people feel the need for recognition, if not reward, for their efforts, whatever form that may take. Note that this is dependent on their social background. I'm going to say that I assume such behaviour (desire for recognition) is more common in capitalistic societies.
Correct; internet forums don't encompass the entirety of the human condition. I was making some very general statements about human behaviour here; not specific to imageboards. Apologies if that wasn't clear. If one were to state it mathematically, it could be said that the uptake of anonymity is a proper subset of the human condition as we see it. Imageboards are also a proper subset of the human condition. Clearly there is some intersection of these two sets, but neither is a subset of the other. (apologies again, my analogies suck, and contrary to how things may appear, I'm not particularly articulate)
> People want to be the big name, the well-known poster. [...] respect me!".
Just futher affirmation of what we believe, I think. I hate to say it, but I don't think we can squeeze much more out of this one, unless the direction changes.
No, I don't consider a phone number to be a discrete identity, but I think it's certainly a significant facet of one, for many people nowadays. Last I heard, mobile phones were quite popular with modern youth. Your phone number is how your friends reach you, talk to you, and send you (shudder) indecipherable fragments of perl. ^_^
People make relationships, get fired, get told about someone dying, etc. by SMS nowadays. If you want to talk about phone numbers, I certainly think mobile phone numbers are an important part of an identity. I don't want to say it's part of the identity directly, it's just a path to communicate to someone, but the fact that it's there changes how we communicate with each other, and indirectly affects our identities.
I think an identity is what you make of it. If a phone number is all that identifies an entity, that's an identity. An identity is what you present, but is absolutely subjective. The way we interact with other people means that we have a different identity for each person we communicate with, though similar as most of them may be.
Point in short: there's nothing that says an identity is a true and accurate representation of an entity. But my identity here as "someone called Furi who wants to blather about the human condition" is no less valid than my identity for which I have a house address, credit card number, and if you're American, an SSN.
>It doesn't say those fields are optional.
That's true. Perhaps the next release of wakaba/kareha could add "(optional)"next to the name field?
You know, the individual owners can do that. Change the string in the .pl file.
I agree with >>42 that there are different kinds of anonymity, and I think identity versus anonymity is quite apt. You are anonymous(or can be) at almost any forum, if you use a unique name, but you have an identify.
From what I know of 2ch(which isn't much...), it seems to be described as anonymity rather than lack of identify. It seems in most cases you have both, but they do log IPs so your anonymity is really the same as just about any other forum. In reality it isn't that much different than Slashdot or such where you do not have to register to post or can be anonymous (obviously I am not refering to usage). USENET was also easily just as anonymous with the remailer networks and such. Enough of anonymity though.
I can recall instances of where my identity on a forum changed my posting behavior. I do not want to be wrong or look like a fool, even in front of people I have no real interaction with. This reminds me of some experiment with a display in a grocery store that was rigged to fall (like a stack of oranges). When someone grabbed an orange and it did fall, they felt ashamed and some even made excuses to others near that they did not even know and are not to remeber or be remebered by.
I think this reaction has both negative and positive effects. With an identity attached I am less likely to flame someone or criticize them, and I will also avoid criticism. I find myself expressing uncertainty in my statements even if I am realitively sure of them just in case I do turn out to be wrong. I have even not posted on occasions on account that I might be wrong. On the other side of the coin though, I am more likely to double check and verify things in these cases. So you have people more willing to be an asshat if they don't have an identity and at least for me, less likely to put more thought/effort into (some of)their posts.
Another issue is even without a name attached to posts or an ID, most people have unique styles or certain idiosyncrocies that they can be identified by. Should a true identify-free board have an option to try and remove any of such traits?
In the end I do not believe that either "Western" or 2ch forums are supperior. Knowing who you are talking to is very helpful in cases. I would not imagine say.. LKML going well indentity free. I am not sold on whether not having identies by default (or the normal behavior) produces anything of value, however I find it more enjoyable (I guess the situations where I would rather not have an identity outway the ones that I do, and if I do want an identity I am free to choose one). In any situation where you have a choice however, I feel that people should not stereotype based on the choice (e.g. tripcode faggot).
On a side note this little text box is a pain in the ass to me. Task out and it shrinks back down, so I click in it and thus the cursor looses its place! Or if I click on the scroll bar it extends, but the page itself is no longer in the right place so I have to scroll the page down to see the bottom of the textarea!
Finally, as a result of this post not having an identity attached to it I have not bothered to fix things I know I misspelled, because I honestly do not care.
this debate is stupid, there is a name field, if you want to put a name in put a name in, if you don't then don't. There is nothing to debate/argue about it.
You have an AIM name or e-mail because you want to talk with your friends online.
Do you consider the people on a forum your friends?
That's the clincher. Anonymity isn't good for everywhere. I can think of one forum I read where everyone is friendly and wants to know each other well, and on that forum I feel fine using a login name. (2ch has a few of these, too.)
But on some random patch of Internet, you have few friends, and if you know what's good for you, you won't solicit random people to send you an e-mail. On the comments page of a blog, often you will see people call themselves Anonymous even though they don't know crap about "2ch culture". It's just the smart thing to do.
Of course a lot of users will "abuse" their privilege of posting anonimously in order to be assholes. That's kind of to be expected. On the other hand, you can freely speak your mind and that freedom does not only mean to be an asshole.
Contrary to register-only boards, you don't have to regard other people so much when you speak your mind for fearing you will lose your reputation or friends or whatever. And even if you aren't afraid of that, it's probably still better to post anonimously when speaking your mind freely about some controversial issue or when you take a controversial stance because when other people take offense to that you won't have to deal with ad hominem drama in the following discourse.
Also, it's just easy to make a comment anonimously. No need to register, no need to have an e-mail adress for that, no need to remember passwords. It doesn't get much easier than this.
>>61
Does anonymous posting on major boards prohibit making new friends? Imagine 2ch as a bunch of large clubs. If you go to meeting and see someone that is in a lot of the same clubs you are in you would likely talk to them and maybe become friends with them. When everyone in identity-less you cannot see this similarities. "Normal" forums with usernames would allow them still. Ofcourse there is another edge to the sword, people could see you post in conspiracy topics and think you are a nutbag. So it is a wash?
Both have their places. In a technical discussion it is good to know who is known from their knowledge of the area, but not to the point of devaluing anyone who isn't known's input. A place where people discuss controversial topics would probably be better without identies; less preconcieved notions of the post's content by the poster, less personal attacks.
It certainly isn't a new idea or unique idea though, as some seem to think.
Considering identites: Have you never, on register-only forums, had that weird feelings that all of the other users were the same person, only having multiple accounts to fuck with your mind?
> really anything on the internet is like that.
That kinda was my point there. This whole internet business is so disconnected from "reality" that the very concepts of "identity" or "individuality" have their meanings gotten twisted quite a bit.
>>62
I like that. Ad hominem, or more specifically bias, is really easy to do, even if you know what it means and try to avoid it. I think it's good to avoid the careful treading you see on some registered boards.
On more intelligent, not so friendly boards, it's especially important to avoid the positive bias you can often see. The ability to write and think well is a slippery thing, which you have to constantly work to maintain. If people can freely criticize you, it helps a lot.
I don't mind people who stay Anonymous or use nicks. I finally decided on this tripcode and use it about 50% of the time.
I can see where people who dislike the idea of tripcodes are coming from - yes, trying to attach a very specific name to your posts may seem like you care very much about this idea of your 'self'.
But not everyone's like that. Just because one makes teh choice to use a tripcode even though they could be anonymous, doesn't mean that they're necessarily self-important: on the contrary, they may feel responsible and accountable for whatever they say, be it idiotic, smart, spammy... Or maybe they're just used to the idea of using a nick.
Anyway, it's not like by choosing to be anonymous, you are necessarily doing it out of humility and lack of attachment to your ego. Just by reading this thread I get the impression that there are enough people who do it because of their ego - they don't want their self, their name, their reputation to be tarnished so they decide to be anonymous.
It's not that I'm a staunch supporter of either side, I really don't care - I'm in the middle anyway... for stuff like shiritori I don't bother using the tripcode... I just thoguht about it because I left an anonymous comment at my friend's blog, specifically about this person she talked about in an entry (whom she left nameless, but I knew who she was talking about), and she said if I was accountable for whatever I say and I wasn't afraid of saying what I did, then it would only be proper courtesy to leave a name, such as in letters to the editor. (Well, there's a reason why certain Western communities use the phrase "Anonymous Coward".)
I don't necessarily agree with that, but it's just another thing to throw in to this thread.
> Anonymous Coward
Do not bring slashdot into the hallowed halls of /soc/!
It's infectious! Madness! Death! Frist prost!
>Just by reading this thread I get the impression that there are enough people who do it because of their ego - they don't want their self, their name, their reputation to be tarnished so they decide to be anonymous.
True, there is that aspect, but there's more to it than just a protection of social standing. If you look through this thread and others on the same subject, you'll see testimonials of people who would normally be discouraged from posting on controversial subjects but did so anyways anonymously so their content wouldn't be judged against the bias created by their previous history of posts. When posting exclusively anonymously(even only within one thread) there is no reputation to build up or tarnish.
When you get into personal stuff like blog drama within a circle of friends, then I can see how it would be necessary to use names.
Arguments about taking social responsibility would carry a lot more weight if people posted with their real name and address, and not a pseudonym like pretty much everybody does. A pseudonym only creates a fictional identity, one free from any long-term or real-life consequences.
Anonymous posting seems a lot more honest, in that respect.
>>73
I disagree that your identity online is free from any long-term consequences. Most people will use the same names in multiple places and it is amazing what a google search alone will pull up (assuming a unique name). It is certainly easier to shed an old identity and make a new one online than it is in the real world, but it is still an identity. If you have a psuedonym that you use all of the time instead of your real one, would that not be more indicitive of your true identity than your real name? An identity is not any less valid just because it is a psuedonym.
It's possible to link a pseudonym to a real person, but most people have no idea how to do this. As a matter of fact, most people go out of their way to avoid their online personality being connected to their real one. What is that, but a concerted attempt to avoid consequences from what you do under your assumed online identity?
And I don't think you'll find anyone who manages to use their online identity in offline dealings, so it's hardly a "psuedonym that you use all of the time instead of your real one". I know people who have assumed new identities in their real lives, and that's something on a whole different level than online identities. Let's not pretend that has anything to do with this discussion.
My point was not that someone would use their online handle all of the time; it was that there is nothing intristict about a pseudonym that prohibits it from being an identity as valid as any other.
I agree that most people try to avoid real-life consequences from their internet identities; however, that is not that only reason people try to keep them seperate. Most people do not want a random crazy from the internet showing up at their door and stalking them. While that would be a consequence I do not believe it is really in line with what consequences we are discussing (e.g. prejudice).
It's an identity, sure, but it's not your real identity. I was just countering arguments along the lines that using a name means taking responsibility for your words by countering that since you are still hiding behind a pseudonym, you're still shielding yourself.
Identitys are lol; I've probably had 8 of them on the chans myself. ^^
People who've been on a forced-registration forum for a long time are probably at least vaguely aware of the potential for sockpuppetry. This can lead to a distrust or dislike of new users, and retreating further into a clique.
Pardon my lousy English, but what exactly is sockpuppetry? Do you mean something like going on and going on and going on about a subject and nobody listening to you? Or just being an attention whore?
I'm a regular at a certain forced-registration forum and I'm guilty of both, I admit.
>>81
Pretending to be multiple people. Say you register 3 accounts and then have the other two agree with you.
Nymshifting!
Tho, nymshifting is only changing nym....
While sock puppet is defined as agreeing with yourself.
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=sock%20puppet
What if the guy is disagreeing with himself? :)
> What if the guy is disagreeing with himself? :)
Metatrolling.
This might be interesting:
http://www.wechange.org/node/14
It's not like the philosophy wasn't there in the first place. Usenet, forums-you-don't-have-to-register, weblog-comments.
>>88
Usenet has already been covered in this thread, forums where you don't have to register still don't have something as simple as tripcodes to prove an identity and weblog comments are mostly irrelevant for open and free discussion.
> weblog comments are mostly irrelevant for open and free discussion.
That's the subject of a future rant from me, by the way. Weblogs are utterly useless for discussion, but that's what everyone's moved to. Hate grows!
>>87 It may be spreading on the Western side, but I notice more and more .jp imgboards that enforce ip showing. I know at least 2-3 .jp boards where every post has its poster's ip number displayed near it, boards which didn't show those before.
>>91
"at least 2-3 .jp boards" is hardly "more and more", considering that there are literally hundreds of japanese imgboards out there.
Every idiot newbie these days posts with a name & tripcode, even though it doesn't make any sense and just encourages more and more people to do the same.
There is almost no real need to post with a tripcode at all, yet people on the western boards overdo it very much. It gets really annoying and to the point where the communities don't look much different than your average drama-infested register-only forum.
I stopped posting with a tripcode+name almost completely about a year ago or so after I realized that there isn't much sense to use one except for vanity, attention whoring, seniority shit & other useless bullcrap. It also sets a bad example for other users. I wish more "oldschool" posters would set a good example in this vein and post more anonymously.
If I want to post with a nick and tripcode, I'll post with a nick and tripcode. If you don't want to use one, don't. Stop being a dramawhore about it.
>>94
It's all fine and dandy that you do what you do (much in the same manner as a man does what a man must do) but that totally avoids the (warning: pseudo-humanities ahead) sociological implications & ramifications that are the topic of this very thread.
It's cool that you have a one-liner like "If I want to post with a nick and tripcode, I'll post with a nick and tripcode. If you don't want to use one, don't." handy but that doesn't adress anything in this thread and it's pretty much an irrelevant statement.
Heh, nowadays I usually post tripcodeless more than I do with a tripcode.
I think some people though, they want their individuality noticed. And I don't really think it's bad if they do.
As for me, yeah, I do sometimes.
For example, if it's a continuing thread, and I want them to see that I am a recurring, dedicated poster.
So in a way, I agree with >>94.
>>96
I dunno. When I see such enlightening posts like >>93, full of wonderfully positive connotations, it really puts me in a frame of mind for serious discussion.
To be honest, I think the entire topic is wankery. That some people actually get worked up over it is ridiculous to me. It's much like watching some bored teen pumped up on bravado and testosterone pontificating about the irrelevant. Who cares?
I don't like boards that require registration, but I also think the people who deem that Anonymous is the One True Way are plain silly. They frame the discussion in such a manner that there can be only one answer. They emphasize the detriments of names, completely ignore any benefits, and do the exact opposite with anonymity. However, reality has shades.
If you don't agree, that's your discretion. If you stay anonymous, and let me do what I want, we won't step on each other's toes. That's what it comes to in the end, and people like >>93 can go jump.
Somebody write a firefox extension that removes all the names from these boards. It'll be interesting.
> I also think the people who deem that Anonymous is the One True Way are plain silly.
That's not what I was saying. I was saying there is a strong tendency on the English anonymous message- and imgboards to use names and this is getting out of hand and annoying.
My suggestion was to counter this tendency with a different behaviour for those who actually make good contributions: to post anonymously, so that others will be encouraged to do the same, even newbies. This is not a holy crusade, it's a strategy to break up the crusty /. et al (lol "Anonymous Coward") mindset that still is present which implies that all anonymous contributions are basically worthless or cowardly and that only people with names are good users.
I agree that one extreme should not be replaced with another extreme, but to find a golden middle I think it can be useful to counter one extreme with another for a while. Sorry if you got offended in the manner I was communicating this.
Also, if you really don't care about the whole issue, why reply so verbosely to this thread? It makes you look silly.
