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602. cazart - 2/3/2000 1:22:07 AM Where is wabbit?
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<br> 603. Angel-Five - 2/6/2000 8:34:17 AM For what it's worth:
Either the Mote should be fully anonymous, and no personal information should be allowed to be said -- period -- or the Mote should be transparent a la Brin's book. I think the Mote so far has, if nothing else, demonstrated that half measures are not going to suffice. They just don't seem tenable to me. The illusion of anonymity that the privacy rules afford those people who need such anonymity isn't worth the bullshit that the privacy rules engender in this community. The notion, as far as I've been able to tell, is that the spirit of free intellectual exchange is valuable enough that it's worth a bit of hassle, when it comes to making and enforcing community rules, to err on the side of freedom rather than censorship. That's something I believe in myself. I think most people here do too. The problem is that a lot of people also seem to highly prize our ability to come in here and do and say things that they don't want anyone to ever be able to link to their IRL identities, and by definition free speech and the sort of censorship necessary to maintain this anonymity aren't compatible. We can, of course, make rules of demarcation between the two sets of desires (freedom and privacy) as a sort of compromise position. It's what most communities do. The thing is that it isn't working here. We aren't talking about a 'bit of hassle' anymore, but something rather larger. We don't have the manpower (if you'll forgive the sexist term) or the will to constantly sit in judgment and arbitrate the squabbles that arise over whosaid what and who else said what else and who's being a hypocrite and who's being deliberately subversive and so on. The rules are subject to as much debate if not more than any other issue in this forum, and this constant bickering is turning people away. 604. Angel-Five - 2/6/2000 8:34:43 AM And the rules themselves, instead of serving a solution, are now part of the problem. Too many people selectively abuse the rules for their own malicious purposes -- and then whine about it when it happens to them -- for us to really believe that the spirit of the privacy rule is being upheld by the current lettering. The rules have instead just become one more handy weapon in the entrenched disputes that characterize so much of discussion here in this forum, not to mention a handy boundary for the boundary-seekers to constantly test and break. And keeping these rules up is becoming a task of ridiculous proportions, not to mention what a turn-off they all are. It's not a sustainable enterprise either in terms of people willing to carry it out or people willing to wade through it all every time they post. I think we should go real-name IDs, or at least not ban personal information. If we all know each other's names there's little point in trying to blackmail each other a la GilRonen and the Ms. And if it's just that we're afraid that someone might link what our personas say to our real-life identities, what's that say about the value of what we have to say? 605. Indiana Jones - 2/6/2000 10:13:51 AM Angel-Five: (Wondered where you had gone.) If you prefer a "real" identity community, there are several with that requirement already. I can tell you from personal experience that it doesn't work, as I have never used my real identity in any online forum.
Anonymity has a fine tradition in American discourse. In fact, I think words are worth more when you have no idea who wrote them, as they are evaluated entirely on their own merits. The less you know about a person, the more difficult it is to mount an ad hominem attack, for example.
More importantly, it's a crazy world out there, full of obsessive people. When someone threatens me on an online forum, I don't take it seriously--provided my identity is secure. And even if we all knew each other, unless the site had security against lurkers, you never know who might get very offended at what you say.
If I take that kind of personal risk for an idea, it won't be unknowingly and for a trial balloon I've floated at the Mote. 606. Indiana Jones - 2/6/2000 10:18:50 AM On the flip side, I do think it's essential to try as best as possible to limit everyone to one log in. 607. Angel-Five - 2/6/2000 11:15:26 AM Jones: Well, I'd attach more weight to your statement about anonymity fostering unbiased dialogue if it weren't, well, so ridiculous. I beg your pardon. Take a look around this place. We have long since left any halcyon days of unhindered free debate behind us, and ironically, those days never saw any of the obsessive anonymity rules and debates that currently color our forum. Food for thought, isn't it? WRT the fear of an obsessive stalker: Trust me, the anonymity rules haven't prevented that from occuring. And I do recall none other than old Catinthehat, someone who stepped on more toes and insulted more folks than all but a handful of people I've seen online, someone who would certainly inspire the sort of reaction you're talking about from an unstable reader, made it a point to post his real name, his address, and some other personal info (I think he even posted his phone number someplace)... and reported zero harassment. Why? God knows that if it would have happened, Ferguson would have complained about it. But he didn't, did he? Which sort of ties in to something else that I was talking about earlier. Making a big deal out of the sanctity of your private information sets you up as a target for ninety-five percent of the people who would ever bother 'cyber-stalking' you in the first place, and the other five percent can probably dial you in whether or not the Mote bans the usage of personal information without another's consent. Maybe some of the people who post under their real name can relate whether or not it's ever caused them any such grief as you evidently fear might occur should you go 'transparent'. Please tell me, if you are minded to, some of the forums that use real information which you do not feel work well as communities. The one I've participated in -- the Well -- works fine. 608. Angel-Five - 2/6/2000 11:40:49 AM BTW: Out of curiosity, how do you logically reconcile your statement about anonymity fostering unbiased dialogue with your statement that we should all have one login? It would seem that if the former were true and a desirable goal in this forum, you'd be all for multiple IDs. But you aren't.
that position with your desire for anonymous IDs in the first place. After all, that's exactly what anonymous login-IDs allow, you know. Once again, take a look around.609. Angel-Five - 2/6/2000 11:43:44 AM Fack. Scuse the double. BTW: Out of curiosity, how do you logically reconcile your statement about anonymity fostering unbiased dialogue with your statement that we should all have one login? It would seem that if the former were true and a desirable goal in this forum, you'd be all for multiple IDs. But you aren't.
If the reason you're against multiples is that it allows people to take cheap pot-shots anonymously and can sow dissent in the community without fear of personal or social reprisal or ostracism, then you alternately have to reconcile that position with your desire for anonymous IDs in the first place. After all, that's exactly what anonymous login-IDs allow, you know. Once again, take a look around. 610. Angel-Five - 2/6/2000 11:47:52 AM I would be very interested to see the results of a Mote-wide poll on whether or not Motiers believe we need these privacy rules. Preferably a poll conducted the day after we wrap up a discussion in which everyone has a chance to speak their mind on the matter and we can all get acquainted with the arguments for and against transparency within the Mote. I imagine many would not be swayed, but I think that the number of Motiers not favoring the current system might be surprisingly high. 611. Indiana Jones - 2/6/2000 10:31:34 PM A5--I don't think I said anonymity fosters unbiased dialogue. Let me use a concrete example: suppose a poster argues against school vouchers. Do we need to know whether that person is a teacher or not? No. With this additional information, some may react and say, "He knows what he's talking about; he's in the trenches." Others may think "He's just trying to protect his job."
Neither has anything to do with the merits of the argument. Truth stands or falls on its own, regardless of who speaks it.
Your statements on stalking won't hold water. Houses are broken into, presidents assassinated, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't bother to lock my door and the Secret Service should seek gainful employment. If you want examples of what happens with "transparency," spend some time reading the several threads in TableTalk about this topic. Or why not start posting under your "real" name here, and get some experience firsthand?
As far as communities that require real information, when I say they don't work, I mean some people use their real identities and some don't, regardless of the stated rules. Check out CNN, for example, and I bet you can find half a dozen IDs without too much trouble that you know are fake--despite the rule. Today, I see "InternetRider," "von," "Supcat," "Fox Brenden," "Joni Pasquinade," "Biff Callahan," and "Sunny King." 612. Indiana Jones - 2/6/2000 10:36:54 PM In actuality, you would be asking for a leap from the frying pan into the fire. That is, if the Mote had a rule that everyone used a real ID, that would just be a new rule to enforce, rather than a simplification. Instead of the occasional "outing," how much time would be spent making sure monikers were authentic (now there's an oxymoron)?
If you think everyone would voluntarily use real IDs, you are naive. Enforcing such a policy would be much more difficult than punishing those who reveal personal information.
"Out of curiosity, how do you logically reconcile your statement about anonymity fostering unbiased dialogue with your statement that we should all have one login?"
Well, since I didn't make that statement, how about if I answer this way, instead: "anonymous" ballots are good; giving multiple ballots to some is not. 613. Angel-Five - 2/7/2000 5:21:03 AM You are now saying that you didn't say Anonymity has a fine tradition in American discourse.
In fact, I think words are worth more when you have no
idea who wrote them, as they are evaluated entirely on
their own merits. after all, Jones? How odd. There's no word-lawyering to be done, there -- you say plainly that when the author is anonymous the reader carries no bias on account of their conceptions of the writer. Unless one can evaluate something entirely on its own merit and still give a biased reading (chuckle). But if it's your position that this is not really the case and not what you meant, then I'll accept that you said something you didn't mean, and that will be that. If you want
examples of what happens with "transparency," spend
some time reading the several threads in TableTalk
about this topic. Or why not start posting under your
"real" name here, and get some experience firsthand? Oh, it's a rare person here who doesn't know my name, Indiana, I'd suspect. I've said it several times. And I know what happens with transparency. You, OTOH, apparently do not, if you can equate it to posting your real name in a community where no one else does. That's not transparency. The difference is between being odd man out and having everyone else within the community as vulnerable as you are, and therefore less inclined to do something damaging WRT someone else's personal information. 614. Angel-Five - 2/7/2000 5:21:49 AM I do see your point on valid IDs, but you need to know that there are simple ways around that. Require a lifetime membership cost of say $5 on a credit card with your name on it (which you can do through any reputable third party internet biller) which is refunded to the member sometime soon after it's paid out. I'd be willing to do that. Re: your last lines... I still don't get it. If someone's words are valid, what does it matter if they come from a multiple or not? Why's it matter if one person constructs several arguments and farms them out to fake IDs, or indeed has all the fakes agree with each other, if the words will solely be judged on their own merit? Are you saying that these very same people who will listen without bias to an anonymous man's words and judge those words strictly on their own merit will suddenly stop doing so and start judging according to which position has the most 'votes'? 615. Angel-Five - 2/7/2000 5:35:53 AM As to whether Internet stalkers really do exist, of course they do. So do lightning bolts and tornadoes, and I imagine you know more people that have had an unpleasant encounter with one or the other than you do who have been stalked out of the blue. Most people who do it know their target. It happens, but I guess I just refuse to live in fear, especially of such a low-probability event, so that it keeps me from doing something I want to do. Your mileage may vary. 616. Indiana Jones - 2/7/2000 8:34:49 AM "if it's your position that this is not really the case and not what you meant..."
You misunderstood. I'm not even sure what you mean by "unbiased debate," which as your quotation evidences I never said. I said (and I clarified again) that an anonymous statement would not be prejudiced by a reaction to the writer (and used the example of ad hominem). "Unbiased debate," however, I would interpret to mean a debate in which no personal prejudice entered at all. I believe that is rather impossible.
So instead of trying to make my statement mean something I doubt is achievable, why not react to what I have explicitly stated: do you think knowing who said something validates it or invalidates it?
"And I know what happens with transparency. You, OTOH, apparently do not, if you can equate it to posting your real name in a community where no one else does."
My point (see my CNN example) is that you won't achieve such universal "transparency." It won't happen voluntarily, and if you attempt to enforce it through policing you're creating a worse enforcement problem then the current "outing" situation.
"If someone's words are valid, what does it matter if they come from a multiple or not?"
Apples and oranges. My concern is the illusion of consensus, as well as the game-playing that goes on with multiple log-ins. For example, suppose we were to put an amendment to the ROE up for a community vote. Multiple log-ins would get multiple votes.
I also think having one log-in gives a person more of a stake in the community. Part of the problem at TT is caused by people who have "heavy" personas and "reasonable" personas. 617. Indiana Jones - 2/7/2000 8:36:14 AM BTW, A5, in your original argument you made some statement about driving away posters. I can tell you this: I will never post here under my real name. I think Ace has made a similar statement, and I'm guessing there are other community members who feel the same way. 618. Angel-Five - 2/7/2000 9:09:12 AM As long as we're going to talk about multiple IDs: The fact of the matter is that multiple anonymous logins are just like any other tool of online debate -- they can be useful and they can be abusive. They can be useful, ironically, for the very reason you mention. This forum and others like it have proven that in the absence of hard data about a poster, many people will look at their post and immediately jump to many conclusions about the poster, most of which will be false. Some folks here will jump after seeing just a couple of posts from a newbie -- we've all seen that happen. But for the most part, a brand new name carries with it some of what you're talking about -- most Motiers willing to talk to a newbie will treat them differently and perhaps make fewer assumptions than they would someone else they know well who says the same thing. This is a basic axiom of communication. So having a multiple ID can sort of purify the conversation you participate in, precisely because there's fewer assumptions and baggage built up. It's often a good way to get an interesting conversation going and it skips a lot of roadblocks. Many people here have positions so entrenched that they're constrained as to what they can say and be taken seriously by the rest of us, and many people here can't say things without being attacked simply because it's them doing the speaking. For many people here, including some of the 24/7ers who are very vocal, it doesn't seem to matter what's right or wrong as much as who's saying it and who's defending it. That can be a lot of bullshit to wade through, and running a multiple ID can allow you to neatly sidestep all that crap. So there's something to your premise of anonymity, you see. 619. Angel-Five - 2/7/2000 9:11:00 AM How do I know this? Well, I've done false IDs. Two here. Both were one-shot deals intended to provoke discussions, the passwords of which I have long since forgotten. One was even initiated after the ban on webmail addresses, FWIW. And I did what I wanted to -- I conversed about things without a lot of the extraneous bullshit that tends to jump up otherwise, and people agreed with me who otherwise would rather chop off a finger than be civil and honest with me under this name. So why don't I agree with you overall about anonymity in this format allowing cleaner debate? It's simple, Indiana. This isn't anonymity in the sense you want it to be. Whether or not you run under a bullshit ID and refuse to share any personal information out of some morbid fear of someone calling you to account for your asshole antics (that's the generic 'you', not you in particular, Indiana) people here craft a persona for you based on what you say and how you act. That is a simple, fundamental law of communication. And many people will invest a lot more of that kind of baggage in the people they communicate with simply because those people exhibit such a morbid fear of anyone finding out their personal information than they would for someone like Jay Ackroyd. And that, too, is a simple law, of human nature. People are curious and they don't like not knowing the answers to some questions, and it's natural to want to know who you're conversing with. And when humans don't have good answers, they make up bad ones. Ask Biener if anyone's made outlandish assumptions about his ethnicity or his background. Ask Pseudoerasmus, he of the cult of personality, if there's a massive artificial construct of false Motier perception that follows him around wherever he posts. 620. Angel-Five - 2/7/2000 9:11:34 AM Hell, ask me. People have guessed ages for me that span several score of years, backgrounds that span several countries (PE, early on, told me that I must be a Brit because I used metrics) careers that run the gamut of possibility, creeds that make me wince (someone once accused me of being a frickin' Baptist), practices that make me roll my eyes (Jenerator once insinuated that I was gay and later she accused me of being a Druid I believe), and appearances that make me chuckle (apparently the delectable Diva pictured me as her nervous balding 5'10' ex husband). I've had people tell me I defend nuclear power because it's my career, I've had people suggest that I'm a cokehead because I post so fast and favor legalization, I've had people tell me that I have a vested interest in secular thought because I'm possessed by a frickin' demon. I've lost track of the number of ad hominem arguments leveled against me because I'm obviously a Democrat since I don't like the Republican agenda. I've lost track of when exactly I lost track of the number of times people have dismissed me as some kind of Ivory Tower academic who has no real-world experience, but it was a while back. This sort of misinformation tends to hamper good communication, wouldn't you agree? All this because this is an anonymous forum. So, Indiana, tell me, where's the real stumbling block to unbiased communication? What we could know if we were transparent, or what we don't know because we aren't? 621. Angel-Five - 2/7/2000 9:19:38 AM I said (and I clarified again) that an
anonymous statement would not be prejudiced by a
reaction to the writer (and used the example of ad
hominem). Not quite. What you said was In fact, I think words are worth more when you have no
idea who wrote them, as they are evaluated entirely on
their own merits. If words are evaluated entirely on their own merits, then there is no room for bias. This is common logic, Indiana, which is why I asked you if that is truly what you meant. It appears now, judging from your last posts, that it isn't in fact what you meant, as you now allow that some bias will be introduced. I posted the last series before seeing your last statements, but by happy happenstance the two statements dovetail nicely. FWIW, I don't have a real problem with limiting logins to one per person, although it can't be done in reality. The effort to do so will weed out a lot of crap. Although I think false IDs have their uses, they as I said can be pretty damaging to a community. I should know. I was one once such damaging ID, in the bad old place, something that I really can't be excused for in total despite some mitigating circumstances. I think that although false IDs are neutral, their use in general is overall a detriment to the community.
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