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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. 622. Indiana Jones - 2/7/2000 9:25:23 AM Fuck it. If you prefer to state my position and then argue with what you've decided it is rather than what I say it is, enjoy yourself.
I also recall from the abortion debate that the length of your posts varies as the square of the number of posts exchanged, so I'll respond only to this:
"I don't have a real problem with limiting logins to one per person, although it can't be done in reality."
Square this statement with your position that the mote should require "real" IDs. 623. Angel-Five - 2/7/2000 9:58:51 AM If you prefer to state my position and then argue
with what you've decided it is rather than what I say it
is, enjoy yourself. Yet what I'm doing is instead asking you if that's what you meant. What you've said is a matter of record and if you can't argue with the obvious meaning, fine -- but it's easy to misspeak, which is why I asked you if it was your intent to communicate what you did in fact communicate. If doing so is going to get you into a tizzy, Indiana, then by all means bail out of the conversation and don't answer all the rest of what I had to say. But if you'll just read what I wrote, I think you'll find that I gave a lot more than that to the conversation and there's a lot of things there to discuss. 624. Angel-Five - 2/7/2000 10:16:43 AM Let me tell you what I DO think your position is, Indiana. After all, you're accusing me of putting words in your mouth instead of taking what you've said and asking for clarification, so I might as well do it, no?
I think that for you the cloak of anonymity is valuable because it allows you to be deliberately provocative. It allowed you to do that bullshine one-man Amos and Andy act you used to favor, and it allows you now to say things as Indiana Jones that are at once much more reasonable, yet still provocative enough that you wouldn't want to stand on your front porch, or the NY subway, and shout them. Am I somewhere close to truth with that guess? Because if so, then I'd say that that ability is something I also value. I just don't value it so much that I'm not willing to try something new. And I guess I'm just sick of all the personal info crap that goes on here and would like to see a reasonable productive end to it. 625. Angel-Five - 2/7/2000 10:30:03 AM "I don't have a real problem with limiting logins to one
per person, although it can't be done in reality."
Square this statement with your position that the mote
should require "real" IDs. I wasn't going to bother answering this, because I've little time for debates where an opponent ducks my questions and refuses to acknowledge my arguments but keeps asking that I answer and acknowledge theirs. But there's no reason not to, really. You can't limit in reality everyone to one login -- at least, not without resorting to prohibitively expensive measures. And even if you were to use a credit card system, or a background check, or indeed anything short of sending people to scope out every Motier to make sure they're legitimate, 'real' people, there would still be a way for someone determined enough (and imbalanced enough to want to expend the necessary energy to do so) to beat the system and post under a false identity. We aren't the US Government, with billions to spend against computer fraud, we're a bunch of geeks who like to argue and flirt with each other and our central command structure is a few part time volunteers -- so if people can fool the Fed, they sure as fuck can fool us. But that doesn't mean that we can't make it hard enough to do that very few people would ever bother, without expending too much energy in our effort. And if enough people after hearing the arguments for some form of transparency wanted to try it out, I don't see why we shouldn't try it out. Let me be plain. If anything less than a healthy majority of Motiers wanted to be transparent, there'd be little point, in my mind, in trying to be transparent. 626. Indiana Jones - 2/7/2000 11:58:07 AM A5: You specialize in lengthy posts to camouflage a paucity of ideas. It's absurd to say the Mote can't prevent multiple log-ins while arguing the Mote should require a single "real" log-in. If you can't see the inherent contradiction in that argument, there's no helping you. 627. Angel-Five - 2/7/2000 12:17:57 PM And you, my friend, are blowing smoke. If you can't recognize the difference between 'impossible to fully prohibit' and 'possible to prohibit with a reasonable degree of success' then you're being dumb. But you aren't being dumb, are you, Indiana? You're just trying to evade the issue by pretending you don't get what I'm saying, so you don't have to address it. If you don't want to, then don't. But let's not bullshit about how I haven't made good arguments for my case, a good argument against the logic of yours, and suggested means of implementing a solution ... just so you don't have to stand up and debate what is in plain sight in my posts. 628. Angel-Five - 2/7/2000 12:19:59 PM I take it you aren't going to argue with the words I DID put in your mouth? 629. Angel-Five - 2/7/2000 1:59:39 PM Ah, forget about it. If you don't want to step up, don't step up. You don't like the idea of going transparent for your own reasons, and that's fine -- it's also fine that you don't want to discuss my reasons for liking transparency and why I feel they're adequate. We can drop it, if you like.
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