Author: Robert Hyatt
Date: 07:22:53 07/03/00
Go up one level in this thread
On July 03, 2000 at 06:07:20, Chris Whittington wrote: > >I am inclined to agree with you on the question of anonymity. > >My take on the subject is to judge an anonymous poster by the content of his >posts, perhaps you might like to comment on my examples: > >a) A well-known programmer who wishes to contribute on technical issues but is >concerned about possible negative reaction to his posting. So he posts >anonymously and keeps to technical only, and does not 'promote' his own >commercial advantage. That doesn't concern me at all. However, such a poster gets mixed in with the group that does cause trouble, and that group is hard to get rid of, as they just "come back" as another alter-ego and continue until they get caught, and the cycle repeats over and over. > >b) A chesscomp commercial (or academic, or whatever) person who anonymously >promotes his own interests, and attacks competitors. > promoting his own interests is probably not bad, but attacking competitors certainly crosses the line, if it is done the wrong way. >c) Any anonymous who sticks entirely to technical issues such as hash tables. not a problem, except to get this person "in" you also pull in the "trash" that causes problems since you cant tell them apart. > >d) An anonymous who delivers opinions, often on contentious issues, often >contentious opinions, appears to have an agenda, and you suspect he is a 'known' >figure, but you can't work out who or why. This is the classic case. Anonymous purely to avoid reprisal. > >e) An anonymous person who stands for moderation election and is elected. This may or may not be a problem. Karinsdad is anonymous, but was a perfectly acceptable moderator. Sean came close to becoming one, probably, and would not have been good at it. > >f) An anonymous person who appears to assist a known troller by feeding the >trolling threads. This often is the result of a single person having multiple anonymous IDs. They then participate in a group discussion, attempting to make it look like a lot of posters agree with some oddball idea. When it is really just one person in a schizo-type discussion. > >g) A 'real name' person who, because he doesn't 'appear' in real life, and seems >to perform some kind of 'trolling' function as in (f), you suspect of being a >'fake'. > Basically an anonymous poster, using a real-looking name. Same as someone using "Bozo" as a handle, IMHO. Still anonymous. Always potentially "bad" until proven otherwise. >And so on. > >I find (a) and (c) acceptable. The remainder not. The reason being, IMO, that in >cases of contentious, non-technical, political type posts, it is very important >to be able to assess the post's content in conjunction with your historical >knowledge of the poster. Only with this information can you form a view on >motivation and so on behind the post content. For example, in this thread, you >and Bruce are probably highly suspicious of my motivations. Why should I be >advocating Readcounting? Do I have some secret disruptive or other reason for >doing so? I would suspect that the reaction of both of you would be very >different if the proposal came from someplace else. > >Presumably you consider Hans Gerber to be a case (g). What would have happened >had the Hans Gerber posts appeared under the name Rolf Tueschen. Would you have >reacted in the same way? > Good question. The answer is no, as I would never have entered into the discussion with Rolf about Deep Blue. I agree with your ID assessment... If I know the poster, have some "context" to go on, then I can interpret what they are saying. I think that is essential for several reasons. It lends credibility to what they are saying when there is context about the person that is known. It tends to prevent ridiculous rants and raves and outrageous behavior if you are known and accessible. >Was there anything within the _content_ of the Gerber posts which could give >cause for him being banned, or against the CCC charter? That is hard to say. I didn't ask _anybody_ to ban him, publicly or privately. I simply pointed out his probable identity and changed what I was willing to discuss with him. His intention was to simply be contentious, and as always, stir up that which is calm. We can certainly do without that... > >I ask, because, of course, some people might suspect that your attack on his >_identity_ and his (temporary) banning, was just a cover for your dislike of the >_content_ posted. > >Are you able to conclusively set minds at rest on this issue? > > >Chris Whittington > I dislike (a) seeing someone personally attack the DB guys, since they don't post here, and since the original cheating implication by Kasparov was pure garbage; (b) see someone post only to stir up (he is a classic here as he simply repeats the same stuff, when he can't counter a point in a discussion; (c) finally, I didn't attack his identity. I revealed what I thought about his style and who he was. He countered by more and more false statements. After he had sent me a private email asking for something (before I knew who he was). After I finally figured it out, his email did the final convincing, although I won't say more about how. :) As I said, if he wants to post here under his own name, that is fine by me. I don't see any reason to ban him. I see plenty of reasons why I would ignore him however, and I suspect that is the very thing he wants to avoid. I don't think he wants _anybody_ to ignore him.
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