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Thursday, January 10, 2013

Goodbye, Anonymous, It's Been Nice Knowing You

There are very few anonymous comments these days and those few that persist will not be missed. I've stopped accepting comments from people who won't identify themselves in some way.

I'd prefer if your identifier leads me to an actual name but for now I'll tolerate posting under a pseudonym as long as it's unique.


14 comments :

Anonymous said...

"Actual names" are a weird thing. I've been using the name I'm posting under consistently online for 30 years. Is it not a real name for me? It's easy to link this name to the name on my state-issued identity documents; I'm not trying to hide my identity.

Larry Moran said...

When I click on "blaisepascal" I'm taken to a website and not to an identity. I spent about five minutes trying to find out who you are but I still don't know.

To answer your question, "blaisepascal" is NOT a real name and it is NOT easy to link that name to a real name.

Hiding a website URL under a pseudonym is a good way of spamming a blog and increasing the Goggle ranking of your website. I don't think that's your intent.

John Harshman said...

Good move. Sometimes Anonymous gets into a nasty argument with Anonymous, and I can't tell if it's one psychotic or two. But I also see that names aren't accepted either. Now you need some sort of account.

Joe Felsenstein said...

I am glad you are doing that. It was getting weird when you'd see a knowledgable, informed, sensible, and useful comment from "Anonymous", and then later in the discussion a crazed crackpot comment from "Anonymous". Talk about multiple personalities ...

Bill said...

Thanks, Larry! The Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde comments were jarring. At least when I see Robert Byers I can skip the commercial, and others with my comments I'm sure!

Joe Felsenstein said...

Blaise Pascal was a real name. Whether it still is depends on how his Wager turned out.

Diogenes said...

Good move. A couple months back, I had that anonymous junk DNA nut who stalked me here.

anthrosciguy said...

My pseudonym is -- by quite a lot -- more unique (if you don't mind the "more unique" thing) than my actual name. I don't think any of the options you have for "comment as" leads you to my actual name very quickly, although you'd certainly find it after a while.

I do think that not using the "anonymous as a default" makes plenty of sense; don't really know why anyone would wnat that as a default on their blog -- way too confusing.

anthrosciguy said...

BTW, I just used one of your options, using my Google account, and the above is what it gave me as an ID rather than the name "anthrosciguy" which every other blog using this system gives my comments. More mysteries of the net.

Randy said...

Bad move. Identity systems (like the only ones you now offer) slow things down. There was already one comment I was going to leave on another blog (just five minutes ago) to help the poor person save their data from being deleted, but I was obstructed by their identity system, which wasn't that much different from this one. They'll continue losing data unless someone else helps them out, or I sign up to yet another system.

Anonymous comments, or those where the commenter can choose their name each time, are simply more efficient. Yes, they also result in comments you don't want to hear. No, you can't stalk the commenters. So what?

Even you admit that you've just solved a problem that doesn't exist: "There are very few anonymous comments [and] I've stopped accepting [them]".

Comrade Carter said...

Sounds reasonable from your perspective, and it might be reasonable from mine... But it can easily be less than reasonable for others,

TheOtherJim said...

OK, OK, OK. Resurrected my Blogger account. I hope Google uses their knowledge of my cell phone number only for good.

AllanMiller said...

I stopped using my Blogger account because they insisted on knowing my cell number, so I just posted as 'name'. But they seem to have stopped insisting.

TheOtherJim said...

My account had been hacked, so I needed to do the extra stuff to get it re-activated :-/