Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
Why do people not sign their own names to what they write on the internet, and in particular on this blog? I thought I’d ask people this in the form of an anonymous poll. But before I do that, I want to get the full range of possibilities, so I’ve decided to crowdsource the poll questions. To date I have a number of possible reasons someone might give for posting anonymously, which are not mutually exclusive.
Here’s the first cut of possible reasons why someone might post anonymously:
- I’m concerned that putting my real name to my ideas will cause me trouble at my work.
- I’m concerned that putting my real name to my ideas will cause me trouble at home or with my family.
- I’m concerned that putting my real name to my ideas will cause me trouble with my friends and acquaintances.
- I’m concerned that putting my real name to my ideas will cause me trouble at my school or university.
- I’m posting from a country which discourages freedom of speech.
- I’m concerned that someone will take violent exception to my views about climate and threaten me or my family.
- I feel more comfortable posting anonymously, but I’m not sure why.
- I’m concerned about putting any personal information about myself on the web for any reason.
- I find it easier to express negative views when I post anonymously.
- I’m posting from work on company time, or the equivalent (e.g. posting when I’m supposed to be studying).
- I don’t want people to be able to research my previous statements.
Now, my questions about all of this are:
- What else would be another reason that someone might have, that should be listed on the poll?
- What other questions (age, sex, etc.) would it be useful to know?
- How about the wording of the questions? Is it neutral, is it biased?
- Order of the questions? Which ones first, which ones last?
Many thanks for your contributions, the relevant ones will be included in the poll.
w.
PS – Please be clear that I’m interested in possible reasons people might post anonymously on WUWT, not a justification or an argument for or against posting anonymously. This thread is to design the poll, not to debate anonymity.
[UPDATE] Added from the comments, with my thanks. Note that in the poll people will be able to choose more than one response.
- I feel able to express more confident views if those statements aren’t personally attributable to me.
- I’m posting for relaxation – not “publication”.
- Using my real name is just asking for ad hominem attacks.
- I don’t know who might read the post and what they might do with it.
- I don’t wish to disclose my formal qualifications, or lack of them, or that I am in a different field.
- I can say things that I would be embarrassed to say in person.
- I’m lazy.
- I work with people who believe Albert Gore is a scientist.
- I work with clients/customers or in a market where skeptical views are not welcome.
- Metaphorically speaking, I have relatives in the old country …
- To be honest, I also say some pretty stupid things, occasionally, especially when imbibing the suds.
- I am concerned about identity theft.
- It’s a chance to let out my repressed wild and crazy inner personalities.
- Stalking is always a concern to a female.
- I have someone constantly Googling my name.
- It’s traditional since the beginning of the web to have a handle.
- It allows me to “compartmentalize” my opinions on very different subjects.
- I enjoy “trolling”, stirring things up.
- I have worked for oil companies, mining companies or agribusiness and it would likely be held against me.
- I use a moniker because it describes what I am and how I see the world in 3 words.
- I post anonymously for the same reason I do not register a gun.
- Who wants to be responsible for my stupid ramblings when I am involved with Jack Daniels? Not me!
- I am under an implied contract to never make public pronouncement under my name that might in any way embarrass or disadvantage any segment of a multifaceted corporate endeavor / large university / international organization.
- Greenpeace said “We know who you are. We know where you live. We know where you work. And we be many, but you be few.”
- If I posted under my own name, it would be tantamount to expressing my political views to all and sundry and in my industry/job/school would convey a lack of professionalism.
- I am concerned that my age, gender, ethnicity, educational level, etc are factors that can affect the people who read a comment and many of them unfortunately then respond in a biased way.
- I have been attacked for my views.
- It is like putting on a superman suit, you can say anything, be anything and fly anywhere. And if any-one with kryptonite strikes you down, what does it matter, tomorrow you will be Clark Kent.
- To express things I wouldn’t have courage to express otherwise, the same reason many students are hesitant to put their hand up in class.
- I’m not even half as paranoid as I should be.
- I don’t wish for my thoughts and comments from years gone by to turn up whenever someone does a search on my name.
- I enjoy putting forward an identity that says more about me than my name.
- It’s good that no-one on the internet knows if you’re a frog.
- It would be easy to connect up my posts, email address and ultimately my credit cards. Spam and fraud would then follow.
- I don’t want to be associated with my job when posting on technical subjects.
- I am concerned about the UK defamation law.
- In my country you could be targeted by the consensus people.
- I have a common name and use a pseudonym so that I can search for my postings.
- I am concerned it may cost me business/lose me funding.
- I want readers to judge my comments on their content, not their provenance.
- I plan to run for president and want to be able to change my opinions as may be convenient.
- I am pleased to get some protection from the cloud of gnats hovering around the net.
- A future employer might have issues with some of the things I post.
- Didn’t Zorro and the Lone Ranger wear their masks because of things like this?
- I am the sole support of others.
- I’m not British / American, and for an English speaker my name is difficult to remember / sounds weird / carries a silly pun / leads to misunderstandings.
- I think it is fun to call myself by my handle.
- I don’t care.
- My name is the same as a wanted criminal / bad person.
- I don’t want current comments being dredged up in a possible future political campaign.
- I want to maintain plausible deniability.
- Posting anonymously offers an opportunity for crowd-sourced criticism before having my name attached to a bad idea.
- I I do a fair bit of sub-contract work for companies that have bought into the green dream, so I’m invoking my very own version of the … uh … precautionary principle 🙂
- A rabid green has haunted me in other forums.
- I was stalked relentlessly by some creep who decided that it was fun.
Updates to the other questions:
- Would you seriously consider using your real name after a reasonable period of retirement.
- Would you prefer to be able to post under your own name?
- Career
- Age
- Sex
- Location
It has also been correctly noted that I am describing posting pseudonymously, not anonymously.
It strikes me that I haven’t looked at the other side of the equation, why people post under their own name … ah, well, one thing at a time. My own reasons for posting under my own name, in no particular order, would be:
- I want to be able to claim ownership of my ideas.
- I refuse to be intimidated by the dangers of the world.
- I am much better mannered when I have to take responsibility for my words.
- My claims tend to extravagance when I post anonymously.
- I grew up a cowboy, and criticizing someone from behind a mask of anonymity feels like shooting someone from ambush … and a cowboy can’t do that, it’s in the contract, ask Tom Mix.
UPDATES from the comments regarding posting under your own name.
- I am retired, and don’t care if people read what I post.
- I prefer to say what I think and feel anyway without hiding under a cloak.
- I don’t post anonymously because I have a martyr complex.
- I think it is cowardice to post anonymously.
- Because I don’t follow the herd.
- I say what I mean and am terribly honest at it.
- I believe it is simply good manners to identify yourself when talking to people.
- I have no concern about people reading my opinions a decade from now.
- I can’t lie with a straight face.
- I have to stand for what I believe as who I am, otherwise what I say is all posturing.
- I started posting under my real name after making an ass of myself anonymously in a blog comment section.
- Using my name forces me to keep my posts measured and decent.
- I feel uneasy posting anonymously.
- It’s a matter of clarity and honesty.
- If such things as climate change are important we should pony up and admit where we stand.
- I’m confident enough in who I am to not be concerned about what others think of my opinions.
- Since my work is not publicly funded or grant funded, I’m at liberty to say what I wish without concern of losing my job.
- A person of worth will stand up in their own name for what is right and against what is wrong.
- If they want to google my name, they should do it if they don’t have better things to do.
- I have never not posted with my own and real name. Why would I do otherwise?
- I feel free to change my opinion should I have reason to and will defend or dismiss my former opinions accordingly.
- It would be cowardly for me to hide behind an alias.
- A screen name feels like hiding behind a false front.
- I think that in the long view we as a society get along much better when we know each others names.
- If I have too little courage of my own convictions to sign my name to my opinions, why should anyone pay attention?
- I don’t fear professional retribution as most of my peers hold similar views to mine or are just plain disengaged from the topic of global warming.
- It’s a statement that I will not be intimidated.
- I am totally uninterested about what other people think of me.
- I’ve had my own name a long time and have grown attached to it.
- I consider my self responsible for my own opinions.
- If I write something, I’ll stand for it, or I would not write it.
- I dislike anonymity on principle
That’s it to date, I’ll add more as they come up. I must say that I find the variety of reasons much wider and deeper than I had expected. Ain’t life grand?
Indeed, I rather like this process of crowdsourcing the poll questions. It strikes me that this is a kind of appreciative inquiry that could be of use in other contexts where there is a wide variety of opinions.
w.
I find it easier to express negative views when I post anonymously.
People may feel able to express more confident views, no matter the POV of their statements, if those statements aren’t personally attributable to them. Though I’m not sure how you would craft this into a poll question.
Regarding the BBS in particular I sign using initials as a matter of style. I’ve used this same sig since the internet had less than a 1000 nodes on it, and it wasn’t called the Internet.
But – I provide my email address here which includes my middle initial and which is also a de-spam address. That is my spam trap domain. All mail to that domain is considered spam or worse. I see mail sent to it and use 99.9% of it to improve my mail filters on all the mail servers I run. I run my own mail servers and have for decades and hire out my services for security aware people too smart to use gmail and similar. Finally, the domain in that address is registered to me and any curious person who sees that domain can look it up in the whois database and will learn immediately who I am and where I live, my telephone number, and my “official” email address. Next stop is google and facebook but I don’t do facebook or other social networks because they’re dorky and because of security deficiencies. However, I have a large google foot print.
Everyone does.
I at least try to make it hard for google to exploit my DNA. Hence, I use my initials here. Get over it.
Posting for relaxation – not “publication”.
-It should not be relevant who posts an idea, only the value of the idea; using real names is just asking for ad hominem attacks.
I would say It’s a matter of symmetry. The poster does not know who reads the post and what he might do with it. Posting anonymously sort of levels the field. This isn’t exactly an invention of the internet era. Book writers have used pseudonyms for hundreds of years.
On your first question “What else would be another reason that someone might have”, perhaps that the contributor does not wish to disclose his/her formal qualifications, or lack of them or that they are in a different field.
And by “posting anonymously” do you mean to include both “cryptic” names such as mine (just a shortened form of my real name) with truly anonymous names (perhaps like dogbo121)?
1) So they can say things that they would be embarrassed to say in person.
no one needs to worry about climate change because God promised Noah
2) So that brought comments can’t be traced back the the buyer.
a.k.a Koch Brothers
Because I’m lazy.
I have a standard login name, Jantar, for a large number of websites. I find it easier to continue to use it on sites like this rather than try to remember which sites require a unique username and which ones allow your own name, even if it is the same or similar to another.
There is noe secret to who I am, and a quick google search on my username will soon reveal mt full name, my address if required, my occupation etc.
However to save anyone here having to go to that trouble. My real name is Malcolm Taylor, and I live in Alexandra, New Zealand.
I am a journalist for a large newspaper publisher that runs a strongly pro-AGW editorial line and virtually forbids questioning of the science. One of the reasons, by my analysis, is that the company has experienced strong growth in online readership from young people (in my view brainwashed by the education system) and therefore runs a strong youth bias in its selection of editorial content. The company’s unwillingness to investigate the science runs counter to everything I was taught in journalism about the need for scepticism. If I was to make known my conclusion (after a year of my own investigation) that AGW science doesn’t work, I have no doubt I would be fired, even though I work in an unrelated area. I run the above obfuscuated email address for the purpose of commenting on the science and politics of AGW.
My name really is UK Sceptic. Honest…
Grin
My option:
– It is just a culture thing.
Let me elaborate on this: When I was very young it was typical to “take” a name when playing computer games on lans and whatnot. This was not for anonymity, (everyone you played with knew who was behind the pseudonym), but rather more like taking a second name in the computer realm. For me this carried over into any discussion sites I used when discussing politics, philosophy etc.
Again, on the discussion sites anonymity did not really factor into it. I typically included a link to my personal homepage in any created profile (which would include not only name, but my exact residential adress and phone number and…) so anyone that really wanted to find out was about 2-3 clicks away from knowing.
Currently, signing under my pseudonym is what comes naturally, and for any quick posts I dont really care either way if people know who I am. So filling in any extra identifying info is “extra work” for any sites one does not post alot on.
Currently I will sign under real name if I happen to care extra for people knowing who I am, but the default behaviour is I don’t care extra so pseudonym it is.
I think this is age related. Those who grew up before the advent of computer gaming seem to consider the discussion under pseudonym as somehow suspect, while the younger generation pretty much takes it for granted and doesn’t really reflect much on it.
I think it’s a chance to let out our repressed wild and crazy inner personalities.
I have an unusual name and I believe there is only one other person on the internet with the same name and he is easily distinguishable from me by his location and interests. People with common names are able to post using their real names yet still be relatively anonymous. If you are called John Smith, you can post without anyone being able to search for your name and aggregate everything you’ve posted.
The reason I don’t use my real name is that I know one person who constantly Googles my name to see what I’ve been doing. It’s his right and the information is on the internet but I’d like to engage in some conversations without inviting him along.
Also, the things I post have varying levels of significance for me in terms of the strength of my views, the consideration I’ve given to them, whether I’m being flippant, whether I’m playing devil’s advocate etc. This level of significance is lost when they appear under a Google search of my name. I have no control that what I’m proudest of will come at the top of the list.
Finally, some people on the net are immersed in a single subject. For example, the climate science bloggers. I don’t know if Anthony, Steve, Willis etc. post on any other subjects but it seems unlikely they would have the time :). All that is known about them publicly are their views on climate science. I, on the other hand, post on climate issues, music, politics, education etc. If I was in a real conversation with friends or acquaintances about any of those subjects, I would not expect my views on one of them to have any bearing on the others. With the internet, the only way to compartmentalise things is to have them anonymous.
I guess that I am somewhat concerned that I could be targeted, since googling my name will get a few hits. The hits are generally innocuous but in tandem with my unique name they would provide enough information for me to be tracked down, and I don’t trust eco-zealotry.
However, paranoia aside (or maybe not), the most immediate reason that my anonymity in blogland is important to me is my history as a professional geologist, which includes working in the petroleum exploration industry. Anything I have to say could be cast into doubt since I have been in the direct pay of oil & gas companies.
Here at WUWT it is a non-issue, but other blogs that I have visited are not quite so easy going. The culture I have seen out there tends to laud environmental affiliations but demonize fossil fuel associations. My message would be labeled as that of an oil shill, and promptly ignored.
Other question should be obvious “I don’t mind posting overtly”…and a range of options…”provided…my location, country, email, postal, etc….details are not disclosed”
AndiC, NZ
PS I publish with my website link, so anyone can track me down – glad that I am fortunate enough to live in a Country where freedom of expression is not an offence
I agree with Frederick Davies that names, and titles, are not as important as the ideas being conveyed. Hence I have no problems with the use of a nom de plume, but ironically I do always wonder if a seemingly real name is the writers real name.
I’m concerned about putting any personal information about myself on the web for any reason.
dp says:
April 23, 2011 at 11:52 pm
“Get over it”? What makes you think I care in the slightest either way if you use your initials? At this point you’re just an anonymous nobody on the internet, why should anyone care if you use your initials or your Grandma’s maiden name? Man, your ego must be so big I has its own zip code if you think anyone has anything to “get over” regarding your daring use of your initials to make a bold and principled statement …
And more to the point … are you being nasty on purpose, or are you just naturally made that way and can’t help it? Either way, as an acquaintance of mine says … get over it. Nobody cares.
w.
When I post things on the net I use a completely neutral pseudonym just to get the focus on the content and not on who I am. Age, gender, ethnicity, educational level, etc are factors that can affect the people who read a comment and many of them unfortunately then respond in a biased way and the discussion moves from content to person.
My decision to use Paul instead of my full name was not thought out. Now I use it just to be consistent with previous posts.
So using Paul, instead of Paul Mallon, had no ideological basis.
Originally I needed anonymity because I had been attacked for my views and work (elsewhere) and suffered several years’ illness as a result. Curiously, I chose the name before I was in the least interested in Climate Science, assuming everything was hunky dory. But when I came to realize the scale of the corruption in Climate Science, it spoke to me to take up cudgels, and I realized I could use that same illness as free time to study and write it all up. I reckoned with Anthony here I would need to earn the right to use the name I chose! I always give my “real” name in private correspondence but I like my online name, anyway it’s simpler to just have one “handle”.
My actual very unique name is visible on the net if you google it. That makes me feel exposed so always now I am anonymous. I have relatives and friends and I don’t want my views on AGW revealed to them. I have found information on my sister in law on the net that she would not like me to know. The net is not private and there are nasty abrasive people on blogs an elsewhere. I am in my late 60s.
I write anonymously because it appears very easy to upset some people, and I have found many of them to be quite strange. I certainly wouldn’t want people to know my real name in case they actually went to the trouble of discovering my address. We have a saying here in England (Yorkshire-based) which goes, “There’s nowt so queer as folk”. In case it’s not a dead-giveaway to our American friends, it means that there’s nothing as odd as people.
I came to realise many years ago that we’re all mentally disturbed, it’s just by degrees. I have upset some people with what I have written in the past, so keeping myself anonymous is essential.
I post anonymously, as now, so that ill informed commentary, misattributed quotes, incorrectly remembered facts, spelling mistakes, etc cannot be laid at my door.
regards, Les Johnson
ah, dammit.
Sorry Willis – “this thread is not to debate anonymity” – missed that, but you’re going to get that debate anyway I expect.
BTW I loved reading your story – could identify with a lot of it myself.