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 would ask the contraire…
why would make it so important to tie words to an identifiable person, unless you will only read and listen to identifiable authorities that is? This question keeps coming up, why?
Just got an earful here; http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/03/29/visualizing-the-greenhouse-effect-molecules-and-photons/#comment-647062 . Begging that they are the only “authority” you should ever listen to, they all quickly lost any of my respect except David, he seems still trying to learn. I’m pretty knowledgeable in physics of forty years and find such attitudes sickening. I’d rather converse with a mere unidentifiable “Myrrh” than the above. From him I actually learned something deep in radiative transfer I had never given much of a single thought to before. He might not be totally correct but any intelligent person can parse the good info from the bad.
Same goes for AnnaV, she helped me so much make the transition into climate science with her clear mind on physics and she must be following this far longer than me specifically in atmospheric physics though seems here base is in particle physics.
In fact, most of the real knowledge I have added has been from “anonymous” readers. Anthony Watts is one big exception, much is owed to him.
Calling myself Pompous Git kind of stymies what people can call me 🙂
It’s a pseudonym and a Google search will find the “real” me. Internet stalking is a genuine problem. A rabid green has haunted me in other forums, claiming that I drink at least 3 bottles of wine a night, that I buy my wine in bulk (that one’s true) and other nefarious things. Such is life…
Willis,
Too many responses to more than skim through, but I’d be interested to see response to those who, like me, post under their own name, in regard to some issues. I hesitated to use my own name in the first place because I’m in the high tech business with many research universities etc as customers. The technical decision makers are more interested in getting the best bang for their buck than my political or science beliefs, but that doesn’t change the fact that their bosses, the researchers and the administration organization care a great deal. Similarly, many politically correct employers might also be hesitant to hire someone with known and strident views.
To date it has made no difference that I am aware of, but I’d be very interested to know what others have experienced. Bias against researchers like David Ball who speak out, and the shenanigans exposed in ClimateGate to get contrary opinions excluded apply to the research community. I don’t engage in debate of religious or political or climate topics in the workplace as a rule of thumb, but I’ve experienced prejudice in the workplace on the first and second items for certain, so why not my position on climate? Would be very interested to know if I’ve escaped unscathed by accident or not.
About 15 yrs ago I made the mistake of letting too much info about myself get on the internet. I was stalked relentlessly by some creep who decided that it was fun. Now I use a portion of my first name. P for a first name I never use and Katt .. shortened from Kathy, thus Pkatt was born. Im sure it would not be terribly hard to find out my last name but it makes me feel slightly safer.. right up there with not storing passwords or credit card # on my computer. I look at the internet as a hostile jungle, where the unscrupulous and creepy hunt and never ever believe someone is who they say they are.
Being an open, non anonymous climate skeptic has cost me some business, and occasionally causes problems in my personal life – but I would rather walk free in the sun, than skulk around, frightened of my own shadow, tugging my forelock at the EcoNAZIs.
For me, though I don’t post that often, it is the case that I feel that by posting under my own name I am showing I am willing to be open and honest about who I am, what I do and why I believe what I do.
I feel that any argument or observation I might give has more weight because I know that any false statements I make about my personal circumstances, employment or experience can be found out by anyone with a little bit of time and effort should they really be bothered enough to check. As a result it helps me to ensure my comments are rigorous, absolutely honest and un-embelished.
Personally I hope to lead by example as I think blogs and discussion fora would be much better places if everyone posted under their own name and was willing to be submitted to whatever scrutiny their opponents might desire.
Don’t like what I have to say?
Don’t be comin’ ’round here.
Luther
Good point, many reasons have been expressed to conceal the authors real name.
It really depends upon the passion people feel for this topic. I have seen climate science morph from being an abstract topic muttered by academics in the 1990’s into a hard political reality today that threatens, through ignorance, to shut down our electricity generating capacity, replace it with ‘toy’ wind and PV generation, tax us ’till we weep and bring inflation to an unprecedented level. I do not say these things lightly.
In Australia we have made political ignorance an art form. I am reading distinguished researcher Ken McCracken’s book Blast Off . Ken designed cosmic ray experiments for the Pioneer spacecraft in the 1960’s. On his return home he describes how lack of political and Government courage led to Australia dropping its fledgling space programme and selling its locally designed and built equipment to the Indian Space programme for a song.
Greg started my spiel with talk of courage, and there it will end, because that it what is needed right now, if you have something to say and if you can, then put your name to it.
Never had a DOD (security) clearance, Willis? Defense contractors require such on occasion depending on the work, esp. for anything hi-tech … for that reason, it’s a little easier to go anonymous for posting anything substantially under than the ‘treason’ (wiki-leaks) threshold …
.
Leftist posters get a free pass. Others, not so much.
I’m not sure if your options captured this, but I think that some scientists post anonymously because the ‘consensus’ has been so effectively controlled. Not wanting to appear to be heretic (and lacking the courage to explain the details to all and sundry), I believe that some scientists take the anonymous ‘easy option’.
I google my name occasionally, just to see what comes up. It’s almost never me. Instead there is a university psychology professor, a bodybuilder, and a Dutch soap actor.
I guess I’m just used to using an alias — from the fear of using a real email address and getting spammed silly or worse. I am not really worried about ad hominem attacks, since it appears those that would do this to me would never go near this blog. (BTW, I had my email address out in the open for a few years on all my posts at World Community Grid, and I received absolutely no related emails or spams during that time period). If anyone actually cares, my name is Jim Madsen, alias “littlepeaks”. I like that alias because I do chromatography and integrate little peaks at “The National Peak Integration Facility”. (There is no such entity 🙂 )
I don’t post anonymously per se but use my pen name from when I wrote at law school. People who know me know I am the Expulsive
I work in “alternative energy” – the management has made it very clear that our research is only justified by reducing CO2. Many of us (research engineers and scientists) do this work because we believe that we need energy independence. However, none of us publicize our AGW skepticism. It has been explicitly stated that unapproved public posting (on any website) would be a bad career move.
Google my name and you can find many people. I would not like to get any one of them in trouble.
No – I work in computer security and it never ends. We have to repeatedly remind users to not use business mail for things like this and of course we get the same challenges back that are found in this thread. It goes deeper than that, but the story becomes so dull nobody listens. This is the third venue this subject has come in this week, so it is a pretty common topic and more often than not the security experts take the brunt of the derision.
To put it another way – being criticized for using an alias is as annoying as being called a denier.
If you don’t like all the answers you’re getting, ask a different question.
Its who I am on the internet. TimTheToolMan has been posting for years and (some) people will recognise that handle and recognise what he stands for. It would take years to achieve that again with my real name.
Anytime I blog skeptical about climate I am very careful to not only not give my name, but to slightly blur my experiences which reinforce my skeptical position, lest a description of my rather unique experiences reveal who I really I am. Even though I know the whole AGW stuff is a scam, and wind farms are a joke, I have to make a living proffering engineering services to some of these “green” industries, so I can’t risk getting blackballed. Jobs are really hard to find right now, which makes turning down “green” work doubly hard to do.
Being careful to blur what I say, I once worked for a corporation promoting a “green” technology which was in fact dangerous if not properly engineered. Shortly after I started pointing out dangerous flaws in the technology at this corporation with an extremely strong union which clung to the dangerous technology because the boondoggle created make-work jobs, I started having the tires on my wife’s car slashed repeatedly. I eventually quit, and not too long after I quit, the “green” technology caused a catastrophic explosion.
I like to follow the example of The Federalist. The choice to reveal or conceal your name is a civil right, requiring no justification one way or the other.
I do find it disconcerting that someone uses Face Book and my e-mail Id. with Phishing techniques to try and find my identity (I don’t know if this is sourced from WUWT or some other web site). Hi Milhouse.
I post anonymously to avoid ad hominem and personal attacks from a co-worker, who is a rabid militant anti-religious, pro-CAGW atheist/zealot (not a nice guy). This individual hates WUWT and sees this web site as anti-science and science is his religion. I personally see WUWT as a saving grace for rational fundamental scientific inquiry.
Hey Mod.’s I’m not seeing my comment ??
[Reply: It’s only been four minutes. Have patience. ~dbs, mod.]
Hi Milhouse
Sun Spot: it sounds like I would like your co-worker 🙂 This anonymous posting is fun.
Many companies have policies against talking to the media without authorisation – usually for the obvious reason that the employer doesn’t want employees holding themselves out as representing the company if they’re not authorised to. (Generally that authorisation means they are only allowed to talk within their narrow area of expertise – again for obvious reasons.)
Putting your name to a blog isn’t exactly the same as doing an interview with a journalist, but it’s not that different either, especially if someone then connects your name and comments with the fact that you work for XYZ employer.