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 still do not see on the first list “I want to protect my full right to privacy” or “I do not want to surrender my privacy rights, in whole or in part”
I suggest that it should be on the list.
Otherwise, IMHO the poll appears unscientific and slanted toward a result of anonymity being the result of cowardice.
And there you have it, Willis.
While it is rather prudence than cowardice, surprisingly many people are simply AFRAID to sign their posts on the skeptical blog with their real names.
That alone speaks volumes about the criminal pervasiveness of the green fascism in our society, and their truly medieval persecution of the truth.
This one is simple (of course there are exceptions), people don’t use their name to post on the internet so they don’t have to worry about the repercussions of being wrong. You can disown any comment if you turn out to be wrong.
However in a community, such as a blog like this, using the same tag over and over means that they don’t know your name, but you are readily identifiable to regulars. So not using your “real” name on here offers little protection from ridicule amongst this set of peers if you always post with the same tag. So I would not be too hard on the regular posters this way.
The trolls who pick a random tag and drop their little rant bombs, are completely safe from ever being called on being wrong. It is why they do it. 99% or more would never express a similar rant under their own name or in person. They are quick to speak their opinion, but too lazy to check their facts. The internet Just gives them a chance to feel like part of the discussion instead of feeling left out. In the end most don’t care about what is right, only to have been involved and part of something.
That is why those who use their real name, Watts or Mann, are at least being honest about their beliefs. They are setting themselves up for being placed in the firing squad when they are wrong……….of course how they respond to their own errors and mistakes speaks volumes about their character.
Willis:
I’ve seen many responses indicating fear of employment retribution, but I need to present the view from the other direction. I am an executive in a company incorporated in the U.S. As such, I am legally responsible for anything I say in public, and anything I say is by definition, company policy. There are several potential negative ramifications of this.
Also, I am legally bound to maintain a workplace free of political pressure, and since belief in AGW is political, not scientific, I would be violating that requirement.
I wanted to use the name ‘Willis Eschenbach’ but somebody beat me to it.
I like to argue both sides in the same thread.
Here’s an example of why some people might want to post anonymously.
http://sppiblog.org/news/political-payback-%E2%80%93-oregon-style
We are basically dealing with a bunch of… hmm… does Nazi even cover it? Maybe some combination of Lysenkoism and that, with self-righteous zealotry thrown in.
Must say, I’m very happy to be old. I simply cannot believe what is happening.
And the Obamites are gearing up to unleash hordes of brainwashed ‘Hansen youth’ this summer so be prepared…
This is one of the best sites on the web for testing ideas and sharing genuinely held views. I would hate to have to forgo that.
I know that those who choose to keep their identity to themselves are seen by some as cowards. Perhaps they see undercover police in the same way. So be it.
I am a sceptical politician within an AGW obsessed administration. I believe I can do more good by relentlessly working away, correcting misconceptions, on the inside; rather than stroking my ego with the grand declaration “this is me”
Been using “derspatz” ala “The Sparrow” for prolly more than a decade and a half now and as a result, have a reputation to live down to and wouldn’t want to disappoint. 🙂
Don’t see the point of changing direction now, especially seeing that, as “derspatz”, so much of my life has been shamelessly shared and spread upon what I call the “internut”.
Also, it is a name I have given and call myself as opposed to what others chose for me and call me. Thus, a libertarian, unfettered & free “choice” kinda thang. Works for me, and bung it on my headstone for all that it really matters.
My “Real” initials are capitalised in my longtime signoff (which I use for everything from birthday cards to work emails to letters to government officials) and one doesn’t need to “Search” (Hi “/Mr Lynn … or is it Mis Stalin ;-)) too hard or far to find that “DS” not only stands for “DerSpatz”, but also “David Sparrow”, the name I posted under during the heady days of FIDOnet which including online discussion with the Late John Daly in the GTNET_SCIENCE echo, oh and later on for some fun newsgroup times involving a stubborn and grumpy old soul called Farrell Till.
With so much of it imprinted upon the internut and so easily “search”able, I don’t think there is all that much daylight between using the name I’ve picked for myself and the one given to me by others that I had no choice about. So I’ll go with my own choice thanks. 🙂
Anyhoo, tis all vanity, isn’t it … and regardless of what nick / tag/ moniker / whatever we choose to put above or after what we say, doesn’t how we choose to say things tend to give us away anyway ?
regarDS
It is much more relaxing to post in an anonymous way. Those that want total control and power over our lives and $trillions in tax money often will have little morals. Communism was the regime of total power, total control and total theft by the political class. It was too the regime of total lie and total hypocrisy and, most important, the regime of TOTAL SADISTIC MURDER -at least 150 million murdered by the sadistic political class-. The hypocrisy and total lie of communism was such that Stalin even removed people from photographs. Too many of them are in this to satisfy their sadistic depraved vice for power, control, and $trillions of our money and have little morals. “Ideology” is too often just a ridiculous excuse for “justifying” pure blattant evil. We know how bolshevism was a regime of pure evil, a lawless society where a small bunch of murders, assasins, robbers and sadists -the political class- could satisfy the most depraved vices for mass murder, total theft, control, power and, most important, sadism.
I used to write a column in my country main newspaper and I know their attacks, their tactics. Too many of them will lie shamelessly. They will too throw the trillons of pseudoscience papers that they write with money they take from people by force, through taxes. They will find any idiotic excuse to throw a lawsuit against you our your family. They will create trillions of idiotic regulations that are impossible to obey and in such way every person can be attacked, because every one is at fault because the regulations and taxes are impossible to comply with. That is particularily true here in the so called “Third World” where I live: Here taxes and regulations are just impossible to comply with, often more than 50% of the population works in the informal sector so everyone can be attacked by the government and bureaucracy, they create tyranny under “legal” ways
I got tired of waking up every morning to see what attacks on me where on the newspaper. I got tired of them making ridiculous lawsuits against members of my family, lawsuits so ridiculous that judges dismiss them. My father did all his life a very brilliant fight against them and he suffered many ridiculous penal lawsuits that of course where dismissed by the judges, but he, my mother, and us we suffered when my dad had to face those ridiculous lawsuits, all of which were dismissed by the judges.
We know how they work. We know how they unite under Chavez, Castro, USSR, Cuba, FARC, Global Warming, United Nations or similar opressive organizations. They want enormous power and control over our lives and $trillions of our money. The extreme ones want the total theft of our property and the sadistic mass murder of us.
I still fight under my real name in the economics pseudoscience area which I know much better than the “climate change” pseudoscience area and my little knowledge of the climate pseudoscience is one of the reasons why I post anonymously. Economics pseudoscience is much much worse than climate pseudoscience. Macroeconomics is a shame to humanity and Economic Science Nobel prize winners often recommend the ruin of countries.
But with blogs like this we are finally, for the first time in human history, demolishing their lies, falsehoods and lack of logic and scientific rigor; almost with no money we are defeating their $trillions & $trillions spent in building pseudoscience.
People like Mr Watts, that so couragoeusly fights them are the people that do most good in the world. My full respect to Mr. Watts and the others that fight for truth, real science and, most important, they fight for people to be respected and for people not becoming total slaves of the nauseating political class
Thanks
Smokey, yep that was a dodge that I’ve come to expect from you guys.
DirkH: yes, ~1.1c of the 3c comes from the direct forcing of a doubling of the CO2 levels. This is as “settled” as anything in science. The rest of the warming is from the varies feed backs ( increased humidity, ice cap melts, cloud cover, methane from permafrost etc)
All of which seems to be supported by the historical record.
http://www.geolsoc.org.uk/webdav/site/GSL/groups/ourviews_edit/public/Climate%20change%20-%20evidence%20from%20the%20geological%20record.pdf
Flat Earther,
I’ve been posting at the “It’s nothing” thread, and waiting for you to respond to my invitation to take our discussion there. Instead, you call my invitation a “dodge.” Care to explain? If so, take it to that thread, because it’s off-topic here – as is your subsequent post.
“Stalking is always a concern to a female”
hmmm, I was stalked by a spaced out woman. A narcissistic poisonous toad from high school. I wish we had never dated.
Flat Eather says:
April 25, 2011 at 5:51 am
Please take this elsewhere. It has no business on this thread.
Thanks,
w.
I wonder whether he intended to call himself “Flat Earther” instead of “Flat Earth”.
dp says:
April 25, 2011 at 7:48 am
I’ve never been an unreliable employee. I just refuse to take jobs without a fixed ending date. Once I take the job it gets done well, on budget, and on time, regardless of the difficulties. My general motto is “Perfect is good enough”, although of course it’s impossible to achieve.
How is that an “unreliable employee” on any planet?
Next, I have a history of alcohol and drug and tobacco and caffeine use. Have I ever “abused” any of those? Sure, most people I know have done so on occasion. But a “history of abuse”? No way. Like the song says,
And when dawn comes, I’m a hard-working man …
Well … not really. First, I posted under my own name before I revealed my early history, so at that time I had “something to hide” and was in the position you describe.
Despite posting under my own name, I do accept that many people have good, 100% valid reasons to post under a pseudonym, and part of my reason in going through this process has been to understand the range and nature of those reasons better. It has been fascinating and useful, and we haven’t even gotten to the poll yet.
So I’m not sure what your complaint is.
You are more than welcome. My apologies for misunderstanding your intent.
w.
If I had kept my RL name anonymous a decade ago on an email list when I spouted my opinions about a relatives climate work, then members of the Hockey Team would not have been able to threaten that relative’s academic career in an attempt to force me to retract my online statements. Those members of the Hockey Team know who they are, and that I have, despite their best efforts, repeatedly denounced such suppression in the decade since then, and is one reason why am today a skeptic, despite once being Al Gore’s posterboy for “reinventing government”.
To those of you who fear some sort of reprisal or punishment or other peer pressure for having your opinions attached to your identity, I understand your fears, for I have lived that experience. I also encourage you to stand up to such bullying tactics, to publicly shame those who practice them, take courage in taking a stand, and know there are many others out there who feel the same way and will stand with you.
“Treason doth never prosper, what is the reason? For if it prosper, non DARE call it treason!” – John Harrington, “The Metamorphosis of Ajax”, 1596
I am one who recognises that treason, like suppression of free speech, only prospers when good people fail to denounce it as unacceptable.
Alexander Feht says:
April 25, 2011 at 11:09 am
Thanks, Alexander. It’s too soon for conclusions yet, and many people have given reasons that have nothing to do with “green fascism”.
w.
Phil’s Dad says:
April 25, 2011 at 2:53 pm
.
WUWT allows pseudonyms, and there are no plans to change that. My upcoming poll has nothing to do with Anthony or WUWT, and everything to do with my ‘satiable curiousity.
w.
Flat Eather says:
April 25, 2011 at 4:15 pm
Hogwash. That was a polite response to my request for you to take the discussion elsewhere. He has said where he will meet you to continue the discussion, and in response you abuse him … as a friend of mine said, “That’s a dodge that I’ve come to expect from you guys.”
w.
Willis Eschenbach says:
. . . WUWT allows pseudonyms, and there are no plans to change that. My upcoming poll has nothing to do with Anthony or WUWT, and everything to do with my ‘satiable curiousity.
As I recall, it’s ‘satiable curtiosity’. Technical term, of course.
Come to think of it, ‘The Elephant’s Child’ would make a great pseudonym. . .
/Mr Lynn
The Winner!
/Mr Lynn
Willis,
Good post & topic.
For me there is just an intellectual integrity motivation for voluntarily using my real identity openly.
John
You guys seem determine to deny the obvious so I thought I’d do the same. I deny the round earth theory. It’s just a theory after all and don’t get me started on that EVILution