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.
There is no mention of those who choose to be anonymous in order to subvert and confuse readers. Trolling should be included in the survey.
Y’know, Willis, I’m a great fan and I’ve done a lot of thinking about this and similar arguments in your previous posts.
You do make a good point about standing behind a comment and I have often thought I should be proud to append my real name to comments I leave here, after all, in letters I’ve had published in The Times and the Daily Telegraph, I have no qualms. But that said, what’s in a name (a rose…..etc)? My (real) name is merely a collection of letters that in our Western society is recognisable as a ‘true’ name, whereas my blog name is….a collection of letters – albeit, some that I hope with the additional word: ‘science’, add a little light relief. In any case, if I signed my comments with John Philips, you would know I am lying but readers would assume it to be my name. Where does that get us?
So for all that, the string of letters that people use to identify their comments as theirs are merely that: identifiers. You (or Anthony) know their real and genuine id and as their blog names are ‘constants’ their contributions can be tracked and identified as belonging to an individual.
I post anonymously for the same reason I do not “Register” a gun.
Willis, I blog under a pseudonym because my son is bipolar and I post about it sometimes. The pseudonym is because while the stigma of mental illness isn’t what it used to be, it’s still present.
Willis:
I’m surprised you wouldn’t understand the need to post anonymously. In the days of usenet, when one could post through proxies and be completely hidden, some very nasty people did some very nasty things. It is less common on a site such as this, where it is not possible to be anonymous.
Do a search of Richard Scoville.
Hence: “I post anonymously to avoid personal, real life attacks by ‘trolls’.”
Willis – my response is generic and not directed at you or your poll specifically. It is to the question itself. People have reasons and needs to minimize their exposure particularly when the subject matter is controversial. We should not be endlessly queried as to why.
The “nasty” is a pre-emptive shot to those who make absurd claims of cowardly anonymous postings. I hadn’t read all the posts, but just now did a scan and sure as hell there are some dim bulbs playing the coward card. To them I repeat – get over it.
Clearly this is a topic I’ve waded through in the past and find it ridiculous in the same vein as birthers and other unbudging forms of zealotry. It is tiresome to have to explain a perfectly normal behavior. Its the Al Franken reflex. “You have not broken any laws but we want you to explain yourself, anyway!”
Privacy is a right (and, BTW, software should be free!).
Some of us are obsessive about privacy (I Google myself and extirpate, as far as possible, any references). Even my email, although it works, contains nothing relevant and has multiple anonymous cut-outs, and I post from anonymous proxy IP addresses.
This obsession goes well beyond fears of identity theft or internet fraud. It may be a partly a hang-over from early days on discussion boards, where
a) distasteful (at least to me) views were expressed and I didn’t care to be associated with them (my employer, also, was quite PC ….. & ruthless)
b) I needed anonymity and multiple personæ to harry someone (a close relative had been badly mistreated) – worked a treat!
Thus I learnt all the tricks. Still use ’em. Have had to explain myself (anonymously!) to wide-awake blog owners/moderators H/T EMSmith aka Chiefio.
PSolar also has it right in distinguishing anonymity from a pseudonym nom-de-plume or alternative identity).
I suppose I would add ‘obsession with privacy’ to your list.
I work in an unrelated field, for a quite open-minded boss, and like being known for my ideas (& have been around on the Usenet newsgroups forever, also using my real name). Thus I only rarely use a pseudonym, and then mostly when my post is intended not to be taken seriously.
Willis,
‘anopheles’ has a good point – there is [a vast, a tiny, some] difference between posting anonymously and using a pseudonym. Posting anonymously would be using a different ‘not your real’ name each time you post, or on each thread, or blog. A pseudonym used regularly/consistently is ‘you’ for all intents and purposes, even if it does not match the name on one’s birth certificate, passport, or driver’s license.
In that sense, I have used a pseudonym since I was three years old – a nickname that appears here – but, alas, with apologies to my late mother – is not the one I was given at birth, which I have never in memory used, except as required by law.
Maybe this should be clarified in your poll – to you mean anonymous? or do you mean ‘using a pseudonym’ or ‘web handle’?
DireWolf
April 24, 2011 at 1:22 am
I simply enjoy putting forward an identity that says more about me than my name.
###
Same here, but I have other reasons, and my “handle” is a clue to what those might be 🙂
AlanG & others – look at pipl.com. They already aggregate all the interwebs information about specific names. A ‘John Smith’ or a ‘Murphy’ or a ‘Müller’ are probably OK.
Pascvaks couldn’t be more wrong. Catch me if you can!
Julian in Wales tells the reader something about me, especially on interentional blogs like WUWT, Julian Williams is just a name I sahre with about 500 other people. But I often use Julian Williams on UK political blogs or when I am attacking the rubbish I read in newspapers.
I don’t want to hide, I want to stand up to the madness, however I try not tell customers who buy my products about my political opinions. Mostly because my business is not doing well enough to risk losing customers.
“I am retired, and don’t care if people read what I post.”
This one is more complex than mere issues of bravery or cowardice. When I was employed as a corporate executive, any public opinion I might express under my name would be attributed to my company. I was 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.
Now that my tongue has been unlashed from the corporate mast, I’m a veritable blabbermouth. It also helps to be old enough, especially in California, that the social stigma of espousing unpopular opinions no longer really stings.
This is the first blog I ever commented upon.
I stumbled onto it about 2 years ago.
Most comments where made by people with obviously anonymous “handles”,
I thought it was the norm.
So I dreamed one up, now it seems to be too late to change it.
I think “anonymity” probably encourages participation, possibly too much, as quite a few of my comments can attest.
I will add a little more to my previous post.
Pseudonyms have had a long and honorable position in America—and in Britain among other places. All anonymous authors have reasons that matter to them. And all authors—even writing under their own names—are anonymous unless they are personally known to you. The personal name or title of a stranger gives their discussion no more currency than the value of the argument they provide.
I will say this about personal attacks: they add absolutely no value to any discussion. Mr. Watts, on this blog, usually warns posters. On my own blogs, I delete personal attacks summarily and without comment. I don’t engage in personal attacks, and don’t allow anyone to use my forum as a stage to snipe, either under their own name or from behind the cover of the anonymity of the internet.
I will quote A North-American (psuedonym of John Dickinsen):
OK S.
Willis I think you’re asking an unimportant question.
In Ender’s Game, Ender’s siblings Peter and Valentine Wiggin post as Locke and Demosthenes and change the world. This change would not be possible if anyone had realised these were kids under 10 years old. Ideas are useful or they are not. It matters not if the writer is male, female, black, chinese, 8, or 65.
Anonymity is a bad thing only if you use different monikers daily and/or use these to shill for yourself. I have no idea what the real name of Snoop Dogg is but he sticks with this enough that one can ID his work — i.e. I know who he is when I see him in a TV show; it doesn’t matter what his name really is.
If an anon moniker is used consistently, real names aren’t important.
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.
Willis –
I used to post on this site including my city and country after my name. Some participants on a thread took exception to a remark I made, and started trying to track down who I was, in a manner I found intimidating. So I stopped adding the city and country bit. Were something like this to happen again, I would consider using a pseudonym.
I don’t think this fits the “trouble at…” categories that you have listed. It is something like intimidation per se, rather than trouble with people or organisations that you know.
All the best.
“I’m not even half as paranoid as I should be” – John Silver 2011
My half-brother found me.
Steve from rockwood says:
April 24, 2011 at 5:54 am
Definitely. My experience is that people are nastier, meaner, and less thoughtful when they are posting anonymously … myself included.
w.
Jimash says:
April 24, 2011 at 6:58 am
This thread has been an eye-opener for me. As to thinking less of you, no way, I’m not doing this to make people right or wrong. I post under my own name, but it is a decision that everyone must make for themselves. I was just interested in why people choose anonymity … and I’m definitely getting my education in that regard …
w.
Authoritarianism is the antithesis of science.
On the Internet, nobody knows I’m a dog.
Dear Willis
In particular the AGW climate change climate disruption etc which is covered in this blog has polarized a lot of science outside climate science too. I happen to have a son who is also a scientist and he has no need of a vociferous on controversial subjects retired mother 🙂 . Even though I have a web page in greek that clearly states my views and give lectures when asked about AGW NOT, greek is not a wide spread language :). So the relative anonymity of pseudonyms allows me more freedom of expression on this and similar boards with large audiences.
The problem is one of endurance and archiving.
If I say something silly in public it is soon forgotten.
If I write something silly in a forum it is retained for ever.