IMO, anonymity serves 3 purposes:
1. allows the person who hasn't signed in to post (I'd like to think this
is the main reason, but...)
2. it makes flaming easier
3. allows dissenting opinions to avoid down-votes
I would suggest there are many more reasons. Signed participation may have
been curbed for work related reasons. A monk may just wish to opt out of
the XP system and participate in a content-only fashion and anonymity is
the only way to achieve that. A monk may be trying merely to add some
signal to anonymity. Those are just couple of additional reasons off the
top of my head, I am sure there are a number of others.
But lets ask a different question. Why do some people take such issue with
anonymity? I suspect one reason, perhaps the main reason, that
some monks come to dislike anonymity so much is that deep down,
underneath everything else, they really want their downvotes to count
against an individual and not just against a particular node! That
also explains why the only reason they can think of for anonymity is to
hide from just such a retribution.
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Points well taken, but on the other hand I have ++ voted nodes penned by Anonymous Monks. Personally, I don't have huge issues with anonymity, but again, sometimes I just want to see who's doing the talking. No biggie.
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It serves a lot more purposes than that. One of the more obscure purposes is that if current policy is changed without a very good reason, then I will leave. Permanently.
I don't expect you to agree with my reasons. Perhaps it has to do with the fact that I understand community differently from most people. But I consider the reasons that we treat anonymous posters the way that we do a critical bellweather for the health of an online forum. | [reply] |
Thanks for the links. Insightful stuff. One thing I'll say for monks, anonymous or not, is that they are thoughtful, substantiative.
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