If you think this specific case was abusive, then make your case.

I perfectly understand that anonymity isn't absolute, here or elsewhere. But I do think that if anonymity is offered at perlmonks it ought to be with the implied trust that the information necessary to subvert anonymity is not only highly restricted, but that such subversion only be made in extraordinary circumstances. Thus, I think *any* peeking by those with such powers is an abuse of that power unless a case of extraordinary circumstances can be made to justify it.

You may consider the present case to be harmless, especially since the OP didn't seem to mind that their identity was discovered by at least one administrator, but that doesn't lessen the transgression. Violating anonymity should never be done on the basis of not seeing the harm in a particular case, but whether the value of doing so outweighs breaking the expectation of trust (of all). Even if you thought you could provide information the poster might consider valuable, you could just as easily have posted that you could relay that information if they chose to reveal themselves in a private /msg (their choice, not yours).

In short, IMHO, you're asking the wrong side to make their case.

In reply to Re: Re^3: Increased number of downvotes at the Monastery? (anonymity) by Anonymous Monk
in thread Increased number of downvotes at the Monastery? by Anonymous Monk

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.