Yeah, I don't see how this was "an extreme measure". Maybe you could convince me of it, but I'm not even close at this point. I do take anonymity very seriously.

What concerns me is simply the principle of anonymity. Either it is taken very seriously (as you say you take it to be) or it is not. Had this site never offered anonymity that would be fine. There are other forums I participate in that do not offer anonymity, it isn't a big deal.

But if a site does offer anonymity, and takes it seriously, what does "taking it very seriously" mean? I say taking it very seriously means acknowledging that anonymity is the choice of the anonymous party --- anonymity belongs (in the essential sense) to the anonymous party and not to anyone elses good judgement. Taking it seriously means acknowledging that *any* breaking of anonymity (whether you believe it to be harmless or to be in the interest of the anonymous party) merits the term "violation", and should only be considered under extreme circumstances (of which I still cannot think of any in the context of perlmonks that would necessitate such a breach). Anything less is pretense.

In other words, and please don't take this wrong way: if I can't have anonymity from you I don't really have it at all do I? Obviously, in order to do the behind-the-scenes work you and others do around here (I haven't said thanks lately, thanks), you have necessary access to certain private information. But my point is this: Anonymity and privacy aren't discretionary powers to be held by the granting authority, rather, actually granting anonymity and privacy always --- and by nature --- involves a relenquishing of such power (at least in principle, even if only in trust). And this is where we seem to differ in principle at the moment.

You asked:

So are you concerned that a couple of gods might connect your non-anonymous monk name with some nodes that you posted anonymously and therefore you wish to no longer use the site?

I'll answer a slightly different question, because the question of my participation isn't predicated on a fear of being discovered. If you stated that you understand and agree with my position and consider anonymity to be inviolate except in extreme circumstances, and all the powers that be agreed to abide by such a policy, I would have no problem trusting in that policy (that had essentially been my tacit understanding all along). If, on the other hand, you stated that you still felt that anonymity is something you or other gods are free to breach at your discretion and judgement on a case-by-case basis, then yes, I would regrettably cease participation.

In reply to Re: Re^7: Increased number of downvotes at the Monastery? (violation) 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.