Personally, I don't like the practice and feel it's disrespectful to the community. If I'm not willing to sign my posts, then I shouldn't post in the first place. There is no shame in making an honest mistake. I'll admit that I'm not proud of all my nodes, but I'm willing to live with the results of my actions and perfectly willing to take the down votes with the up votes.

As I understand it, many other monks feel similarly. Well, perhaps it's better to say that many of the monks I respect feel that way.

Update (in reply to adamsj): I don't mind it when people do so accidentally or before they obtain a login handle; however, I personally don't like it when folks deliberately log out to post something. That's the practice I don't like. Of course, anonymous trolling is just plain wrong.

--f

Of course, the practice mentioned above does result in signed nodes--they just aren't associated with the username in the database.

Does that make a difference--a pseudonymous post versus a truly anonymous post?

adamsj

They laughed at Joan of Arc, but she went right ahead and built it. --Gracie Allen

I've posted anonymously when I had something to say that I didn't want associated with me. I can think of lots of reasons to do that, none of which have anything to do with XP.

• There is a great deal about my current job that I would only ever post anonymously just because I don't ever want the chance of something "becoming an issue" with my employer.
• You already mentioned "shame" (for example, if a discussion about cracking came up, I probably wouldn't discuss my serious compromises of network security at previous government employees except anonymously ;).
• I've stated opinions that I worried might sound different if they "came from tye".
• I made one joke that I feared might be "disturbing", in part to see if anyone would vote for it (several did).

And there are other cases as well. I don't do it often and I don't think cowardice has much to do with it.

When someone chooses to remain anonymous, the cry of "coward" and "what do you have to hide?" often crops up. To me, these rank about equal to school kids shouting "chicken". There are lots of good reason to remain anonymous. Sure, there are some stupid ones too.

Legal reasons (such as posting about something distasteful to your employer, or confession to an act of treason) are, i think, clearly good times to not post with your name attached. but is there a good reason to post it at all? perhaps. i certainly won't object to someone posting anonymously under those conditions, but i do think it deserves a second thought before posting at all.

but things that might sound different if they came from you ... are you worried about affecting the statement's credibility, or your own? i can't speak for everyone here, but i certainly try to respect the opinion on its own grounds rather than base that decision on the author (which is, in fact, why large sigs annoy me; i can ignore the author link until i'm done reading, but some sigs are too obvious). and in a close call, i'm more likely to trust you than an Anonymous Monk. so please elaborate on that reason.

As for any humorous node, whether the set-up for a joke, or a potentially disturbing joke, i think that AMhood is acceptable if it makes the joke funnier, but in general, i'd rather know who posted it. for instance, i'm very curious who wrote perl for bottoms, because i think it shows skill, even if it isn't what everybody wants (and hey, no poetry is to everyone's taste).

hm. i was supposed to ask, not answer... ah, well.

The author of perl for bottoms joined after posting that, but I'll let them choose to identify themselves or not.

If I post anonymous stuff about my current job, that doesn't mean I'm going to post inappropriate things. For example, recently someone admitted (pardon me for not finding the reference, I don't think the details matter much) that they had the Perl CD bookshelf inproperly shared at work. I might post such an admission anonymously simply because I wouldn't trust all of the employees at my current place of work to understand the nuances of such a public statement. I wouldn't name my employer and part of the reason for posting anonymously is that I don't assume that it is impossible to figure out who my current employer is just because I have never mentioned them. I have no desire to draw the attention of lawyers in my company's employ, no matter how unwarranted that attention might be.

Regarding humor: tye is not really me. I am both more and less than that (mostly more, I hope). Many of the details of my taste in humor are not shared by tye. This is a public forum and some things that I find funny are not appropriate for a public forum (actually, many of them aren't appropriate much of anywhere and they just have to bounce around in my head making me smirk). Once I had a funny thought that I wasn't sure was appropriate or not. It wasn't so bad that I felt "wrong" making it public. But I didn't want it associated with tye. I also didn't want a saint making such a joke. You can be curious all you want to but it will just cause you frustration. A little mystery in life is a good thing.

Regarding "coming from tye": If I make a wild speculation about something, I may do it anonymously as I don't want too much merit placed on the speculation just because "it came from tye" (such as because I'm a saint).

Also, I may post something simple akin to "I think you are overreacting" but do it anonymously because I have previously criticized that person and don't want people to assume that I'm just picking on them. This case is something that I only do after careful consideration. It is too easy to pick on someone but convince yourself that you aren't picking on them but that everyone else will think that you are... And if I chose to do this, it would only be small, low-key content. Flaming someone anonymously isn't something I do.

        - tye (but my friends call me "Tye")

Plus, I wanted to see what an Anonymous Monk sees when he posts a top-level question.

but why don't you want that XP? you're already a saint, so it doesn't much matter whether you get the XP or not, but i don't see why you would want to not get it. both Help Yourself or Help Others? and Confessional are good posts; i'm glad to see them. so what's wrong with getting the credit you deserve associated with them?

One advantage is that it protects you from the accusation of "XP whore". A minor benefit, sure. Actually, saving the Monastery from having to listen to an accusation of "XP whore" is probably a larger benefit. (:

        - tye (but my friends call me "Tye")

Hmm... Acting as not themeselves?

As in acting as if they were on the internet, using an alias instead of their own names or email address?

I humbly put it to you that most of us here are acting under pseudonyms 100% of the time we are on-line.

I also summise that a number of us have multiple accounts, myself excluded (then again nobody can disprove this).

Tis true, this is a community. Tis also true that we are not who we think we say we are. If we want some improved accountability, then we should include the IP address of the sender as well as the sender's email address in the authentication and in the postings scripts. But we don't want to do that because we want a measure of anoymity.

Are we not in a quandry in this case? We wish to remain quasi-anonymous, but we want to be able to track others down. This quandry can even lead to some funny scenarios such as one I recently experienced. In posting a node with a humorous punchline about working with French people, I got slammed by a fellow monk for attacking people. This was of course ironic because I am French, and that he is not, and his taking offense at my comment shows the depth of annonymity here. We do not know who we are dealing with, but we create our own illusions about the image others wish to reflect of themeselves.

Let's not get too pretentious and let others use the level of anonymity they are comfortable, as we desire for ourselves.

--Hackmare.
(If you actually want to know who I am, a small effort will do.)

• that someone feels something is worth posting but cares so much about XP that he must post anonymously
• that anyone would down-vote due to disagreement vs. quality of post
• that anyone would cares about the first two items to even comment on it. i guess in some recursive way i'm condemning myself. (too bad i can't -- my own node :) )

I certainly appreciated the helpful responses I received, which leads me to another question: What are your expectations wrt thank-you's?

I sometimes post a "thank you" when I can include a working code snippet that shows how my original question was resolved.  
    cheers,
    Don
    striving toward Perl Adept
    (it's pronounced "why-bick")

I think ybiC is on the right track. I guess I don't particularly mind thank you nodes, but they don't really do anyone much good. You can accomplish the same task by sending a /msg or two. However, if you're able to thank someone and show the resolution of your problem, I think you've added a great deal to the monastery.

Take a look at this node that ran a while ago. It starts with a problem, then, a few monks offer possible solutions, and it ends with a fully integrated solution for everyone to see and review. If anyone ever runs into this problem in the future, hopefully, they'll stumble across this node and see the solution process along with the solution sitting right in front of them.

If you really want to thank someone, show them how you used their solution. I'm sure they'll be happy to see that they were able to help.

- Sherlock

Skepticism is the source of knowledge as much as knowledge is the source of skepticism.

++

update: by which i mean, that's all the thanks i expect for a helpful answer.

$good_joke++;
$bad_joke--;
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