Comments on: Hacker News and pseudonymity

By: Steph

Steph — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 19:19:40 +0000

Interesting discussion. But I think that most are looking at the problem from the wrong perspective though. While there is some value in establishing somebody’s identity in terms of encouraging thoughtful discussions, there’s also something to be said for anonymity online. Think of the act of whistle-blowing. Society would be better off if for instance the oil-well employees were able to anonymously call out the executives that forced them to break safety codes or whatnot. Maybe the entire oil spill could have been averted. Vitriol directed towards somebody, in and of itself, isn’t a bad thing if it helps others. Yes, it can be damaging to some. There’s a lot of hate on places like http://www.dirtyphonebook.com that encourage this type of anonymity. But there’s also some social value in the concept of anonymity that I think has yet to be realized. The man cheating on his wife or the woman stealing from her boss, there are situations where the world needs to know about these things but you can’t report tell people without some risk to yourself. There needs to be a good way to do this, IMO. Anonymity is a good thing in certain contexts, even though I think many disagree.

By: Skud

Skud — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 18:04:39 +0000

If you feel safe and comfortable doing so, feel free. Just don’t expect anyone else to.

By: Alan Bell

Alan Bell — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 18:01:37 +0000

I use my real name and photo. Should I?

By: mr3aoj

mr3aoj — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 18:44:28 +0000

Real names are why I no longer contribute to HN. I used submit and comment under my real name and then got groupthinked to -8 (worst possible score) on a couple comments on a thread for expressing a different opinion as politely and non-confrontationally as I could (yeah, obviously I’m biased here, but I don’t want to link it).

So then I had a big “You don’t belong” sticker attached to my real-name profile on the most-respected forum for my profession. Super. I left enough blase comments to push it off the front page and now I don’t contribute anymore, as hard as it can be to resist the urge to link the resource that nobody else knows or share my experience.

Real names raise the stakes of contributing. Increased civility is a common side effect but by no means assured.

By: Skud

Skud — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 08:14:19 +0000

Thanks Mark, good to see you here :)

By: jardenberg kommenterar – 14 Jun, 2010 | jardenberg unedited

jardenberg kommenterar – 14 Jun, 2010 | jardenberg unedited — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 06:40:42 +0000

[...] Hacker News and pseudonymity | Geek Feminism Blog [...]

By: Andy Wingo

Andy Wingo — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 17:52:04 +0000

Er, HN.

By: Andy Wingo

Andy Wingo — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 17:51:07 +0000

Very interesting post, thank you. Don’t know if you recall advogato, but I liked that site a lot, especially because there were no pictures, that I would have to do that words-to-person mapping without much input beyond the words themselves.

I think you did gloss over the socializing aspect of names. True, some people are assholes in person; but attaching names does make them pass a first filter. Still though, I’m convinced by your and Audrey’s defense of pseudonymnity.

I would enjoy hearing your thoughts regarding civility-promoting (loaded word?) mechanisms. I am inclined to think the answer is to split from HM, which has really taken a misogynistic bent lately, especially in submissions.

By: RAWR

RAWR — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 12:12:20 +0000

I’m commenting here and not on HN, because I am a secret girl on HN!

I don’t share your concern about harassment; I am very publicly a girl in other parts of the internet and it doesn’t bother me. Sometimes I like it, because I enjoy it when people insist I am not a girl because I hold such-and-such a viewpoint (which has mostly gone away since I joined 2x on reddit). For some reason this amuses me.

But I like the anonymity on HN because I find it interesting to see how people upvote/downvote and respond to my comments when they believe, for sure, I’m a man. This is unique (among the places I frequent) to HN because it’s so male-dominated.

By: Terri

Terri — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 07:21:02 +0000

I’m one of those people with an uncommon name. Ages ago, I wrote an article about installing linux on my laptop which eventually made it into the giant collection of such articles.

A few years ago, some stranger called me, at work, to ask for help setting up his laptop. Relatively unique name + not hard to find out where I work. Thankfully, he called the main office number and the admin staff was sufficiently suspicious that they ran interference rather than forwarding him directly to me.

Now, asking for laptop help is pretty benign, and if he’d just emailed me I likely would have answered the question. But there are lines, you know? I certainly don’t want strangers calling me at work with completely unrelated questions! I’m not sure the commenting masses really understand those lines very well.