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Replies on anonymity and other topics | |
January 08th, 2018 | |
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On Anonymity: | |
Many folks around gopherspace [0-3] have been talking about | |
anonymity or pseudoanonymity in their online profiles, phlogs, | |
blogs, etc. I walked into this one with one opinion and have made | |
a complete turnaround since. | |
I don't use an anonymous handle here on SDF. My username is my | |
last name. You can see my first name if you hit my about [4] page. | |
I prefer to associate my real identity with the activites I do | |
here because I feel like it helps add to the public representation | |
of who I am. It may help me with social networking and potentially | |
even employment one day. | |
That being said, I have a lot of activity I do online that isn't | |
under this identity. I tools in place for creating easy throw-away | |
accounts, and I have invested a great deal of time in building up | |
robust, persistent identities that are sufficient to provide me | |
anonymity against all but the strongest state-level actors. I use | |
them for... well, if I told you that would weaken them. | |
I love the idea of anonymity in principle, but I have seen how | |
easy it is for that freedom to become an excuse for disruptive and | |
poisonous behavior. The things people will say when there's no | |
name attached can be downright horrific. Is that worth the cost? | |
I really don't know how I feel to make a solid decision. | |
I do know that pseudo anonymity is helpful in protecting against | |
the anonymous actions of others, like SWATing. It can also prevent | |
prejudice from entering a community dynamic. The work stands for | |
itself, right? That's the idea at least, and I think that's | |
a happy medium. | |
If you have an identity, even a false one, and you must act and | |
share and communicate with that identity, then it gains value to | |
you over time. It also gains peer status as others get to know | |
you. If ZeLibertineGamer, or solderpunk, or jynx communicate with | |
me, I have a basis for understanding where that communication is | |
coming from. It has context. If they were to do something or say | |
something that the community found unfit, there's an identity that | |
would suffer the social consequences. It may not be a person with | |
an address, but there is a community cost nontheless. In that way, | |
our pseudo-identities gain some of the social value and costs that | |
our real identities do, but without the personal risk. I think | |
that's a really great middle ground. | |
When I walked into the first of these phlog posts I was on the | |
side of "just use your real identity". You are all great at making | |
you case. | |
On Gophermaps and formatting: | |
This is mostly in reference to pet84rik [5], but it applies to | |
everyone. I don't believe there's a right way or a wrong way to | |
gopher. You can put up whatever you like in whatever format. Ulcer | |
has a super intricate system of phlogging and tag cross-links. | |
I make heavy use of gophermaps for linking but otherwise do things | |
fairly manual. Cat lovingly crafts everything by hand. Some people | |
just drop text files in a directory and it's up to us to parse it. | |
That's the crux. If you put something up here, some people will go | |
through the effort to read it and others wont. If you don't use | |
gophermaps that might be a barrier for some people. If you want to | |
cater to them and make it easy, that's cool. Gopher readers are | |
pretty resourceful. We'll figure it out. | |
Welcomes: | |
A big welcome to jebug29 and gunnarfrost. Glad to see your stuff. | |
You're not shouting into a void; we're reading. | |
Cookbook: | |
Finally, a big shout out to jandal who has put up a really cool | |
Gopherspace Cookbook [6]. My recipes are included and a bunch more | |
from all around the place. It's been helpful in discovering new | |
phlogs as well. Thanks, jandal. Great work. Maybe more people will | |
share their recipes in the future. | |
[0] Solderpunk - Pseudonymity woes | |
[1] slugmax - reply to ... | |
[2] psztrnk - Re: Pseudonymity | |
[3] Ze Libertine Gamer - re: anonymity | |
[4] My Gopher About page | |
[5] pet84rik - Gopherspace | |
[6] Gopherpsace Cookbook |