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previous: SpeedRacer While I don't completely disagree w... -- 3/17/2004 7:52 PM

Re: Irony, anonymity, and civility

3/17/2004 8:31 PM
Mark Hammer	Re: Irony, anonymity, and civility Well hi Joe, nice to finally "meet" you. Seriously. Not sure if this permits me to insert "Like Joe was saying in the earlier post..." on any subsequent threads or not, or whether it will be too confusing. As with any sort of discussion about cause and effect, one always needs to scale expectations about how much of an effect something truly has. Yes, there ARE people who would tear a strip off you for simply asking "I'm going in the kitchen. Can I get you something?", and surprisingly they have not been murdered in their sleep yet (now there's yer proof-o-god ). I imagine anonymity vs FBI-approved name tags will do little to their behaviour, just as there are those who shame us with their capacity to be sweet and thoughtful no matter how burnt the toast or late the bus. A great many more, though, do respond to circumstances, showing different, and sometimes unpleasant, sides of themselves. Certainly, my intent with this thread was NOT to shame anyone. Rather it's more of a cost/benefit analysis. Your own take on this is that the benefits of anonymity (well, personna, really since I assume you are consistently Speedracer apart from the times we all have where we accidentally hit "Send" prematurely) outweigh the costs for you personally. Myself, I rather enjoy being me all the time, and for whatever reasons, the worst thing that has ever happened as a consequence of trying to stick in my name and address was that people sent me attachments that were awkwardly big for my mailbox, or were simply pleasant but still took time to respond to (and neither of these are hardships). At the same time, I think you're quite right that it can be a help sometimes that we don't have cues that might lead us to rush to judgment about others in a prejudicial way. Kind of an "electronic burka" in that I can't tell if someone is younger or older, male or female, Scottish or Polish. That brings a certain equality, but also runs the risk of some losing track of who they need to be considerate of. Pros and cons. Pros and cons. When Brand was being asked about The Well, he conceived of it as an on-line community from the start, rather than as a discussion forum which acquired a sense of community. In that sense, perhaps the abandonment of anonymity in that context is more important and appropriate than here. Oh yeah, I'm a 9 year-old Hindu boy (courtesy of Tom Waits http://www.lyricsdir.com/t/tom-waits/step-right-up.php )

3/17/2004 8:31 PM

Mark Hammer

Re: Irony, anonymity, and civility

Well hi Joe, nice to finally "meet" you. Seriously. Not sure if this permits me to insert "Like Joe was saying in the earlier post..." on any subsequent threads or not, or whether it will be too confusing.

As with any sort of discussion about cause and effect, one always needs to scale expectations about how much of an effect something truly has. Yes, there ARE people who would tear a strip off you for simply asking "I'm going in the kitchen. Can I get you something?", and surprisingly they have not been murdered in their sleep yet (now *there's* yer proof-o-god

). I imagine anonymity vs FBI-approved name tags will do little to their behaviour, just as there are those who shame us with their capacity to be sweet and thoughtful no matter how burnt the toast or late the bus. A great many more, though, do respond to circumstances, showing different, and sometimes unpleasant, sides of themselves.

Certainly, my intent with this thread was NOT to shame anyone. Rather it's more of a cost/benefit analysis. Your own take on this is that the benefits of anonymity (well, personna, really since I assume you are consistently Speedracer apart from the times we all have where we accidentally hit "Send" prematurely) outweigh the costs for you personally. Myself, I rather enjoy being me all the time, and for whatever reasons, the worst thing that has ever happened as a consequence of trying to stick in my name and address was that people sent me attachments that were awkwardly big for my mailbox, or were simply pleasant but still took time to respond to (and neither of these are hardships).

At the same time, I think you're quite right that it can be a help sometimes that we don't have cues that might lead us to rush to judgment about others in a prejudicial way. Kind of an "electronic burka" in that I can't tell if someone is younger or older, male or female, Scottish or Polish. That brings a certain equality, but also runs the risk of some losing track of who they need to be considerate of. Pros and cons. Pros and cons.

When Brand was being asked about The Well, he conceived of it as an on-line community from the start, rather than as a discussion forum which acquired a sense of community. In that sense, perhaps the abandonment of anonymity in that context is more important and appropriate than here.

Oh yeah, I'm a 9 year-old Hindu boy

(courtesy of Tom Waits http://www.lyricsdir.com/t/tom-waits/step-right-up.php )

Replies:

carlo funny... when i see anonymous attac... -- 3/18/2004 3:29 AM