In a world of net anonymity with government high-ups and international groups lobbying for Internet “driver’s licenses,” the issue of absolute anonymity on the Internet is becoming a rehashed and bored topic.
But absolute anonymity on the Internet is not always a good thing. It is easy to be a soulless, anonymous, lurker stepping into the light to weigh in, but never removing your mask.
However, you should.
The power of a comment on a Web site, forum, message board or even an e-mail is magnified tenfold if it has a first name or nickname. And indefinitely more with a first and last name. The gravity of the comment becomes more real to human perception. Rather than just the inane ramblings of a nameless coward slinking in the shadows, your opinion will be taken more seriously.
Because of this, many forums require you to register and have a unique username to identify yourself with. This allows people to get a feel for you and, sometimes, even get to know you on the Internet, for what that’s worth.
If you write well thought-out comments, add ideas, or contribute to the conversation in any meaningful way, using a name adds credence to your net persona, as well as what you have to say. Future posts that may be more radical will be taken more seriously, and you’ll be doing yourself a favor. After all, if you care enough to write something, well, why not take credit for it?
If you are too embarrassed of a comment and it is not well thought-out enough to put your name on, should you really be wasting everyone else’s time with it? If I could have all the hours of my life back that I spent reading useless, asinine, trollish, trash comments, I’m not sure what I would do with them. Build a better mousetrap, I guess.
Every comment from an anonymous user is vetted through a brand new lens by spectators and is assumed to have just wandered in out of the wild. Every anonymous comment must be assumed to be from a stranger and treated with incredulity — and most likely a dialogue will not start up as the return poster will assume you will not return.
“Anonymous” is synonymous with trolling and lack of personal investment or well thought-out ideas. It should be saved for the sort of person who leaves one inflammatory line and then never returns, so that in future reading one may simply gloss over anything from “anonymous,” as I am wholly wont to do.
That’s not to say that one’s safety should not be considered when one posts on the Internet. Appropriate caution should be used at all times when giving out your name on the Internet, which is why I think it’s important to have a handle or nickname ensuring that, although people may not know you, they at least can correlate your ideas to a name and know the same person is behind these comments for better or for worse. If it is important and you feel safe enough, a full name empowers any post.
There is a real problem with this topic on the Oregon Daily Emerald’s Web site, where the majority of the comments, while useful and meaningful, are anonymous. There is clearly a chorus singing out against the Pacifica Forum, but they are all anonymous. If you want to take a stance on this issue, for example, some sort of moniker will help you and your comment stand out. For all we know, the fleet of anonymous commenters could all be the same person, or even the same few people ­— there is no way to gauge how many people are actively adding to the commentary. Because of this, whatever side they are on is ultimately deflated. The majority of the pro-Pacifica commenters put some kind of moniker, and when they repeatedly post, you know what entity you are conversing with and there’s no trying to guess which anonymous person left which post and responded to which other post.
The Internet’s a big, wild frontier, but with a little bit of nomenclature, it becomes much more accessible for us — and all the lonely nameless comments.
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