Anonymous wrote:Sounds very Orwellian and I'd love to know what motivation OP has for this suggestion.

Op here, and it's because I'm interested in seeing where most of the negative attitudes and comments from - particularly as it relates to political parties. Why is that wrong? We are always arguing which "side" is the most hateful, and knowing more about whom we're debating would be telling.

Funny though that you are accusing me of some nefarious motivation. So tell me, are you a liberal or a conservative, male or female, young or old?

Sounds very Orwellian and I'd love to know what motivation OP has for this suggestion.

Jeff is so right about the anonymity factor. It is the absolute best thing about DCUM. You can say whatever you want without fear of someone stalking you and finding you and killing you, or whatever.

On the other hand, it does make for some real snark and annoying nastiness. I salute you, Jeff, for mostly handling this aspect of the DCUM experience.

Anonymous wrote:I know you have discovered (or determined) that keeping anonymity among posters increases traffic, but how about when people register, they disclose some broad details about themselves? It would help us ascertain from where attitudes tend to come and put a halt to the fake "as a liberal....as a conservative" posters masquerading as the opposite side to stir up trouble. May I suggest:

- Male or female
- Left. lean left, center, lean right, right
- Broad age group (under 40, over 40)

I'd also like to see white or POC, to see if certain attitudes/values tend to be more common among whites or POC, but I can see where that might be prejudicial. The first three categories above, however, are not.

What say you? Would this be difficult to implement? Or is it a bad idea for a different reason (that I am not aware if)?

Thank you.

Any theories?

Personally: I think it would be fine if I had to have a consistent user name, or maybe I could have one for general comments and a separate, less-doxxable one for posts about my dear child.

My problem is that I've lost track of the ability to keep track of new passwords. I tried to use a password tracker, but I upgraded, lost track of the password for the password tracker, and couldn't get into the password tracker.

If this were technically possible, maybe what would be good would be if the computer assigned people location codes based on
IP addresses. So, say, VA-23A for someone with an IP in Virginia, with the last two digits being in Virginia, and the letter at the end to distinguish between two different VA-23's.

Maybe, to protect users from places like Iran, the location codes for places outside the D.C. area could cover very large areas, to avoid outing users in unusual places.

If that location code showed up automatically, but I could opt out if I wanted:

- People could still have pure anonymity.

- People with bad memories who don't care that much about anonymity could have auto-generated user names without bothering to log in.

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know you have discovered (or determined) that keeping anonymity among posters increases traffic, but how about when people register, they disclose some broad details about themselves? It would help us ascertain from where attitudes tend to come and put a halt to the fake "as a liberal....as a conservative" posters masquerading as the opposite side to stir up trouble. May I suggest:

- Male or female
- Left. lean left, center, lean right, right
- Broad age group (under 40, over 40)

I'd also like to see white or POC, to see if certain attitudes/values tend to be more common among whites or POC, but I can see where that might be prejudicial. The first three categories above, however, are not.

What say you? Would this be difficult to implement? Or is it a bad idea for a different reason (that I am not aware if)?

Thank you.

This would be very intrusive and nobody would do it. DCUM users value the anonymity that DCUM offers. Like it or not, that is a core attraction of our site. Changing that would be sacrificing a competitive advantage we hold over other forums.

OK. It was just a thought. Thanks.

Anonymous wrote:I know you have discovered (or determined) that keeping anonymity among posters increases traffic, but how about when people register, they disclose some broad details about themselves? It would help us ascertain from where attitudes tend to come and put a halt to the fake "as a liberal....as a conservative" posters masquerading as the opposite side to stir up trouble. May I suggest:

- Male or female
- Left. lean left, center, lean right, right
- Broad age group (under 40, over 40)

I'd also like to see white or POC, to see if certain attitudes/values tend to be more common among whites or POC, but I can see where that might be prejudicial. The first three categories above, however, are not.

What say you? Would this be difficult to implement? Or is it a bad idea for a different reason (that I am not aware if)?

Thank you.

This would be very intrusive and nobody would do it. DCUM users value the anonymity that DCUM offers. Like it or not, that is a core attraction of our site. Changing that would be sacrificing a competitive advantage we hold over other forums.

Yes! People should also disclose religion, sexual orientation and legal status. That way we *really* know whether their posts are fake or not.

Anonymous wrote:I know you have discovered (or determined) that keeping anonymity among posters increases traffic, but how about when people register, they disclose some broad details about themselves? It would help us ascertain from where attitudes tend to come and put a halt to the fake "as a liberal....as a conservative" posters masquerading as the opposite side to stir up trouble. May I suggest:

- Male or female
- Left. lean left, center, lean right, right
- Broad age group (under 40, over 40)

I'd also like to see white or POC, to see if certain attitudes/values tend to be more common among whites or POC, but I can see where that might be prejudicial. The first three categories above, however, are not.

What say you? Would this be difficult to implement? Or is it a bad idea for a different reason (that I am not aware if)?

Thank you.

Sorry, my race is irrelevant for the majority of posts. Nobody needs to know that.

I can't imagine that policing this would be any level of pleasant.

Overthinking

Anonymous wrote:That's dumb. Someone could just register with a fake profile. Don't mess with the anonymity. Just assume 50% of the political forum posters are trolls and liars.

Yes, but then they'd have to be fake ALL THE TIME. I am sure that the fake people jump in and out and represent themselves in a number of different personas. This way, they'd have to be consistent at least.

But I'll wait for Jeff's opinion.

That's dumb. Someone could just register with a fake profile. Don't mess with the anonymity. Just assume 50% of the political forum posters are trolls and liars.

I know you have discovered (or determined) that keeping anonymity among posters increases traffic, but how about when people register, they disclose some broad details about themselves? It would help us ascertain from where attitudes tend to come and put a halt to the fake "as a liberal....as a conservative" posters masquerading as the opposite side to stir up trouble. May I suggest:

- Male or female
- Left. lean left, center, lean right, right
- Broad age group (under 40, over 40)

I'd also like to see white or POC, to see if certain attitudes/values tend to be more common among whites or POC, but I can see where that might be prejudicial. The first three categories above, however, are not.

What say you? Would this be difficult to implement? Or is it a bad idea for a different reason (that I am not aware if)?

Thank you.