Anonymous or not - Is "fear" stopping postings?
Posted: November 24 2004
Hi all,
We have been discussing again whether cosmocoffee should allow
annonymous postings of some form. The relatively small number of posting compared with registered users suggests it might be useful.
There are two ways this could be done:
(1) Anyone arriving at the site can post immediately. This allows rapid exchanges and low hassle, but might be noise-dominated.
(2) Users must still register and log in but can then post annonymously using a pseudonym.
Why would annon. posting be useful? I think the biggest reason for me is that it may encourage
people who currently would like to post but are afraid of looking stupid or making a fool of themselves.
The people most likely to be affected this way are people who dont know the regular posters
personally (i.e. new students and third world scientists) and who arguably have the most to gain
from asking questions at cosmocoffee.
Personally I favour the option of annoymous posting (I have lots of stupid questions!)...
What do people think? (Of course if I am right the people who reply to this are likely
to disagree since they feel no fear in posting - posting bias!)
A different but related issue is that of which email addresses are valid for new users. Currently yahoo addresses are excluded I believe, a policy which again excludes many third-world scientists who use hotmail/yahoo emails as their default mail due to very slow connections via their university and are functional on the internet only via internet cafes.
I personally favour an inclusive approach. If later a problem arises with large numbers of "random" posting from yahoo accounts then the policy could change. (Needless to say I am against the new "endorsement system" at the archives).
Just my 2c
Cheers,
Bruce
We have been discussing again whether cosmocoffee should allow
annonymous postings of some form. The relatively small number of posting compared with registered users suggests it might be useful.
There are two ways this could be done:
(1) Anyone arriving at the site can post immediately. This allows rapid exchanges and low hassle, but might be noise-dominated.
(2) Users must still register and log in but can then post annonymously using a pseudonym.
Why would annon. posting be useful? I think the biggest reason for me is that it may encourage
people who currently would like to post but are afraid of looking stupid or making a fool of themselves.
The people most likely to be affected this way are people who dont know the regular posters
personally (i.e. new students and third world scientists) and who arguably have the most to gain
from asking questions at cosmocoffee.
Personally I favour the option of annoymous posting (I have lots of stupid questions!)...
What do people think? (Of course if I am right the people who reply to this are likely
to disagree since they feel no fear in posting - posting bias!)
A different but related issue is that of which email addresses are valid for new users. Currently yahoo addresses are excluded I believe, a policy which again excludes many third-world scientists who use hotmail/yahoo emails as their default mail due to very slow connections via their university and are functional on the internet only via internet cafes.
I personally favour an inclusive approach. If later a problem arises with large numbers of "random" posting from yahoo accounts then the policy could change. (Needless to say I am against the new "endorsement system" at the archives).
Just my 2c
Cheers,
Bruce