You're like the smartest kid in class, Robert. You come up with the best answer first, and then nobody has anything to say anymore ;-) - Rubin Sfadj
And no ability to create some anonymity would make it harder for people to speak on the internet from within repressive governments. For example, bloggers in Iran or China. They have a hard enough time getting around the existing blocks. Sometimes anonymity has good uses. - Tim Finucane
@Rubin Sfadj (rubin): Do Laura means THE rule to be observed or the indeniable fact? - directeur
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I agree with no anonymity but expanded to say people have to own what they say online. - Trish R
Anonymity while annoying at times serves a purpose. I hate it, but we need it to get certain things done. How many news stories that you (Scoble) or Arrington have broke would not have been available without it. - Cody Heitschmidt
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Lack of anonymity will work well when we have a whole range of ways to filter and channel our messages to the people & groups we want, where privacy is a robust system under our individual control. There are also cases in gaming and some online worlds where you would want to be able to create alternate identities. - Dean Terry
My rule would be "No Rules"! Horrible things can happen when there are no rules. But nothing can happen when there are too many rules. - Cody Heitschmidt
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If we're talking about the Internet then IRC is part of the Internet. And IRC is about nicks and netiquette. Still wonder why people think that socnets created the "communication"... Many people used and still communicate on IRC. So my #1 rule would be netiquette. Yes, that old RFC http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc18... which states that we should respect people's use of "nicks" - directeur
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Anthony I gave you a rule that I would like to have but would be impossible to enforce. That is the best kind of rule. And as to Chinese. The best dissidents are those that stand up and sign their names. - Robert Scoble
good change always takes courageous leadership. That means signing your name. - Robert Scoble
@directeur: It's an undeniable fact. - Rubin Sfadj
Scoble I don't want to be one of your "Blocked Jerks" but that last comment was ignorant. Dissidents in a lot of places that sign their names are still hung in the public square. Anonymity is a needed thing. I don't like it either but to say the best dissidents have to release their identity is pretty disrespectful to a lot of folks who have accomplished a lot of things because of their secrecy - Cody Heitschmidt
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Robert: hm, just wanted to clarify. Even were it enforceable, I hate the idea. - Anthony Citrano
The best policy you can extract for the "no anonimity" rule is: If you want to keep if secret, keep it offline. - Rubin Sfadj
Many who have fought for freedom have remained anonymous til the time was right. Scoble, I think your just plain wrong. - Tim Finucane
Robert, I'm in agreement with you on the anonymity thing. People, look at any blog, forum, social network, etc and you'll see that it's the anonymous jerks who bring the quality of the place down. By and large, the people who sign their real names to what they contribute usually make the best contributions. The anonymous people are usually the ones saying "fu@k you" because they figure without using their real name, they can't be held accountable for their comments. - Paul Short
Paul, I'm saying "Fu@k You" to absolute anonymity, and my identity isn't hidden. Blows a hole in that theory. - Tim Finucane
I too concur with Robert. One must take a stand and be accountable for their actions on the internet...no hiding here! Leadership is either present or woefully lacking. - Susan Beebe
@Tim Cool. Now, I can respect your opinion. - Paul Short
Robert, maybe not won, but certainly started in anonymity. And battles aren't won without a start. - Tim Finucane
The real problem here is a rule of absolutism, with no room for exceptions. I certainly don't need to hide, and I don't. - Tim Finucane
@Tim that's the essense of my blog response, I think - that most of us here have the luxury of talking that way. Many people don't, and we ought to be trying to enable their speech, not squelch it. - Anthony Citrano
How about our own revolution war and independence, years of secrecy before they got enough hidden support to sign the declaration of independence. The battle against slavery, the underground railroad, every War that ever depended on any type of espionage. The underground movements in Nazi occupied Europe before Europe was liberated. Watergate being disclosed to the public. Any News story ever that was led into with the words a unidentified source. Every time a terrorist plot stopped by anonymous source. - Cody Heitschmidt
No names, ever. Anonymity should be the expected state. After all, I, as a reader, don't care what your name is. Honesrly, I don't care who you are at all except insofar as I can validate your consistency. Identity is a ephermal static online, as it should be. Change your IDENTITY every 5min online and you garner no egoboo and thus no expectation of interest, but I don't need to know WHO YOU ARE to judge WHAT YOU SAY. I'm smart enough to figure out things on my own. Telling me you think I don't need / deserve / want anonymity just tells me you've got an essential disconnect between understanding identity (and its plastic nature online) and the development of community. In a sense, I suppose that the 'Chans are the cannoniacal counter-example that Anonymity Is Bad(tm)(c) in terms of creating and maintaining community. - Alexander Williams
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Anonymity is a horrible thing when people come onto twitter/ff/whatever and say stupid shit just because they can hide behind a cloak. Anonymity is an essential part of any fight against oppression. It always starts with some sort of secrecy and has to - Cody Heitschmidt
Cody, exactly. Many revolutions start in anonymity. Robert's viewpoint is one based on the relative luxury we live in within the USA. We do not face the battles others in this world do. - Tim Finucane
To really work, no anonymity would have to be in the sense of full non-optional and automatic disclosure. Like webcams on everybody 24/7 that everybody can look at. If everybody's in on the same terms, I could live with it. - Flemming Funch
I think people fail to see anonymity as a tool. There are some who abuse it and there are some who dont. In some countries, anonymity is paramount. Racist chatters on Yahoo!, yes they need to be accountable, but when one person decides to go against government controlled thought, it would be an easy flame for the government to snuff out. - Colby Olson
Colby, and like all tools, it can be used for good or evil. Rules of absolutism with no room for exceptions never work. Look at the current war on drugs, or prohibition. - Tim Finucane
Cody, I think you made a good point by dragging the argument into the real world. Sure, if *nothing* In Real Life was anonymous, if you were tracked every second, your every word and keystroke recorded, you could probably eliminate a lot of crime! But you've just wiped out privacy, too. I don't think Robert sees this as a problem because he thinks we are headed to a state where privacy is dead. When you yourselves are Twittering about your every move, does it really matter if Big Brother is watching too? - Karim
It's a hard problem that is discussed a lot lately, from the FISA bill to the latest Batman movie. - Karim
Troll free zone; zero tolerance for insensitive, mean-spirited personal attack. - Dave Hussein Martin
The problem is when it is only the people who choose to speak or act that can't hide behind anonymity. Whereas your audience stays mostly anonymous and can scheme against you behind your back. It should work in all directions. No lurking. No outing of anybody else without being outed yourself. Until that's technically possible, anonymity will sometimes be a very good thing, allowing individuals to stand up against tyranny, without immediately being shot down. - Flemming Funch
This is a great discussion, I firmly believe that the only answer is "No Rules". All of the bad things that we hate happen because the morons and jerks have the same freedoms we do. That is a negative aspect of freedom, but one we must deal with. - Cody Heitschmidt
One beautiful thing about the Internet is that if you really wanted a walled garden with no anonymity, where everyone would have to be verified with the same credentials required to obtain a passport or driver's license, you could build that, and nobody could stop you. - Karim
Don't use "it's" when you mean "its." - Chris Johnson
Jacob Burkhardt: "The essence of tyranny is the denial of complexity" - Flemming Funch
Another thing to keep in mind is that what we think of as "anonymity" might be so much illusion. There are political prisoners sitting in jails in various countries who found out the hard way that their anonymous communications weren't anonymous. You can annoy people all day, but piss off a national government, and you might find out how little real anonymity there actually is. - Karim
@Karim which reminds me of the Voltaire quote, "it is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong." - Anthony Citrano
Weird, there's a Colby (me) and a Cody here. Too close, my friend, too close. - Colby Olson
