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There's a difference between anonymity of a user to other users, and tools being used by the administration to track and deny bad actors. Besides, i'm pretty s

There's a difference between anonymity of a user to other users, and tools being used by the administration to track and deny bad actors. Besides, i'm pretty sure HN can track people across accounts as well, and if it hasn't banned proxies yet, then only because they haven't been abused enough.

Jerry2 11y ago
How is using a default name like Anonymous or "Anonymous Coward" (or some other default name on other sites) different from making a throwaway? Making a throwaway might take you few seconds longer but to an admin, it's exactly the same thing. Your IP is tracked in both cases. It's just that "Anonymous" username is EXTREMELY DECEPTIVE since you're NOT ANONYMOUS at all!
- provingmypoint 11y ago
  OK, here's a throwaway account, for which I had to pick a different user name a few times because of the name restrictions (not to mention a password). You, on the other hand, are not using a throwaway account, so I can tell that you seem to have a rather violent dislike of moot. If this were 4chan, I would have no idea that you made 3 separate posts trying to tear him down.
  - Nonnymous 11y ago
    I think provingmypoint here has a fair point. The cost of registering – even if it's just 3-4 clicks away – is not negligible, and it gives a very different situation by default. I won't discuss the merits of a reputation & voting system, but when everyone has an account, the actual result is that few people are anonymous in practice. And maybe that's not so bad. But on imageboards like 4chan, you will find very few people using names or even so-called "tripcodes" (the closest thing to an account), which means that by default to anyone that isn't a moderator, everyone is Anonymous in a sea of Anonymity. Of course every Internet forum keeps logs of what IP posted what, but as long as it's kept private, that's entirely besides the point.
  - squeaky-clean 11y ago
    > You, on the other hand, are not using a throwaway account, so I can tell that you seem to have a rather violent dislike of moot. If this were 4chan, I would have no idea that you made 3 separate posts trying to tear him down. It's been a while since I've visited 4chan, but didn't they add some sort of user ID to comments at some point? Like, they could still generically be 'Anonymous', but there was some sort of ID or hash you could ctrl+f to find other comments by that person within that thread.
    - Nonnymous 11y ago
      You must be thinking of forced IDs, the feature itself is several years old but it's been turned on and off through the years. Something that isn't very well known is that 4chan is actually a lot of smaller communities with only partial overlap, and the culture can differ a lot depending on what board you are. A strangely effective rule of thumb is that the smaller the community is, the friendlier it acts. IDs are only enabled in the bigger and most controversial boards of the site, where people otherwise don't hesitate to abuse their anonymity.
- Mithaldu 11y ago
  Again, you're misunderstanding who the target of the anonymity is. Users on 4chan are highly anonymous to other users. Anonymity to the operators exists practically nowhere due to simple abuse prevention considerations. Also note that anonymity is a sliding scale, not a binary switch. Yes, throwaway accounts offer some anonymity. But they are decidedly less so than posting on most 4chan boards in default operation mode, since the default way of posting on those leaves no way for one user to identify another user. Meanwhile throwaway accounts require a non-trivial amount of effort for every single post made; which is much more than the zero amount of effort required on 4chan to have the same benefit.

Jerry2 11y ago

How is using a default name like Anonymous or "Anonymous Coward" (or some other default name on other sites) different from making a throwaway? Making a throwaway might take you few seconds longer but to an admin, it's exactly the same thing. Your IP is tracked in both cases. It's just that "Anonymous" username is EXTREMELY DECEPTIVE since you're NOT ANONYMOUS at all!

provingmypoint 11y ago
OK, here's a throwaway account, for which I had to pick a different user name a few times because of the name restrictions (not to mention a password). You, on the other hand, are not using a throwaway account, so I can tell that you seem to have a rather violent dislike of moot. If this were 4chan, I would have no idea that you made 3 separate posts trying to tear him down.
- Nonnymous 11y ago
  I think provingmypoint here has a fair point. The cost of registering – even if it's just 3-4 clicks away – is not negligible, and it gives a very different situation by default. I won't discuss the merits of a reputation & voting system, but when everyone has an account, the actual result is that few people are anonymous in practice. And maybe that's not so bad. But on imageboards like 4chan, you will find very few people using names or even so-called "tripcodes" (the closest thing to an account), which means that by default to anyone that isn't a moderator, everyone is Anonymous in a sea of Anonymity. Of course every Internet forum keeps logs of what IP posted what, but as long as it's kept private, that's entirely besides the point.
- squeaky-clean 11y ago
  > You, on the other hand, are not using a throwaway account, so I can tell that you seem to have a rather violent dislike of moot. If this were 4chan, I would have no idea that you made 3 separate posts trying to tear him down. It's been a while since I've visited 4chan, but didn't they add some sort of user ID to comments at some point? Like, they could still generically be 'Anonymous', but there was some sort of ID or hash you could ctrl+f to find other comments by that person within that thread.
  - Nonnymous 11y ago
    You must be thinking of forced IDs, the feature itself is several years old but it's been turned on and off through the years. Something that isn't very well known is that 4chan is actually a lot of smaller communities with only partial overlap, and the culture can differ a lot depending on what board you are. A strangely effective rule of thumb is that the smaller the community is, the friendlier it acts. IDs are only enabled in the bigger and most controversial boards of the site, where people otherwise don't hesitate to abuse their anonymity.
Mithaldu 11y ago
Again, you're misunderstanding who the target of the anonymity is. Users on 4chan are highly anonymous to other users. Anonymity to the operators exists practically nowhere due to simple abuse prevention considerations. Also note that anonymity is a sliding scale, not a binary switch. Yes, throwaway accounts offer some anonymity. But they are decidedly less so than posting on most 4chan boards in default operation mode, since the default way of posting on those leaves no way for one user to identify another user. Meanwhile throwaway accounts require a non-trivial amount of effort for every single post made; which is much more than the zero amount of effort required on 4chan to have the same benefit.