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Ask HN: When is online anonymity undesirable?
I am particularly curious about circumstances where you think anonymity detracts from the overall experience, makes the communication less efficient, and reduces the chance of a future interaction.
Is there a place for anonymity in our digital future?
- goblins 9y ago>Is there a place for anonymity in our digital future? I hope so.
- Bizarro 9y agoHow would there not be a place for anonymity in our digital future?
- onuralp 9y agoI suppose what I had in mind was akin to the following practical example, say a technical question asked on Stack Overflow. When the submitter can't reliably or efficiently anonymize the accompanying data [which would risk reveal the submitter's anonymity and compromise data], the submitter does not have any choice but anonymizes both the identity _and_ the data, which probably results in a sub-optimal exchange. Imagine that you can effectively anonymize the dataset, I think one can think of circumstances where this could lead to a more effective communication as to provide further information (e.g., submitter's domain familiarity, language experience, resource constraints) and context (e.g., is this a standard practice) instead of fishing for more clarification in an iterative, and therefore less efficient, fashion.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- coralreef 9y agoFrom what perspective are you seeking? If you take the perspective of a consumer internet business, then knowing your user is pretty valuable, and may help in monetization and UX.
- slim 9y agoWhen you need to build trust. Typically in social networks
- Irishsteve 9y agoCynical view would be its a good way to force unified accounts across your various verticals - a-la google plus, and in that case you can sell as one entity as opposed to seperate.
- cimmanom 9y agoWhen you're trying to self-promote - e.g. LinkedIn. Situations where you want to discourage abusive / antisocial behaviors (especially those with potential real-world repercussions for the victim) or be able to enforce real-world repercussions for said behaviors.