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I'm sure many of the conversations you've had on HN and elsewhere has been with people under pseudonyms. Just because they are using a pseudonym doesn't mean it

I'm sure many of the conversations you've had on HN and elsewhere has been with people under pseudonyms. Just because they are using a pseudonym doesn't mean it's not a conversation not worth having. The value should be based on the actual conversation, not under what circumstance it's being held.

tptacek 7y ago
That's a detached, rational, coherent way of looking at things that has very little to do with how actual people "use" the blue checkmark, and how Twitter grooms its users to use it. The more complicated reality of how the checkmark works is that Twitter wants to have things both ways: the checkmarks promote accounts, and Twitter benefits from the increased engagement resulting from promoted accounts, and promoted accounts benefit from the exclusivity of the checkmark. But promoting accounts also puts Twitter on the hook, perceptually, for what some of those accounts say, so Twitter also has a fig leaf notion of the checkmark as simply a "verification system". But it's obviously not that.
- lonelappde 7y ago
  How so? Checkmark means "this account is owned by who you think owns it" to disambiguate celebrities from parodies and identity theives/trolls. The fact some people crave being famous enough to merit a checkmark is not a problem with checkmarks. People chase status of all kinds.
  - behindsight 7y ago
    Not that I disagree with your point, but Twitter has been known to "strip" the checkmark from controversial accounts. It's no longer for simply verifying authenticity.
    - tptacek 7y ago
      My impression is that it never was. Rather, the notion that the blue-check is an indicator of celebrity was cultivated by Twitter itself. It's just not something they can come out and say directly anymore.
    - lawnchair_larry 7y ago
      If you’re referring to Milo, it was stripped for violating the terms of the checkmark, not for being controversial. His profile claimed he was a Buzzfeed reporter IIRC. Although he was being satirical, he didn’t indicate such, and this causes problems because the whole point of the checkmark is to signal that this person is who they say they are (including any claims in their bio). Since the average random person doesn’t even know who Milo is, they may see his verified profile and attribute his inflammatory comments to Buzzfeed staff members. Twitter has many examples of taking enforcement actions for silly reasons, but this one actually made sense given that logic.
      - cameronbrown 7y ago
        But that's still an issue. Twitter knew who Milo was, they'd verified his identity, and although he broke the rules, removing the checkmark told his followers one thing: "we now know anyone Twitter verifies is someone they agree with politically". This puts them on the hook for everybody who's verified. It should be a verification only. If they didn't like what he said then they should've removed the account.
        tptacek 7y ago
        You can "should" all you want, but it's not verification only. If it was, anyone could get verified. It's endorsement, and nobody wants to endorse Milo Yiannapoulos.
        Domenic_S 7y ago
        According to twitter themselves, "The blue verified badge on Twitter lets people know that an account of public interest is authentic." https://help.twitter.com/en/managing-your-account/twitter-verified-accounts https://help.twitter.com/en/managing-your-account/twitter-ve... But i agree, in practice it's a "twitter endorses this account" indicator.
        xwowsersx 7y ago
        You and others keep repeating what others have shown is obviously not true. Whatever the stated reasons for the blue checkmark are, it is clear that, in practice, it is not just verification.
  - drspacemonkey 7y ago
    Aside from the incident in the linked story, fictional characters (like The Count from Sesame Street) have the blue checkmark. So it doesn't seem to me that it's there to verify "who is the owner of this account".
Supermancho 7y ago
>> I don’t want to waste my time talking to accounts under pseudonyms > a pseudonym doesn't mean it's not a conversation not worth having You are arguing against a point of view that you made up by taking a statement out of context. That is wholly dishonest (and/or lazily indifferent to raising more noise). The discussion is about verified identity and what that means. Whether you think it is valuable to discuss the finer points of my family with someone (lets say... pretending to be my grandfather) via a twitter blue checkmark is irrelevant to the discussion.
DoreenMichele 7y ago
If you look at the leader board of HN, most of the top fifteen or so can be readily identified by their real name even if they aren't using it in their handle in some way. (I don't know about the rest of the board, having not looked in depth at every single name on it.) Most of the top fifteen-ish do seem to be using some portion of their real name in their handle. Real names aren't required here. You can call yourself whatever you want. In actual practice, the community does appear to care whether or not it knows who the hell you actually are. It does appear to correlate to some degree to ranking on the leader board.
- ajxs 7y ago
  You're right that there is a correlation. However, it's important to note that the community is not selecting for identifiable users by not upvoting pseudonymous users. The individuals with the highest karma are typically ones who have earned distinction in their field and are advertising themselves as such. This somewhat identifies them as authorities on certain subjects and their expertise is respected. The system is neither incentivising identified users, not punishing anonymous users. It's just rewarding certain identified ones.
- wwweston 7y ago
  > If you look at the leader board of HN There's a leader board?
  - DoreenMichele 7y ago
    The footer has a link titled Lists. The leader board is the top entry on that page.
- lonelappde 7y ago
  I think it goes the other way. People who write good content often like to use their real name because it builds their personal brand, and don't want to harm it with shitposts. Fewer people put the effort in anonymously for no benefit. The voting audience isn't craving names.
  - 7y ago
Shivetya 7y ago
well if you are like me I joined not knowing the convention in use here so just kept an alias I am familiar with. people tend to rebel from true name account rules, some of this is exactly because of twitter has become which is a tool of bullies to intimidate those they dislike or disagree with.
riffic 7y ago
That works fine (somewhat) when you have moderation, and breaks down at a certain scale.
maram 7y ago
Of course, I have many intellectual convo with people under pseudonyms. But HN isn’t Twitter. And just because HN has many intellectual users who write under pseudonyms it doesn’t mean the same thing will happen in twitter! Twitter is: 1. Used by the mainstream almost globally (HN is used by the fringe) 2. Real-time global messages in all languages 3. Used by the president I can go on but to because of these reasons the value of tweet cannot be based on the actual conversation. HN iS different because of the hard work of YC partners and the caliber of HN community. HN would have been occupied by thugs long time ago to do astroturfing on behalf of big companies. Here is an example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22383746 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22383746

tptacek 7y ago

That's a detached, rational, coherent way of looking at things that has very little to do with how actual people "use" the blue checkmark, and how Twitter grooms its users to use it. The more complicated reality of how the checkmark works is that Twitter wants to have things both ways: the checkmarks promote accounts, and Twitter benefits from the increased engagement resulting from promoted accounts, and promoted accounts benefit from the exclusivity of the checkmark. But promoting accounts also puts Twitter on the hook, perceptually, for what some of those accounts say, so Twitter also has a fig leaf notion of the checkmark as simply a "verification system". But it's obviously not that.

lonelappde 7y ago
How so? Checkmark means "this account is owned by who you think owns it" to disambiguate celebrities from parodies and identity theives/trolls. The fact some people crave being famous enough to merit a checkmark is not a problem with checkmarks. People chase status of all kinds.
- behindsight 7y ago
  Not that I disagree with your point, but Twitter has been known to "strip" the checkmark from controversial accounts. It's no longer for simply verifying authenticity.
  - tptacek 7y ago
    My impression is that it never was. Rather, the notion that the blue-check is an indicator of celebrity was cultivated by Twitter itself. It's just not something they can come out and say directly anymore.
  - lawnchair_larry 7y ago
    If you’re referring to Milo, it was stripped for violating the terms of the checkmark, not for being controversial. His profile claimed he was a Buzzfeed reporter IIRC. Although he was being satirical, he didn’t indicate such, and this causes problems because the whole point of the checkmark is to signal that this person is who they say they are (including any claims in their bio). Since the average random person doesn’t even know who Milo is, they may see his verified profile and attribute his inflammatory comments to Buzzfeed staff members. Twitter has many examples of taking enforcement actions for silly reasons, but this one actually made sense given that logic.
    - cameronbrown 7y ago
      But that's still an issue. Twitter knew who Milo was, they'd verified his identity, and although he broke the rules, removing the checkmark told his followers one thing: "we now know anyone Twitter verifies is someone they agree with politically". This puts them on the hook for everybody who's verified. It should be a verification only. If they didn't like what he said then they should've removed the account.
      - tptacek 7y ago
        You can "should" all you want, but it's not verification only. If it was, anyone could get verified. It's endorsement, and nobody wants to endorse Milo Yiannapoulos.
        Domenic_S 7y ago
        According to twitter themselves, "The blue verified badge on Twitter lets people know that an account of public interest is authentic." https://help.twitter.com/en/managing-your-account/twitter-verified-accounts https://help.twitter.com/en/managing-your-account/twitter-ve... But i agree, in practice it's a "twitter endorses this account" indicator.
        xwowsersx 7y ago
        You and others keep repeating what others have shown is obviously not true. Whatever the stated reasons for the blue checkmark are, it is clear that, in practice, it is not just verification.
- drspacemonkey 7y ago
  Aside from the incident in the linked story, fictional characters (like The Count from Sesame Street) have the blue checkmark. So it doesn't seem to me that it's there to verify "who is the owner of this account".

Supermancho 7y ago

>> I don’t want to waste my time talking to accounts under pseudonyms > a pseudonym doesn't mean it's not a conversation not worth having You are arguing against a point of view that you made up by taking a statement out of context. That is wholly dishonest (and/or lazily indifferent to raising more noise). The discussion is about verified identity and what that means. Whether you think it is valuable to discuss the finer points of my family with someone (lets say... pretending to be my grandfather) via a twitter blue checkmark is irrelevant to the discussion.

DoreenMichele 7y ago

If you look at the leader board of HN, most of the top fifteen or so can be readily identified by their real name even if they aren't using it in their handle in some way. (I don't know about the rest of the board, having not looked in depth at every single name on it.) Most of the top fifteen-ish do seem to be using some portion of their real name in their handle. Real names aren't required here. You can call yourself whatever you want. In actual practice, the community does appear to care whether or not it knows who the hell you actually are. It does appear to correlate to some degree to ranking on the leader board.

ajxs 7y ago
You're right that there is a correlation. However, it's important to note that the community is not selecting for identifiable users by not upvoting pseudonymous users. The individuals with the highest karma are typically ones who have earned distinction in their field and are advertising themselves as such. This somewhat identifies them as authorities on certain subjects and their expertise is respected. The system is neither incentivising identified users, not punishing anonymous users. It's just rewarding certain identified ones.
wwweston 7y ago
> If you look at the leader board of HN There's a leader board?
- DoreenMichele 7y ago
  The footer has a link titled Lists. The leader board is the top entry on that page.
lonelappde 7y ago
I think it goes the other way. People who write good content often like to use their real name because it builds their personal brand, and don't want to harm it with shitposts. Fewer people put the effort in anonymously for no benefit. The voting audience isn't craving names.
- 7y ago

Shivetya 7y ago

well if you are like me I joined not knowing the convention in use here so just kept an alias I am familiar with. people tend to rebel from true name account rules, some of this is exactly because of twitter has become which is a tool of bullies to intimidate those they dislike or disagree with.

riffic 7y ago

That works fine (somewhat) when you have moderation, and breaks down at a certain scale.

maram 7y ago

Of course, I have many intellectual convo with people under pseudonyms. But HN isn’t Twitter. And just because HN has many intellectual users who write under pseudonyms it doesn’t mean the same thing will happen in twitter! Twitter is: 1. Used by the mainstream almost globally (HN is used by the fringe) 2. Real-time global messages in all languages 3. Used by the president I can go on but to because of these reasons the value of tweet cannot be based on the actual conversation. HN iS different because of the hard work of YC partners and the caliber of HN community. HN would have been occupied by thugs long time ago to do astroturfing on behalf of big companies. Here is an example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22383746 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22383746