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I don't think that a use-real-names policy is conducive to good conversation, because it means that everything you say has to be something you would be comforta
by bccdee 6y ago
I don't think that a use-real-names policy is conducive to good conversation, because it means that everything you say has to be something you would be comfortable saying in front of your family and your employer and the whole rest of the world. That takes a lot of topics off the table -- sex, politics, anything that is controversial, anything that might become controversial in the next ten years... Discussions become very bland when everything you say has to be designed to protect your real-life reputation from every audience that will ever have power over you.
It's better to create a system of reputation independent of real-world identity. If new users have limited privileges until they've been around for a certain amount, or if only one account is permitted per IP, even an anonymous account with a name like XxX_FakeName_XxX becomes an identity with value and a reputation. By engaging in bad behaviour, that identity would lose reputation, and might even be banned. Because of the loss of privilege or technical challenge associated with creating a new account, bad behaviour is disincetivized without actually attaching real-world identity to anything online.
There's a balance to be found between lowering barriers to entry and raising barriers to re-entry, but if the balance is done properly it can make a big difference.
Of course, none of this works without moderators doing the legwork of throwing out bad actors, but this is the difference between effective moderation and token moderation that is too swamped to actually do anything.
This also works better in smaller communities, but I think smaller online communities are just healthier in general. This is part of why monoliths like Facebook and Twitter are so toxic -- there is no "Twitter community," rather there are a thousand Twitter communities all of which are bumping into each other constantly because they occupy the same space.
- Barrin92 6y ago> means that everything you say has to be something you would be comfortable saying in front of your family and your employer and the whole rest of the world. That takes a lot of topics off the table -- sex, politics, anything that is controversial, anything that might become controversial in the next ten years... different suggestion: learning how to talk about that stuff with your family is a better long term solution. I don't know if this is a cultural thing but in my country talking about sex or politics with your family is pretty normal, if you don't have a raging political discussion over family dinners it's not a good conversation. I think anonymity or pseudo identities are pretty broken. We're social animals, our identity is what gives us stake and it keeps us responsible. I don't think anonymous opinions are more "real" because they are unfiltered, I think they are more likely to be thoughtless. If we don't stand for something with our name I don't think we're more intelligent but rather we just care less about what we say, I don't think the youtube comment section is known for its great insights. The only reason I don't have my real name here and on a few other sites is because in the past I repeatedly ended up with angry people who had an axe to grind spamming me on my personal mail, so I feel you can't really unilaterally disarm, but I think collectively we'd be better off.
- tachyonbeam 6y ago> different suggestion: learning how to talk about that stuff with your family is a better long term solution. I agree, but unfortunately, for many people that's just not an option. Think abusive or mentally ill parents. Think people living in the middle east. It's normal for people to seek spaces where they can speak more freely, without needing to change the whole world to make that possible first.
- klyrs 6y ago... think Evangelicals, Mormons, Witnesses, Catholics...
- grawprog 6y agoSo, a forum with a complicated sign up process, IP filtering and effective moderation? Lots of communities like that used to exist. Some still do, but for some reason everyone thought they needed to tell everyone on the internet their name and personal information. So here we are.
- hellbanTHIS 6y agoI've seen news articles that Drudge has linked to that have Facebook comments where people use their real name. This may surprise some people but -- they're not usually very polite! And every evil subreddit I've come across was the result of "effective moderation", they moderated everyone who isn't evil. Lax moderation, the good ole downvote button & find some way to discourage circle jerks, that's probably all you can do. You're never going to make the Internet not be a sewer though.
- news_to_me 6y agoEvil people are allowed to have communities. In an evil community, it's probably the "good" user who is usually a troll, so it makes sense for them to be unwelcome. What's interesting about Reddit is, to what extent is a subreddit its own community vs part of the Reddit community? Probably better for evil people to set up their own forums, or preferably to not be evil at all.