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This deserves a "Ask HN" thread of its own. I will even as why up and down vote user names are hidden from me? I look a this behavior in myself and wonder why

This deserves a "Ask HN" thread of its own. I will even as why up and down vote user names are hidden from me? I look a this behavior in myself and wonder why I use all these acronyms. I feel sometimes that if others are not anonymous the extreme responses when you have a new idea or say something wrong are part of the problem. Why expose myself when the people criticizing me do not? So it is kind of a race to the bottom.

bayindirh 5y ago
I think being able to bear the responses which do not agree with yours is an important step in civil discourse, even if the tone of the responses doesn't agree with your tone, or especially kind. This is what HN has taught me over the years. It improved me leaps and bounds on that front, and it's invaluable in my eyes. I'm not anonymous here, yet the most heated discussion never spilled over to my personal mail address, but I got some genuine questions and a couple of job offers. So, other people's anonymity choice is not something I care about. They can be who they want. I'm here as a person, with my own choices, with my own tone. My choices brought me some great discussion, sometimes kind, sometimes not. Regardless of my correctness and knowledge level on the issue, I always came out improved from every single one of them. Either on the knowledge front, or the actual ability to discourse, or both. So, it's not a kind of a race to the bottom. Other people's choices shouldn't bother anyone, unless the other party doesn't harass or cross some well defined lines of being civil and ethic.