10 ms·

This is completely and utterly wrong, and only furthers my belief that nobody in Silicon Valley actually "gets" anonymity. I'll try to write a real response to

by moot 13y ago

This is completely and utterly wrong, and only furthers my belief that nobody in Silicon Valley actually "gets" anonymity. I'll try to write a real response tonight on my blog (http://chrishateswriting.com http://chrishateswriting.com)

harryh 13y ago
Really looking forward to your point of view on this moot.
eurleif 13y ago
I would love it if you discussed Omegle/ChatRoulette in your post. (Disclaimer: I made Omegle, and obviously I have an interest in you pimping my site. But I also think it would be interesting to see you analyze how anonymity applies to it, since you probably have more perspective on it than I do.)
- smoyer 13y ago
  I have great for doing sociology experiments on Omegle ... You'd be amazed at what I've learned about people's motivations and expectations just by gaming them slightly. Oh ... There have been a couple of awkward instances when I've tried to go there in person too!
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
teaneedz 13y ago
> This is completely and utterly wrong, and only furthers my belief that nobody in Silicon Valley actually "gets" anonymity. I tend to agree with this statement. Anonymity and Pseudonymity (two diff things) type conversations will decay if the community allows it and the audience on the medium encourages the behavior. I've seen plenty of negative "real name" conversations. I've also seen plenty of great *nym conversations too. SV misses the point on this in my opinion as well. [edited] I just want to add the original content and tone also sets the stage for what happens in the comment sections. In the case of Secret, I'm a little bleh on the app but think the UI is sweet. I haven't seen the negative side of it yet nor have I posted negative comments either.
fossuser 13y ago
I've always thought using anonymity for targeted communication works really well. Omegle used to be a lot of fun when it was mostly college students who were bored waiting for class or something and wanted to talk to someone interesting in a different place. It's a good 'risk free' way to get to know someone. I think a mobile app that did one to one anonymous communication restricted by .edu would be really successful (especially if it was just your school initially so you could potentially meet). The general idea of self-censorship in non-anonymous systems is probably the main counter that I could think of to the original post. You get bad and good from it, but it's better to live in a world with both as a result than with neither.
- eurleif 13y ago
  There've been a few failed attempts at college-exclusive random chat (e.g., RandomDorm), but I've been thinking about trying it on Omegle for a while, in case the existing userbase would make it work better. Your comment got me off my ass, and now there's a minimum viable implementation up. Would love feedback.
  - fossuser 13y ago
    Cool - I no longer have a .edu, but I think the idea is solid. Current Omegle is filled with too much spam - I would even take the .edu thing a step further and start at just one school (restrict by specific school) so you have the anonymity of the chat to talk to someone, but then they're also around if you hear about something going on that night or they want to meet etc. I think that would be neat. I think it'd be a popular chat web/phone app on college campuses if people knew about it and a good addition to what I'd thought would make a good dating site at the time (http://www.zacharyalberico.net/blog/dating-websites/ http://www.zacharyalberico.net/blog/dating-websites/), but I think tinder does some of that now. Anyway, that's awesome you got something up!
    - eurleif 13y ago
      You can restrict by specific school. It looks like this: http://imgur.com/v5fjapw http://imgur.com/v5fjapw I'm defaulting it to "any college", at least for now. If the feature catches on, I might make the default change based on the user's college (i.e., create a list of colleges which have a significant userbase).
argumentum 13y ago
> This is completely and utterly wrong .. If you're going to make such a strong statement, it would make sense to at least put out a tl;dr; of your argument. Otherwise, your comment just functions as an advertisement for your blog post. (I'm sure that wasn't your intention).
- vinceguidry 13y ago
  He still has to write that argument before he can tl:dr it. I thought it was pretty clear from his comment that his thoughts weren't totally hashed out yet.
  - moot 13y ago
    I did in fact only just sit down after leaving that comment ~12 hours ago. Hope to have something up by tomorrow or Wednesday.
- gknoy 13y ago
  Given that he founded one of the most famous anonymous web forums on the planet, I'm liable to be interested in his reasons. People being jerks seems to be a really common thing on the internet, so I'm quite curious of his counterpoint. I take his link less as a blog-advertisement, and more of a "I'm more likely to update that than edit my comment on HN". I'd love it if, after he writes his blog post, he were to summarize it in an edit to his HN comment.
  - steveklabnik 13y ago
    You also can't edit HN comments after an hour or so.
  - argumentum 13y ago
    I know who moot is, and am also interested in what he has to say .. But stating that Sam was "completely and utterly wrong" isn't constructive and doesn't advance any argument.
  - avn2109 13y ago
RexRollman 13y ago
I look forward to reading it, even though you will hate writing it.
aestetix 13y ago
Looking forward. I've used quite a few quotes from moot when promoting nymrights.org.

by moot 13y ago

harryh 13y ago

Really looking forward to your point of view on this moot.

eurleif 13y ago

I would love it if you discussed Omegle/ChatRoulette in your post. (Disclaimer: I made Omegle, and obviously I have an interest in you pimping my site. But I also think it would be interesting to see you analyze how anonymity applies to it, since you probably have more perspective on it than I do.)

smoyer 13y ago
I have great for doing sociology experiments on Omegle ... You'd be amazed at what I've learned about people's motivations and expectations just by gaming them slightly. Oh ... There have been a couple of awkward instances when I've tried to go there in person too!

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

teaneedz 13y ago

> This is completely and utterly wrong, and only furthers my belief that nobody in Silicon Valley actually "gets" anonymity. I tend to agree with this statement. Anonymity and Pseudonymity (two diff things) type conversations will decay if the community allows it and the audience on the medium encourages the behavior. I've seen plenty of negative "real name" conversations. I've also seen plenty of great *nym conversations too. SV misses the point on this in my opinion as well. [edited] I just want to add the original content and tone also sets the stage for what happens in the comment sections. In the case of Secret, I'm a little bleh on the app but think the UI is sweet. I haven't seen the negative side of it yet nor have I posted negative comments either.

fossuser 13y ago

I've always thought using anonymity for targeted communication works really well. Omegle used to be a lot of fun when it was mostly college students who were bored waiting for class or something and wanted to talk to someone interesting in a different place. It's a good 'risk free' way to get to know someone. I think a mobile app that did one to one anonymous communication restricted by .edu would be really successful (especially if it was just your school initially so you could potentially meet). The general idea of self-censorship in non-anonymous systems is probably the main counter that I could think of to the original post. You get bad and good from it, but it's better to live in a world with both as a result than with neither.

eurleif 13y ago
There've been a few failed attempts at college-exclusive random chat (e.g., RandomDorm), but I've been thinking about trying it on Omegle for a while, in case the existing userbase would make it work better. Your comment got me off my ass, and now there's a minimum viable implementation up. Would love feedback.
- fossuser 13y ago
  Cool - I no longer have a .edu, but I think the idea is solid. Current Omegle is filled with too much spam - I would even take the .edu thing a step further and start at just one school (restrict by specific school) so you have the anonymity of the chat to talk to someone, but then they're also around if you hear about something going on that night or they want to meet etc. I think that would be neat. I think it'd be a popular chat web/phone app on college campuses if people knew about it and a good addition to what I'd thought would make a good dating site at the time (http://www.zacharyalberico.net/blog/dating-websites/ http://www.zacharyalberico.net/blog/dating-websites/), but I think tinder does some of that now. Anyway, that's awesome you got something up!
  - eurleif 13y ago
    You can restrict by specific school. It looks like this: http://imgur.com/v5fjapw http://imgur.com/v5fjapw I'm defaulting it to "any college", at least for now. If the feature catches on, I might make the default change based on the user's college (i.e., create a list of colleges which have a significant userbase).

argumentum 13y ago

> This is completely and utterly wrong .. If you're going to make such a strong statement, it would make sense to at least put out a tl;dr; of your argument. Otherwise, your comment just functions as an advertisement for your blog post. (I'm sure that wasn't your intention).

vinceguidry 13y ago
He still has to write that argument before he can tl:dr it. I thought it was pretty clear from his comment that his thoughts weren't totally hashed out yet.
- moot 13y ago
  I did in fact only just sit down after leaving that comment ~12 hours ago. Hope to have something up by tomorrow or Wednesday.
gknoy 13y ago
Given that he founded one of the most famous anonymous web forums on the planet, I'm liable to be interested in his reasons. People being jerks seems to be a really common thing on the internet, so I'm quite curious of his counterpoint. I take his link less as a blog-advertisement, and more of a "I'm more likely to update that than edit my comment on HN". I'd love it if, after he writes his blog post, he were to summarize it in an edit to his HN comment.
- steveklabnik 13y ago
  You also can't edit HN comments after an hour or so.
- argumentum 13y ago
  I know who moot is, and am also interested in what he has to say .. But stating that Sam was "completely and utterly wrong" isn't constructive and doesn't advance any argument.
- avn2109 13y ago

RexRollman 13y ago

I look forward to reading it, even though you will hate writing it.

aestetix 13y ago

Looking forward. I've used quite a few quotes from moot when promoting nymrights.org.