4 ms·

I completely ignore names other than pg, a personal friend or two, and names on my confirmation-biased list of obnoxious karma whores. I don't make a mental not

• borism 17y ago
  yeah, same for me - not putting too much attention into posters name. but it seems there are groups of people here that know and hang out with each other and act as a herd on the site - upvoting their own and downvoting any outsider.
• Confusion 17y ago
  As psychological effects go, it is rather questionable whether it is possible to 'ignore names'. This question does not concern a fully conscious process. Once you've noticed a name (and it's hard not to), all kinds of things go click inside your head. You cannot undo the associations that were made; the mere fact that you attempt to 'ignore' names already indicates that there is something to ignore. The unavoidable state of mind with which I will read a comment from 'cperciva' or 'tptacek' (whom I recognize, along with pg, edw512, jacquesm and a few others) is: 'this is likely to be a comment from a security point of view and I'm likely to consider it a high quality answer'. I don't understand in what way that would pose a problem, unless you suppose that causes one to immediately lose the capacity to critically evaluate the content of the comment and conclude 'hmmm, a disappointing comment'. I think that risk is larger when I would assume that I could ignore the name and would hence be influenced by subconscious processes whose existence I tried to deny.