Anonymity? We're still talking about this?!?

This weekend, Paul Berton, Editor-in-Chief of The Spec posted an editorial, 'Let the public decide - and tell the story'. Built on the 'Mayor Bob Bratina Big Cheque' incident, its focus was on 'anonymous online commenting'. A fair number of comments have been posted there.

The Hamiltonian followed up with its own article, 'Hats off to Paul Berton'.  It too, has garnered its share of comments. 

Additionally, a former mayoral candidate, one that I've only recently begun having email contact with, offered up his two cents' worth. (In the negative.)

The issue makes me laugh...and shake my head...and type. (Naturally.) 

Last September, I dealt with 'anonymity' here. It resulted from a protracted electronic exchange, one in which a little frustration was sent my way with a salvo described thusly:

"What they maintained at the conclusion of the escalating back-and-forths (at which point they declared as to being 'done wasting time with you'), was to tell me that it was all clear to them now, now they understood why I blogged anonymously."

 Granted, this post dealt more with the idea of blogging anonymously, not commenting in this mode. But to me, the issues are the same. As are the causes. 

Mostly, it seems to me that so many people are caught up in what they feel they 'deserve'. They 'deserve' to have 'access to information'. That is, they 'deserve' to know who a commenter is. It's their 'right' to know. 

This ties into the whole 'entitlement as part of a consuming culture'. (A culture that seems to do little else these days. Even social media is a consumable.) And don't ever stand in the way of a consumer and their needs. (I'll only obliquely reference those who have died working in retail over the past two years.)

I laugh, I genuinely laugh at people who get on their high-horse and ramble on with their self-righteous indignation about anonymity. The longer the ramble-fest, the more I laugh. 

In fact, these days, I seem to have a very sensitive 'canary-in-a-coalmine mechanism' where this discourse is concerned. (The more  common reference for this mechanism is 'bullshit detector'.) I launch almost before the conclusion of the initial sentence. What seems to escape with my spit-take is a floating thought-bubble that consists of 'Holy fuckolee; do they have that much time on their hands?!?'

There are so many issues out there that need to be addressed. Neighbourhood concerns. Community concerns. City concerns. And people are getting their knickers in a knot over 'anonymity'? Really?!?

I commented on the Spec article. And maybe I don't need to waste any further typing resources, I can just cut-and-paste  what I contributed there as my conclusion to this post:




By: mystoneycreek 
Feb 5, 2011 12:24 PMWhat most matters to me... ...is the content of a comment. I'm less interested in the identity of a commenter, their reputation, their history, how they're aligned politically, their allegiances, etc. In a time when it's pretty evident where rigid, recalcitrant partisan politics gets us (nowhere), my belief is that we need to be paying more attention to what's being said than who's saying it. Or what 'identity' they're using. Because unless we're at war, there is no 'Us vs Them'. So to me, the notion of 'anonymous' posts being disposable by virtue of their moniker is nonsense. And sad.


Post-script: I don't want for one second for anyone to infer from my comments that I condone online asshattery. Bad behaviour is bad behaviour. I just don't happen to believe that 'more rules' (enforcing identity guidelines) is the answer we should be considering.