---------------------------------------- Replies on anonymity and other topics January 08th, 2018 ---------------------------------------- On Anonymity: Many folks around gopherspace [0-3] have been talking about anonymity or pseudoanonymity in their online profiles, phlogs, blogs, etc. I walked into this one with one opinion and have made a complete turnaround since. I don't use an anonymous handle here on SDF. My username is my last name. You can see my first name if you hit my about [4] page. I prefer to associate my real identity with the activites I do here because I feel like it helps add to the public representation of who I am. It may help me with social networking and potentially even employment one day. That being said, I have a lot of activity I do online that isn't under this identity. I tools in place for creating easy throw-away accounts, and I have invested a great deal of time in building up robust, persistent identities that are sufficient to provide me anonymity against all but the strongest state-level actors. I use them for... well, if I told you that would weaken them. I love the idea of anonymity in principle, but I have seen how easy it is for that freedom to become an excuse for disruptive and poisonous behavior. The things people will say when there's no name attached can be downright horrific. Is that worth the cost? I really don't know how I feel to make a solid decision. I do know that pseudo anonymity is helpful in protecting against the anonymous actions of others, like SWATing. It can also prevent prejudice from entering a community dynamic. The work stands for itself, right? That's the idea at least, and I think that's a happy medium. If you have an identity, even a false one, and you must act and share and communicate with that identity, then it gains value to you over time. It also gains peer status as others get to know you. If ZeLibertineGamer, or solderpunk, or jynx communicate with me, I have a basis for understanding where that communication is coming from. It has context. If they were to do something or say something that the community found unfit, there's an identity that would suffer the social consequences. It may not be a person with an address, but there is a community cost nontheless. In that way, our pseudo-identities gain some of the social value and costs that our real identities do, but without the personal risk. I think that's a really great middle ground. When I walked into the first of these phlog posts I was on the side of "just use your real identity". You are all great at making you case. On Gophermaps and formatting: This is mostly in reference to pet84rik [5], but it applies to everyone. I don't believe there's a right way or a wrong way to gopher. You can put up whatever you like in whatever format. Ulcer has a super intricate system of phlogging and tag cross-links. I make heavy use of gophermaps for linking but otherwise do things fairly manual. Cat lovingly crafts everything by hand. Some people just drop text files in a directory and it's up to us to parse it. That's the crux. If you put something up here, some people will go through the effort to read it and others wont. If you don't use gophermaps that might be a barrier for some people. If you want to cater to them and make it easy, that's cool. Gopher readers are pretty resourceful. We'll figure it out. Welcomes: A big welcome to jebug29 and gunnarfrost. Glad to see your stuff. You're not shouting into a void; we're reading. Cookbook: Finally, a big shout out to jandal who has put up a really cool Gopherspace Cookbook [6]. My recipes are included and a bunch more from all around the place. It's been helpful in discovering new phlogs as well. Thanks, jandal. Great work. Maybe more people will share their recipes in the future. (TXT) [0] Solderpunk - Pseudonymity woes (TXT) [1] slugmax - reply to ... (TXT) [2] psztrnk - Re: Pseudonymity (TXT) [3] Ze Libertine Gamer - re: anonymity (DIR) [4] My Gopher About page (DIR) [5] pet84rik - Gopherspace (DIR) [6] Gopherpsace Cookbook