Rate Comments with Integrity

Even legal names are shields somewhat. More information is required for positive identify. If you truly feel that there is no benefit of identity gained by simply using a consistent identifier, the necessary upgrade is something along the lines of using your ssn with your thumb print as your avatar.

I don't like to be that identifiable just walking around in first person. I certainly won't be doing that in a derivative fashion where I have no way of possibly defecting when if or who might be observing sometime in the future. If you see things differently, nothing is stopping you from doing something like that, or using a copy of your driver's license as your avatar.

What a bunch of bull! I am a member of one RE site where they require real names - on the honor system but at least you don't get the silly names.

I use a 'silly' name for my own protection. Why? My ex-wife is a clinical psychopath and has become very adept at cyberstalking.

Wanna trade places?

Must be fun hiding.

Not really.

Seriously Russ1???

You speak fondly of times past in CR4 when things were so different, yet you post from a screen name that has only been around for a few months. Not only does your current screen name not correlate easily with a 'real world' identity but it appears that even the 'persistent name' aspect of an online identity may have been too much for you to handle. Who were you in times past here on CR4? ...or did you just lurk anonymously?

You may believe and even state that my comment is a 'bunch of bull', but at least I behave in a manner consistent with the comments I am making.

Fondly? Not really but it was better a couple of years back - then I was russ

Enough of the BS once again

A far bigger problem is the lack of decent starter posts and topics - a couple of years back there were far more.

If the problem is a lack o starter posts and topics, one logical solution is to start posts and topics that you would like to see...that you find decent.

You do it - today the forum is near useless

Extraced from your sentence: 'the rating would be much more informative and valuable"

• Valuable to whom?
• Informative for whom?

Why would yourself, or for that matter anyone here on this site require to know whom posted what?

Perhaps completing a form with all our private data and IP address may be a better suggestion.

I was perplexed by this proposal/request!

"Why would yourself, or for that matter anyone here on this site require to know whom posted what?"

I know that you, IQ, posted this ↑ comment.

I believe that many reasons for not posting anonymously, AT ALL, have been well stated already.

Gives a stronger message than the normal posting!

This is true, but some posters want a public victory, as though CR4 is a competition of sorts.....or is it ?

Your reply is true for some people. If they want accolades for their GA's they should simply post a reply thanking those who voted the GA's, even though they are anonymous. If necessary, include how wonderful your reply is by exalting how the world will change for the good because of your idea and their endorsement.

On the other hand if you want to post an anonymous OT, do it the current way. If you want to identify yourself as the giver of the OT simply post a reply stating why you think the idea is full of crap. Your name is on the reply so mission accomplished.

Good Luck, Old Salt

GA Old Salt. Couldn't agree more. I do sense some strain in the thread, which lead me ask whether it may be a competition....ie competition leads to cronyism and as one poster correctly said, lobbyism as well.

Hilton-

I AGREE, I AGREE AND I AGREE! Thanks for the GA. Yes, some participants, hopefully not many, seem to consider the forum more as a place for competition than they do an exchange of ideas somewhat directed to engineering and associated fields. I sometimes wonder if they would be more comfortable in a boxing ring or a kick boxing competition.

Like I have seen many participants show, and I try to follow their example, they are more interested in helping someone other with their questions, provide reassurance, give evaluations and other positive things. For some they may need a boost of diplomacy but it is easy to tell whether they participate to help the other guy or in it for their self glorification and ego.

I think many others agree with your comment!

Good Luck, Old Salt

Are you suggesting that the value you place on either a positive or negative opinion is unaffected by the source of that opinion?

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Are you really suggesting that you cannot gleam more information from a rating when you know who made the rating than when you do not?

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Valuable to whom?

Informative to whom?

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To you IQ ...among others.

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Rhetorical questions, who needs'm?

Your statement is totally biased sir. You are blethering. What difference does it make who made the comment. Next you will want little gold stars handed out for good answers.

Wow, that sounds neat - maybe the gold star award can be printed out so it can be pasted on one's forehead? That would impress everyone at the office!

If you believe that, perhaps you should always post anonymously. Go ahead. Lead the revolution. I certainly wouldn't blame you for not wanting to own some of the things that you have said.

Whoever gives the OT or GA definitely has value, as in "consider the source".

A good example is how those in the electrical field determine whose opinion has more merit, i.e., a certified PE, a licensed electrician, an electronics technician, or someone like Thomas Edison (who never even graduated from high school...hell, never even attended more than a few months of formal education!).

Thomas Edison would be poo-poo'd on CR4.

He obviously did not know what the hell he was doing, he didn't even have an education! </sarcasm>

<digress>

It's like the AP fiasco which CR4'rs get all bent over. Obviously "The Tinkerer" is not on my birth certificate, yet just seeing that on one of my posts vs. AP makes people feel all warm-and-fuzzy. Why is that? Who really cares?

Not every person who knows you knows your full name. There may be several people with your same full name. Most people who 'know' you don't have your social security number.

There may be people that 'know' you that just know you by your first name, or a nickname. Even when it is a nickname, you are not anonymous. There may be people that know you only by your phone voice and whatever name they call you. There may be many people that know you by the emails you type, but have never seen your face or even heard your voice.

You are not anonymous to those people.

Because you use a persistent name, people link and associate your interactions with that persistent name, even if it isn't on your birth certificate.

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Your birth certificate is not your identity. You in fact have numerous identities. It is just convenient to believe that all your identities are one and that you are your identity, but that is not an easy perspective to maintain if you just take the time to look close and take an honest inventory.

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When you post here on CR4 using a persistent name, like The.Tinkerer, you form a real interacting persona. It is very different than posting anonymously.

It's not real to anybody but CR4.

I don't use it anywhere else.

CR4 doesn't even require a real name when registering.

CR4 apparently doesn't actively monitor whether or not a single user can have multiple ID's, either...since the Hindi Love Master goes around all willy-nilly-account-making.

If I go down to play pool regularly at a local pool hall, or go to play chess regularly at the local chess club, or develop meaningful social interactions with other people, for example that I see time and time again at the grocery store, what difference does it make if they call me by my birth name or by a nickname?

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Aren't those interactions sufficient unto themselves? Don't they have value, not as an additional tally point for another 'acquaintance' on your full-legal-name-persona, but just for that relationship in and of itself?

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Authors sometimes write under pseudonyms. You get to know the author, and now what type of writing you can expect from their next novel, even if you don't know their 'real' name.

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The truth is, all the persistent, individual names used are 'real', not just your legal name and ssn. In many ways, your legal name is less 'real' that what people actually call you.

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There are people in CR4 that know the person that you have let show using your CR4 persistent name. Those relationships are just as real as many others.

Perhaps I'm missing something, but isn't that what The. Tinkerer was saying ?

I've got a shedload of internet usernames. I'll stick to the same one in any given place so that people understand the persona being used. That certainly sounds duplicitous, but a number of people on CR4 know reasonably well the 'real' me. In the current age, I'm not convinced it's wise to give ones full personal details to everyone and their dog. CR4 gets hit by crawlbots as much as anywhere else on the web.

A pseudonym is very much real., it just provides a degree of privacy against the wider world. Perhaps not much, but it's unlikely many people would walk around with a shirt that displayed their real name and full contact details. That was true several decades back, and all the more so in the interweb age.

Perhaps I'm misreading what he said, but it certainly reads to me as if he is saying that it is not important because it is not tied to your legal name. He seems to be saying that it isn't meaningfully different from posting anonymously.

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Anonymous and pseudonymous, really are very different in important ways. The prefix 'pseudo' often ties things that appear superficially to be the same, but in fact are quite different in important ways. Compare science to pseudoscience, for example.

If my username was Anonymous Poster #5 or whatever, it would still have no value outside of CR4 or whatever forum I used it on. Users of most forums place value on the number of posts, number of GA's, gold stars, etc. CR4 doesn't display the number of OT's, however. I, for one, would welcome the labeling of OT and GA voters.

Recently, our online newspaper disallowed the use of any pseudonymous accounts in their feedback and comments sections. They only allow Facebook as the means to log in to the site. Once you really know who that person is, the comments tend to have more value and tend not to stray to the weird or even violent. You can look at the comments--see who that person really is in the flesh--and know where they are coming from.

We had a local spat about a certain activity by a certain group. When one of the most colorful commenters had their true identity and, shall I say, clinically-diagnosed-mental-incapacity made publicly known...then the banter quickly changed and the flag bearer for one side fell into dis-favor.

If you think you are having a technical discussion with a knowledgable, experienced, certified professional engineer, electrician, scientist or whatever (based on their pseudonym) and you find out it's a 10-year old kid who likes to push people's buttons, or a developmentally disabled person who is just doing their thing...then what?

I would therefore surmise that the identity has no real value at all. It doesn't define one as a "real person". Any one username on CR4 could just as easily be used by more than one person or a business just as any single user of CR4 might have multiple accounts.

I am both anonymous and pseudonymous. In that, there is no difference. Both are ways of hiding one's real identity.

Luckily one's good or bad behavior or method of sharing doesn't really define one's true identity. One may do things that don't reflect who they are. Behavior isn't necessarily a part of one's identity. Moderating an opinion about a single and unique point of discussion cannot be used to derive an absolute behavior of an individual or define their identity.

Maybe we're just reading the posts from a talented cat...

"...If my username was Anonymous Poster #5 or whatever, it would still have no value outside of CR4 or whatever forum I used it on...."

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True. The value of a persistent name in identifying recurring character traits is only useful where that name is used persistently. Just because something has little or no value outside CR4, does not mean it necessarily has little or no value.

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"...Once you really know who that person is, the comments tend to have more value and tend not to stray to the weird or even violent. You can look at the comments--see who that person really is in the flesh--and know where they are coming from...."

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Many people would agree with you. I see it as a very common delusion. I do not believe 'who a person really is' is a quality that is knowable in the absence of the circumstance and the audience. People relate to different people and circumstance in very different ways, and as such 'who that person really is' isn't a quality in an of itself without context. Not only that, but 'who a person is' and their legal name are not the same thing at all.

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"...When one of the most colorful commenters had their true identity and, shall I say, clinically-diagnosed-mental-incapacity made publicly known...then the banter quickly changed and the flag bearer for one side fell into dis-favor.

If you think you are having a technical discussion with a knowledgable, experienced, certified professional engineer, electrician, scientist or whatever (based on their pseudonym) and you find out it's a 10-year old kid who likes to push people's buttons, or a developmentally disabled person who is just doing their thing...then what?..."

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If you cannot develop a good feel for the quality of a persons answers based on several hundred responses, I don't think also knowing their age or a diagnosis of unknown accuracy from an unknown source is likely to improve the accuracy of your evaluation. The simple truth is that neither being a 10 year old, nor having received a diagnosis mental health problems, necessarily precludes someone from writing a good valuable response. There are brilliant 10 year olds and even brilliant schizophrenics, but even those that aren't brilliant do occasionally provide insight that could qualify as brilliant.

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Perhaps going back and reevaluating the comments of the defamed colorful former flag bearer, without bias related to a diagnosis of unknown bearing on the topics, would be a worthwhile endeavor. In a similar fashion, it would be foolish to simply press the 'I believe'-button for the ideas a person communicates to you solely based on professional certification or claims about years of experience.

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"...I am both anonymous and pseudonymous. In that, there is no difference. Both are ways of hiding one's real identity...."

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That is one of those statements that is so off base that it doesn't rise to the level of being wrong. You are definitely not anonymous; there most certainly is a difference...when you cover your eyes, the world out here doesn't actually disappear; and alluding to 'one's real identity' as if it might be the same thing as your legal name and social security number is way way way off base.

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"...Luckily one's good or bad behavior or method of sharing doesn't really define one's true identity. One may do things that don't reflect who they are. Behavior isn't necessarily a part of one's identity...."

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I disagree completely. 'Who someone really is' is never independent of behavior. The things we do are always part of who we are. Behavior is the most important part of identity.

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"...Maybe we're just reading the posts from a talented cat......"

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Are you suggesting that you don't find value in Del's comments? In all seriousness, why should it matter what someone looks like, or even how many chromosomes they have if there is a consistent history of worthwhile commentary?

what difference does it make if they call me by my birth name or by a nickname?

That depends entirely on the nickname!

A Hilton by any other name is just as _________.

I quite agree with you. If one wants to offer an accolade, for whatever reason, then do so fairly. We all have different reasons to offer an accolade to someone. But if one needs to know who gave the accolade, then that becomes lobbying. That is then politics and who needs that?

Don't put people in boxes. There are enough packaged people in this world who have stifled brains. We certainly don't need more.

Leave things as they are, not all change is good..

Just found out that LinkedIn is phasing out the polling system for their User groups.

https://help.linkedin.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/49411/

I think it would make it open for more personal attacks and I would not support it.

What I would support was a rethinking of the system and whether or not it is required at all or if the OT GA counts should be shown separately.

I see this more from the point: If you don't move you lose!

I went thru the whole discussion on the subject hoping someone certainly will raise the issue of not making this forum a classroom... but none did that. Regards GAs, identity disclosure will certainly make it more worthy and develop mutual confidence... Ragards off topic (OT) identity may not serve a purpose.

Anonymous postings needs to be barred.. why those want to gain from forum need hiding their identity???

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Integrity in quality comes from self ... can't be imposed .. still nothing wrong in trying,...