Post 300 - Discourse and the Internet: Anonymity on Growing Moss

The Internet is a wonderful thing. In its infancy, captains of industry and wage slaves all had the same standing. While you could figure out that a particular handle might belong to a given person, there was always room for uncertainty. And sometimes you couldn't figure out who the handle belonged to and were left just dealing with the handle as it presented itself and its ideas. But the anonymity of the handle meant that the person behind it was somewhat insulated from the repercussions of anything that the handle did.

With no repercussions, people have felt free to unchain their inner id. Don't like someone? Create a new handle and start a flame war. If the person complains, the originator has lost a handle that they didn't have a lot of attachment to. With no face to face interaction, many of the social guidelines that people follow don't apply. Unmoderated forums end up a rough and tumble environment. Sure, you can't actually spit on someone online, but it doesn't take a long time to chase someone away with an avalanche of L33t Sp3ak to chase away the Lam3rz.

I allow anonymous comments on my blog. I don't do it in any way to contribute to the problem of unchained ids. Rather I do it to allow people who happen to read my blog but are not themselves set up on Blogger to comment on something they see here. But I'm going to establish a rule that unchained ids get deleted. If you can't stand behind your comments or offer something of substance to the debate, you don't have a place here. Can someone sign up for a new handle everytime they want to cause me trouble? Yes, but at some point it has to be more trouble than telling me that I suck is worth.