The Use Of Pseudonyms Is a Prima Facie Symptom, Of Emotional, Mental, And Moral Dysfunction (EMAMD) Options Rating

[Jon Awbrey]

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The Use Of Pseudonyms Is A Prima Facie Symptom Of Emotional, Mental, And Moral Dysfunction

'Nuff Said

Jon

Notice. Pseudonymaniacs Anonymous Meets Here Wednesday Mornings, 3:00 AM.

This post has been edited by Jon Awbrey: Sat 26th April 2008, 2:24pm

[jd turk]

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The Use Of Pseudonyms Is A Prima Facie Symptom Of Emotional, Mental, And Moral Dysfunction

Disagree completely. In the case of WP, its very structure and encouragement of anonymous IP editors makes pseudonyms necessary.

I've edited on there for about a year, mostly just minor edits and the like. It's not like I edit war at the Gaza Strip article or anything else that's a hotbed of emotional conflict. That's just not what I'm interested in.

I'd love to be able to edit under my real name, but about six months ago some punk college student got ticked off that I removed his name from a college article. He found my websites and spammed them, threatened my ebay account, and caused trouble for me at work with anonymous emails. My old username was connected to my email account, so a few pages of googling me was sufficient to find me out.

I'm a semi-public figure. If everybody else is afforded the luxury of being anonymous, I need the same for the purpose of safety. Even if ninety-nine percent of people on the internet are normal, that one percent can cause a lot of trouble with very little cause or effort.

[anthony]

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The Use Of Pseudonyms Is A Prima Facie Symptom Of Emotional, Mental, And Moral Dysfunction

Disagree completely. In the case of WP, its very structure and encouragement of anonymous IP editors makes pseudonyms necessary.

Maybe, but contributing to Wikipedia in the first place isn't necessary.

It's certainly arguable that any of us who continue to contribute to Wikipedia, even after knowing what goes on there, are emotionally, mentally, and morally, dysfunctional. I don't really agree with this, looking back through my edits over the last month, I think they were mostly rational (they were mostly about subjects I was trying to learn more about, with the rest being responses to things that showed up on my talk page). Then again, my username there, as well as here, is my first name. Is that a pseudonym?

This post has been edited by anthony: Tue 6th May 2008, 10:27pm

[GlassBeadGame]

Resolved —

The Use Of Pseudonyms Is A Prima Facie Symptom Of Emotional, Mental, And Moral Dysfunction

Disagree completely. In the case of WP, its very structure and encouragement of anonymous IP editors makes pseudonyms necessary.

Maybe, but contributing to Wikipedia in the first place isn't necessary.

It's certainly arguable that any of us who continue to contribute to Wikipedia, even after knowing what goes on there, are emotionally, mentally, and morally, dysfunctional. I don't really agree with this, looking back through my edits over the last month, I think they were mostly rational (they were mostly about subjects I was trying to learn more about, with the rest being responses to things that showed up on my talk page). Then again, my username there, as well as here, is my first name. Is that a pseudonym?

Yes, I think that should be considered a pseudonym. It does not link your account to your IRL in any meaningful way. Also there is no real assurance that it is actually your first name. But on the hand it at least is less annoying than many pseudonym username.

Also another effect of pseudonyms, which I have noted with some displeasure in my own contributions, including here at WR, is that not using a IRL identity permits a user to engage in harsher criticism than might be otherwise used. By using your real first name maybe you not as likely to do this. But still it is a pseudonym.

[Jon Awbrey]

Pseudonym = False Name

For example, consider the agent or agents who edited Wikipedia under the following names:

• 217.237.149.143
• L!-wgi

Let us assume that the agent or agents in question are human beings and not robots.

In that case, it being highly unlikely that the true names of any human beings are either "217.237.149.143" or "L!-wgi", we may provisionally assume that both of these names are false names of the agent or agents in question.

Jon

This post has been edited by Jon Awbrey: Wed 7th May 2008, 1:40am

[GlassBeadGame]

Pseudonym = False Name

Jon

I think the other prong of pseudonym, distinguishing it from an anon, is that it comes with it's very own "reputational bank account." Which of course can be walked away from if over-drawn.