tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22974616.post2685310474813306253..comments2023-10-02T14:33:18.136+01:00Comments on The Very Fluffy Diary of Millennium Dome, Elephant: Day 3164: You Know My Name (It's Millennium)Millennium Domehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08430269096817934037noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22974616.post-84714415811304830272009-10-28T17:24:22.023+00:002009-10-28T17:24:22.023+00:00This is what I get for not paying attention to the...This is what I get for not paying attention to the blogosphere when I'm snowed under at work. I've amended my 'About Me' page to include my actual name - which is Adam Bell. My 'About Me' page included a picture of myself before this, which is arguably better for identifying who someone is, but never mind. <br /><br />I have to say, I would never not respond to someone's post because they used a pseudonym. The important thing is consistency - if someone uses different names across blogs, they're much more likely to be a knave. I find it difficult to believe that Jonathan would not have responded to Guido, even before he became famous.Adamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13308821423340633375noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22974616.post-17508442624620918712009-09-02T13:45:15.089+01:002009-09-02T13:45:15.089+01:00Mr Gareth, to an extent you are RIGHT: people MAY ...Mr Gareth, to an extent you are RIGHT: people MAY adopt pseudonyms to "escape" the "sphere of knowledge" that already exists around their "real world" identity. And this is why practices like sock puppeting and astroturfing are so BAD.<br /><br />However, we SPOT sock puppets and astroturfers because they pop up out of nowhere and, because we don't know anything about them, then we are less likely to believe them: they lack "authority".<br /><br />In order to GAIN any authority on the web you need to EARN a reputation by putting up many and consistent posts. But this very action should enable people to build up a new "sphere of knowledge" that once again defines you.<br /><br />When you say of "Guerilla Welsh-Fare" that "it's pretty clear that it's run by Plaid Cymru staff" that is precisely the "sphere of knowledge" that I am talking about. Is it dishonest to disguise their real-world affiliation in this way? Perhaps. But it may also give them a greater freedom to think around subjects without being tied to a Party line. (Even if they mostly support that Party line.)<br /><br />Whichever is the case, that AMBIGUITY is also something that you can factor into the "sphere of knowledge" when thinking about the reputation of a particular online person.<br /><br /><br /><br />I think that there is a DIFFERENCE between passing yourself off as something you are not and using a name to define yourself that isn't the one you use in the "real world".<br /><br />It's just a shame that it can be tricky to TELL the difference.<br /><br />I suppose it comes down to a question of how RELEVANT the concealed information is to what you are talking about. Knowing that someone is a member of a particular Party when they claim to be commenting independently probably IS relevant. <br /><br />But even using your real-world name, you probably don't tell every single person you meet what political Party you are a member of, or what your preferred television viewing is, or what your HIV status might be. The phrase "too much information" exists for a reason.<br /><br />So it depends.<br /><br />And it's not like people using their real names can never be deceitful either, is it?Millennium Domehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08430269096817934037noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22974616.post-46792616364262367582009-09-02T11:43:40.282+01:002009-09-02T11:43:40.282+01:00You're right that someone might blog pseudonym...You're right that someone might blog pseudonymously for many reasons , the difficulty is that without any additional information you can't judge which reason a particular blogger has and that context can be very important in judging what a person has to say.<br /><br />To give an example, here in Wales we've just been told that the top political blog in the country is Guerilla Welsh-Fare, which continues to claim that it is "independent" when it's pretty clear that it's run by Plaid Cymru staff in the National Assembly and is thus a quasi-official arm of their spin operation. But much as it's clear to me and to those in the blogosphere, many people will read it and not realise, meaning that Plaid gain an unreasonable advantage from their pseudonymity.<br /><br />By contrast, I've always had a policy of putting people's real names against their blogs on my blogroll, but I'm happy to add pseudonymous bloggers under their pseudonyms if I know who they actually are and know why they need to be pseudonymous.Gareth Aubreyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02420082463890261627noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22974616.post-45017945525005084332009-09-01T12:00:40.643+01:002009-09-01T12:00:40.643+01:00Dear Mr Jonathan,
Sorry to be picky – or rather t...Dear Mr Jonathan,<br /><br />Sorry to be picky – or rather to be picky back at you – but I DIDN'T say what you said I said you said!<br /><br />That is, I did not say that you said "anonymous blogging was rude". <br /><br />I did say that you were not replying to Decline of the Logos because you thought that that instance was rude; and I did day that it was hard to get away from the IDEA that you might think others were being rude, because that is an INFERENCE from your posting.<br /><br />But would it more rewarding to engage with what you actually say? Did I not?<br /><br />You say it is rude that someone uses your surname without telling you theirs; I say that it is rude to dismiss someone's points on the flimsy grounds that they are "anonymous" – on the web, they are no more or less anonymous than you are. That was the ENTIRE point of my post.<br /><br />But I notice that you yourself are making a picky point here rather than engaging with what I actually say.<br /><br />That's not how CONVERSATION works, is it? You say something, I say something INSPIRED by that, you should be inspired to say something else. It's not an exercise in form-filling, now is it? Just LOOK at the gibberish I am reduced to above! This is the Mr Daniel Hangman approach to debate: "oooOOOooo, just because I said Enoch Powell was my hero doesn't mean that I said I found him heroic". Surely we can be a bit more GROWN UP about this sort of thing.<br /><br />Even if I am only nine!Millennium Domehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08430269096817934037noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22974616.post-23277044684704265712009-09-01T09:24:11.230+01:002009-09-01T09:24:11.230+01:00No, I don't say anonymous blogging is rude, I ...No, I don't say anonymous blogging is rude, I say it <strong>can be</strong> rude.<br /><br />In particular, I complain about bloggers who employ the academic convention of referring to me by my surname whilst declining to reveal their own surnames.<br /><br />Wouldn't it be more rewarding to engage with what I actually say?Jonathan Calderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00730157683743989696noreply@blogger.com