Bender: Please, I'm scared.
Sal: We're all scared, it's the human condition. Why do you thinks I put on this tough-guy façade?

This thread did contain some proposals to disallow pseudonyms, but they are pretty much out of the discussion now. Correct me if I am wrong (I hope not).

I'm still pretty steadfast in my plan to encourage people to use their real names, but I think we're doing this in a fashion that is completely compatible with allowing access for people who are worried about their online identity.

We've never restricted access to good-faith anonymous users. I really do need to say "good-faith"; when an anonymous user misbehaves we usually have very little patience. But for this, anonymous also means not providing an email address visible only to the moderators. When an email address is available, we nearly always try to write an email explaining our concerns, if it's not obvious trolling.

If you're really worried about participating in online mathematics because of your repressive local government, drop me a line. (PGP public key on my website, along with other contact details.) I might well be happy to set up a very respectable looking tunnel for you, if I'm convinced you're kosher.

That said, I think if you ask a mathematically-sophisticated question on MO, the likelyhood of the authorities determining your identity (if they were to try) is extremely high, regardless of the lengths you go to protect your identity. Mathematical literacy is very low across the entire planet, so expressing literacy in a public forum makes it extremely likely that you will be identified in a short amount of time. Expressing a particular type of mathematical proclivity (unless it's intentional mis-direction) is practically a red flag "my name is X, my address is Y, I went to university Z".

"If you've done nothing wrong, you have little to worry about" is a dangerous line, which I hope we're not espousing.

That said: I personally I think MO should discourage anonymity, on the grounds that it isn't the place to fix the many and varied non-mathematical iniquities of the world.

By random chance, I happened to notice that you answered the question

http://mathoverflow.net/questions/83949/the-composition-of-derived-functors-commutation-fails-hazardly

from a user "sasha" who seems to me to be, for all intents and purposes, anonymous. I'm wondering what it is about this case that prompted your reply. Of course, being an anonymous questioner myself, perhaps I have no reasonable expectation of a reply here!

Best, Storkle

Edit: There is also your relatively recent answer to the user "36min", but I have to admit that I don't see a pattern so I'm still curious.

@Andrew: a propos garments, are you talking about sticky name-tags? Plastic sleeves with a clip on the back works wonders with a shirt with breast-pockets.

But the situation I'm describing is about interacting with a person through more than one question/answer to build up a picture of them. There, the information in the profile becomes less and less important (even assuming that I read it). There are professors who rank quite low in my (admittedly skewed) ranking, and graduates, even undergraduates, who rank quite highly. My ranking is used purely as additional information to decide how much time to invest in reading something that they have posted.

It's like that game where someone hides money in two boxes, but different amounts depending on whether they think you'll take both boxes or just one. If playing the game once, the strategy is to take both boxes. If playing the game many times, the strategy is to take just one. If you intend to view MO as a place to go, get what you want, and run, then fine but don't expect me to bother too much about you. If you intend to view MO as a place to stay and join in, then that's great, but it would help me to have a memorable label to connect your different contributions so that I better know who you are and can better help you.

(PS: I find that nametags ruin many a garment and don't wear them unless sticky tape is provided. Though if someone sent me an MO t-shirt for free, I'd wear that solely at conferences and stick all my nametags to it.)

Now I know that you cannot count on just any mathematician to do this, but what can I say? I'm a pretty exceptional guy.

By the power invested upon us.

I could have picked graduates, I might have had more trouble picking undergraduates simply because I don't know many just from MO. I don't think that it has anything to do with status, just that the higher status users are more noticeable. I have certainly noticed both Bill and Bugs, but one stuck and the other ... eats carrots.

I'm also not trying to say that my behaviour is ideal; just that if I'm typical then that information should be taken into account when someone chooses to be anonymous or pseudonymous.

Incidentally, this does suggest a strategy for someone wanting to be anonymous: choose something that could actually be a real name. Just don't choose Abel (and don't choose a gravatar of a famous mathematician).

Actually, talking of gravatars, the same goes for people that don't put pictures of themselves but choose something silly ... like the cheshire cat! Again, it's information that helps me build up a picture of who they are. I feel that I would know David Speyer at a conference, but I could be talking to Pete Clark for half an hour before realising who he was. (Actually, it would probably take about 2 minutes before he reminded me that I've offered to buy him quite a large number of pints by now.)

But I don't want to up the ante. I'll keep the discussion on names for now.

If MO required real names, I would not join it. Call it self-preservation instinct: web has become an extremely dangerous place to be. After a certain incident I have decided for myself to use creative identities everywhere on the web, except my bank and my paypal account...

When Bill Johnson first appeared on MO, I didn't know him from Bugs Bunny. But because he uses his real name, I have with almost no effort learned a fair bit about him. People like Yemon Choi gave him a warm welcome and dropped hints on the meta site that he was a leading mathematician in the field of functional analysis. This has been confirmed by his answers on MO up to the best of my own knowledge: i.e., I know so little functional analysis as to be unable to tell the difference between a leading functional analyst and a decent functional analyst, but Professor Johnson is certainly decent enough for me. Moreover I began to notice and remember that certain theorems in functional analysis bear his name. Just now I went to MathSciNet and immediately found a William B. Johnson who has 118 papers in functional analysis and related areas, which have been cited 992 times. So it's pretty clear who and what he is. If I had a specific question about something that appeared in one of his papers (again, I am not at present up to that task, but I have been in the mathematics business long enough not to rule out the possibility that this could happen in the future) I could ask it here thinking that he would probably respond. Or perhaps I would feel bold enough to email him personally about the question, since he probably has at least some vague awareness of who I am as well. If some day our paths cross at some conference or other event, we will probably stop and talk to each other because of our MO connection. (Such has been the case, at least, with dozens of other mathematicians over the last 16 months.)

Now try out any of these things with Bugs Bunny...it doesn't work. Maybe he is someone that I already know, and maybe he isn't. (Maybe he's a she...) He certainly seems to be a knowledgeable and interesting person to the extent that I would benefit and enjoy out-of-MO interactions with him. So it seems a bit of a shame that I don't know his actual identity: without that he exists only as an MO character, whereas Bill Johnson and I exist also -- and let me go so far as to say primarily -- in REAL LIFE. I don't remember exactly what Mr. Bunny's justification for his anonymity is, but if I am being honest it strikes me as an eccentric and mildly antisocial choice. (It is, of course, his choice: I am not disputing that.) I wonder what he is gaining to give up all the pleasant human interaction that could come from identifying himself as a real person.

I'm not faulting you, Andrew, but I don't get it -- it sounds like all you're saying is that you just can't relate to pseudonyms.

I'm well aware that it may be a fault in me, but you are absolutely correct in that last phrase. I can't relate to pseudonyms. I knew nothing about Bill Johnson before MO, and still don't know anything about him outside. But I do see how others react to him (people like Yemon) and that's one piece of useful information. And, as I said, I just find that in my head there's a gap when I try to build up a profile of Bugs Bunny as compared to Bill Johnson. I'd say that fedja is probably on the borderline as far as my mind works. I have a reasonable picture of fedja, but anyone more pseudonymous than that is only 2D in my head.

I've said it before and I'll say it again (consider your off-shoots, if off-shoots there be ... sorry, very sorry), this may well be a fault in my brain and completely my fault. But if you want me to answer your questions, then that's something that you have to take in to account. I'm not trying to lay down the law (about the habits of baboons, or the number of quills a porcupine has got ... sorry, again, very sorry) - that sort of argument gets us nowhere as has been demonstrated many times on this thread. I'm trying to explain why I prefer people to use recognisable names. If no-one else agrees with me, then fine - ignore me! I'm also not trying to set myself up as a archetypical MO user. If you never ask a question that I could answer then my opinion makes no difference. But if there are others that agree with me, then it might be worth thinking about why we think the way that we do and asking, "Am I getting out of this site all that I could be?".

Ultimately, this site is about facilitating a transaction between two (or more) people. It's important to remember that the site is secondary to the transaction. So laying down laws about what behaviour should and shouldn't be acceptable is all very well, but it's easy to lose sight of the goal: making the transactions easier. Given that the specific transactions are not fair, it is also important for the party that gains the most (the questioner) to give the most (information) to make it as easy as possible for the answerer to participate. My point is that if I am the answerer, by making yourself pseudonymous or anonymous, then you need to do more work to make it reasonable for me to participate.

As I said, I'm not trying to speak for the majority, or even a minority. I'm only speaking for myself. I'm trying to provide an actual data point. This may well be a failing in my brain, but it's my brain and it's easier to change your behaviour than my way of thinking. Given that you (hypothetically) want something from me, it's also more reasonable to ask you to change your behaviour than my way of thinking.

However, I think that on occasion one can learn something by having a real-world name to attach to MO answers which indicate depth & insight: for a start, I had not come across anything by Fedja Nazarov before I started following MO, but the answers I've seen on MO mean that when I come across the name outside MO I will sit up and take note that little bit more readily.

That said, I think there is something in your response to Andrew, in that it's not clear to me that from MO posts alone one builds up a better picture of Bill Johnson than of Bugs Bunny - there seems to be an unavoidable bias created by name recognition.

I am not entirely convinced by an_mo_user's analogy about stopping people in the street to ask the time. Indeed, one thing that hacks me off about some anonymous/pseudonymous users, though in fairness not all that many, is a seeming presumption behind their bald questions that asking people like me to think about their question, perhaps doing some mind-reading to bring it into better focus, is equivalent to them stopping me in the street & asking me for the time. It simply isn't. (Note that this behaviour is by no means limited to anonymous/pseudonymous users, so I don't want to derail this discussion too much.)

(If I recall correctly, Bugs has already explained in this thread why he (I guess he) uses a pseudonym, and it seems like an okay reason.)

To be clear, I don't want to require real names, but I'd like to have a culture where real names was the expected norm and that those who chose to be anonymous or pseudonymous did so fully knowing that this was against the norm and had a darned good reason for it (better than any I've yet heard).

For the record, I consider Storkle's reason valid. For the following reasons:

1. Storkle has a reason.

2. Storkle has his/her own reason. I find it hard to believe that Storkle saw someone else say, "I'm anonymous because I'm a coward" and thought, "Hmm, that sounds alright, I'll go along with that."

3. Storkle admits, via that reason, that being anonymous is something slightly negative. That it is something that, in an ideal world, wouldn't be necessary. That begin anonymous means that Storkle isn't participating to the full in MO and is holding something back.

I do not support the motion that there is a correlation between anonymity and offensiveness. I don't disagree with it either. I have no evidence either way.

But I want to know who I'm helping. I want to connect questions with people, and answers as well, and gradually get a sense of who someone is. So if I meet them at a conference (which could very well happen) then I'll be able to say, "Hey, I recognise you from MO. You answered that question of mine, let me buy you a drink.".

Okay, so the Real World connection may not be necessary. But even so, I find it easier to build up a profile of a user with a real name. I know that Bugs Bunny is very involved in the site, but I cannot for the life of me take him/her seriously! I cannot "picture" him/her and link his/her contributions. I have no idea what areas Bugs specialises in, no idea what sort of question he/she answers. For counterpoint, I'm pretty sure that I have interacted as much with Bugs Bunny as with, say, Bill Johnson. Yet I know much, much more about Bill than Bugs. There are questions where I expect to see Bill answer, questions that I've asked where I think, "I wish I'd asked this when Bill was active on the site.". You may say that this is a failing in me. But if I'm typical, that's the way things are! It's all very well for one side to say, "I want to behave on MO in the way I choose, providing it doesn't offend anyone else" but then say, "You can't do the same: you have to treat all questions as equal no matter if the poster is anonymous or not.".

The previous poster said:

So, why does one need a name before answering a mathematical question. Yes, sometimes background is important, but one could give this locally or one could also give the background in the user profile without identifying oneself. So, if the problem is missing background/motativation I think one should discuss this, and not whether a user gives something that (presumably) is his/her real name.

You cannot give that sort of background information in a single post. You would quickly run out of characters. And the information that I need to know about you is not the same as someone else needs. A question does not stand or fall by itself. A question is asked by a person and knowing the person makes the question have an extra dimension that the question by itself would not have.

So stay anonymous, I have no problem with that. But do it knowing that you are not getting the most out of, nor putting the most in to MO. That''s the reason to make yourself known.

I wasn't criticizing a point by comparing it to beliefs held by Hitler and the Nazis. I was paraphrasing Henry Francis, and criticizing a point made by comparing it to a belief held by Betty.

Anonymous people on the internet are, at worst, annoying.

Storkle, you must read more civilized comment threads than I do... Some anonymous people on the internet are most definitely contemptible (though no examples on MO come to mind). That said, of course the best course of action is to ignore them where possible.

What I really don't get from that thread is: what is the point of an unregistered user choosing the name Anonymous? It is hardly any different from leaving it at the default "unknown (google)" or "unknown (yahoo)" or what not.

Personally, I have no great problem with people using pseudonyms, although I would agree with some of the opinions voiced above, in that I am more likely to respond favourably to someone who attaches a name and even some description or link. What annoys me more is the unknown (google) or unknown (yahoo) non-identity that is seen from time to time.

Talk of "the MO community" also seems to be used by people in different senses. Is this a situation where one applies a weighting? It is all very well to say that the content should determine the response, rather than the name, but the fact remains I am much more likely to sit up and take note of comments or rebuke by people who I know have "earned their stripes". If we are to go just by numbers of votes, then that question about puzzles at dinner which I can't stand, or -- no offence meant -- Qiaochu's recent question on what the point of functional equations might be, would represent the direction in which the site should go...

That said, completely agreeing with Ben, I can't imagine we'll ever become more hostile to anonymous users than that rather minimal level.

@Timothy et al, regarding your list of older questions. As others have said, consistency on ancient questions is too much to ask. Moreover, votes to close expire after a certain amount of time, so how are you to know that various people haven't voted to close the questions you mention? I probably wouldn't attempt to close any of the questions you mention at this point, as I think they are considered appropriate at this point. I'm not embarrassed to say that I wish we could all move further in the direction of thinking questions like this are inappropriate, however! I think it's okay to argue for a policy change on meta without attempting to implement it single handedly.

http://mathoverflow.net/questions/44844/galois-groups-of-a-family-of-polynomials/45412#45412

When he enquired, Snuffleupagus explained that (s)he liked the concept of MO as a place to ask and answer questions, but intensely disliked the system of reputation. Therefore (s)he posts under a different pseudonym each time to avoid earning reputation and to ensure that his or her answers are voted up on their merit alone.

If anonymity were forbidden then I suspect we would lose Snuffleupagus's input. Do the opponents of anonymity not regard this as a reasonable argument for anonymity?

I'd understand your point of view better if you and Andrew Stacey would vote to close "Refereeing a paper."

1. Refereeing a paper (117 votes)

2. Thinking and explaining (92 votes)

3. Which journals publish expository work? (90 votes)

4. When and how is it appropriate for an undergraduate to email a professor out of the blue? (69 votes)

5. Is a free alternative to MathSciNet possible? (63 votes)

6. What would you want to see at the Museum of Mathematics? (56 votes)

Is that correct? If so, then it seems that the MO community as a whole doesn't agree with you that this sort of content is inappropriate. Given its de facto appropriateness, I would think that the discussion of anonymity should be conducted in that context, not in the context of some hypothetical MO that you wish existed.

There are companies though that have an anonymous communication channel for employees to voice concerns, because sometimes people won't risk their neck to tell about a deficiency or even a danger that their boss ignores. Because, if they do, and their boss gets the situation under control and does not get fired, you can imagine what most bosses do next... But, of course, these communication channels are for reporting dangers that are ignored by the authorities, and - I agree with Andrew here - MO is not about this. MO is not about finding out if some kind of criticism has fans and supporters.

With regard to opinions: at least when you hear an opinion from a particular person you can record mentally "This person holds this opinion", which could possibly be of some future use. The weaker statement "Someone (apparently) holds this opinion" is close to useless.

MO is not only for the discussion of technical questions but for the discussion of certain sociological aspects of the mathematical research community.

That's a contentious issue, I fear. I'm on the side that says that actually it is only for the discussion of technical questions and that the discussion of certain sociological aspects of the mathematical research community is an unfortunate thing that keeps cropping up and we keep having to stomp it back down again. Indeed, if requiring real names would make this aspect of MO more difficult then I would see that as another reason to require real names.

To be clear, I don't want to require real names, but I'd like to have a culture where real names was the expected norm and that those who chose to be anonymous or pseudonymous did so fully knowing that this was against the norm and had a darned good reason for it (better than any I've yet heard).

So I'll add to my list of "What makes a good MO question" the following: If a question seems to require the author to be anonymous, then it isn't a good fit for MO.

The anonymous opinions that you have no sympathy towards sound to me like posts you should have no sympathy towards whether or not they are anonymous. It's only if you think that anonymity significantly increases the frequency of such posts that they're relevant to a discussion of anonymity.

I have a lot of sympathy towards anonymous questions on MO. A lot of people want to ask questions but are for whatever reason too embarrassed to do so. This includes professional mathematicians and even eminent ones. It is so much better to ask the question anonymously than not at all.

I have less sympathy towards anonymous answers. Unlike in the previous case, I just don't understand the motivation for it. As I reader, I find it desirable to know who the answerer is. If I want to have further dialogue with an answerer, then any information I may know about them could be of use to me. It's not just a matter of respect (or sycophancy): I am going to respond differently, say, to Kevin Buzzard than to Brian Conrad than to David Speyer, although I hold all three in the highest esteem.

I have basically no sympathy towards anonymous opinions. If someone wants to argue with someone else, or relate statements about their own experience, and so forth, then it is of no interest to me from an anonymous source. Most of all, if you're going to make negative comments about someone anonymously -- well, I feel that's a clear abuse of the site.

Another reason for anonymity is that someone may wish to get an honest reaction to their question without "contamination" from their real-world reputation. There have been a couple of times on MO when a famous mathematician has "gotten away" with asking a question that would have been closed instantly otherwise. If the famous mathematician dislikes this effect then anonymity seems to be the only way to counteract it. I seem to recall that Donald Knuth would sometimes submit papers pseudonymously in order to get objective referee reports.

Should't a question, in particular a mathematical one, be judged rather on its own merits (as opposed to the ones of the person asking)?

I agree with the statement, but disagree with the conclusion: that the information as to who asked the question is irrelevant. It is extremely relevant. Not just for the reasons given above, namely that one day I might run in to them at a conference (maths is certainly a small world!) or that some outside-MO knowledge helps me frame my answer, but also because one of the reasons that I'm here is to interact with other mathematicians. I want to do that through the mathematics, but I definitely want to get to know other mathematicians through this website. So I want to be able to link questions together and answers as well, get to know who the experts in a particular field are, get to know what people are thinking about or interested in. I can give a variety of practical reasons for this, but ultimately it's because I want to know that I'm part of a bigger game than just me sitting in my office drawing bizarre diagrams on pieces of paper. It's probably a bit unusual of me, but I find names easier to remember than numbers, so I'll notice "Willie Wong" when I see it here, and on other websites, and if I see a paper by him on the arXiv it increases the chance that I'll download it (possibly not the chance that I'll actually read it ...). But after the 532nd "unknown (google)" I find my mind going a little blank.

The Celts weren't completely wrong when they thought that names had power, but it's not power over someone, it's power with them.

(It's late, and I'm getting philosophical, so I'll shut up before I say anything daft. Ooops, too late.)

Yeah, for people with common names, any publicity is good publicity. :)

But as long as we're talking about knowing who asked, for me the issue is social. Although we are all mathematicians, we are all probably also humans, and humans like to know who they're helping when they help someone. It would be nice, for example, to know who you're dealing with on MO in case you ever meet them at a conference later in life; that would be an opportunity to establish a connection. (I think I am going to meet a lot of people this way.)

I've heard tell that such things can be easily purchased in Ann Arbor...

Are you serious? How could all of this crime be going on right under my nose without me ever suspecting it? =S

@David: I'm not asking him to reveal his true identity. I'm asking him to present an argument instead of whining about how he needs to protect his identity at all costs. If he refuses, then he has nothing else to add here. He's given his opinion, and he doesn't need to keep repeating it. If he want to argue a position in a discussion between adults, he should be expected to present his case like an adult. That means that an argument is more than just orders "you should do this and you should do that to protect those who enjoy anonymity". I'm not saying that there is no argument to be made for anonymity, just that he's not making it.