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A generalisation of Qiaochu's civility reason is that revealing your identity makes for greater personal investment into your answers and questions. You will be generally more careful to not ask Wikipedia-questions and to not give wrong or not well thought-out answers.
I'm surprised that the most obvious reason for anonymity hasn't been mentioned yet. MO is not only for the discussion of technical questions but for the discussion of certain sociological aspects of the mathematical research community. Say I want to ask for career advice but don't want my employer to know that I'm looking for another job. Say I am considering blowing the whistle on some improper activity but want some advice before I take the plunge. Say I want to protect someone else's anonymity and that revealing my own identity will give readers enough clues to make a shrewd guess about the identity of that someone else. Although such situations may be rare and MO isn't the appropriate forum for all of them, some such situations have already come up and the MO community has deemed them appropriate content. Anonymity is crucial in such cases. (One other example that I don't think has been tested yet: Say a referee wants to ask a question that for some reason can't be handled through the author or editor. I'm not sure I can think of an example that would be appropriate for MO, but I can imagine that examples might exist. Without anonymity, such a question is ruled out a priori.)
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.
@Timothy: if I may be allowed a brief response under the proviso that I have not carefully read all the previous posts in this thread (so it is possible that I am repeating what someone else has said):
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.
@Pete: I believe that the reasons I stated apply equally to questions and answers. If I'm replying to a question about a potential whistleblowing situation by describing a similar situation that I was once in, I might quite reasonably choose to remain anonymous. Similarly I might want to make sure that my answer doesn't get voted up above someone else's possibly superior answer just because I'm famous and have a fan club that will vote up anything I say.
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.
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.
For whatever it's worth: my comments were not written with "whistleblowing questions" in mind.
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.
+1 Andrew! I don't see many people walking around with masks on the street (I should add "in this part of the world"), the reason simply being that it's so much again social norms.
Alex Bartel said: "I don't see many people walking around with masks on the street (I should add "in this part of the world"), the reason simply being that it's so much again social norms."
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.
Yes, and we have anonymity on meta.
I post anonymously (here and on the main site, obviously w/ different names) b/c I am a coward. Is that a good enough reason?
@Andrew Stacey: Let me make sure I understand your position correctly. If MO is purely for the discussion of technical questions, then in particular the following questions are inappropriate:
Refereeing a paper (117 votes)
Thinking and explaining (92 votes)
Which journals publish expository work? (90 votes)
When and how is it appropriate for an undergraduate to email a professor out of the blue? (69 votes)
Is a free alternative to MathSciNet possible? (63 votes)
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.
@Kevin: I don't follow your argument. If you think "Refereeing a paper" is inappropriate, then why don't you vote to close it? If you have respect for "momentum" then presumably that means that you regard those upvotes as reflecting the will of the MO community. The MO community may not have formed any sweeping consensus about all such questions, but it has clearly deemed some such questions to be appropriate.
I'd understand your point of view better if you and Andrew Stacey would vote to close "Refereeing a paper."
Let me say something more about a point I made that nobody seems to have responded to. Victor Miller is a colleague of mine and he wanted to know why "Snuffleupagus" gave an excellent but anonymous, community wiki response to this question of his:
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?
Indeed. I this was made clear before, but let me emphasize it: there is zero chance of an nonimity policy being instituted on MO. There's no way it could possibly enforced, and I think I speak for the other moderators when I say I have no interest in being the identity police. So this is a not a discussion of whether Snuffleupagus will be allowed to continue their policy, but whether various people think it is wise/justified/cool.
On the other hand, I do sort of have a personal anti-anonymity policy that very occasionally gets applied in my moderation. If you do something bad (not just post a closeable question, but are rude to someone, or post gibberish or spam) while completely anonymous (ie, not even leaving a valid email address in your profile) then there's no chance I'll try to sort out what's going on, give you the benefit of the doubt, or try to write a helpful email: I'll just delete or otherwise clean up as appropriate.
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.
Can I also say that there is, in some online communities, a distinction drawn between pseudonymity and anonymity? That is, one might adopt a consistent pseudonym for blogging or commenting, which by virtue of the pseudonym is either meant to conceal the real identity or establish a kind of separate persona.
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...
None taken. I already admitted that it was a frivolous question, and frankly I'm a little annoyed it got so much attention. I will probably not ask another question like it in a long time.
I don't really care much if people use their real names or not.
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.
@Greg: Contemptible is a strong word. I think Nazis are contemptible. Anonymous people on the internet are, at worst, annoying.
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.
And here I was thinking that MO (meta) was immune to Godwin's law :)
@Jose: Ha! Godwin's Law will always win in the end. Actually, it doesn't really fit here, at least according to the wikipedia definition: "given enough time, in any online discussion—regardless of topic or scope— someone inevitably criticizes some point made in the discussion by comparing it to beliefs held by Hitler and the Nazis."
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.
@an_mo_user: you are on the verge of concluding that "some people are contemptible and some people are not, independently of onlineness"....
@Mariano: and the natural question to ask next is, does the law of excluded middle apply to the contemptibility of people, and whether that is dependent on onlineness?
I said a long time ago (in a galaxy far, far away):
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:
Storkle has a reason.
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."
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.
Andrew, I don't understand why you know more about Bill Johnson than about Bugs Bunny. If we restrict just to MO posts, the two personalities shine through about equally for me. For all I know without doing a google search, "Bill Johnson" could also be a pseudonym, like John Smith. (No offense, Bill: I'm sure that's your real name.) 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.
(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.)
@Angelo: I bet that some day, an anonymous poster asks a question you can't resist thinking about, and then answering. You are, after all, a mathematician. Itches will be scratched.
Todd, I may be missing the point here, but for some of us the name "Bill Johnson" attached to posts about functional analysis is like seeing the name "Ross Street" attached to posts about category theory.
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.)
Yemon: I must then plead ignorance. I am not in functional analysis, and did not recognize Bill's name as belonging to a giant in the field. I'm sure you're absolutely right, and I truly meant no offense. But I think my point could apply to cases of apparently real but not-yet-widely-recognized names, and I think it's an interesting issue.
Todd: no worries, and I'm sure no one took your analogy in any offense (I certainly didn't). I am sure I don't recognize the names of many esteemed (algebraic/differential) geometers or number theorists here on MO, to name only two examples. And yes, I agree that your wider point stands.
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.
I think we are agreed then, Yemon. Another example for me would be Sergei Ivanov.
@Yemon: that last example is interestingly chosen, given that Fedja never uses his last name on MO.
@Mark: I hope I wasn't being "out of line" by mentioning that example - I recall some comments on an answer given by "fedja", which linked to articles by Fedor Nazarov, and certainly the areas of expertise seem to match up. (One is free to draw conclusions as I did, without saying categorically that they are one and the same person)
@Yemon: I certainly didn't mean to imply that you were out of line, just that he isn't quite the best possible example of someone using his real-world name on MO.
To Todd and Yemon, you both miss my point. Todd comes close when he says:
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.