Macho Anonymous

A term for something something I detect with Wiki these days.

Foundation: Ward believes in the benefits of anonymity on Wiki.

Outworking: Someone comes in to Wiki, briefly, to deal with emotive subjects where they feel the need to sign and there is a macho delight in making them jump through impossible-for-them but easy-for-others IdentityInferenceEngine hoops? Is that roughly it?

Every community has its strengths and weaknesses. Don't take this as a criticism.

I'm simply trying to understand the latest set of WikiTaboos and norms.

[... quoth RichardDrake, curiously enough remaining anonymous himself ...]

Glad you spotted that and drew the attention of the comunity to it. I'm not religious about such things, as they say. (?)

I assume this is in reference to the discussion on WhyClublet and other related pages here, where some people made statements anonymously and Richard complained. If that's wrong, then anything else I say presumably misses the point.

Anyway: I don't know where this accusation of "macho delight" (and it is an accusation, even if you say "this is not a criticism") comes from. If someone prefers to say something and not sign their name to it, why assume "macho delight"? Why assume that they want to make you jump through any sort of hoops? All you need to assume is that they wanted the discussion not to be personal.

Why would someone want the discussion not to be personal? Perhaps they're worried (rationally or not, rightly or not) that if they sign their name then someone else will bear grudges. Perhaps they're worried (rationally or not, rightly or not) that if they sign their name then someone else will jump to conclusions about their motivation. Perhaps they're just in the habit of not signing things on Wiki. Perhaps they simply had a little something to add to the page, and didn't feel the need to take credit for it.

Those are all unobjectionable reasons. There are other possibilities: they may want to hurt someone without admitting responsibility, I suppose. But that seems like a poor assumption to make, and I would counsel you to avoid making it without much better evidence than just "Someone said something anonymously that I didn't like!".

In this most recent "incident", would you agree that there turned out to be no malice and no intention to attack and hide?

-- GarethMcCaughan

The latest incidents are manifold, confusing and currently still being analyzed. I coined MachoAnonymous to flush out something or other though. Underlying my confidence that it might be worth doing so is the fact that since WardCunningham looked at the logs as a result of my complaints of UnethicalEditing two months ago and said "I have to admit something fishy seems to have gone on" I have been enjoying by far the most trouble-free WikiEpisode that I can remember for around 30 months. At least, I strongly relate the two things. Maybe that is reverse paranoia at work though. I revere Ward so much that his even looking at the logs is enough to drive the demons away. It sounds a cool theory so I'll adopt until further notice.

What I have flushed out from this page so far is that GarethMcCaughan is still on Wiki, as well as someone I have barely heard of called BillTrost, who makes a totally fair point about correct use of anonymity here. But this is all about lost connections for me, that is the whole point of IdentityInferenceEngine, which I am still ridiculously proud of as a ChoiceOfPageName. It's wonderful to know you are still here, Gareth, in that same old nebulous sense of the word here that became so beloved of Wikizens across the planet not long after Ward started in 1994. -- RichardDrake

It's not clear to me what sort of something-or-other you have in mind, and I'm not sure how it can be true that (1) what you wrote shouldn't be taken "as a criticism" and that (2) you wrote it to "flush out something or other". Doubtless enlightenment awaits. Anyway: yes, I'm still here. I don't sign what I write very often, though. Mostly only when I fear that it might give offence and want to accept culpability... -- GarethMcCaughan

With the "something or other" and "not as a criticism" paradox perhaps we're back in WikiUncertaintyPrinciple territory Gareth. To whit, rather than stay silent on something I felt rather strongly I took an honest measurement, you responded in person and in doing so proved that at least my worst predictions were groundless. What state Wiki as a whole jumped into I don't know but harmony and coherence is greater at least as viewed from here. Thanks for that. -- RichardDrake

You're welcome. I'm still wondering where the accusation of "macho delight" comes from... -- GarethMcCaughan

I suspect that there is something to learn here generally about how it feels to newcomers or oldies that are out of touch with which IP number maps to which person. I wouldn't change the wording for that reason.

But speaking personally now, as alluded to already, I feel I am experimenting here. Most episodes on Wiki for me since November 2000, and some before, have felt more like gang rape than any other experience that springs to mind. Strong language but as true as I can be to my feelings, albeit with all the normal modifications and caveats for analogical language. This is a place that I once loved, then felt continually raped in, and now feel a degree of protection in again, because Ward took time to look at the logs two months ago.

Sorry about the intemperate language above and below, therefore. But thank you (and Tom and Kathy come to that, which may help to remove uncalled-for mushiness) for the sense of warm, healthy human contact within this medium. -- RichardDrake