Anonymous or not?

Anonymity has a place I suppose. I am still trying to work it out for myself. As for trusted information, anonymous entries have no standing. Even within a crowd, the wisdom of the crowd may seem to enable anonymous entries and create a sense of "trust-worthy-ness". However, when you can dig deep into the data and reveal that some entries are tied to special interests, then the anonymity becomes a problem. The "trust-worthy-ness" is disrobed.

One of the key educational skills that will be required for success in the evolving world and state of information is to make sense of what can be trusted and what needs to be verified. It will require more than a sniff test.

Source of this: some coversations during the weekend at PodCamp Boston 3 and this recent link via Liz to one talented person who can uncover the identity of wikipedia editors.

Turning off anonymous comments

I have gone back and forth on this issue of anonymity a number of times in my own mind and after reading here, I have decided to remove anonymous comments from the various blogs I control. This change is effective 3/1/08.

This is not turning away conversation.

This is ensuring that the conversation is based in honesty and real identity.

It also helps that Google has enabled additional accounts to be used to comment.

If you have any issues with anonymity, you can email me (as you won't be able to comment) after March 1. Email to shersteve at gmail dot com

Commenting with OpenID

After just two short weeks of testing on Blogger in draft, OpenID commenting is now available for all Blogger blogs. This means that your friends and readers can leave authenticated comments on your blog using their blog URLs from OpenID-enabled services such as WordPress.com, LiveJournal, and AOL Journals, or with their AOL/AIM accounts.

We've chosen a few popular OpenID providers to highlight on the comments form, but OpenID is, well, "open"! You can use any OpenID service to post a comment by choosing "Any OpenID" and filling in your OpenID URL.

For those who comment here, you may have noticed a change this week as this was implemented.

For those who wanted to comment here, but did not want to get a Google account, now you can use one of your other accounts to provide an id with your comment.

Of course, 'anonymous' is still accepted but then I don't get to email you with my reply and continue the conversation.


For additional details on the change, you can find them here.

Doctorate not= common sense

Caught the Boston Globe headlines today: Blogger unmasked, court case upended

It was a Perry Mason moment updated for the Internet age.

As Ivy League-educated pediatrician Robert P. Lindeman sat on the stand in Suffolk Superior Court this month, defending himself in a malpractice suit involving the death of a 12-year-old patient, the opposing counsel startled him with a question.

Was Lindeman Flea?

Flea, jurors in the case didn't know, was the screen name for a blogger who had written often and at length about a trial remarkably similar to the one that was going on in the courtroom that day.

In his blog, Flea had ridiculed the plaintiff's case and the plaintiff's lawyer. He had revealed the defense strategy. He had accused members of the jury of dozing.
With the jury looking on in puzzlement, Lindeman admitted that he was, in fact, Flea.

Another definition of clueless behavior today.

Beware of anonymous bloggers. You never know.


Note: for some situations especially in other countries where the government threat to personal behavior is real, anonymity should be an option. Fortunately, here in the USA, that is not the case.