Feature Request: Abandon content to Anonymous Monk

[SankoR]

Originally posted as a reply to New Feature: Claim anonymously posted nodes

Any plans to allow us to do the opposite and abandon content to AM?

I've never posted anything too personal or embarrassing but PM is the only site I use where I have absolutely no control or ownership of the content I generate. As long as everything written in this node is true, I'd really love a way to wash my hands of it all. Having my identity attached adds no real value to PM.

[hippo]

PM is the only site I use where I have absolutely no control or ownership of the content I generate.

No control? I can go in today and edit any node I posted over the preceding years/decades. What more control do you envisage having?

As for ownership, this is a community platform and always has been. Anything which you or I post here should be considered a gift to the community. If you don't want to gift it in that manner, don't post it.

That said, PerlMonks is far less aggressively proprietorial than say L*nkedIn or F*cebook, either of which will immediately claim all rights to anything you might do in connection with them. Those are well worth avoiding but this place is much more easy going.

And you can still wash your hands of it all if you so decide.

[SankoR]

You're not entirely free to edit any node you posted because they'll physically stop you. Removing 'your' content is considered vandalism and they'll lock your account to prevent it.

As for the gift aspect... I'm not exactly handing out treasure here but I'm not talking about deletion anyway. It just follows that, if given the option to claim AM comments, the opposite might be something someone might want to do. Until this thread, I never even considered it but the link I posted contains links to several other people asking for the same thing over the years and not getting it.

I don't use social media but PerlMonks doesn't even compare to "aggressively proprietorial" sites when it comes to content ownership. After deleting your account, LinkedIn will remove everything within 24 hours, Facebook hides it immediately and gives you 30 days to change your mind before deleting everything as does the site formerly known as Twitter. Reddit, the site I consider the worst on the web, doesn't delete your content automatically but removes the username and other information from everything you don't remove yourself which you are free to do by hand before deleting the account. Even non-commercial, greater good systems like the Wayback Machine allows you to request outright content removal.

I guess I'm suggesting Reddit's interpretation of what a deleted account means: full disassociation from the content having originated from a single account. Anyone concerned with their privacy would expect at least that but I wasn't asking for my account to be removed. Maybe I should be, given the response, but my comment wasn't a request to have <quote type="air">my</quote> stuff removed either. Giving people the option to have their content attributed to Anonymous Monk seems much more easy going than the current options.

[jdporter]

if given the option to claim AM comments, the opposite

adding differentiation of authorship adds value. the opposite does... the opposite.

Reddit ... removes the username and other information from everything
full disassociation from the content having originated from a single account

I'm not familiar with how Reddit does things... When you say "removes the username and other information", what is that replaced with? Are all posts reassigned to some "anonymous coward" type of user?

Anyone concerned with their privacy

Is privacy what you're concerned about? If so, why wouldn't you create your user with a username not linkable to you? You do that with email accounts you open, right?
PerlMonks only knows what you tell it, and we have no "real identity" requirements like Farcebook does (or used to).

have their content attributed to Anonymous Monk seems much more easy going than the current options

Again, I'd ask you to elaborate. Asking the gods to anonymize your account and sitting back waiting for them to do it seems pretty easy to me...

[jdporter]

As long as everything written in this node is true, I'd really love a way to wash my hands of it all.

Everything in that node is still true, and thus you do have a way to wash your hands of it all — as clearly (?) explained there. Have you /msg'd the gods with your request?

Having my identity attached

Is your identity attached? A quick rename of your user account (homenode) is all that's necessary — though I do then try to see if anyone has linked/referred to you by name, and fix those.

adds no real value to PM

I don't believe that's what you're really concerned about. PM doesn't get any value from any identities, false or otherwise, except perhaps in a few rare cases like chromatic. And maybe not even then, given Perl's terminal decline. Generally speaking, nobody cares who the real human is behind any given account.

[SankoR]

It might be in decline but I plan to keep using Perl until I'm The Last Perl Hacker rather than Just Another one and I had no idea my suggestion would be so controversial.

We agree that having my or any other name above comments adds nothing of value, so why would having 'Anonymous Monk' there be a problem? The goal would be having nodes attributed to AM and disconnecting them from a single account which renaming alone doesn't accomplish. Most who'd close their account here out of concern for their online footprint would settle for that if it were an option.

[jdporter]

We agree that having my or any other name above comments adds nothing of value

No, we do not agree on that. There is immense value in knowing that comment 1 and comment 2 were posted by different people, and that comment 1 and comment 3 were posted by the same person.

What doesn't matter is what the authors' identifiers are. AnonymousCoward42 and AnonymousCoward666 (etc.) would be fine! except that they lack mnemonic value.

The goal would be having nodes attributed to AM and disconnecting them from a single account

Why is that the goal? (I assume you're speaking only for yourself here.) I don't see that as a desirable goal.

concern for their online footprint

Can you elaborate on that? It's not intuitively obvious what the real concern is, or why.

FYI... We had one rather high-profile user who requested to be anonymized, now known as anonymized user 468275.

[LanX]

You could start by editing your profile to remove the link to your CPAN profile, which includes your apparent real name. ¹

I've seen other accounts renamed to something like "anonymized account on user request".

The reason why those posts can't be just deleted or transferred to anonymous monk is that this would damage the containing threads, IIRC.

Others replied and implicitly referenced the content.

Furthermore can I find two dozen posts from others referencing you by name.

Do you expect the gods to alter those posts too?

And of course there is the wayback machine exemplifying that the internet never forgets.

May I suggest a compromise?

Clean your home node of all personal details - probably also your PAUSE account - and ask the gods to rename your account to a moniker of your liking and finally set your password to 0 to commit digital suicide.

Please keep in mind that the gods are doing this job for free and you can't expect to change everything because you had a change of mind.

I think this is a reasonable approach with max profit for min investment. :)

Updates

¹) I just remembered the source of this bit of info User Profile Element: CPAN author ID. You might want to also look into this.

update

I noticed now that you repeatedly say in this thread that it's more a general desire, not a personal need.

Sorry, for me OP didn't read like that.