Re (tilly) 1: Voting on Anonymous users?

[tilly]

I have been avoiding responding, but the premise of this thread really bothers me.

There are online forums where I have shown up and participated anonymously for some time before getting a login. I didn't do that here, but my first post was anonymous. And the majority of online forums which require me to get a permanent login before expressing an opinion, I won't go to. I have enough ways to spend m time already. Before I decide that I will create and remember a login, I want to see what the community is like. If it is too arrogant and stuck up to allow me to do that, well why bother?

Therefore every step I see PerlMonks taking towards saying that anonymous people are persona non grata is another step towards saying that I would have given it a pass. That may not be totally fair, but that is how it is. Now for me it is a strange thought to be part of a group that I wouldn't join again!

Knowing that that is how I feel, how many others out there feel like I do and won't consider being involved? As long as Anonymous Monk isn't being abused, I think that it has real value as a transitional step in getting people involved.

And so far I have not seen it abused. In fact the problems I have seen have generally been from people who were willing to create logins. So why the hostility that I sense in this thread? If we develop the problems that /. has, well that would be different. But until we do?

Going further, I believe in voting the node, not the person. If you think of things in terms of voting up people (and I know that many do) then it is a small step from there to PM becoming an in-clique. Well here is news. I hate cliques. I cannot recall a single pleasant experience involving cliques, and I can think of plenty of miserable ones. (Including one right here on PerlMonks.) If the natural tendancy towards cliques reaches a point where I see constant complaints about it (it is nowhere near that point now, luckily) then I won't want to be here. And if I don't want to be, then I won't be.

But feeling that way - knowing that I feel that way - I do not like changes that I think promote cliques developing. Again it is a change towards saying this is a place I would never have gotten started at. A change towards driving off people I want to see around. A change towards a situation where I would leave.

[royalanjr]

I agree that cliques are a BAD thing. Like you, I have never had a good experience with them.
I also agree with all of your statements about Anonymous being useful in their own way. It needs to be kept. One thing that we have seen happen and admitted to is a real user either forgetting to log in or somehow the login getting messed and ends up posting a node as Anonymous. We need to keep that in mind when dealing with Anonymous.

Roy Alan