My only gripe with "Anonymous Monk" is that I don't know which of arbitrarily many "Anonymous Monk"s I'm conversing with when I post something on PerlMonks.
Silly me... I thought that was the whole point of anonymity.
Sometimes a poster wants others to judge a post purely on its own merits and not on who is posting. That's one use for Anonymous Monk. They may not want to be voted down for a controversial point of view. They may not want to be voted up for something they know will be popular but for which they don't feel they deserve a lot of credit.
Sometimes a member who is logged in takes a controversial stand. An Anonymous Monk may not want to appear to be attacking or supporting that other monk to whom they are replying just out of personal feelings about that other monk.
Sometimes a visitor to the site wants to ask a question and get a response without signing up as a member. Perhaps he or she doesn't want the (quite small) hassle of signing up and remembering yet another password. I'd recommend a password wallet if remembering the password is the problem. Perhaps they aren't real sure who gets the information they would enter to register. Sometimes a person thinks they may never be back to a site after the one time they use it. I know I often find comment sections on other sites in which I'd comment if I didn't have to register as a member and give my email address out to some organization with which I'm unfamiliar just to comment the one time. The point in this case isn't to be anonymous but to leave your node on the site without having to meet the requirements of membership.
The reputation of a node stands even if no XP is gained or lost by a member. You can vote a node up or down based on what it says, and people will be able to see the votes later. XP is a factor of a number of things, but a single node's reputation, especially when posted anonymously, is a pretty clear indication of what the voting membership thinks of the node. If you're voting to reward or punish members through XP, you're hurting the discussion system. Please vote on the merit of the nodes to which your votes are attached.
|