I’m glad you brought this up—I hadn’t known what to call it, but I also sensed an issue along these lines. (What I observed was that I feel social pressure not to deviate too far from what most members of the site believe. This does not necessarily mean anyone is trying to exert this social pressure, or even that they are doing anything in particular other than voicing similar beliefs.)
I think this will take more than just agreeing on a policy for assigning reputation or voicing opinions, though. My inner homo erectus will try to protect me from reputation damage regardless of whether reputation damage could actually occur, and there are probably also unconscious factors influencing how I precieve others’ social status.
But maybe we can hack this somehow? How can we artificially influence our feelings about social status to counterbalance our natural tendencies? (Eating a cookie immediately after saying things I was afraid to say is something I’ve tried in the past, in a different context. That doesn’t seem like it would work as a community-wide norm, but an individual could try doing it themselves.)
I absolutely agree that if this model is correct, it is mostly subconscious, and the solutions I suggested were from a very non-human agent standpoint, but I think the 3 solutions are all possible even for humans, especially in an online community.
A fourth option, online community specific, could be something like this: Allow members to post their comments anonymously, under following conditions:
Only users with enough karma can post anonymously. (This is to prevent abuse by trolls.) You pay some karma for posting anonymously, which is a constant number not depending on whether people agree with you or disagree with you. (To prevent abuse by serious members.) If you comment anonymously again in the thread below your original anonymous comment, you don’t pay karma again, and the website shows that this is the same anonymous person, for example by using “Anonymous#1”. (So for example people can ask for clarifications and you can explain freely.)
The anonymous comments can also be upvoted and downvoted, and hidden if they get too much downvoted, but their karma is not reflected on their user. Also, the social effect is that other people don’t know who you are, even if they downvote you.
I don’t know how much useful this would be. The feeling of being downvoted could still be unpleasant. But it would be some balance between the ability to write anonymously, and possible troll abuse.
Can’t pretty much anybody comment anonymously with the system as it is, without the automatic karma penalty but otherwise behaving as above, by creating an account called “anonymous#1” (or whatever version of that hasn’t been taken, or “sockpuppet17″, or whatever)?
Sure, if it’s too far downvoted the comment will be hidden and the account silenced, but the comment has still been made anonymously. And granted, this doesn’t allow for a continuing conversation if the initial comment is heavily downvoted, but I think that’s considered a feature here.
I considered making a throwaway recently, but account setup now requires email verification, and I’m sufficiently paranoid that this was enough of an obstacle to stop me from doing so.
I’m glad you brought this up—I hadn’t known what to call it, but I also sensed an issue along these lines. (What I observed was that I feel social pressure not to deviate too far from what most members of the site believe. This does not necessarily mean anyone is trying to exert this social pressure, or even that they are doing anything in particular other than voicing similar beliefs.)
I think this will take more than just agreeing on a policy for assigning reputation or voicing opinions, though. My inner homo erectus will try to protect me from reputation damage regardless of whether reputation damage could actually occur, and there are probably also unconscious factors influencing how I precieve others’ social status.
But maybe we can hack this somehow? How can we artificially influence our feelings about social status to counterbalance our natural tendencies? (Eating a cookie immediately after saying things I was afraid to say is something I’ve tried in the past, in a different context. That doesn’t seem like it would work as a community-wide norm, but an individual could try doing it themselves.)
I absolutely agree that if this model is correct, it is mostly subconscious, and the solutions I suggested were from a very non-human agent standpoint, but I think the 3 solutions are all possible even for humans, especially in an online community.
A fourth option, online community specific, could be something like this: Allow members to post their comments anonymously, under following conditions:
Only users with enough karma can post anonymously. (This is to prevent abuse by trolls.) You pay some karma for posting anonymously, which is a constant number not depending on whether people agree with you or disagree with you. (To prevent abuse by serious members.) If you comment anonymously again in the thread below your original anonymous comment, you don’t pay karma again, and the website shows that this is the same anonymous person, for example by using “Anonymous#1”. (So for example people can ask for clarifications and you can explain freely.)
The anonymous comments can also be upvoted and downvoted, and hidden if they get too much downvoted, but their karma is not reflected on their user. Also, the social effect is that other people don’t know who you are, even if they downvote you.
I don’t know how much useful this would be. The feeling of being downvoted could still be unpleasant. But it would be some balance between the ability to write anonymously, and possible troll abuse.
Can’t pretty much anybody comment anonymously with the system as it is, without the automatic karma penalty but otherwise behaving as above, by creating an account called “anonymous#1” (or whatever version of that hasn’t been taken, or “sockpuppet17″, or whatever)?
Sure, if it’s too far downvoted the comment will be hidden and the account silenced, but the comment has still been made anonymously. And granted, this doesn’t allow for a continuing conversation if the initial comment is heavily downvoted, but I think that’s considered a feature here.
I considered making a throwaway recently, but account setup now requires email verification, and I’m sufficiently paranoid that this was enough of an obstacle to stop me from doing so.
Given how easy it is to create throw away (Edit: e-mail) accounts, this is a trivial inconvenience.
Can you explain what you’re trying to express with this comment?
Something like mailinator should suffice for LW throwaway anonymity.