Philosophy of Biology Cafe

I'm going to throw this out there ...

A number of us have login names that clearly identify us by name. There are, however, some member names that are less transparent. Do we feel that login names should have a particular form (e.g. FirstLastname) thus allowing us to clearly know who is posting. This would mean that registrations would have to be approved by Matt and/or others.

My gut feeling is that this would be desirable, particularly with forums discussion creationism etc.

Here's a poll ... but feel free to make comments and tell me to get back in my box.

I think transparent login names are great; I hate talking to people who wear masks. But:

1) Suppose I'm a graduate student and I want to criticize my advisor's work here?

2) Suppose I'm a post-doc or junior faculty member, and some sort of ugly ethical situation arises, and I want to ask for advice here?

And so on. There are good uses for anonymity, and overall I'm willing to put up with fools blithering from behind a curtain if those uses can be protected.

I like the idea, but I'm not sure I have the capacity to enforce it.

I've tried to encourage it a little bit, by including 'Location' under a person's username, and turning on signatures. Hopefully the culture of the Cafe will prod people to self-identify in various ways.

I agree. Encoruage real names, but allow anonymity. In my experience on other site with similar goals, this seems to be the best solution.

It might be a good idea to add a line to the registration screen suggesting people use their real names, if they have no pressing reason to do otherwise.

I think allowing people to register anonymously will help the site grow because a lot of users won't join from fear of identity theft, stalkers, and all the other web related crime. If this site goes public, which I am guessing it already has, people will be able to access the forums and see full name as well as know what university their target is attending.

Unless the forums are private, I don't think requiring an actual name is a good idea.

P.S I will be a cup of joe by tomorrow

I agree with the 85% who believe that login names need not be a person's given name.

I use several different names in different forums across the intarwebs, not because I desire to hide my true identity, but rather because the different names represent different evolutions of my online persona.


It seems that most of the very few people who post here are professional academics, but this will not be the case once this site is discovered. Soon enough there will be regulars who post here every day and actually discuss philosophy. There will be drama, real time peer review of philosophical ideas, attention whores, trolls, people making asses of themselves... and finally resurrection and redemption with new anonymous names.

It's all part of the new social structure.

I am all for allowing anonymity, largely for the reasons that Elihu Gerson states -- there are some legitimate and "sticky" issues that people might want to discuss here without revealing their identity.

But if allowing anonymity leads to "drama...attention whores, trolls, people making asses of themselves," then it's not a good thing. I realize that this type of behavior is common across much of the internet, and has been standard for decades (predating the Web). I speak for myself, but I think for others as well -- this forum is intended to be for serious (which is not to say humorless) intellectual discourse. I am hopeful that we can allow anonymity while still expecting that people behave themselves.

Now, as for "real time peer review of philosophical ideas" -- that's something we should be doing more of.

Roberta

I agree that there are good reason for not mandating the use of real names.

For what it's worth, here is the policy we settled on on a rather popular site I manage:

"User names: Many of us here post with our real, full names. Anonymity and the use of pseudonyms is discouraged. We recognize that there can be legitimate reasons for wishing to post under a pseudonym. If you do not register using your real name, then if possible, please include identifying information in your user profile, such as your real name or a link to a personal home page or blog. Using a pseudonym by which you are known elsewhere can also help."

This seems to work rather well most of the time.

hey john! i think it should allow the users to use the name they want to (like now). john2pham has clearly stated some very good points. and may be some of us dont want to be recognized....