Comments on: Anonymous Rex http://agnosticmaybe.wordpress.com/2010/11/20/anonymous-rex/ the neverending reference interview of life Tue, 14 Oct 2014 21:48:02 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: svkaszynski http://agnosticmaybe.wordpress.com/2010/11/20/anonymous-rex/#comment-2891 Fri, 21 Jan 2011 14:56:22 +0000 https://agnosticmaybe.wordpress.com/2010/11/20/anonymous-rex/#comment-2891 I just chimed in on this topic at my blog. If you’ve a mind to, have a peek. http://golibrarians.wordpress.com/2011/01/21/anonymous-authorship/
Cheers.

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By: Anonymous Authorship « the Go Librarians http://agnosticmaybe.wordpress.com/2010/11/20/anonymous-rex/#comment-2890 Fri, 21 Jan 2011 14:47:56 +0000 https://agnosticmaybe.wordpress.com/2010/11/20/anonymous-rex/#comment-2890 [...] response to this piece, Andy Woodward posted “Anonymous Rex” on his Agnostic, Maybe blog. In it, Andy takes exception to several points, linking to Louis [...]

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By: Andromeda http://agnosticmaybe.wordpress.com/2010/11/20/anonymous-rex/#comment-2668 Thu, 16 Dec 2010 03:20:02 +0000 https://agnosticmaybe.wordpress.com/2010/11/20/anonymous-rex/#comment-2668 And having now actually read the Lead Pipe piece ;) — I think there’s a lot of different threads there to untangle (persistence, repercussions, community…) and these threads interact with anonymity in different ways in my mind, so I can’t necessarily make a sweeping statement about them all. But I do think that particular case is interesting in that it’s explicitly a professional sphere, which means there is a defined public you are interacting with (even though others can, of course, see), and it comes with an established set of social norms. I can see that anonymity, especially non-persistent anonymity, is problematic in that context in a way it’s not in less defined, or less public, spheres.

If I were in their place — which I’m not — I wouldn’t support a blanket policy of refusing anonymous writers. (Of course I support whatever policy they want to promulgate; it’s their blog!) I would be looking to make distinctions on content, using those critical-thinking skills you talk about, more than stated identity. (It sounds like so far those content distinctions would have ruled out all the anonymous pieces anyway, which simplifies things, at least to date.) But hey, that’s me, and again, not my blog :).

I suppose, for the record, I will happily accept anonymous guest-bloggers who have something interesting to say, if I think my blog is an appropriate forum in which to say it.

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By: Andromeda http://agnosticmaybe.wordpress.com/2010/11/20/anonymous-rex/#comment-2667 Thu, 16 Dec 2010 03:06:32 +0000 https://agnosticmaybe.wordpress.com/2010/11/20/anonymous-rex/#comment-2667 (And seriously: what’s in a name? I am the wrongest, most ironic person to be asking this, but I have developed so many relationships out there with pseudonymous — but, again, persistently psedonymous — people. If you had read my blog for some months, my Twitter, would you not feel that you’d gotten to know me, that I had a particular point of view and expertise, that I was someone specific? Would it really, truly change your perception of me — your sense that I in fact had an identity — were you suddenly to discover that my real name was actually “Ellen Smith”? And similarly, why would it matter if my blog were not in fact under my real name, but under “Emergent Property” or “Rule Librariana” or “Pack of Unicorns”? You, Andy, you’ve met me in person, but much of the internet must take it for granted that there is any such person as me at all; is it somehow easier to do that when my writing is under a plausible — if only barely ;) — name?)

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By: Andromeda http://agnosticmaybe.wordpress.com/2010/11/20/anonymous-rex/#comment-2666 Thu, 16 Dec 2010 03:00:50 +0000 https://agnosticmaybe.wordpress.com/2010/11/20/anonymous-rex/#comment-2666 Yay, I see you gestured at the persistence idea I just blogged about. (Why yes, I’m not only behind on my Google Reader; I’m reading backward, so I am still working my way through this backstory to your subsequent post…)

Anonymity — generally under persistent identities — has been a big deal for me. I, um, have a name that’s easy to Google for. And my last career was about interacting with — not just the public — but children. I am very, very, very skittish about posting things under my own name. Registering a domain name and joining Twitter were huge deals for me. (I have been shocked at how much I like Twitter — I knew about it early enough to have been one of the three-letter names but was sure it would be far too public for my comfort zone; held out for years.)

I don’t doubt the negatives of anonymous commenting, especially under non-persistent identities. (There are reasons Slashdot has the “Anonymous Coward” label.) But I also know that …that in our face-to-face life we know who our audiences are and can adjust accordingly, but on the internet we present to many audiences simultaneously, including ones we do not know are there. And those audiences may judge us according to standards that are not the standards of the context in which we speak — but can nonetheless expose us to real harm. Not because we have done anything wrong, or even uncivil; merely because we, out of context, clash with their expectations.

I have friends with a lot of interesting hobbies. Let’s just put it at that. And they talk about them, sometimes quite openly, online. And I want to be part of my friends’ conversational spheres, but when I was teaching people’s children, did I want my highly-Googleable name to be associated with [redacted], [redacted], and [redacted]? No, I did not. Not because I think there’s anything wrong with [redacted] et al., but because I feared a firestorm of controversy caused by idle Googling on the part of a parent or student with a different set of cultural norms. As you can see, I approach even this paragraph with caution.

And look, I’m the low-stakes case: this only mattered to me, only resulted in a pack of students harassing me for a week or two when some spheres got crossed. And it matters to everyone online or in public life that way — we all trip up on presenting ourselves to multiple audiences, on being taken out of context, of not being evolutionarily (I think) equipped to deal with so many publics at once — but these are quotidian, low-stakes. If I were a whistleblower, if I had a point of view that needed to be advanced for the public good but I couldn’t advance without bringing down threats on myself or my family, anonymity would be a big deal.

Yes, it has down sides. Ugly ones. It also has up sides: huge ones. In areas so grey I prefer to tread lightly, to err, if I must err, by placing too few restrictions, not too many.

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By: Anonymous Rex, Ctd. « Agnostic, Maybe http://agnosticmaybe.wordpress.com/2010/11/20/anonymous-rex/#comment-2467 Wed, 01 Dec 2010 04:31:13 +0000 https://agnosticmaybe.wordpress.com/2010/11/20/anonymous-rex/#comment-2467 [...] talked about anonymous authorship recently in my post “Anonymous Rex”, a response to Emily Ford’s post “X” at In The Library With The Lead [...]

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By: Andy http://agnosticmaybe.wordpress.com/2010/11/20/anonymous-rex/#comment-2398 Mon, 22 Nov 2010 22:37:42 +0000 https://agnosticmaybe.wordpress.com/2010/11/20/anonymous-rex/#comment-2398 I’m glad you enjoyed the post. I really enjoyed yours as well. With the internet being a dominant form of communication within the profession, it does bring up its own identity issues. I mean, imagine if there is someone who is very good yet blogs anonymously; how can we get this person to speak or present or otherwise work in the organization? Perhaps not at all for the first two, maybe as themselves for the last part, but it means that they are trapped in their medium.

I really do think there is an unequal treatment of anonymous library professional writing and anonymous prose and literature. It seems odd to demand accountability for words in one and gloss over it in the other. This is why I say judge it on the merits first, consider it on the authorship second.

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By: Andy http://agnosticmaybe.wordpress.com/2010/11/20/anonymous-rex/#comment-2397 Mon, 22 Nov 2010 22:32:49 +0000 https://agnosticmaybe.wordpress.com/2010/11/20/anonymous-rex/#comment-2397 What I’m asking is that since the book is any less worthy of being defended for inclusion in a collection because it has an anonymous author. The answer is “no”, but I’m asking the question in the context of Emily’s article and anonymous authorship. It’s an observation that there is a case against anonymous authorship in the profession, but when it comes to defending literature or other library materials, there is no such hangup.

I think you missed the analogy. I hope that clears it up.

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By: Marleah Augustine http://agnosticmaybe.wordpress.com/2010/11/20/anonymous-rex/#comment-2394 Mon, 22 Nov 2010 14:56:00 +0000 https://agnosticmaybe.wordpress.com/2010/11/20/anonymous-rex/#comment-2394 Your comment about Go Ask Alice being on the Banned Books List makes it sound like the libraries who protect freedoms are the ones who put it on the list, which isn’t how it works. In my experience, libraries do indeed protect anonymous works just like any other works. Maybe I just missed the analogy.

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By: Emily http://agnosticmaybe.wordpress.com/2010/11/20/anonymous-rex/#comment-2389 Sun, 21 Nov 2010 22:32:58 +0000 https://agnosticmaybe.wordpress.com/2010/11/20/anonymous-rex/#comment-2389 You pose a really solid counter argument, Andy. I especially like your discussion of the reputation economy and works like Go Ask Alice. Some good food for thought for me. :)

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