Why the Anonymous button should be excluded from opinions

[nickbrick]

On GAG there are many people who love to help strangers. Who love to share their feelings with strangers. Who love to be part of a community that is caring, kind, and selfless.

On this website I find more "I am glad to find something good on the Internet" than anywhere else...and that is why I love this website. Because the people here care.

Now one of the great aspects of this website is the fact that for questions you can ask them Anonymously. This allows users to open up, to ask personal questions that they otherwise might not ask. It allows users to feel safe.

That is why there are questions about Love, about Sex, about Family and Friendships, about School, Work, and Yes...your nieborhood.

At GAG the anonymous button allows people to open up when it comes to their questions. But when it comes to opinions it should be emmited.

I recently read multiple opinions critizising someones myTake simply because he used the term "All" vs. "Some" people. They went on to tell him that they don't agree with his myTake simply because he used the term "All"

Do you know what all of these statements were posted under?

Thats right...Anonymous.

By allowing opinions to use anonymous is is allowing hurtful statements. Let someone put their face behind their actions. Make them stand up for their hurtful words, and the way to do this is to outlaw the anymous opinions.

So to the users of GAG to the administrators of GAG... we need to outlaw anonymous opinion. We need to stop hurting each other. And while GAG is a great website, it is FANTASTIC!!!!! It can be made better, and stopping hurtful opinions is a good start.

[inamorata]

This is the dumbest, most shortsighted line of reasoning I've ever seen. I think this MyTake should be linked in the dictionary under the word "Brainfart".

"Opinions shouldn't be anonymous because they can hurt my feeeeeeeelings, but Questions should be anonymous because those people need to feel safe to tell the truth."

And the Opinion Owners don't need to feel safe? They can't feel threatened, thus decide to write some politically correct bullshit instead of the truth?

But by banning Anon option for opinions you wouldn't be fucking over the Opinion Owners, but Question Askers.

THEY are the ones who leave people the option to be anonymous (which is there btw), so they could generate more traffic and get as many points of view as possible. Do this and controversial topics would be off the table, while people would start leaving left and right.

[nickbrick]

You make some decent points. This is just one way to look at the argument.

[nickbrick]

Also generally with opinions I see more hurtful comments under anonymous. But yes, the anonymous button does allow people to open up. (And thank you for commenting under your account :)

[menguc]

There is the option for blocking anonymous opinions on questions and myTakes. So, if you do not want anon posts you can check that box and anon users will not be able to post to your question or to your myTake.

[musicbrain5]

If you don't want answers from Anonymous people, just don't allow Anon opinions on your questions and MyTakes. Simple. I don't see why only Anon QA's should have the privilege of using the feature and not the people who answer the questions, that doesn't make sense. In fact, for awhile there was an option for the QA to go anonymous, but they were allowed to block anonymous answers. It caused A LOT of negative backlash, mostly because those Askers were being complete dicks with their questions while being able to remain private about who was actually asking the question. Thankfully, we can't do that anymore - if you go anon, you have no choice but to allow anon answers.

So if people can ask questions anonymously to feel safe about whatever they're putting in the question, the opinion owners should be allowed to go anon so they can also feel safe. I go anon once in a while if my answer contains information that I don't want people to know about me. I'm well known on here by most users and also some people I know in real life know my username on here. I want to be able to be able to help people to the best of my ability here without being forced to reveal embarrassing or private information under my username.

[Hephaestus]

^this

[nickbrick]

Totally makes sense

[Hidden_P]

Pretty much what I was going to say.

[Anonymous]

Why are people so sensitive? There are just as many trolls that are not anonymous, there is no consequence when someone is not anon and they troll and people need to stay off the internet if some random person makes them want to commit suicide or want to hurt another person. Let people be. If someone wants to be a dick anonymously who cares? That shows more about their character. If what they say bothers you so much it would be because there is some truth to it and or you are too thin skinned. And let's talk about accountability again. If someone was exposed for their idiotic and or hateful comments what should be their punishment? Can you punch someone through a computer screen? I am anonymous 99% of the time. I mainly am anon because I want to choose who my friends are here. I do not want 300 people on my friends list. I do not need to get 20 messages a day to feel good. I troll yes but never or very rarely am I mean to anyone and if I am I undo anon or stand up against a bully on a comment. Grow up folks this is the internet shit happens.

[Anonymous]

"Do you know what all of these statements were posted under?

Thats right... Anonymous."

All of these statements? You're wrong -again-. There are also users who criticized him *gasp* without going anonymous. You and the other take owner have something in common. You love to use the word 'all' to generalize and have an aversion for the words 'most' or 'some'.

www.girlsaskguys.com/.../a9143-all-boys-are-emotional-animals-all-girls-are-unpredictable-would-do

[nickbrick]

It was all these statements that I found under 1 mytake

[nickbrick]

I am not stating all for everyone on GAG

[rjroy3]

1: there's a "no anonymous user" button to avoid just that.

2: Some people's advice could involve personal experience. Maybe something a little more person that they wouldn't want others to know about them, but would help the asker going through the same thing. Like questions about rape.
Ommiting it entirely would stop people who want to help, because of this.

3: "Some" vs "All" is worth noting depending on how serious the asker is about it. Like in a relationship if two people are arguing and one of them says, "you NEVER..." or "You ALWAYS...". The truth is it's not never/always but to them it feels like too much. The same applies here. Does the asker honestly believe ALL people think/do/want whatever they were talking about or was it simply semantics. It's worth mentioning.

4: I agree that some people use anonymous user for bad reasons. But it's not the option that's bad. It's the user

[nickbrick]

Yep I agree

[TadCurious]

Simply criticizing a statement in a myTake or Question for being too much of a generalization shouldn't be considered as "hurtful." If it is, then maybe the person writing the myTake or asking the Question should get a thicker skin, or not post anything on the internet at all. Especially on a site that INVITES feedback.

[nickbrick]

It is just an slight example on how people will post statements that are critizing under the anonymous button

[KristenNJ]

So you enjoy the FREEDOM of the internet but now you want to regulate it! So where does it stop? Maybe too much sexual content? Maybe too many personal issues discussed? People amaze me in that they demand to be controlled and enslaved. They beg for regulation and in doing so are admitting they are incapable of self control or personal responsibility.

America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.

Abraham Lincoln

[nickbrick]

I just want to people to stick behind thier negative comments. i don't want to regulate the Internet. I still want to people to express their opinions

[Anpu23]

There are things that I have done in my life, that I am not incessantly proud of. That doesn't mean that I didn't learn something from them. There are also things that have happened to me that, again I am not proud of, but again I learned from them. I do not necessarily need these things to be connected to my other posts and opinions. A good example of this is the fact I was violently raped, for the first little while any time I spoke about that experience I would post anonymous, because I didn't want to field opinions, and feedback on my experience. I have opened that part of my life by allowing others to know about my experience, and what I have learned from it. But at first I certainly was not comfortable sharing that. There are other things that have happened to me that I still post only anonymously about, because again I am just not ready to share openly those experiences. So for those reasons, I feel you have missed the mark on this one.

[nickbrick]

I get it. It is just an idea. Apparently a lot of people disagree with this idea so...

[Anonymous]

YourFutureEx says:
●It gives people freedom to opine too
●It makes opinion owner safer too
●It makes people to share personal experiences to help the asker
●Some people tend to ignore specific usernames and don't block them, in that case it's helpful.
●You have option to block anonymous opinions
●Negativity and harmful trolling would live forever.

[nickbrick]

I agree with your points. I Just have a different way at looking at it. It is just one way to look at an issue.

[Opinion Owner]

I can understand :-)

[TheDevilInside]

Sometimes I want to answer a question by providing the asker with some of my personal experience. And I'd like to have the anonymous option for that.

Not to mention if I don't answer sexual questions anonymously, my inbox would be more full of creepers lol

I never hide behind anonymous just to cowardly post a mean thing anyway.

[LovelyDisquiet]

Ahaha! Agree about the sexual questions. x)

[GirlScoutsRevenge]

You're all anonymous to me, you're just pixels. Having an image to relate it to does nothing for me and I thinks it's really really pathetic when people complain about the anon feature.

That guy got stick for a good reason, there is a massive difference between Some and All. If people cannot take a bit of criticism from random strangers on the internet then maybe they should keep their mouths shut and get off their soapbox.

[Anonymous]

Or you just stop getting so worked up over people posting anonymously? Besides slut shaming, it seems like the anon option is the number 2 issue that gets people so fired up on here. If a nameless, faceless person on the internet gets you this irked, get off the computer.

It's only GAG, not your life's purpose.

[nickbrick]

I really don't care that much it is just an idea to possibly make the website better. If users like it the way it is then we shouldn't change it

[Opinion Owner]

You cared enough to write this whole article about it lol

[nickbrick]

It took 5 min

[Opinion Owner]

5 minutes you could have spent doing something else. For me, when I don't care about something, I won't spend 5 minutes or 5 hours on it.

You realize how silly your reasoning is right now? lol So back to my original point, don't get so worked up about anons when it really doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things. And when you try to backpedal or cover up this simple fact with "Well I don't really care", you go on to just look kind of silly.

[nickbrick]

It is less about the Anonymous and more about how we can make the site better. Look I brought up a topic that has gotten a lot of backlash... Whatever it was an idea and clearly people don like it. So whatever

[kheserthorpe]

There's a setting on questions to allow or disallow anon answers.

I''m not sure if that exists on mytakes.

I think what i'd like to see is a cap on how frequently you can use anonymous. It's a nice feature for when people are discussing sensitive stuff, but when people just use it all the time, i think it detracts from the site and encourages people to behave less socially and more confrontationally.

[nickbrick]

I like that. A cap on the anonymous button. That would allow people to tell things personal to them at times while also allowing them to be behind their comments too.

[lv4lv]

So, what you're saying is... If someone disagrees with the original post because they likely used harmful generalizations - and wanted to prevent backlash (some people are fucking crazy, don't look at me like that) - so they went Anon, and that's horrible that they went Anon?

[nickbrick]

They stated hurtful comments under anonymous and I think that needs to be changed

[nickbrick]

I am not saying that it needs to be removed entirely just that we need to control negative comments in some form or way

[lv4lv]

If someone believes someone posting an opinion that another person's opinion is wrong... That's not really negative, that's constructive.

[misscoffeehead]

I see what you mean. When there is good there is evil. There are always pros and cons to everything. Like having the anonymous feature on GaG, it allows the user to not only open up and talk freely but be able to give accurate answers to certain questions.

Then of course you have anonymous trolls, people who just go anonymous to give insults to the certain askers... And the list goes on and on

[emilyg25]

What you said about people asking more personal questions because they can do it anonymously is true. But, the same rule applies to opinions! I have not answered a question before because the anonymous option was not available. It wasn't because I wanted to be mean; it was because it was a very personal question haha. My friends on here didn't need to know my answer to it :P
Same goes with opinion comments - though those are not available anonymously.

[nert73]

Well said. Great opinions and facts there. I agree. Although sometimes opinions can include personal stuff, too. Sometimes when speaking from experience opinions can get pretty deep and they aren't always things people are comfortable with sharing. Personally, there are some things that always make me go anonymous simply because I don't want everyone knowing those things about me. Like you said, anonymity allows us to open up. I VERY rarely go anonymous, so I think that proves my point.

[douride2]

So in your opinion you should be able to ask questions anon but not answer anon. Before we go any further let me say I don't see a reason for the anon button at all. You say it allows the asker to open up. What about the commenter what if the comment is revealing or personal? My feeling is we are all anon already. There is no need for it.

[nickbrick]

I get it. Do you know of a way to edit mytakes? I have gotten so much backlash on this :/ I don't really care that much but I would like to make a disclaimer recognizing other peoples views (Like yours). Frankly, I don't even agree my own opinion anymore.

[douride2]

I don't know if it can be done. It's odd GAG has no way of updating a My Take.

[nickbrick]

Yeah. I would at least like to write a disclaimer so that I wouldn't get the same opinion 30+ times. Thanks anyway

[HollywoodGlam]

You can block anonymous users. Like @menguc said, there is an option you can check that doesn't allow anonymous users to post. It's found on the bottom right whenever you want to write a question or take.

[StarryNocturne]

i think people should have the right to use anon as a answer/reply. just report the person if you get offended over there opinion?

[epiman94]

I know for me at least, that I've left very personal opinions anonymously that I would be very hesitant to post if that feature were to be eliminated.