[Lil' Lavery]

I saw this thread title and the first couple posts before I left for work this morning, and I ended up stewing on it during my commute and for good bits of an all day meeting. As a result I have some points that I really want to hit that I now see have already been broached by previous posters (and in many cases, better described by these previous voices). My apologies for duplicating some discussion points, as well as what is likely to be quite a long post in general.



TL;DR - I think most concur that "burner" accounts have gone out of control, and should be reigned in. However, not all anonymous accounts are the same, and we need to understand why they have become more prevalent before anything can be done to address the root causes.



Hiding your identity or team association when posting on Chief Delphi is not an entirely new phenomena, but it certainly seems to have become more frequent in recent years (and perhaps increasingly so in the past few months). There were cases of this dating back quite a while in Chief Delphi history, and some involvement in some of Chief Delphi's most notorious (and sometimes entirely deleted) threads. So why is it more common now? I don't know if there's a single answer to that question, but I'm willing to pose a few hypotheses as to reasons why.

For one, the moderation's approach to anonymous duplicate* accounts seems to have changed. I remember at least one instance where an "anonymous" poster that was criticizing the build philosophy of three notable teams had their posts applied to their "main" account by Chief Delphi administrators. I know one moderator stated on one of the FRC-community webstreams that more people apparently hide their IP behind proxies than they used to, so perhaps this is a reason for the change in moderation philosophy. I also know of quite a few other notorious anonymous threads/posts that seem to have been deleted, with very few examples (that I can find) of these threads from further in the past still existing. I know some of these still get deleted in 2016, but subjectively it at least seems like more survive than they used to.

*It's worth noting that there's no rule against anonymous accounts, but rather a rule against duplicate accounts

Secondly, there are far more "pseudonym" accounts than there used to be. Until 2008, it was basically just Car Nack. When Looking Forward started, there was some contention about the legitimacy of that account, but Brandon put out notice that it was pre-approved by administrators. Now, there's a slew of accounts dedicated to predictions for different regions. While this motivation for anonymity is largely different than the "burner" accounts, it may be setting a precedent to newer posters that anonymous accounts are part of the Chief Delphi culture. Even more troublesome than the prediction accounts may be the seemingly tolerated/semi-celebrated "troll" accounts like WestCoastBestCoast and RivetMan (funny as they may be).

Third, the internet as a whole has changed a lot in the past decade. When many of the seasoned FRC veterans first created Chief Delphi accounts, social media was a vastly different entity than it is today. Generation Z is growing up in a world where Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, etc. are a part of their default social interactions. Virtually all of them already have outlets where they can share their opinions with accounts tied to their real world identity. Further still, even their FRC teams have accounts on many of these platforms, reducing the need for Chief Delphi to be a central FRC hub for sharing team news, robot photos, reveal videos, congratulations, etc. What uses do these students then have for Chief Delphi? Aside of specific technical discussions, it's easy to see where anonymity may be valued in the remaining FIRST-specific cultural and ethical discussions that occur on CD. In a social media-driven world, forums and message boards' anachronisms are often valued simply for the potential anonymity they afford.




Beyond just the question of why these posts are more frequent, there's a wide variety of reasons these posts happen in the first place. Like I said earlier, there are the pseudonym prediction accounts and troll persona accounts. And as other people mentioned, it's one thing to create a "burner" to seek advice about internal team issues when you wish not to call direct attention to your team over these potential dysfunctions. We used to have FAHA for these types of posts. While there may be biases with these posts, anonymity is pretty much a necessity for helping these posters work towards a resolution when they don't know of other avenues to turn. Similarly, there are those who are afraid of consequences to their team (or possibly themselves) for taking an unpopular stand on FIRST culture-related issues. In some cases, this can be understandable, as legitimate disagreement with the "Chief Delphi hivemind" can be somewhat intimidating. In other cases, it's rather disgusting as posters try to hide behind anonymity to take pot shots at other posters or teams. Then there are those who use anonymous accounts to shield themselves (or their teams) from taking unpopular stances on general societal or other issues. This is where "Political Correctness" (or as I refer to it "Not Being a Jerk") gets dragged up, and conversations can get mired in lengthy debates.

Given the different avenues of why a poster may chose to create a "burner" account, we as a group can try to address as many root causes as possible. In some cases, it may involve moderators changing how these accounts are handled. In others, we have the power to set the culture ourselves. In the most obvious sense, you see plenty of these burners accounts loaded with red dots. That form of dissuasion may or may not work. But we can also strive to create a climate in which people are less driven to create these accounts in the first place. Namely, Chief Delphi can attempt to be a community in which diverse opinions are given more room to breathe, even if the majority of individuals disagree with them. That doesn't mean that opinions go unchallenged (particularly those that are hurtful or oppressive), but rather than people are more willing to engage in honest discussion rather than snark, shutdown posts, or over-the-top rhetoric. We can realize that sometimes the Chief Delphi groupthink can be rather intimidating, and that many lurkers and new posters end up discouraged when the collective slams down on them immediately. We can realize that there are large groups of the FRC community that aren't active posters on Chief Delphi, and both that they may have valid opinions that differ from the CD consensus and that they may read our words without typing a response. We can realize that there are plenty of those who read CD but are discouraged to post because of the type of atmosphere created towards those who disagree with the collective or the most revered posters. While these consensus may have been reached for entirely beneficial reasons, we can work towards trying to be more inclusive of those who may not (initially) agree. Hopefully then, people won't feel as much need to shield their teams from their words.