Anonymous/Burner Accounts and CD Etiquette

[BrennanB]

Discussion from another thread/some recent threads, figured I would move it here.

Basically mostly centered around:

Are anonymous accounts okay to use?
Is CD becoming full of non-helpful content?
Solutions to making things better for teams/individuals on CD?

Originally Posted by unpopularideas

The issue here is that generally CD has a very specific socio-political view, of not wanting to hurt anyone's feelings. Is this what Gracious Professionalism is? Is the idea that your personal opinions regarding a matter are negative just because they don't agree with CD's Norm? That is why I use a burner account, I want to voice my opinion, but not have people openly disregarding all of my opinions due to one opinion they disagree with.

Originally Posted by unpopularideas

The issue here is that generally CD has a very specific socio-political view, of not wanting to hurt anyone's feelings. Is this what Gracious Professionalism is? Is the idea that your personal opinions regarding a matter are negative just because they don't agree with CD's Norm? That is why I use a burner account, I want to voice my opinion, but not have people openly disregarding all of my opinions due to one opinion they disagree with.

Originally Posted by BrennanB

I actually believe it's quite the opposite, people ARE willing to hurt other peoples feelings by replying/negative repping etc. The reason people make burner accounts is so that if their opinion is ridiculed and considered offensive/stupid they have zero repercussions. That or they just blatantly want to say something they know will be considered offensive, so they would rather not have any responsibility for it.

CD has progressively become a more and more hiveminded group of people for many of the popular threads. Lots of people looking for recognition in the community as "best at this" or "knows a lot about that" as the way that some of the pseudo "celebrity" CDers we have are. People want to be the person that writes that oneliner with all the green dots that people make a thread about to try and figure out what that one liner with not the most substance in it actually means. Or make the funny jokes that everyone laughs at. Too many new students/mentors/people are posting just for that reason. Not to actually be helpful and provide constructive praise/criticism/help to a thread. Instead they resort to lame jokes (some jokes on CD are very funny, most are not) pointing out mistakes, blindly promoting their team/region/whatever, and complaining about teams/refs/volunteers/rules/etc without substance/solutions.

But I guess it's just an internet forum, can't expect too much quality.

Originally Posted by unpopularideas

Well hold on.... don't generalize here. I use a burner account for multiple reasons...

A. I want to keep my team safe from any repercussions of MY actions.
B. I do not want the harassment from others who disagree with what I say. (Both in the World of FIRST and of Chief Delphi) If you want to have an open minded conversation with me that is fine, but calling me bigoted, sexist, etc. is often what results in the sharing of my opinions.
C. Sometimes, I need to discuss things about my team with a larger audience. Issues arise and I have no clue who to deal with them, so I turn to you guys for help. Some of my opinions my team cannot know of because, as I have discussed elsewhere, I will get terminated from the only team within 20 miles of me.

Also, for someone's assured response of - "Just put 'My posts do not reflect the opinions of my team or its affiliates' in your signature". Well, I dont see that as enough.

Also, Post Morphing has become rampant here

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A- If you are worried about repercussions on your team it's probably a good indicator that what you are saying is inappropriate.

B- Doesn't having an anonymous account just create more "harrassment"?

C- I can see this being a legitimate use.