Anonymous/Burner Accounts and CD Etiquette

[EricH]

Originally Posted by Sperkowsky

Actually I would go out on a limb and say by wearing a tshirt you are representing their team. Here is an example.

I have a 254 sweatshirt. On my last day in St.Louis my mom and I went up in the arch. It was on the chillier side so I wore the sweatshirt. As soon as I walked out of my room it was noticed. All of the people around me thought I was a member of 254. Just in the hotel I had 3 people come up to me. Some saying how cool "my" robot was or asking questions about it. I throughout that day got very good at saying that I was not a member of the poofs but it was pretty funny. In the end through a day in STL I had around 10 people come up to me. If I behaved badly, did something stupid, or was rude to the people coming up to me many would assume I was a member of 254 and gain a bad opinion of them.

So be careful who you trade those tshirts too

That is quite true--many times people assume that the person inside a team shirt happens to be on the team in question. (They could be a parent or a younger sibling, but they could also be someone you traded a shirt to.)

Myself, I mentor a team near the team I was on in high school. I happen to hang out in the general area of a bunch of folks who know I was on the team--but they tend to assume that I am on the high school team, not my current team. Both did well at Champs, and folks want to congratulate me--I generally ask "which one?" and clarify that while I was on the team there, I now mentor another team. (And then one of the team parents was seen wearing a different team's shirt... those that knew simply went "oh, looks like someone traded shirts".)

It's not that you ARE affiliated with an organization. It's that you LOOK LIKE you are--often, that's one of the things that can drive that sort of association. I tend to be a little careful what shirts I wear when I'm going out in public, for that specific reason.

And BTW, there was an incident on CD quite a few years ago where someone took on a team number, made one of the "usual" accusations against one of the "usual targets", and one of the mentors for the team whose number he picked up very forcefully stated that that person was not part of the team--and if they were, there would be a reckoning (implied, not stated, that part). Reputation is tough to build, easy to destroy.



I don't have a problem with anonymous accounts, per se. I recognize that there are good reasons for anonymity, and maybe later they can update to not be anonymous. But if you're going to anonymously troll at someone, let's just say that I prefer to see who I'm about to debate (and I do prefer to try to attack the "arguments" presented, not try to attack the person).