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Comment by killface | Hacker News Reader

While all of us call BS on the tech team saying it "can't" be done [1], I'm all for this. If you're saying mean/hateful stuff online, you deserve to have your real name attached to it. It's amazing how much more polite people are when they don't have a wall of anonymity protecting them.

[1]: My bet's on people who can barely use a computer stood up a wordpress or joomla site, and only really understands how to edit configs, not actually change the programming.

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1) This policy doesn't apply only to comments that say "mean/hateful stuff". It applies to ALL comments. Is your assertion that there is never any value for anonymous comments? Is your assertion that ONLY mean/hateful stuff should get attached to real names, and that positive well reasoned arguments should stay anonymous? Or is your argument that we should call well-intentioned valuable anonymous comments " collateral damage" in the war against mean things said online?

2) If you think that ONLY mean/hateful stuff needs to be attached to a real name, who gets to be the arbiter of this policy?

3) What about the legally binding promise made in the MT Standard's privacy policy where they said they would NOT share that information with third parties? And they further said that updates to the privacy policy could not affect comments retroactively? Are we willing to let a company get away with flagrantly violating their privacy policy so that we can win the war against "mean/hateful" stuff that is said online?

Edit: I also notice that you are posting here under the anonymous screenname "killface", while I'm posting with my first initial and last name. Ironic.

In the first 2 pages of your HN commenting history, I can find half a dozen comments that, tied to your real identity, and given a sufficient amount of the right flavor of public attention, could be blown up to ruin your life.

Not that I necessarily think these comments are so wrong that you would remotely deserve such an outcome for thinking or saying them, but that's the point: if it came down to it, that wouldn't be my judgement to make. And would you have unreservedly said all the things you have, if they were going to be permanently and publicly tied to your real identity?

In fact, after a few more pages of your history, applied to some leet cyberstalking skills, I know your real identity and where you work and live. How would you feel about being outed, even over such nominally innocuous things?

I would never do that, because it would be wrong.

You commented with the assumption of a certain degree of anonymity. So did the people you're saying there would be nothing wrong with stripping a similar anonymity from.

Have you looked at Youtube comments in the past few years? This claim is absolutely, demonstrably false. People say mean/stupid things when they feel there won't be any repercussions. Not having your name attached to something might have some correlation with that, but it's certainly not the cause.

my issues are that mean and hateful are fully separate categories and neither seems to have an agreed upon definition. Just look at colleges today where anything is hateful if someone complains. Worse many who do put their name forward are threatened by these groups in an attempt to silence dissenting opinion.

Threats on the other hand should suffer exposure. Being politically incorrect isn't hateful or mean but there many who will claim in. The danger is we are basically going to silence some who have real reason to fear persecution.

As others have pointed out, there are valid reasons to wish for anonymity. You're kinda making the "If you have nothing to hide..." argument.

That said, I agree that (some) online communities profit from real-name policies. C. f. the difference between youtube and Facebook. But that is no argument for retroactively changing the policy.

You say all this whilst posting anonymously!

Not that I consider your comment mean (it has some merit), but for the MY Standard they gave certain legally binding guarantees around anonymity. They can make new posts applicable to the new privacy policy (which I actually think is a good idea - if you want to be anonymous, contact the reporter and request anonymity, if it's important then they can report on it and you become a news source), but you can't retrospectively change the old comments.

The language in the old privacy statement is pretty ironclad!

Hey Killface, me and these other 10 guys disagree with you online. Why don't you tell us your real name and address, so that me and these other 10 guys here, who disagree with you, can come to your house and discus this with you, face to face. 10 of us. 1 of you. Discuss this. Face to face.

How about it? What's that? You don't want to give your real name? Why not? LOL.

The irony. You think that this will only applies to others. You don't seem to realize that, others WILL use this against you too.

Overall, this is a very bad idea.

If that's an exercise in irony, you nailed it, "killface".

Even though it's not an employer I would want to work for I do wonder if his is the type that would at least make a concerned mental note that he has a pseudonym like "killface". It's easy to call for the unmasking of anonymous people when you're not the one that has to worry about the consequences.

> If you're saying mean/hateful stuff online, you deserve to have your real name attached to it.

Says killface?

As other's have pointed out this is a very short sighted view that's predicated on the assumption that the only hateful commenters would be on the hook. Punishing people is easy and that's why it should be done with extreme care.

The definition of "mean" is pretty subjective. Elected officials ought to be subject to criticism.

What's your name, btw?

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