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Comment by Taek | Hacker News Reader

Anonymity often brings relief to people who weight otherwise self-censor. 4chan is a really good example of this. Though it's got a terrible SNR, the peak signal is actually really high and sometimes you see really intelligent discussions about taboo topics like incest, furrydom, and racism. The anonymity allows people to state beliefs that simply wouldn't be acceptable anywhere else.

Maybe HN should have an 'anonymous' feature for accounts above a certain karma that allows a post to be made with no username attached, and no effect on karma. Behind the scenes, admins can still issue bans for unacceptable comments but the opinion gets protected from the groupthink.

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I am often stunned at how eloquent some conversations are on 4chan, and am dismayed when I realize this is because anonymity allows us to be truthful without the baggage of reputation and consequences of controversy - which is how we make progress.

We must never lose our ability to remain anonymous when necessary.

> I am often stunned at how eloquent some conversations are on 4chan

Can you show me some examples? I tried browsing 4chan, but the site's navigation trips me up badly.

4chans posts are deleted after some time. And its at least 90% horrible garbage.

Yes, some very smart people go there and some very intelligent discussions occur sometimes.

I wish you luck!

Watch the non-NSFW boards as a starter and just browse through threads. People will come up with theories or ideas and then it is expanded upon with insights from opposing viewpoints.

Then there is the crazy things that /b/ will do with a photo. There was a principal who was goading the group with a photo of two underage girls, the tenacious Anonymous was able to run down the school and principal.

It is scary and soothing at the same time.

It's also great that even though certain boards have heavy biases (e.g., /pol/ is overwhelmingly right wing, /o/ mostly hates American cars, etc.), you can still walk into the proverbial lion's den with an opinion that goes against the prevailing narrative and have an interesting discussion about it. There's no instant censorship through downvoting, and, as you hinted at, there's no upvoting just because people like the username that posted.

Quote from the current owner of 4chan: "All information is treated equally; only an accurate argument will work."

Rather than an "anonymous feature", how about a "please moderate this post" flag? A post that requests moderation would not be eligible for upvotes or downvotes, or would even appear until it passed moderation.

Of course, that means added work for the mods, or a new class of moderators altogether.

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