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Comment by neilk | Hacker News Reader

Can we agree to stop using Anonymous as a collective noun? It's like saying "In other news, a site was vandalized by The Hackers."

All it means is that someone published something anonymously, with an intent to associate themselves with this larger collective. Maybe for those in the know, they can say that this particular hack was discussed in Anonymous' IRC chanels or something. Better to say "an Anonymous" or "a hacker claiming allegiance with Anonymous".

Of course, this is how the media is being hacked. Unlike the devil, Anonymous' greatest trick was convincing the world that it did exist.

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> Can we agree to stop using Anonymous as a collective noun?

Then, can we agree to stop using: "Scientists have just..." "Al Qaeda destroyed..." "Economists think that..." "Experts believe..."

Tabloid-level writing at best. This is wrong in so many ways since in each case, you assume: - the group is a consistent entity - the group has no face and all members think alike - your ignorance about how that entity is actually working.

We should never use such expressions - being specific is the right way to write about opinions and facts.

IIRC, wasn't this leak made by the group AntiSec? IIRC, they consider themselves separate from Anonymous and have their own very odd manifesto having to do with exploit disclosure.

> a hacker claiming allegiance with Anonymous

But then we'd have to argue about what the word "hacker" means.

Seriously though, I'm actually quite OK with using "Anonymous" as a collective noun. Granted, it is a less accurate shorthand, but we all know what it means. For those who don't, I'm not sure using "a hacker claiming allegiance with Anonymous" would be any more enlightening. In fact, it may actually reinfornce the mistaken idea that so many in the non-tech media still seem to have, which is that Anonymous is some kind of more or less traditional, hierarchical, online terror organisation.

"An Anonymous", yeah, maybe. Still seems needlessly confusing to the less knowledgeable. But I'm open to being convinced.

It's kind of cute when news sources do it, as if they're too shy to admit "so, we found this on 4chan the other day..."

Agreed. It seems that everyone thinks Anonymous is a contiguous group, as opposed to a bunch of loosely, if at all connected basement dwellers doing things under the same banner.

Can we agree to stop using Anonymous as a collective noun

You know Anonymous is a group, right?

Maybe you are thinking of anonymous? (lower case "a")

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