Hi Theo, thank you for the thorough response. You bring up very valid points, specially around privacy standards across countries/continents with a very different political and cultural makeup. And not something likely to change unless supremacy over wikipedia is given to one specific entity or state (nah). And losing our Freedom of Speech is not up for question.
A coupe of thoughts on the comment <<that internet itself promotes anonymity>> that might have been the case in the early days, but as more of our 'real lives' activity migrates online and replaces the physical world; internet has become the 'repository' of knowledge, but also goods and services, it's increasingly the place where 'untangle assets' get traded and human interactions take place (social/professional/commercial/financial/legal…). As we create our online trail, so is our personal profile. It's just a matter of time before we access everything about anyone with a simple email address (Google already pulls chunks of info from linkedin twitter, quora, etc to feed your G+ ID … and so does rapportive on email) It's already possible to spot the fake (ID) from the real.
More and more you see these "vetting" mechanisms use cross pollination of personal data (i.e. signing up to Airbnb to book room with your Facebook account or google account). As far as anonymity is concerned I think we're beyond the 'point of no return'. This if from a North American perspective of course, but Europe will soon join us with different levels of implementation (the trade off is always Access vs Privacy and that's a though sell), and so will the rest of the planet. This sounds a bit Orwellian and a bit depressing I agree, and that's why it is SO VERY important to get Wikipedia and sister projects to thrive and grow and be a strong space, repository of human knowledge, human history, representing * all* voices.
Sylvia -----------------------------
Message: 6 Date: Sat, 11 May 2013 02:23:53 +0530 From: Theo10011 de10011@gmail.com To: Increasing female participation in Wikimedia projects gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Gendergap] Accidental Troll Policy - beyond gender gap Message-ID: CAP9+R94miYuwUUQe_6cFk-UCN6XZ73cfuzANqZVZwMTD8zGy3g@mail.gmail.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252"
Hi Sylvia
It seems the crux of your argument is against the nature of the Internet itself, rather than anything specific to Wikipedia. There is nothing unique about anonymity on Wikipedia. In fact, it could be argued that internet itself promotes anonymity - Internet protocol don't require any real user identification for access, beyond giving a rough idea of someone's access point, the only information that is there is what a user willingly chooses to divulge. As the adage goes - On the internet, nobody knows you're a dog.[1] And in this day and age, a dog can indeed have a FB profile, a twitter account, gmail, a youtube channel, a tumblr and even a Wikipedia account (TOS doesn't have anything against dogs....I think). I don't see what is unique on Wikipedia that promotes pseudonymous or anonymous users anymore than other places - it would always come down to what someone chooses to reveal and their own level of personal boundaries.
Then there is the entire idea about the wisdom of the crowd, which implies that the individual is irrelevant to a certain extent, nameless at best. It is the collective that gives the crowd its identity and strength - to that purpose it is easier to join the crowd, as it is easy to leave.
There is something also worth mentioning here about American/European elitism, where coming from places in Middle-east, South-America, and parts of Asia, associating your political opinion with your real-world identity can have very real and dire repercussions. In India, for example, two women were arrested for expressing their opinion on FB at the demise of a political figure, I believe one of them posted a comment and the other "liked" it on Facebook.[2] They were both arrested in the middle of the night by police from a completely different area. And that is probably one of the tamest example I could think of, when you consider what the political situation is in the parts of the middle-east. I'm sure I can pull up horrifying stories about bloggers in Egypt or Iran or elsewhere, who don't truly share the luxury of free speech.
Then the second implication, I don't think anonymity alone permits someone to cross any lines. It would be a facile argument to disprove, that once anonymity is removed from the equation that you can expect someone to be more civil. You still don't know anything about the person on the other end, neither would they about you, besides what you choose to reveal - you would remain two perfect strangers. Now, implying that associating their name with that a single comment to you, would be singled out and have real-world implications, be it work or family - would be another stretch. All this seems like a case of "telling on someone" as children, usually their parents and expecting intervention. Online platforms already have system that resembles this, whether its an admin, or flagging something or contacting support. Then, most work-places I have known can't censor someone's personal or political opinion or what they do or say in their own personal time, impeaching them would be against their civil rights - even if it is politically incorrect - it would have to be of their own volition to change. As Voltaire put it - "I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it." (or perhaps it was Evelyn Beatrice Hall.)
If such a totalitarian system were ever to be conceived that won't permit anonymity, I suppose it would get complicated with different nationalities, especially EU, where handling and sharing someone's personal information requires far more restrictions, not to mention the oppressive regimes would have their own "requirements". I suppose someone would have to weigh what they gain vs what they lose. Sadly, they might lose Freedom of speech and Privacy, for the chance that someone would be nicer on the internet.