Question #2966: how do you people know exactly who is posting questions in ask-satan.net despite it is an anonymous foru

[AskSatanOperator]

despite this being anonymous service ,how do you people know exactly who is posting question .then what even is the point of keeping this service anonymous ,since there are certain questions which can never be asked with your own account

 

[Henu the Great]

Some people make it obvious, like you, for example. That's that.

 

[Blitzkreig [JG]]

Some people make it obvious, like you, for example. That's that.

Yes, however, I believe anonymity should be guarded, even if you know who it is, as this respects their desires of asking in an anonymous fashion. So I wouldn't name drop anyone, as you can see that it caused a bit of fear with this OP, and could potentially make them or others less likely to use the service.

 

[Henu the Great]

" post_id=468257 time=1697646963 user_id=21286]
Yes, however, I believe anonymity should be guarded, even if you know who it is, as this respects their desires of asking in an anonymous fashion. So I wouldn't name drop anyone, as you can see that it caused a bit of fear with this OP, and could potentially make them or others less likely to use the service.

Lately we have seen multiple people ask questions that do not warrant anonymity. Adding to that, some of these people ask the same question with their user accounts or reply to their 'anonymous' question with their user account. I am just pointing this nonsense out.

 

[Ol argedco luciftias]

" post_id=468257 time=1697646963 user_id=21286]
......

Many of the people using this is only because they don't know how to go to the specific subforum to see the button to create a new topic. Or they know how, and just think it's too much effort. And then they make many replies furthering the conversation using their real accounts.

 

[Epiphany]

" post_id=468257 time=1697646963 user_id=21286]

Some people make it obvious, like you, for example. That's that.

Yes, however, I believe anonymity should be guarded, even if you know who it is, as this respects their desires of asking in an anonymous fashion. So I wouldn't name drop anyone, as you can see that it caused a bit of fear with this OP, and could potentially make them or others less likely to use the service.

I agree with that on principle but I echo what Olly and Henu have said. When people are not taking the slightest efforts to protect their own anonymity and voluntarily break it themselves then you can't place responsibility for that loss of anonymity on anyone but the user. Namedropping can sometimes be a step too far, I agree, but one must also consider whether there would be any benefits to this in some cases.

If you know a person's background and they are looking for personal advice then I would say it does a disservice to that person if you give them blanket advice or a face value answer that does not take into account their background and where they're coming from and the context of the question.

In addition, if I used AS expecting anonymity I would not be replying to my own thread nor would I write in the exact same unique way that I do anywhere else. I would also not be writing about topics that I have already posted numerous times about, possibly over months or even years, on my real account/email, with any ways to tie them together. I would sanitize the information in the query as much as is practical to do without jeopardizing my goal.

Anonymity is a lost art in the modern age and I will grant you that many people are not taught the value of it nor how to protect it, but life has never excused ignorance. Using the service without taking the necessary precautions is equivalent to making a throwaway account.

Some people do also use AS because for whatever reason they don't want to login and post it themselves, even going so far as to identify themselves in the query(which, by the way, was not scrubbed out by the AS operator). Using AS clearly does not mean that the person prioritizes anonymity, even if that was the original intention or feature of the service. It also does not mean that the posts must be anonymous.

So what do you do about this issue?

Could there be guidelines or education for people as to how they should write their question to suit certain goals?

Could people maybe use AI to depersonalize their query for them?

Maybe there should be options for users to flag their queries?

Should the intentions for the service be clarified so that it can be used more "properly", by askers, operators and answerers?

Food for thought.

 

[Dragonheart666]

I got into trouble for this very situation too. So many people are doing this. And it's not good!