Anonymous Posting in Online Communities
Online communities vary with their stances on anonymous postings. Wikipedia allows anonymous editing in most cases, but does not label users, instead identifying them by their IP addresses, with other editors commonly referring to them with neutral terms such as "anons" or "IPs".
Many online bulletin boards require users to be signed to write (and in some cases, even to read) posts. 2channel and other Futaba-based image boards take an opposite stance, encouraging the anonymity, and in the case of English Futaba-based websites, calling those who use usernames and tripcodes "namefags" and "tripfags," respectively. As required by law, even communities such as 4chan do require the logging of IP addresses of such anonymous posters. Such data however, can only be accessed by the particular site administrator.
Slashdot discourages anonymous posting by referring to anonymous posters as "anonymous coward". The mildly derogatory term is meant to chide anonymous contributors into logging in.
Read more about this topic: Anonymous Post
Famous quotes containing the words anonymous, posting and/or communities:
“I would rather have as my patron a host of anonymous citizens digging into their own pockets for the price of a book or a magazine than a small body of enlightened and responsible men administering public funds. I would rather chance my personal vision of truth striking home here and there in the chaos of publication that exists than attempt to filter it through a few sets of official, honorably public-spirited scruples.”
—John Updike (b. 1932)
“My tea is nearly ready and the sun has left the sky;
It’s time to take the window to see Leerie going by;
For every night at tea-time and before you take your seat,
With lantern and with ladder he comes posting up the street.”
—Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894)
“The horror of class stratification, racism, and prejudice is that some people begin to believe that the security of their families and communities depends on the oppression of others, that for some to have good lives there must be others whose lives are truncated and brutal.”
—Dorothy Allison (b. 1949)