Anonymized IRC?
Crazy idea: a chat server which anonymized the nicks of all users, changing them around at frequent intervals. The server would require authentication, but the results of that authentication are kept secret from other users.
Would it be interesting? Would it work?
posted by jml @ 3:52 PM
5 Comments
5 Comments:
It is important that we CAN be anonymous, but the end I fear it only is defeatist. When you can say things only because no one knows who said it, you avoid the steps needed to say it with a name tag on.
Besides, it would just get used to trade kiddie porn.
No it wouldn't. Like I said, you would still need a username and password to log on, so the owner of the server knows which set of people have access, just not who says any one thing.
What sort of uses are you envisaging?
I've seen a set of blog regulars do this voluntarily. It ended up being kind of amusing for a while, except for the one who took advantage of it to attack another regular. They ended up needing to drop masks early.
Same blog has an occasional convention of formal psuedonym-change to confess more uncomfortable secrets, but one confessed to being a rapist, that was a little awkward too.
So yeah, I do wonder how often it would be used to be either unpleasantly mean or unpleasantly revealing.
Jason, no uses per se. Just an experiment.
Mary, I think that there definitely needs to be some sort of expulsion mechanism to deal with abusers. Not sure what to do about awkward confessions though.
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