And while you're at it, can you add functionality to prevent LanX to reply to BrowserUk's posts and vice versa, including anonymized posts of the two of them?

upvoted! =)

Cheers Rolf

( addicted to the Perl Programming Language)

For those who may be intestested: hide posts from users Re: Blocking users, ignore in the CB /ignore UserNameHere.

Update: Oh, thanks to LanX for providing me with the link to Re: Blocking users (I forgot where it was) and for prompting me to credit them for this :P

Easily implemented: there I've done my half of the job.

---

With the rise and rise of 'Social' network sites: 'Computers are making people easier to use everyday'

Examine what is said, not who speaks -- Silence betokens consent -- Love the truth but pardon error.

"Science is about questioning the status quo. Questioning authority".

In the absence of evidence, opinion is indistinguishable from prejudice.

LOL... like Fermat's theorem too simple to be explained? ;-)

Look nobody will even consider implementing it w/o a good concept.

• Cookies?

• IP adress?

• JS-magic?

• Session-IDs?

• Browser footprint?

• combination of all?

Keep in mind that some threads continue over weeks.

And which identifier do we use? Are digits really sufficient?

And now at the latest I get the impression that using stile analysis to distinguish (the rare occasions of multiple) AnoMonks in one thread is more effective then trying to figure out how and why AM1 and AM2 got their IDs.

Nice idea, but far from trivial to implement.

Something I did waaaaaaay back in the day, with some help from this very monastery, to support "anonymous" chat in a site was to do colors based on IP (such that the IP was not displayed, nor reversible, but used to make a hashed color for display of the user's chat session). It's only a good transitory/ephemeral solution though for something like chat and not so hot for the reasons you elaborated: temporal, IP/browser changes, etc.

For your list, JS magic will be disallowed, I expect. And you can't rely on JS for client-side enforcement anyway (with hackers at least).

For the rest: it could work quite well a lot of the time but at least some of the time it will lend a false sense of division to a single user no matter how it's done. With an IP anonymizer and two or three or four... browsers it would be pretty easy to appear to be a gang when it's really just one. And the more specific/careful the technique for keeping the AMs separate, the more likely a single anonymous monk will accidentally appear to be two or more. :|

For the rest: it could work quite well a lot of the time but at least some of the time it will lend a false sense of division to a single user no matter how it's done. With an IP anonymizer and two or three or four... browsers it would be pretty easy to appear to be a gang when it's really just one. And the more specific/careful the technique for keeping the AMs separate, the more likely a single anonymous monk will <accidentally appear to be two or more. :|

Yes, this may well create a "false sense of division". As I said in another comment, I'm not worried about that - this isn't intended to cover all possible cases. This is intended to cover a significant majority of cases.

Cookies would seem to be an easy way to implement this, particularly given that this is in no wise intended to grant every AM a unique identity for all time. They can create an account for that. If a thread goes on for weeks, and for some reason AM-27 becomes AM-34, it's not a big deal. Similarly, if someone logs in from one browser to comment on a thread, and then logs in from a different browser to comment on that same thread, it's not a big deal for them to be both AM-27 and AM-24. Again, that's what accounts are for.

As for whether to use digits or some other identifier, I have no particular opinion. Digits would seem to be sufficient, but I'm willing to believe otherwise.

This was the only point raised during the discussion of anonymous monk yesterday which made any logical sense to me. I understand how people can be confused by multiple posters, as Anonymous Monk within the same thread.

Imageboard/Textboards seem to attribute a unique identifier to anonymous postings, purely to differentiate the many voices in a conversation. This is done automatically on the server side, and does not require the poster to do anything special. I am not talking about Tripcodes, which have no place here, we have registered users :)

The Anonymous Monk user is deeply ingrained in PerlMonks culture and unlikely ever to be gotten rid of. This monastery is run by the hegemony of monks for whom privacy and anonymity are very important, and who like and want the Anonymous Monk user. There's nothing wrong with this. It's not surprising at all that the values of Perl hackers are aligned with those of computer hacker culture in general. I have no inclination to want to change the minds of the majority of monks for whom the Anonymous Monk user is an important feature of PerlMonks, nor do I want to debate the issue. The debate would be boring and pointless, and I'd lose it.

There are only two problems with the Anonymous Monk user that, to me, are a little annoying. The first is the obvious one that I made in the Chatterbox the other day and that PopeFelix quotes in his opening post:  "… you can't distinguish one Anonymous Monk from another Anonymous Monk in any given thread. You can't have a reasoned argument with someone when that someone is an amorphous blob that can't be differentiated from other instances of the same amorphous blob." I think other monks share my annoyance with this aspect of the Anonymous Monk user. I don't lose sleep over it. I'm not going to march on the capitol to protest it. It's just a small gripe I have with the PerlMonks forums, that's all.

The other minor problem with the Anonymous Monk user is its name. To me, the word "anonymous" is loaded and ambiguous. All users on PerlMonks are as anonymous as they choose to be, and most of them choose to be totally anonymous. I have no idea who you are, atcroft, educated_foo, erix, hdb, LanX, marto, PopeFelix, ruzam, sundialsvc4 and taint. Oh, I may know your first name because you sign your posts with it. I may even know what city you live in because you've included this information about yourself in your profile. But you're still anonymous to me. And I'm anonymous, too. All you can surmise about my real identity from what's on PerlMonks is that I'm a Perl programmer in Tempe, Arizona named Jim. I'm still anonymous because you don't know which Perl programmer in Tempe, Arizona named Jim I am.

I realize that, to many other monks here, the word "anonymous" applies not just to one's real-world, legal, what's-on-one's-passport identity, but also to one's virtual PerlMonks identity. I understand the argument that, to many monks, anonymity means absolutely no identity whatsoever, either real or fake. I get it, I do. But I nonetheless believe that the name of the amorphous, non-specific, unidentified user on PerlMonks sucks because it has the loaded word "anonymous" in it. Again, I won't debate the topic with you. Yawn! If you disagree with me, then I agree in advance to disagree with you, too.

So, at last, here are my recommended changes to the implementation of the Anonymous Monk user on PerlMonks:

• Change its name to something else. Guest and Visitor are both short and sweet, but they're admittedly not very inspired or even accurate. Wanderer is short enough, and it fits the whimsical conceit of a monastery. (For the purpose of this recommendation, I'll use Wanderer as the new name, but with the understanding that someone with more creative juices than I've got will inevitably think of a much better name.)
• To post When posting to a thread in a forum, Wanderer must may enter a charm—a secret, magic word that he makes up himself. A charm is similar to a password, but it's localized to the current thread. There's no restriction on the minimum length of the charm or on what characters are in it. It's entirely up to Wanderer to decide what to use.
• Wanderer's post is then attributed to the individual possessor of the charm; for example, Wanderer 01, Wanderer 02, etc. For fun, instead of using numbers, we could use fictional, medieval names drawn from a large database of infrequently-repeated names; for example, Wanderer Brom, Wanderer Fendrel, Wanderer Tristan, Wanderer Isolde, etc.
• When Wanderer posts a subsequent node to the same thread, he uses the same charm as before so the same attribution is repeated; for example, Wanderer Brom again.
• Wanderer's participation in the attribution scheme is voluntary and opt-in. His only burden is that he must type something for a charm each time he posts as an unregistered user, even if it's just a single character. If he chooses to continue to be identified as Wanderer Brom throughout the discussion thread, he can. It's entirely up to him. He holds the key:  the secret charm. If Wanderer chooses to be utterly amorphous, even within the current thread, he can simply not enter a charm. In this case, the attribution will be just Wanderer alone.
• If the user wants his own, self-determined name, he knows where to get one.

I'll gladly discuss my recommendation with you, which is an idea I just made up as I went along tonight. If you want to bludgeon me over the head for the stupidity of my premises for making it, go ahead, but I won't engage with you or defend my recommendation. Take it or leave it. It's just a simple suggestion about a feature of PerlMonks that isn't really that important to me.

Jim

UPDATE:  I just checked the availability of the name Wanderer. Alas, there's an existing PerlMonks user named wanderer. He or she created an account in April 2006, posted an inquiry, got his or her answer, and has never returned to PerlMonks since then (at least not using the wanderer account). So then I checked the availability of the name Monk. There's a user with the name monk, too. Her or she created an account in July 2000, participated in a handful of threads in that same month, and has never posted anything since then. He or she last logged on in 2009. Happily, the name Brother is available:  there is no user named Brother on PerlMonks. Brother fits the monastic theme perfectly and nicely implies a generic, non-designated member of the monastery. It's fraternal and friendly-sounding, which encourages general civility and being nice to each other.

For those who insist on maintaining the exact same level of absolute "anonymity" (i.e., amorphousness) that is currently afforded by the Anonymous Monk user, the simple name Brother could be used by any unregistered poster who chooses not to opt into the attribution scheme. The use of just Brother versus Brother Foo could be chosen by simply not entering a charm (a secret word). I realize this represents a change to the plan I proposed above. As I said, I'm making this scheme up as I go along. ☺ (I made edits above.)

ANOTHER UPDATE:  The name Brother isn't gender-neutral. ☹ And the name Sister is taken by yet another only-used-once account, sister. So I give up trying to pick the perfect new name. But my recommendations stand:  rename Anonymous Monk to something else and enable the opt-in capability for unregistered users to differentiate the attribution of their own posts from the posts of other unregistered users within an individual discussion thread.

Having read this thread, and having had some more time to ponder the subject a bit more. I'm kind of keen on the fact that PM permits anonymous posting. Some of the comments can break up what might otherwise be considered pretty mondane, or monotinous. In short; it can lead to an (interesting?) surprise. Sure, the priviledge can be abused. But what's the ratio? Is it really large enough to merit further changes to the system? I tend to liken the whole thing to the way most Mainling Lists handle TROLLS; they are simply ignored. At least with those who are seasoned members.

In summary; While I recognize that some AM's are TROLLS, and that can be annoying. I (personally) don't see enough merit to honour them with the time, and effort needed to further squelch their output.

On the upside; look at the length of this thread -- thanks PopeFelix :)

--Chris

FWIW, to me it seems pointless.

FWIW, to me it seems pointless.

How many writeups do you have? Can you imagine that some monks have 10,000 writeups? And participated in discussion threads with 10 other anonymous monks, and actually got confused by who was saying what unintentionally (no sock-puppetry, no trolling, legitimate discussion)

Anonymous by definition means the poster isn't identified.

If you accept anonymous posting then you also have to accept the downsides that go with it. Otherwise, it's no longer anonymous and you might as well just insist that every post come from a registered user and be done with it.

Which, considering the amount of SPAM we are getting from Anonymous Monk lately, might not be a bad idea. If you care enough to participate, then register a handle and go for it.

I realize that registration might be an inpediment to the "I just have this one simple question" type of User, but that too may not be a bad thing. Besides, often the first AM question generates more question/response pairs (i.e. a thread), so the cost of setting up an account get amortized fairly quickly.

----
I Go Back to Sleep, Now.

OGB

Requiring a login before posting will have very near zero impact on spam at PerlMonks. Sometimes spam is posted anonymously, sometimes not. Our spam tools have been made (by necessity) to deal with both anonymous users and new users.

It gets rather tiring to over and over again read people proposing the obvious solution to the spam problem based on having paid little attention and doing very little thought, as far as I can tell.

Just because 4 of the last 5 spam posts you noticed all had feature $X in common, you cannot conclude that banning $X will cut spam by 80%. It will prevent a couple of spam postings and require a minor adjustment from the spammer, which is likely to happen quickly and thus lead to absolutely no reduction in spam. Frequently, it even increases the amount of spam because the spammer has to pay a little attention and try some changes.

And I think it takes only a little contemplation and having paid a little attention to realize this. In the case of logging in, the adjustment is less trivial... except it has already been made. The transition from anonymous posting to logged-in posting rarely takes a spammer much time these days.

- tye        

If you care enough to participate, then register a handle and go for it.

FWIW, I've been posting anonymously lately because I've been using random public wireless networks. I don't like to log in, because of Firesheep attacks.

It has already been addressed by other comments in the thread that there are technical and possibly other concerns with various methods of attempting to identify multiple posts in the thread as having the same author.

If that is set aside for the moment, then (continuing with the idea) the next option would seem to be to keep track of the number of posts by the anonymous monk and denoting them much as described in the OP, so that if post N in the thread is the first by an anonymous monk it is labeled as by AM-1, post N+1 labeled as by AM-2, and so forth. Unless they reveal themselves as being the author of a previous post in the thread, however, you cannot be assured that the posts by AM-1 and AM-2 are actually separate instances of the same anonymous monk.

Alternately, one could just refer to the posts themselves (as they can do currently). You still don't know for sure if posts by multiple anonymous monks are by the same author, but you know for sure which post to which you are referring. And isn't that the important thing, the comment of the post-not the author? (Important enough it was a monk's signature line, although I cannot recall whose at this moment.) In theory, we up/down-vote directly on posts based on their content, not the author who wrote them. Also in theory, those monks with greater experience have contributed more to the monastery, and those with higher experience to writeup ratios have contributions that may be held in slightly-higher esteem among their peers here.

Just a thought. (It was free, and no electrons were harmed in the construction of this post.)

... Alternately, one could just refer to the posts themselves ... And isn't that the important thing, the comment of the post-not the author? ...

Yes it is the important thing :)

Read more... (116 Bytes)

But the complain seems to be that its harder to examine what is said when you're dealing with an amorphous blob that can't be differentiated from other instances of the same amorphous blob.

So the remedy, of having something like said the Anonymous Monk in auditorium seat East42 with all the accuracy of ip+browser (or currently+branded+browser+session, or ip+browser+thread and without revealing either ip or browser), seems to make it easier to differentiate the blob within a thread, so folks can keep track of which Anonymous in the auditorium they're discussing with

I like that, auditorium seat, in the form of a cookie (like login cookie except no identifying information, just a seat number based on some crypto operation )

A humble monk visit the PerlMonks and pushes open

        bbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdd
        b     The Monastery Gates      d
        bdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbdbd
        b             \  /             d
        bb            d||b            dd
        bdb          d || b          dbd
        bbdb        d  ||  b        dbdd
        b  db      d   ||   b      db  d
        b dbdb    d    ||    b    dbdb d
    o_, bdb  db  d     ||     b  db  dbd
    )-' bbdbdbdbdbdbdbd  bdbdbdbdbdbdbdd
   / >  

To enter the campus and be greeted with many infinite halls of

    .-'""'-.         .-'""'-.        .-'""'
  .'  SOPW  '.     .'        '.    .'  ....
 /            \   \            /  /     ....
;              ; ; monkdiscuss  ; ;      ....
;              ; ;              ; ;      ....
 \            /   /            \  \     ....
  '.        .'     '.        .'    '.  ....
    '-....-'         '-....-'        '-....

  o
 (x)
 ( )

And enters

    .-'""'-.
  .'  SOPW  '.
 /            \
;              ;
;     o        ;
 \   (x)      /
  '. ( )    .'
    '-....-'

To find many doors (topics) in the

 hall of sopw threads ( auditoriums )
      .-.  .-.  .-.  .-.  .-.
  o  ( 1 )( 2 )(...)(142)(...
 (x)  '-'  '-'  '-'  '-'  '-'
 ( )

And enters a discussion

    .-'""'-.
  .'        '.
 /   10x9001  \
;              ;
;     o        ;
 \   (x)      /
  '. ( )    .'
    '-....-'

To find an auditorium with a stage and stadium seating

               ,,ggddY""""Ybbgg,,
          ,agd""' PostingBoard `""bg,
       ,gdP"                       "Ybg,
     ,dP"   Thread 10x9001 by {OP}    "Yb,
   ,dP"    Re: by {Jim}                 "Yb,
  ,8"      Re: by {AM E42}                "8,
 ,8'         Re^2: by {OP}                 `8,
,8'            Re^3: by {AM W84}            `8,
d'             Re^3: by {Jim}                `b
8                Re^4: by {AM E42}            8
8              Re^3: by {AM E42}              8
8                Re^4: by {OP}                8
8                                             8
8       On stage are {OP} and {Jim}           8
8 ------------------------------------------- 8
8   In shadows of auditorium seating are      8
Y,                                           ,P
`8,     {AM E42}                            ,8'
 `8,                                       ,8'
  `8a                           {AM W84}  a8'
   `Yba               O                 adP'
     "Yba            (x)              adY"
       `"Yba,        ( )           ,adP"'
          `"Y8ba,             ,ad8P"'
               ``""YYbaaadPP""''

And reads and joins in

art credits
http://stickgrappler.tripod.com/cma/tccascii.html
http://www.retrojunkie.com/asciiart/asciiart.htm

I think it'd be nice to have a semi-unique identifier, as it'd greatly improve the readability of a thread. It's quite confusing when there are several different 'anonymous' posters. It shouldn't be anything more complicated than e.g. a hash of identifiers (browser string, incoming IP, etc.).

That way you maintain anonimity/unregistered posting, but allow a conversation between several different anonymous people.

My 2¢

--Chris

Tying a session to an IP would be about the only reasonable solution,

um, tying a session to a browser would be reasonable enough ... an ip can be well shared

and even then, only for the CB

anonymous monk doesn't have access to CB

...

um, think of it as an automatic signature ... something to help you besides writing style ... oh, i'm responding to that shadowy figure in balcony seat 11E

Thank you for making my point.

In the end, I think the tools PM already provides -- especially "peer review", do as good a job as anyone can hope for, and IMHO, a damn good job, at that.

Have a nice day. :)

--Chris

¡λɐp ʇɑəɹ⅁ ɐ əʌɐɥ puɐ ʻꜱdləɥ ꜱᴉɥʇ ədoH

None of the suggestions for taking away site functionality make sense to me,

What suggestions are those ?