Timeline for On the role of anonymity in a site dedicated to research-level mathematics
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
16 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Nov 6, 2013 at 15:39 | comment | added | alvarezpaiva | @Quid: when you talked about brand name I thought you were exagerating, but recently I had an experience that made me really think about it: a series of Spanish math books was republished in French, the names of the authors does not appear in the cover of the books (front nor back), where it is nevertheless mentioned that this series was "selected" by a Fields medalist. Since I was a bit shocked I tried to find out: I was told by a reliable source that the Fields medalist objected, but the publisher would not hear of it. | |
| Nov 2, 2013 at 22:44 | comment | added | user9072 | For some perhaps knowing (or at least having a good guess or being able to get one if they cared) who I am: yes I am not blind to this. And, I haven't much problem with somebody that follows my activity on this site in some detail being able to infer something about me. But, an idea I do not like so much, closely along the lines of what Niemi answered, is that it is somehow generally known and thus all over, and on each and every text-snippet that somebody might see. Since taken somehow out of context and in written form, things can come across very differently than intended. | |
| Nov 2, 2013 at 22:18 | comment | added | user9072 | For the emails and related, thanks to everybody for the infos, but on the one hand as I admitted likely this is mainly psychological. But, somehow I find it a lot more fun to write an MO answer than, say, write a review for MathSciNet, though it sometimes not that different (for certain questions). I do feel that my pseudonymity plays a role here for me. On the other hand, it is known that some users had some problems with unwanted emails, some minor some a bit more major (or at least that was my impression from what transpired to meta). | |
| Nov 2, 2013 at 18:58 | comment | added | Gil Kalai | Quid, in the three years I participate on MO I got perhaps 3-5 emails regarding it (which were welcome). I also turn off (or almost so) from MO for a few months. So I don't think these are strong reasons to be anonymous, but as I said I regard choosing anonimity as ok. | |
| Nov 2, 2013 at 15:21 | comment | added | Lucia | @BillJohnson: I'm a number theorist who views MO regularly and I don't know who quid is. It has been a source of speculation among some number theorists I know, but I don't think anyone had a good idea -- it's a big world! Also, this was just idle curiosity, and most of the number theorists I know were happy to respect quid's privacy. | |
| Nov 2, 2013 at 15:01 | comment | added | Bill Johnson | I welcome the emails I have gotten from my MO participation. One led to a joint paper and another pointed to some interesting papers and background. Others have questions that I could easily answer and the asker appreciated the information. None have been outright spam. | |
| Nov 2, 2013 at 14:57 | comment | added | Bill Johnson | @quid: I guess that all the number theorists who view MO regularly know your real name and that I could also easily find out if I cared to. | |
| Oct 30, 2013 at 23:50 | comment | added | user9072 | For the emails, admittedly this is mainly a psychological thing not that I expect to get tons of emails. (Though I think, unfortunately, I got somehow pretty visible on this site, so it is not so clear. If you had the experince that somebody asks a question on main for the sole purpose of complaining about your close votes and inquiring about you, getting a couple of upvotes, you might start asking yourself what else such users might do.) | |
| Oct 30, 2013 at 23:43 | comment | added | user9072 | @alvarezpaiva you are welcome. For the brand, yes one could frame it like this and this is somehow the idea of the text, but then I'd also not publish in a journal that puts on display that I better publish in this journal to advertise my brand or otherwise makes a big deal about publishing there is a really good idea for purpose of me promoting myself. | |
| Oct 30, 2013 at 15:27 | comment | added | alvarezpaiva | The brand idea is indeed a bit unsettling and is a good point I had not thought about. However, if you count publication as selling a brand instead of just plain work, then everything we do is brand advertisement. BTW, I don't think you'll get many messages from MO users. I've gotten two so far in over a year and the whole system priviledges interaction within MO (there are no points for neat messages). Thanks for your input, I see things are a lot more compex than I had thought at the beginning. | |
| Oct 30, 2013 at 12:38 | comment | added | user9072 | There are several others, but as just yesterday somebody complained about my wordiness I will leave it at these two for the moment. | |
| Oct 30, 2013 at 12:34 | comment | added | user9072 | A more practical one is that I do want to keep MO separate from my the rest of my (work) life. I really have no interest in one more additional 'professional' thing to do. Well I am here a lot, but I can turn the site off completely at any moment, and thus it is a nice and useful distratcion but not an additional commitment. If I just do not visit it, it is gone completly. If I were to use it under my real name, and might get emails about it to my regular address and so on this would stop being the case. | |
| Oct 30, 2013 at 12:30 | comment | added | user9072 | There are many reasons for preferring to be anon. A strong one is this from the FAQs: 'We also encourage you to use your real name as your username. In your own enlightened self-interest, realise that participating in blogs, MathOverflow, the arXiv, and mathematical publishing are all forms of advertising for your "brand", [...]' Somebody might believe this and assume I am here to advertise my "brand" this is a deeply unsettling idea. This likley depends on culture and personality but to me to tell an academic that they do something to advertise their "brand" is about one of the worst insults. | |
| Oct 30, 2013 at 12:30 | comment | added | user9072 | Agreed we can take 'anonymous' to mean 'not providing identifying information on the userpage'. | |
| Oct 30, 2013 at 12:07 | comment | added | alvarezpaiva | First, let us distinguish anonymity from using your real name as login name. Probably we disagree on the cost of not having anonymous users. I myself cannot see the advantage of being an anonymous user, but I would be interested in hearing your point of view. Why are are you an anonymous user and why would you not consider making use of MO under the condition of giving your real name ? Some points of yours I agree with (too much math is indeed based on name-recognition), so perhaps I'm missing some key argument in the advantanges of anonymity. | |
| Oct 30, 2013 at 11:52 | history | answered | user9072 | CC BY-SA 3.0 |