Topic: Anonymize Usernames for Unbiased Discussions on Bitcointalk! - An Idea (Read 529 times)

I think the problem of anonymizing forum interaction will only fuel hate, lack of education, offense and things like that.

They can say that the real user is registered in the forum's database, and he can be penalized for that. Yes, that's true. But in the end what was the advantage of anonymity?

That's why I say, for those who would really use this type of tool, they will be the first ones who won't use it.

You mean to try to anonymize those boards?

might be cool. but special boards with restrictions like ivory tower and serious discussion kinda have fizzed out even though they are solid boards.

one way to find out...

Although I find this initiative interesting, and I think the community does too, judging by the responses it has had, I think it goes against the way the forum works today.

Anonymizing, apart from the technical difficulties and possible abuses, I think it goes against the spirit of a forum where progress is based on merit, and that the nickname we are here is defined by our identity on the forum, which is built from the merit received, seniority, total number of posts, feedback, DT status and I don't know if I'm leaving anything out.

Anonymizing that I don't think would be very unbiased, as I've had discussions in politics where the opposing side (and me too) are biased, and I don't think that being two anonymous people instead of me and (for example) suchmoon would make us less biased. Apart from the fact that even if everything, merits, nicknames, trust, etc. were deleted, I think that in some cases we would end up recognising each other.


I foresee the same success as the “serious” discussion boards.

Even than you would be able to identify many members based on their post history or member ID number, if that is also not changed.
 
That is a good idea, maybe we can name this board Bitcoin4chanTalk
I would like to hear what theymos and other OG members has to say about this, but I am interested to try this.

You forgot signature though lol, with signature identifying the user is made a little bit easier by just checking the spreadsheet (at least there’s an accurate number of suspected members)..

IMO if there’s an anonymous post then all comment/post below it should be anonymous so maybe having a board that does that aka “Anonymous board” could solve that but  if possible having all post within the thread to be anonymous (everything should be freely expressed .
However there’s still an issue, the user is logged in to make the anonymous post which means the mods can still get the particular user if the UID is linked to the anonymous post, so on a second thought posting through an Alt is still the most suitable option to posting anonymously..

this opens the possibility of editing a quote with no backref to the original.

easy to abuse.

Other things include the style of writing posts, as well as the style of text design in posts and the total number of posts. That is, this annomization will be pseudo-anonymous, which will be ideal for a forum dedicated to bitcoin.

But with the randomization of everything on the forum, it will turn into a jumble of posts and "noise of voices", like in a crowded public place, where you "can't hear a pleasant melody". For me, the personalization of posts (certain nicknames, and therefore the users behind them) is a kind of quality mark, the posts of which contain interesting thoughts, ideas or technical information. I'm not just quoting under this. And a bunch of merits spurred me on not being lazy to read this post.

No, it should be processed manually by the message recipient, and re-written using the publisher's dictionary, and then posted in a slightly changed form (to preserve the content, but to change the wording).

That's why each message is handled manually, just like in mailing lists. If such account is banned, then N users are banned at the same time, so it is important to pick a good message broadcaster, who will moderate the content appropriately.

By the way: if someone thinks, that such group wouldn't last long, then why so many people think, that Satoshi was more than one person?

This would be an interesting concept for a bot: it can post whatever is sent to it under the bot's name. But I don't expect that to last long: when the bot gets abused for linking to malware, the bot will get banned.

That's the beauty of the freedoms Bitcointalk gives you: you can create as many accounts as you want, and someone else can complain about that if they want

The forum is not decentralized and there is no way we can move towards that in this very forum. If what you proposed is possible without all of the drawbacks, then it would be very interesting, but the drawbacks are inevitable IMO. I don't know why some users have a problem when people create alt accounts just to say something they don't want associated with their "real" usernames, i think that is the best approach for "unbiased discussion".

Exactly. The simplest solution is to join any group of anonymous users, who will process your content, and post it on forum, at a random time in the future.

Not necessarily. The system, where you would have N users, behind a single account, will still be compatible with the existing forum. Then, it would be the opposite case of using alt-accounts: instead of having N accounts per single user, you will have just N users per single account.

Isn't it possible to hide user information on threads if they willingly want to make a post anonymously?

We should have a checkbox on the post-writing screen, somewhere around the "Post" and "Preview" buttons, maybe above them and below the textbox where we write our posts. The checkbox should look like this: Post anonymously: [checkbox]

Those who mark the checkbox and then press "Post", their post should get posted, but all their information should be hidden. The space where user information is shown should only say "Anonymous Poster" with no href, which means the username shouldn't be clickable. There should be no profile or anything behind it.

This will allow anyone willing to make posts anonymously so they are not judged or attacked personally. No posts, merits, trust, avatar, or signature will be shown, which could make someone understand who the poster is or their rank in the forum.

I assumed we were talking about posting something for Bitcointalk users. To state the obvious: if it's posted somewhere else, it's not relevant here.

That sounds very, very hard to implement on an aging SMF codebase that can barely crank in patches without introducing other weird bugs.

However, if somebody wanted to post anonymously, wouldn't they just use a forum like 4chan, where everybody is already anonymous? Or a Bitcoin-specific forum modeled off of it. That would be much easier than hacking a forum's source code to introduce anon accounts.

I like the idea, and I've thought about how an anonymous discussion would be before, but: what you call "biases", I call pattern recognition. If a known troll posts something, I know it's not worth the time to read it.

Based on your screenshots, changing the name isn't enough. You should also remove the Rank, coins, Activity, Merit, Avatar, personal text and Trust score. And the usernames shouldn't be shown in quotes. But if someone quotes a user, the forum database should still store the correct quote for others to avoid turning it into plagiarism.

It must have been because of spam. You can't ban anonymous guests any other way.

As far as I know, anonymous posts were really possible in the early days of the forum.

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How about a board where no usernames are shown at all? To prevent spam, let's add some Rank restrictions, and only allow completely anonymous posts there. You'll need to have a hidden post history for this. But as much as this be a really cool feature, it's probably easier to just create an alt account if you want to post anonymously.

Including previous posts  😂. I don't think there are any other way but to create an alternative account.

Consider it from a social community perspective. You go to community clubs, be with your friends or people you like everyday. You can not be friends to everyone in your city or country. This will exists.

Just the opinion that people have to know how to separate things naturally. Now, if someone can't do this alone and needs a tool to help them, it's okay to use this script.

But, I honestly think that those who naturally cannot make this separation of judgment will not use the script - at least for a long time. I say this because your inability to respond appropriately to each subject, regardless of who made the post, will unconsciously force the person to know who made the post, because only then will they be able to give a response.

Note that I think the idea is interesting and that it could be useful for some users. I just think that those who really should use the script won't.

Well, for the fact that we've got some scripts that supports this already (which, I didn't even know about until at the time of reading this thread) don't you think it'll sound a bit off to have two functions on patch? Considering the fact that the only difference between yours and the main script is the change in control...

Sounds more like having an anonymously built profile o'er an anonymous profile... ain't nobody knows who TF you are in person already... Okay, I get it. Personally, the first thing that'd come to my mind (if I ever wanted to hide my identity) would be creating an alt. I appreciate your idea and I totally understand from your perspective.

Randomizing everything will be difficult to the scripter and also the forum users. It is impossible to anonymize a username such that no one will track the identity behind it.

The best to do is to create an alt for the purpose of discussing topics you don't want to be linked to your profile.

Thanks a lot for the feedback and your opinions everyone! I can't reply to every individual post so just posting a general reply here and some quoted posts below:

Tech:

This isn't a feature request to the forum but something users would willingly do on their client side! That is, with a mentality that "I don't want to be biased with my opinions despite the account being a newbie, a trusted member, or my friend" so let me just freely express what I think and the principles I stand for without any history of the accounts influencing my opinions.



I get that! But my solution is more like the stuff you'd willingly do on the client side than having the forum actually to implement the changes. It will dissolve the point of trusts/merits & other forum features if it ever happens haha!

 
Great point yahoo! As I mentioned in the post, if at all I had to ship it out, I would ensure no data of the post's original author is leaked to the client while you are posting/quoting a reply.

True but to move towards a more decentralized approach we definitely need a layer to protect our identities so the commenter's opinions are not influenced by the person behind the account but by content posted by the account. Ad Hominem attack for instance: It's problematic because it avoids engaging with the actual argument and diverts the discussion to irrelevant personal attributes.


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sorry, but i don't see how this is good if it's just a script and is not implemented directly on the forum. if only you are seeing the randomized users, what's the point?


or they could just disable the script and see who posted, since it's an end user implementation.

This is a nice idea, and I love the concept behind it by offering users the ability to stay anonymous while trying to share opinions on some forum discussion. But however, I think I'm yet to fully understand (i.e step by step) how the intended anonymousity works, because ever since I made a  glance through other people's comments, a few questions have been running in my head and I will love to ask O.P specifically. And they are;

1. Is the anonymous feature customized just a particular post, or can it be used for just a particular thread? or does it affect the entire forum comments just immediately the script has been activated?

E.g. Can a user's post in Politics & Society be anonymous while his other post on Gambling board be normal at the same time? Or does one needs to activate and deactivate this feature before his/her post on other boards be visible as normal?

2. Can post used by this anonymous feature be eligible for signature campaign weekly post count?

I will be glad if you can answer these few questions of mine.

He can change the display name, username of a user or he can change more to "Anonymous" which I believe only a display name. Ratimov, remember him?

Many deleted threads were restored by admins and I remember that author of those restored threads is not Ratimov but something like Rxxxxxx.

Exactly, admin can change someone's name to "Anonymous" as far as I understand that all the posts of that member are shown under that name - but he can change the user's name only in a certain topic - as is the case here / How username turned into "Anonymous" in 2022?

Because whenever the name is hidden, the possibility of deceiving new users immediately will be the highest, so it is most appropriate for me to take other steps to keep myself hidden. I do not consider everyone on this forum to be trustworthy. Those who have a bad reputation will basically hide and will be more likely to commit corruption again. So to keep yourself alert, it is necessary to present all the issues that are currently there.

i didnt think you ever could post as a guest or anonymous account, i thought those accounts here were regular accounts and manually changed by theymos for whatever reason at some point. not sure though.

I'm sorry, but I think this is a terrible idea. This generously opens the door for trolls to bury us even more.
They appear here cyclically and use all possible methods to involve other members in endless and toxic discussions, this would also enable them to spam with new accounts. And what would be the purpose of the ignore option at all in that case?

What about post histories, even if you change your visible username to something else in order to make a post, the post is still going to show up in your post history. So once people are able to get an inkling of who it is based on writing style, signature, personal text, etc, they would check your post history to confirm that it is you who made the post. I think it is better to stick with this:

As they should be. If someone has been consistently posting accurate content for 5+ years on the forum, I'll be interested to read their comments in a thread to gain more insight. This does not mean I just skim past other comments without paying attention, but theirs, quite rightly will stand out. When you relate it to a negative aspect, if a user is consistently a troll to me, I'll be right to have preconceived notions about them and wouldn't want to constantly read through their bs without knowing and wonder what this anonymous user is getting at.

For the most part,  a neutral doesn't need to view the forum anonymously, everyone was once anonymous to them, through time and actions they built biases and notions, which are not inherently bad.
While someone who isn't or was never a neutral will not be interested in this.

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I however think this can be useful in reputation topics where users judge newbies harshly sometimes and indemnify members they are familiar with. This may also be a cool experiment to know if some users subconsciously merit certain members they are familiar with and if they'll still merit those same contents if they had no idea who was the author.

I understand the idea behind the script.
But, I'm only being used by those who really don't get into these types of complicated discussions.

Furthermore, in general, the fact that some members create new users just to enter into debates is already widely criticized. Having this type of tool would not have much of an impact, as those who criticize it would not use it.

The username is our forum identity. This is a global community, hiding your identity is not a very positive thing in general.

It's an acceptable idea in political or general discussion boards but the username is very important in technical, economic and marketplace discussions. I remember something similar happened as one of the previous April Fools.

I think the point was more geared towards people writing an unbiased opinion. Basically for those afraid to have their own opinion, but as someone said earlier that's why people create alts and post.

In theory the idea is ok, but not as useful as the OP might have hoped.

I didn't check that thread, but I will guess using my memory, the Detective Conan is NotATether, the bald guy is ABCbits, the one who wear Metawin signature is iv4n. After I read the personal message, I made mistake, the last one should be holydarkness.

The idea is good, but it will not work like it should be.

And if you have randomize everything, you will lose your reputation you built.

This is a bad thing for someone who make money in this forum, except they don't want to participate in campaign, not have any service and don't care about everything.

This is kind of an interesting idea, but you're right about having to change (or obscure) all of the other details that'd make it possible to figure out who was posting.  But even with a script like this, I'd imagine most members who wanted to make a post they thought would be controversial/reputation-damaging/whatever would do what they've always done and create a new account. 

There are probably other applications for something like this, and props to OP for creating the script. 

Ah, icopress....the days of being able to post as an anonymous guest are long gone.  Not sure when Theymos did away with that, but I think it was before my time here.

I noticed this when I read the OP, the total merit and activity make it pretty obvious who this anonymous account might be. I think it’s worth considering if there’s a script that could hide those details.

Actually, I like the idea OP presented because, personally, I’ve observed this could indeed be the case. Bias is always present, especially if you know the user either from this forum or if both of you are part of a group or community outside the forum.

At the end of the day, I think it is not completely anonymous everywhere except for the thread you choose to remain anonymous. This means another user can choose to go through your profile like you have said or enter through your merit histories to see the real profile information.

I also have a few things to inquire about, imagine if the other users choose to view the console and see the script they may choose to delete the script so that the real username can be seen.  In other, for this to be implemented, it has to be a feature in the forum and it has to be Theymos himself who would add it.

People will be able to discern who is who based on avatars, merit count, merit history, signature, rank, and probably other things. The point is a random username won't do much if people can still find out who is who IMO. You would need to randomize everything.

So based on the sample screenshot the quoted message with username does not change so you can still see the original usernames. How about making that anonimize too?


I guess that's given, the anonymized usernames are for discussion purposes as for the OP, peeking the user profile page is different story.

What would happen with all the posts from Satoshi and other important members from history of bitcointalk forum?
I am not saying anynimizing usernames can't have use case in this forum, but it's more complicated since bitcointalk is also used for historic references.

Nice script initiative !! I get what you are actually trying to do, however I have a couple of questions. The first is what happens if you then proceed to click on the link to user profile? Now this link based on your script now has a  new anchor which is actually the randomised user name. But still clicking it would display profile of user. ××××××× here ×××××× would still remain the original name. If that's so trust me many using this script will still peek once a while.

At first I was hoping the script would allow user make posts with the user tag anonymous and with no profile trace. However I had a rethink and I recalled that forum members don't fancy hiding your identity here to air your view In my experience they often view it as cowardice to do so. Don't know if it's just me but I could tell most of the profiles even with the hidden usernames and I think it's similar to those that surf the forum frequently.

It doesn't hurt to dream.. it will never be available to ordinary users. 

Why do we need this?  
In Bitcointalk, discussions can sometimes be influenced by biases—whether it’s familiarity with a username, reputation, or preconceived notions about a member. This simple script ideally would replace the visible usernames with random anonymous aliases.  

What does this do?  
This script allows you to anonymize usernames on Bitcointalk threads by:  

• Randomly replacing visible usernames with unique aliases.  
• Updating the tooltip (on hover) to match the new alias.  
• Ensuring every page load provides fresh random aliases for an unbiased experience.  

 

Usage  

• Open any Bitcointalk thread.  
• Open your browser’s console:    
• Copy the script below and paste it into the console.  
• Press Enter to run it, and see the updated usernames.  

 

The Script:  
 

This is just a small demo of what’s possible. If there’s enough interest from the community, I’d be happy to expand this into a full-fledged tool with more features and improved usability. Let me know your thoughts and suggestions!

Examples: