This is for all the Anonymouses (Or is it Anonymice? Or Anonymi? Err..let's just make it Anons, shall we?) out there.
I am probably very lucky that I don't have many Anon trolls on my blog.(Touchwood) Most of you Anons contribute to the discussion in the comments section with very thoughtful comments. When you disagree, you do so without being rude, and I really appreciate that. So, when your contributions are all positive, why do you prefer to remain anonymous? I can understand if you are being abusive - you wouldn't want anybody to know who the bad-mouthing loser is. But in this case, why the anonymity?
Ok, I understand, you might have your own reasons for not letting me know who you are. I can think of a few -
1) You do not want anybody to catch you reading my blog. (Infradig, you know!)
2) You might be known to me, and you might not want me to associate you with the comments. Maybe you feel our offline relationship will be affected by your comments.
3) The thought that I am left guessing about your identity might give you kicks.
4) I can't think of anything else.
But I want to know who you are. I want to know who I am talking to. Or rather, I want to know which Anon I am talking to.
I have a picture of each commenter of mine. Many of you are excellent commenters. (I am a bad one - the maximum I can do is to say "Great post!" and "Heh heh, that's funny", and the like.). So when you, Anon, comment on two posts, I would like to know that the same person who said this on post A, said this on post B. Please don't ask me why this is important, but it is. More than anything, replying to a comment addressing "Anon at 12 30" is not much fun.
So now, I want to know your name, but you don't want me/others to know who you are. So what is the solution? Here is one -
Give yourself a name. Anything will do. Even something as unimaginative as "XYZ"(As long as nobody else gets the same bright idea). Or "Scooby Doo". Or "Brad Pitt". Or "Laloo Prasad Yadav". Whatever.
There is one commenter, who comments with an assumed name. I know who he is and why he does it - it suits me just fine! One calls himself "Same old Anon" in each comment. That makes it so much more easier! One even calls himself "The Anonymous Coward". But you don't have to be that honest, really!
So...could you please be considerate and name yourselves? And if its not asking for too much, you could even give me a hint, you know... whether you are somebody I know personally....*Crash* *Bang* *Shatter* Ok Ok Ok! Just name yourselves Ok? Just that! Please?
44 comments:
ROTFLing on anonymity giving kicks. He he he.
And I think I will all myself S *wide sly grin*
Probably you can trying giving some weird names to those anons, which will force thme them to put something better than yours.
Anon, so I see which reason works for you! :)
S? Evil indeed. And I see that you still call yourself Anonymous in this mail ;)
Sudhakar, oh but the problem is that I might end up giving two names to one Anon and miss out one Anon completely! How can I guess which Anon is which?
5) i may have clicked on the 'anonymous' option by mistake while publishing the comment.
this happened to me once... but, not at 'hallucinations!' :)
Shru: That reason does not work for me, it made me go :D
I'm sure you meant I call myself anonymous in this comment, and not mail. :D
Hi Shruti,
One of the main reasons why I used to prefer commenting "anon" was to avoid being judged! After all, we are expressing opinions here,and I definitely do not want to feel like I am "branded" as the person who feels a certain way! makes sense ?:)
Ooooops, Sorry about the anon identity ! Didn't realise how weird it could get addressing people Anon at 9.32 and so on.
I am not a blogger on this site, but yes, I could leave an identity as part of the comment.
Sorry, again, S.
GG
Ahhh.. hmmm... what do I s-say? Is somebody w-watching over my shoulder? *Yelp* Help - what is that in that dark corner? GASP! Who-oo is it that touched me? Leave me alone - don't want nobody to know who I am.
On to serious (;-)) response:
My personal reason for not using the full name is to maintain privacy for a while until I get comfortable. It is understandable that people are curious, bloggers are people and hence bloggers are curious to know some form of identity.
Shruthi - I have read your blogs for about 2 weeks now and am very impressed with your style of writing (this is my first post here). Here's to more such blogs - like the tortoise-shell moments (or mementos of life?), mouth-watering, jealousy-inducing "Baale Ele Oota", common sense (?) common-courtesies-vs-chivalry debate and so on.
N
Disclaimer: The first few lines were not used to poke fun at "anonymous" contributors - I was one myself until I realized that having some kind of identity made me feel better.
well, you seem to have left out the reasons of anonymity due to the possibilities of anons being:
* a part of a big psychological experiment about people and their instinct to find the root source of all comments
* hired agents of the indian government watching you to see if your blog needs to be closed down
* self-aware spam bots living 'in' the internet (shamelessly flicked from one of my .. er anon friends ;) )
* unwilling to reveal themselves for you might not ready for the truth. a la Lost
btw, awesome post.
-anon
:P
Ha Ha. Good one. I leave Anon comments here but I always put my initials in my comments. My reason is, I am not a registered blogger, so I do not have an identity in this bloggers' world. :-)
JK
LOL! The number of anonymus comments seem to have increased after your request!
I am also putting my comment as "ANON" just for the heck of it ;-)
-shark
Eh.
you could disable anonymous comments :D
S
Oh you know me :D
i guess most people who remain anonymous are the people u knw, bcos the people who don't know u personally won't think of the consequences of a ridiculing comment.But i love ridicules rather than 'u r right' comments bcos i get to knw things from another perspective.
btw when i first saw the post i thought u republished an old post , bcos i mistakened it for an old post i saw at mizfit's blog.that naming ceremony was fun too, it was all about giving a name to the objects around het, like her car, her laptop, etc.
Inder, I have done that too, in some blog :)
S, Heh heh :) Absolutely, I did mean "comment" ;)
V, actually that makes perfect sense. And I respect that :) So tell you what, you can call yourself a different alphabet for each post. How does that sound?
GG, come on, apologies aren't really necessary, anyway thanks for correcting that slip ;)
N, First of all, thanks for all the compliments :) And secondly, yeah, I do understand, you are trying to get comfortable, but like I told V previously, you can name yourself a different alphabet in each post :)
Anon, ha ha!! Fantastic reasons.. but are they... err.. real reasons? ;) And sigh! :) So are you the "Anon Anon"? Well, those are good reasons,
JK, Yeah, leaving your initials is perfectly fine with me :) Thank you ;)
Shark, LOL!! Good one.. And I was thinking just the same thing - there is a sudden spurt in the number of anon commenters!;)
S, Now there are two S commenters! One whom I know and one I don't.. so how do I differentiate?? Btw who are you? :)
And whaaaat? Disable anon comments and lose out on all the fun and wonderful pieces of insight??
Maverick, :) seems like a fun post. Negative, but constructive criticism is always welcome.. but rude comments are not fun at all!
Another reason why someone would remain anonymous is if they don't want to draw attention to themselves, like somewhat of a celebrity sort. :-)
Who is this another S you know, who has stolen my pseudo-name?
See, this is why I didn't leave names or identity before. People ALWAYS tend to pass themselves as ME.
And one more thing - this post is SOOO explicitly alienating those of your readers who are not anonymous - so much that they have chosen to comment anonymously. It is so evident in the number of anon's commenting. Or it may be the case that hitherto, even if there were 10-15 Anon comments, they were being attributed to a single name. Now you have "distinct" Anons, so to speak.
And to make up for this, you will have to write one post, and for only THAT post, disable anonymous comments so that non-anonymous commenters can level the score.
I hope I have not let my identity seep through.
Ha ha. Ok Ma'am as you wish.
-Shruthi's Anon
Anon at 11 10 pm, ahem ahem! ;)
S, no you haven't let your identity through :(
Silkboard, Heckle?? Heckle??? And I was only pointing out the practical possibilities.. I am not even asking the Anons for their real identities!
Anon at 9 21, you know what, now I have no idea which Anon you are. I totally give up.
He He....i jst wanted to add to the anons.
Sri Harsha.
:P
ROTFLing at last line. Just name yourselves Ok? If everyone names themselves "Ok", how will it ever solve your problem?
You know who I am, don't you?
Harsha, Grrr! :)
Muhahaha, I know just who you are. And I am sure the other readers can recognize you too. There is only one person who takes so much pleasure in pointing out my mistakes :)
:D
... snip..
> Many of you are excellent
> commenters. (I am a bad one -
> the maximum I can do is to
> say "Great post!" and "Heh heh,
> that's funny", and the like.).
where are the candies for the (anon) kids ? Sugar coated lines are not enough.
To make it clear, announce a goodie for every converted anon !
Having experience with kids (at home) is sometimes useful :-)
Muhahaha, ;)
Older Bangalorean, I hope online candies will suffice? But tell me *suspicious* what are you going to gain out of this? ;)
@ shruthi:
dont sigh! i am the one with those (sur???)real reasons :D
couldnt help but leave an anonymous comment after reading the post :P
You thought I was going to gain from the suggestion ? That's cheap. Sorry, I don't do cheap things.
It is a common practice to throw a goodie (however worthless) to get what you want. I was a bit surprised that you didn't offer one given the popularity of your blog.
Not Anon Anon, alias Gururaj, heh heh.. and thank you ;)
Older Bangalorean, heartfelt apologies for accusing you of "cheap" things!
As for giving away goodies, popularity doesn't bring riches, you know :(
:-O It does, too. Where are you trying to sneak in the Crossword vouchers???
one anon... multiple personalities? but seriosuly, anons are better than named spammers with cures for sexual disorders!!
Hey Shruthi ....
AnonymOused!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
hmmmm ....
With my name I can be anonymous ...
or can I be ... If at all I show my identity can you trace me... may be you can.. may be you wont... who has time for all these anyways ...
the basic reason was to make u come up with this post... and u happily obliged
Shunti
Older Bangalorean - *sigh*
It is difficult for someone not to suspect you because this is a "20-something", hit-all, fun-loving forum of world conquering boys and girls.
I was wondering why you were wasting time here :D
Shunti Bella
A blog is like a telephone. If you have a telephone that never rings, then don’t blame the telephone, blame the fact you never told anyone the number. And when you do get a call, it helps to know whom you are speaking to.
after reading this post, i remembered the post i had written on commenting in my blog. although it is not about ANONYMOUS comments, it is about ANNOYING comments. you can read it here:
http://bellurramki18.wordpress.com/2006/07/11/a-blogger-comments-on-comments/
Cheers
Bellur Talavarasi Venkata Nagendra Paramasiva Satyanarayana Appa Rao ;)
Same Old Anon: I think there is no need for introductions as you know who I'm.....
My reason for not leaving my name is cause I don't not have an identity in this bloggers' world as I don't blog.....
The reason I don't leave my initial is that there are too many S's around(I'm sure you agree ;-).....
Sensible post! Haven't had as many Anons on mine, so haven't had to resort to the 'Anon at 9:30pm' option yet! Btw, I have a same-old-Anon on mine too. Wonder if your same-old-Anon is the same as mine!
And now I am an Anon too...found out (after trying to Publish) that I cannot post comments since I have signed on for the new Beta version of Blogger.Grr..pathetic!
Same Old Anon: Ranjit -> Yes, I'm the "Same Old Anon" on your blog.....
The day someone else masquerades using my alias, I will have two options - (A)Think of something smarter, or (B) Stop commenting on blogs altogether.....so till then it is "Same Old Anon" ;-).
Manuscrypts, I agree wholeheartedly. Oh, and I really like my Anons. Just that it is so difficult to say who is who!
Ajith, Oh I don't want to trace you - I have no interest in that, believe me ;) I just want to put a name to the comment, that is all! ;)
Shunti, nice name, and nice reason ;)
Shunti Bella, actually there are some over 40-50 year olds reading this blog too ;) and they .. *ahem* tell me they enjoy it too! Just that they don't always comment ;) .. and please don't say he is "wasting" his time here.. *sob sob*!
Btw, I hope you are not the same as Shunti above!
Bellur, ROFL! Good to see you back ;) I remember that post of yours - good one. And good analogy too!
Same Old Anon, absolutely. Like I mentioned in the post, your name suits me jussst fine, even if I hadn't known your real identity ;)
Ranjit, Oh yeahh.. I tried logging in to comment on someone's post, someobne who had switched to Beta.. and I couldn't.. I had to leave an "Other" comment!
guess bloggers just need comments! they might feel like writing more if the commentors leave their name but we shud be satisfied with the comments right???
i havent read thro' all these 40 comments (most of which are by anons) and some one may have suggested this before, but have you considered disabling anonymous comments on your blog? na rahega baans, na bajegi basuri, if you know what I mean.
Sandesh, I agree :) But like I said, you would also like to know who is commenting, sometimes :)
Sameer, yup I do know what you mean! But like I already told somebody, there are a lot of people without blogger accounts who read my blog and give very insightful comments - I don't want to miss out on those! :)
Silkboard, heh heh, yeah yeah I know!
I never anonymize !
I am a new Anon, I mean I am a new reader to your blogs and have become fan of yours, I post with anonimity as I have my own reasons, in my life I don's want to share my sorrows with the known people to make them more sorrowful, but I don't know why I feel that by remaining anonymous I can express it to unknown (or distinctly known people), I am also a shy kind of non-smart guy who have lost so many girls starting from school, college, office etc. but still I haven;t gathered the courage to talk to a girl, I don't know but I have
i have heard of face readers, palm readers and things. man! u r comment reader.
well, this anon commenter was wading thru some other blogs when he accidentally landed here. he was impressed by the wasting time on cricket blog and continued reading the older blogs. and has bookmarked this blog.
keep blogging.
i am a non anon! :-)
- s.b.
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