Anonymity at the Atlasphere
I received the following letter from someone who was perturbed that I deleted his Atlasphere profile when he joined the member directory under the name “Zero Disclosure.” I thought some of you might be interested in my response. Here’s his note:
In all honesty, I’m just disappointed. In Atlas you can find a lot said about capitalism. If you take capitalism to the web, you will find that the best websites are the ones that don’t micro manage users.
I wonder what your conversion rate is for people you delete. Do they re-register, or do they go away. In addition, what is the difference between me lying about my name and making it less obvious? At least I am being honest when I register. I wonder how many of your users just lie and are not obvious about it. Or do you check? I guess I will find out soon. I’ve been a member for over a year, and I just wanted to add a second profile.
My reply:
Your raise good questions, and ones which obviously we need to take into account (and have taken into account, to the best of our ability) in formulating our site’s policies.
In general, we’re committed to trying to build an atmosphere of genuineness and openness, as we feel that it contributes to a feeling of real-world community, as opposed to the “virtual community” common on so many other sites.
When some people use their real names and others hide behind obvious pseudonyms, it creates a disparity in the level of trust between members — and in the perceived value of the site as a directory of real people in the real world.
We do in fact have a lot of people who attempt to join under fake names. Several a day, normally; and it’s more common when they’ve arrived from a link in some kind of anti-Rand screed. (Which makes one wonder if they’re ashamed of their interest in Ayn Rand — another thing we hope to discourage.)
We don’t have any foolproof way to prevent people from doing this, but we do pay attention to it and discourage it — and when someone is in obvious violation, we delete their profile.
And, in all honesty, I do understand that some people, for one cause or another, have compelling reasons for not joining under their real name. I wouldn’t expect Alan Greenspan to join under his real name, for example. And if I learned he’d joined under an assumed name, I wouldn’t kick him off for it.
But it’s impossible to enforce a general policy of true names if we allow people to join under names like “Zero Disclosure” — particularly when the name screams “I know who you are, but you don’t know who I am, so screw you.”
Are there costs of adopting this policy? Probably. But there are also significant benefits. Generally it is the people who use their real names who become the best customers. (I know this because I see the names on their credit card accounts.) And the people who use fake names are much more likely, statistically, to abuse the site in various ways, by sending spam, attempting to circumvent the subscription process, etc.
Finally, it’s rather unpleasant to do business with people who hide their identity. Right now, for example, I’d normally sign this letter with my name, but then we’re back to that screw-you sort of disparity where you are taking more than you give, aren’t we?
I hope this explanation helps you understand our motives, even if you ultimately don’t agree with our policy.
