anonymous postings and trust

[Richard Kennaway]

Black Unicorn writes:
>You would have preferred that I quote the entire thread and then
>add my comment?  Or is it the lack of accompanying detail in
>the comment that you resent?

It's mainly the lack of detail.  As you and others point out, any "Fred
Jones" might be a covert pseudonym, and even if it isn't, I may know
equally little about its holder as abut a "Black Unicorn".  So yes, it's a
matter of reputations rather than true names.  Obvious anonymity just makes
it more noticeable.

>[further details about Black Unicorn]

Somehow, this makes your posting about the existence of Liechtenstein
numbered accounts much more plausible, even though I have no practical way
of verifying any of the circumstantial detail which (to coin a phrase) adds
verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative.  I can't
put my finger on why this is.

>Should you be more interested 
>in detail, I would be happy to discuss what I can in person, by 
>telephone, or in encrypted E-Mail, in descending order of the 
>detail I would be willing to disclose.

Even though you don't really know who I am?  I mostly lurk here, but
although I'm moderately active on a couple of other mailing lists and
newsgroups, even if you looked at what I write there and verified the info
in my .sig, it seems to me you'd need to do some further investigation to
be safe in making potentially job-threatening disclosures to me over any of
these media.

This raises the question of how we come to trust people in RL situations
where obvious anonymity is not present.  In short, why should we believe
anything that anyone says at all?  If we don't check their claims by
personal observation, why believe them?  If we can check them, why not do
so instead?  How is a reputation for trustworthiness built in the first
place?

I'm just rambling, so I'll shut up for now.

--                                  ____
Richard Kennaway                  __\_ /    School of Information Systems
Internet:  jrk at sys.uea.ac.uk      \  X/     University of East Anglia
uucp:  ...mcsun!ukc!uea-sys!jrk    \/       Norwich NR4 7TJ, U.K.