Undisclosed Commenting ID Revamped

Good change, thanks!

I approve of this post.

I am the undisclosed formerly known as #2481220, (I feel so ashamed ;), and I agree this is wise move. I am new to IPVM but not to posting in general, I have posted af quora.com for a few years, but have since slacked off. I would often post anonymously though as I strive to have as little personality as possible as I find it not helpful.

I found it interesting how the undisclosed works(ed) here as opposed on quora. Quora doesn't even maintain continuity between posts in the same thread. Everyone just says Anonymous. This can be frustrating but its pure anonymity. Also only four or so moderators can see your identity out of hundreds. Of course they don't try to stop manufacurers posting anonymously like John does so its not necessary for each post to be vetted to that degree.

But I'll admit I was shocked at the persistence of the undisclosed IDs for eternity. Besides the never ending risk of revealing yourself or even an admin calling you by name accidentally, this persistence created a unique, I believe, social structure that had some interesting twists.

Consider this: I no more "know" Brian Rhodes than (#1234567), ones a string of letters, the other one numerals, and even though one might have a picture attached to it, unless you are particularly vapid, ones posts create the stronger impression over time. And so some of the more frequently used ids developed as their own personality. The ones ending in 22 and recently 221 (there always seemed to be a disproportionate number of 2s often in a row) come to mind.

So on the one hand I didn't really care who 123 is, to me they were just 123! In some cases I'm sure they were more authentic than in their named account. Also, the undisclosed at least were identified by type, "Manufacturer", "Distributer [sic]" and so on, thus helping to give a better idea of who they really were.

But there is a dark side too, this meant that each user was officially granted to use (within reason) two alter-egos at will. This I believe given enough time, could create a Dr. Jekyll - Mr Hyde type scenario, where one id is everyone's friend and courteous to a fault and the other only coming out when a brute was required, much like what is happening with wikipedia editors these days...

Anyway, TL;DR :)