Removing the Anonymous option.

One thing that I personally felt lead to a lot of bullshit on derpibooru, was the anonymous option when posting. I feel like people ought to back their words with their actual (online) names, rather than use the Anonymous feature to avoid any real consequences for saying awful shit. Just my 2 cents.

As mods, we do actually see who is behind anonymous posts. I chopped off the bottom of this post (mostly because it has my IP, etc), but we are able to see who actually posted what and from which IP address.
 

 
If you are in doubt, report it.

@Hermaeus Xerxes  
If it’s the same thing as on Derpi I don’t see it going away. Some people like it as a way of privacy for their comments or posts. Some people might have it connected to other sites and not want someone outside to search their name up in google and find them out.

It also provides a convenient out for users who, while they don’t exactly roleplay, have a known persona/fursona/official capacity associated with the comments they make and need an option for speaking OOC without having to rely on an alt.

I hope this booru doesn’t end up like Derpi

@Hermaeus Xerxes  

How about letting ppl use anonymous only if they’re registered?

@Sky Spark  
I agree keeping the anonymous option. I absolutely do not want my uploads to be visible to anyone.
 
@ChonkyCrunchy  
I started editing because it let me do so without creating an account. I eventually created an account however due to the CAPTCHA. If there were no anonymous posting allowed, I would not have been as active as I am on Derpibooru.

I think allowing anonymous activity on the site has a lot of advantages. A main one is anonymity - people may like stuff and want to comment on something but not necessarily attach their name to it (especially fetishes and such), or they may just be overly conscious about their privacy and don’t want their username too visible on the site but would still like to post and upload.
 
Sure it’s got the potential for abuse, but people can just as easily register fake accounts and abuse that as well.

@Joey  
This, basically.

@Joey  
I agree with J here, especially when mentioning commenting on the site-allowed fetish content.

@Joey  
There are people out there that can run attack campaigns on people who are furries for a lot of BS reasons. Some people are be helped by anonymous posting.
 
Though, I think someone who earns a duck badge 🦆 or something like that too many times should have it disabled though. Like on YouTube, you can’t have 3 strikes on your account at any given time, and even with 2 strikes you will lose priveliges until the strikes expire after 6 months. So maybe people could get strikes on here for bad behavior, and after 2 strikes you have to wait for them to expire before you can post anon. If it was an automated process, it might actually save work for the mods.

I’m not a fan of a three-strikes system, soft-locking accounts, shadowbanning, or anything that tries to be a warning and a punishment at the same time. If someone is repeatedly acting in bad faith like that, they tend to wear these slaps on the wrist as a badge of pride.
 
But more than that, I am vehemently against the idea of automating any sort of punishment. IMO, that kind of thing needs a degree of human judgement and accountability.
 
That’s a little off topic from the thread, so back to the point at hand: So long as anonymous comments are at least somewhat identifiable by mods (as I know they are), then I think it’s fine. If brigading really becomes a problem, I would sooner change it so that you have to be logged in to comment (as you do with voting) but retain the option for those comments to be marked as anonymous.

@OliverHancock  
Currently the software doesn’t have any mechanism to prevent users from using the anonymous function. It’s basically either just “banned” or “not banned”. I’m not sure such a feature would ever be added either - people frequently abusing such functionality probably should just be banned, in my opinion.
 
@Wingbeat  
I agree - auto moderation always seems like a bad idea. There’s very few things that are such an emergency that they cannot wait for a human to review it and make a decision.

@Joey  
Okay that makes sense. Thanks for the explanation. :)

@Joey  

I just wanted to say I really appreciate the anonymous option. I fall into the “overly conscious about their privacy” group, and it’s very nice that I can use the site without giving that up. I’m certainly not looking to cause problems either. I mostly just want to make the occasional comment or discuss stuff with people.
 
Although I will say I am a little tempted to join officially.

I feel the anon option simply allows people to hide from repercussions from the general community. It encourages people to say what they want and feel free of any general repercussions.
 
As seen on derpi, it also encourages off site toruble makers to rock the boat.  
It should not be an option.

@Inucroft  
Incorrect.
 
Sometimes people may simply be more comfortable not showing a name or account and may want to comment on things they don’t want associated with them. Most cases it is wholly innocent and just as many, if not more, ‘good’ anonymous commenters exist too.

@Inucroft  
If people are making trouble, BP or not, please report them.
 
@LightningBolt  
Exactly, For example if someone wants to give an artist feedback on a fetish image, or engage in an RP, without being publicly associated with it, that’s perfectly fine.

@Inucroft  
FurB and Derpi are not like 4chan, you can’t say what you want without repercussions because making trouble will get you punished, BP or not.

@Sky Spark  
Yes, they will get penalised by the mods.  
but hiding the comments behind anonamility sheilds them from the repucsion of their piers.

@Inucroft  
So should people worried about personal privacy have to suffer because of a few bad actors?

@Inucroft  
Staff can see them. Also, I already had a good compromise idea to give people a strike system, where anonymity was basically a privelege that you could lose. Unfortunately, there is nothing they can do to compromise though, because it’s like flipping a switch in the code, rather than a grey area. I forget, but the way they explained it, I think it would take a boatload of coding that changes the way the site fundamentally works, whereas enabling or disabling anonymity altogether would be easy… That’s a little sad cause it means we’ll probably never have a compromise… But all in all I don’t think this is that big a deal. This site is already way more productive and positive than DerpiBooru. I don’t think we have to worry too much about it.