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Anonymous Coward is a term applied within some online communities to describe users who post without a screen name; it is a dummy name attributed to anonymous posts used by some weblogs that allow posting by people without registering for accounts.
The practice, which had its roots in BBS and USENET culture, was made especially popular on Slashdot, where the mildly derogatory term is meant to chide anonymous contributors into logging in. [1][2] Some weblog engines such as Scoop use the term "Anonymous Hero" instead, perhaps to avoid the name's confrontational nature. Others use stronger varieties.
Variations on the name "Anonymous Coward" are also sometimes used by trolls to mock the dummy name and/or confuse other users into thinking that they are posting as Anonymous Coward.
In different languages
In Barrapunto, a Spanish-language website, the default anonymous user name was originally Pendejo sin nombre, "nameless asshole". The editors later thought it was too offensive and changed it to Pobrecito Hablador, literally "poor little talker", a pseudonym used by Mariano José de Larra, a Spanish journalist in the 19th century. In Bandaancha.st, another Spanish-language site, the anonymous user is called BocaDePez which means "FishMouth".
Acceptability of anonymous posting
Online communities vary with their stances on anonymous postings. Wikipedia allows anonymous editing in most cases, but does not label users "Anonymous Cowards" (users who are not signed in are identified with their IP addresses in order to distinguish one anonymous user from another); Slashdot permits the practice and employs the label;[3]
Meatball Wiki permits the practice but discourages it.[citation needed] Many online bulletin boards require users to be signed in to write (and in some cases, even to read) posts. 2channel and other Futaba-based image boards take an opposite stance, encouraging the anonymity, and calling those who use usernames and tripcodes "namefags" and "tripfags," respectively.
References
- ^ "Andover.Net scoops up seminal Slashdot site", C|Net News.com article by Stephen Shankland, dated June 29, 1999. (Stating that the term "Anonymous Coward" was popularized by Slashdot.)
- ^ "Looking through a Window on Open Source Culture," by Sanjay Gosain. Systèmes d'Information et Management 2003, volume 8, issue 1 at page 22. (Stating that "Anonymous Coward" was popularized by Slashdot.)
- ^ "What's Online" by Dwight Silverman, Houston Chronicle, July 7, 2000, Technology, page 2.
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
