From deontic perspective, there is a coordination problem, where “at least consistent handle” posts can be somewhat costly for the poster, but an atmosphere of an earnest discussion of real people has large social benefits. Vice versa, discussion with a large fraction of anonymous accounts—in particular if they are sniping at real people and each other—decreases trust, and is vulnerable to manipulation by sock puppets and nefarious players.
Also, I think there are some virtue ethics costs associated with anonymous posts, roughly in the direction of transparency and integrity.
For example, if I imagine myself anonymously posting something critical received unfavourably by someone, and later, meeting that someone in person, or collaborating on something relevant, I would find it integrity-decreasing to continue hiding the authorship. And if I’d be happy to reveal my identity to the people upset … why not reveal it directly?
While I don’t think these considerations add up to “never post anonymously”, I think they are pretty large, and usually much larger than e.g. “small probability of adverse career effects in the EA ecosystem”.
In my view this is an example of a mistake in bounded/local consequentialism
From deontic perspective, there is a coordination problem, where “at least consistent handle” posts can be somewhat costly for the poster, but an atmosphere of an earnest discussion of real people has large social benefits. Vice versa, discussion with a large fraction of anonymous accounts—in particular if they are sniping at real people and each other—decreases trust, and is vulnerable to manipulation by sock puppets and nefarious players.
Also, I think there are some virtue ethics costs associated with anonymous posts, roughly in the direction of transparency and integrity.
For example, if I imagine myself anonymously posting something critical received unfavourably by someone, and later, meeting that someone in person, or collaborating on something relevant, I would find it integrity-decreasing to continue hiding the authorship. And if I’d be happy to reveal my identity to the people upset … why not reveal it directly?
While I don’t think these considerations add up to “never post anonymously”, I think they are pretty large, and usually much larger than e.g. “small probability of adverse career effects in the EA ecosystem”.