by Anton Crone (@antoncrone) In the forest of the internet, is your opinion heard if you don’t put a name to it? I’ve wondered about this after a spate of opinion pieces regarding the relevance of the Loerie Awards on Bizcommunity and Marklives. These are two valuable forums where industry folk put their names and faces to often staunch opinions, yet they are often challenged by faceless people who hide behind pseudonyms.
I regularly visit 10and5, arguably the most popular showcase for South African advertising and design. Here, people willingly, and bravely, attach their names to the work displayed then wait for the onslaught of opinion, mostly from people who hide behind pseudonyms.
In a forum on 10and5 a short while ago, after a particularly scathing attack, I challenged the convention of using pseudonyms. Some supported this, others not, and the prevailing sentiments were that anonymity ensures a negative opinion does not reflect badly on that person thereby ruining their chances of getting ahead in the industry; that more traffic is driven to the website if people are able to comment anonymously and that the more freedom there is to comment the better we can gauge general opinion.