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 M¢25  Funded By Mahalo ? |  November 11, 2009 01:55 PM

These anonymous questions worry my a little, there are too many, and they seem to hide the originators intent. Is this wrong?

Its almost like people are ashamed of associating with something they feel strongly about. Why cant we all just be honest?
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November 11, 2009 03:32 PM
1. The new design of Mahalo Answers puts sections of questions on your home page including: most interesting, questions your friends participated in, questions of interest to you (based on previous questions you've participated in), and new questions. Anonymous questions would largely be relegated to the last section, so you will have a much better experience on a % basis.

2. If the home pages becomes more than 50% anonymous we'll throttle that back or give people the chance to opt out of anonymous questons.

3. you can, and should, vote the bad questions uninteresting. They go away when they get their third uninteresting vote.... like i just did for this one!
http://www.mahalo.com/answers/anonymous/what-is-your-name-2

4. In terms of people not wanting to ask questions, you can see many of them have to do with relationships, health and sex--things people can have hangups about. I'd rather people be able to ask the questions and get good answers than not ask them.

best j


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November 11, 2009 02:17 PM
Nothing wrong about it! I have the same feeling. Since I'm online when USA is sleeping....due to my location...I keep an eye as much as I can on those questions. Most of them are reported as soon as they appear.... I saw one yesterday in a strange language...I didn't report it at first...and tried to translated...It took me like 20 minutes to check the language...and found out is from Pakistan. Good...I said...nice...lets translate it....it was not a question! I won't type it here....but trust me...that was not a question.
Also, there are many question like...how old are you, name, etc...and I think they are wierd....comming from anon people...so, I decided not to answer...

But I agree with you...anon questions make me uncomfortable...

So, you are not alone!

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Voted as best: kareul
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November 11, 2009 02:28 PM
If you see anything thats

a) Spam (off topic and commercial)
b) Inappropriate (profanity, hate speech, or another violation of the Terms of Service)
c) illegal
(fraud or phishing, violence or threats, privacy invasion, harm to minors)

then you should hit the report button where it will be sent to the 'batcave' where a team of Super Heroes will spring to action and make it vanish...

If the question is just stupid or mindnumbingly inane... then you can click on the uninteresting button. If it gets 3 votes against it then it will disappear

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November 11, 2009 03:32 PM
Obviously I'll do that. But I just dont see the point is asking questions like...whats your age, name, etc...If i start answering each question of this type, I'll get the next belt in 24 hours. And It doesent seem fair. Does it?

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November 11, 2009 03:52 PM
Right - not in the Mahalo spirit in my opinion and I'd guess in the opinion of many others - to 'gain' points by responding to those types of random and non appropriate anonymous questions - tip for you @vladis :)

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November 11, 2009 02:31 PM
I both like and dislike anonymous questions. Just like with anything else, the power it gives you can be used for good or evil. It depends on the asker and his/her maturity level.
Many people do tend to ask inappropriate questions, AND way too many of them. That said, some are well thought out and tend to be of an embarassing nature (if not here, then on other sites I use.)

I haven't asked anything anonymously here and don't know if a Mahaloan can go anonymous while they're logged in. I did see a question about whether anon answers will get $M and think that idea would be ridiculous.

I have asked a question anonymously on another site and was happy I did. It was a parenting question and even though the internet gives some sort of anonymity anyway, I was still a little uncomfortable asking. Anyway, the others on the site didn't harass me for going incognito like they did to many other anonymous askers. They actually gave me very good responses for the most part and "talked me down" from a very rough patch which may have been exacerbated by a mild post partum issue.

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November 11, 2009 04:45 PM
Anonymous questions are a good idea if they're not misused. Someone might be more likely to ask a question that they really need the answer to if they knew it wouldn't be associated with their personna. There's nothing dishonest about it; it just might make someone more at ease to ask anonymously.

That said I do agree that a bigger percentage of the anonymous questions are inane. And yes, someone could rack up a lot of points answering them.
However I don't think that someone who is interested in acheiving a brown or black belt would want to spend their time doing it that way.

It would be interesting to know the percentage of reported questions that are from anonymous askers versus registered users though.Personally I feel that anyone who knowingly posts inappropriate questions doesn't care whether thay ask them anonymously or not. These are not the kind of people who get embarrassed easily.

It is easy enough to register and post an inappropriate question in a throw away account if that were the questioner's intent. I agree with @vladis that these types of questions are more likely to appear in the middle of the night USA time.

Last night I reported two questions from the same registered user with a recently created account. They were gone instantly so obviously Mahalo is being very vigilant about this.

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Voted as best: psionandy
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owl owl
 
November 11, 2009 05:58 PM
Let me be a bit practical on this issue. Honesty may be the best policy, but not always and particularly not when you are on internet. You must agree that all the people who are using the internet are not good people or do not have very good motives. There are innumerable hackers, spies, black-mailers and even terrorists using internet for their own purposes. So, it is not safe to disclose your identity without knowing whom you are dealing with. This is not about honesty, but rather about safety and security.

Further, people may feel ashamed when it comes to questions regarding their personal issues. That is pretty justified.

But still, I feel that it could have been better if people used a nickname than being anonymous.

Hope I made myself clear. Thank you

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November 12, 2009 06:28 AM
I think people just enjoy the novelty of the anonymous question category, and the cute anonymous avatar they get with it!

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