It's actually an idea we bounced around before. It's always been shot down, but I am curious what an extended stay for such an account would look like. I'm afraid it would/will likely end up with someone pushing the envelope.
My issue with a mass/community throwaway is there is no ownership. I would like to specify, ownership, not accountability necessarily. With a community throwaway I can make a thread like this and then I can post three different comments that appear to have opposing opinions, thoughts, etc, that really all come from me. While, to my perspective, that might make for an interesting social experiment (what gets most circles? what gets most discussion? what seems most controversial?) it can limit the engagement of more thoughtful users as they realize there is a lack of ability to trace anything back to any single person, or multiple people. In addition, with a community throwaway, so long as the account has the ability to edit previous comments, no one's contributions are really safe as they could be edited by anyone. It's asking for trolling, if you ask me. It's also asking for community-gaming in a way. It also brings to mind that forum where all the users were really one user - and it brings solipsism to mind too of course. I don't care so much if you are anonymous although frankly, what I share with Hubski I choose to share with Hubski, and anything I don't share, I'm not going to share regardless of whether I am on my account or on another. That's because there are specific reasons I choose not to share certain things and those reasons aren't actually going to change whether I have a mask on or not. Besides that, I do believe in personal accountability, so I'd rather present myself and my mistakes as wholesale as I can and acknowledge that I've failed in my life. Not hide behind a screen because I am ashamed. I would rather have to raise my face and make people judge me for the whole person I am. Those are the general and personal pitfalls I see with such an exercise. Be brave. Also, hubski isn't here to be your confessional. Reddit's great for that. Use Reddit for that. Go on, I understand; it feels good. I've used Reddit for that too, once upon a time. But when you are ready to have a discussion about who you are and what you've done that might have been bad, take it to a website where the people see you for a person. Not a username that is not even worth looking at (which is how I encounter reddit).
You say that someone can post in response to themselves under the throwaway account, but maybe it's a wholly different side of a person to let them argue with themselves. And maybe that's a conversation worth having. Just something to think about. Thank you for your post though.
I'm afraid you've gone and gotten about 3 levels way too esoteric and fuzzy-navel-philosophy for me to see the appeal tbh. If you're trying to hash something out between yourself and yourself, the only reason to do it in front of an audience is for attention. To be honest the exercise, if conducted in a 'public' space, would seem mastubatory to me if I knew what was going on. And if I didn't know, it would really be an exercise in deceit, not an exercise in self-dialogue. If, on the other hand, you are trying to have an anonymous conversation with a bunch of other people, I think it behooves all involved to present your multifaceted, complex, or inconsistent ideas/thoughts/etc as cohesively deriving from whichever single mind spawned them. It's easier to understand where the parts came from if we are shown they belong to a whole. It also helps remind everyone that we're all human, and we're all multifaceted, not absolutionist caricatures only capable of black-and-white opinions. Those're my opinions. If a permanent throwaway was created, I wouldn't use it, but that doesn't mean I'd petition others against it either. I just see far more potential for drama and harm than benefit. I hate hubski drama.
I think it would need to be advertised as a feature to really see what it can do. It could have a Brady Bill esque waiting period type thing embedded with it so people can't whip it out when things heat up. That sounds completely ridiculous.
It's inevitable. The question is really, how long until... we see a baby lamb.
I was hoping people would be better about not interacting with the account if they weren't ready. You're dealing with the id and no super-ego and people do not handle that well, both in terms of the user and who they are speaking to. However, I will say that Hubski has a highly rewarding system for people who produce popular ideas, even though they may be incorrect. You gain followers, and those followers have a responsibility to challenge you, but they might not. As long as you're surrounded by people who agree with you, you won't be challenged often enough. Hive minds develop in echo chambers and I don't want to name names, but there are clearly certain opinions in circles that are exacerbated by the circle's members. There has to be a jester in the court. That's what the anonymous user can be.
Just because someone agrees with one comment that I made or one post that I put up doesn't mean they agree with me all the time or even most. I think there is an assumption here that because someone may follow you because they agreed with you a few times, that means they are going to agree with you all the time. I have had disagreements with many hubski members I am quite agreeable with most of the time, kleinbl00, thenewgreen, nowaypablo, right off the top of my head. Just because I agreed with you once or 10 times does not mean I'll agree with you again tomorrow. All it means, really, is that when you say something that doesn't jive, I'll think about it more thoroughly and respond more politely than I would if I've never had a good conversation with you.
There is a certain inevitability that comes with groups. Confirmation bias is a fundamental part of being human. That's what culture is. It is up to the individual to travel, and seek unpopular opinion.
Are you asking if I have a different handle on another site? I only use Hubski, under this account. Maybe it's because I write like a robot.