The Dilemma of Anonymity on Quora: Balancing Privacy and Moderation

Since 99% of inflammatory troll questions are asked anonymously and many Quorans can't stand even reading them, although many anonymous questions are not trolling, why doesn't Quora simply add a feature to address this issue? That would be nice for me but it also runs the risk of ghettoizing some of the anti-vaxxers, anti-round-earthers, and creationists into their own little world where they're safe from the rational people who get sick of seeing the same disingenuous questions over and over.

Anonymous Questions on Quora

Quora is quite happy to have anonymous questions because they are usually in one of the following categories: Utterly stupid but not fun (like the Marble Arch ones), Bigoted, Inflammatory, and Confrontational. The platform collapses your reply when you answer a similar question. This mirrors the behavior of other anti-social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook, but on balance, it's more fun.

Trolls and Anonymity

Some people do troll others, and I have been the victim myself. It's a sickening feeling in the stomach to have to read a lot of obviously antagonizing questions that are simply designed to make a person feel awful. I started to downvote anonymous questions, and they seemed to stop. It would be nice if Quora would allow us to block all anonymous questions, but then the trolls would just make an anonymous account and ask the questions anyways.

Reasons for Anonymous Questions

While acknowledging that anonymous trolls can ask very dumb questions, it's crucial to take a step back and ask why this system was created in the first place. If you ask a question, anybody who answers it will see your name. Your followers will see your name too. What if you want to ask a question on a public forum where everyone will know you asked without anyone else knowing? For instance, you might want to prevent embarrassment, especially if you're in an abusive relationship or questioning something very private in your life. You should still be able to ask that question and have some level of privacy.

Modulation and Moderation

There is a lot of work that needs to be done by moderators to stop bad questions, but the anonymous question system should still be allowed to exist for the reasons stated above. It's a delicate balance between protecting users' privacy and maintaining a healthy and moderated platform. The key is to identify and filter out the trolls while preserving the voices of genuine contributors who need privacy.

In conclusion, the existence of anonymous questions on Quora is a complex issue that requires thoughtful moderation and policy-making. While it's important to mitigate the negative impact of trolls, it's equally important to respect users' privacy needs. The platform can benefit from more nuanced solutions to address these challenges.