Would it be better to encourage people to set a user name?

Question

I often see users who appear as user12345 or something similar. I personally dislike this for a few reasons:

1. I'd prefer to know who I'm dealing with
2. I think the quality of questioning is generally better from users who have an identity
3. Somehow it seems like cheating... disrespectful in some intangible way.. here we all are helping each other for free, and what? You can't even be bothered to show your face?

I've read the question What's the preference on using real names and photos? and there the conclusion seems to be that we don't mind whether the identity is real or adopted.

Fair enough. My problem is with people who can't even be bothered to have an identity at all. (I understand that in some cultures, it might be seen as problematic to make community contributions on your boss's time, even if there's a net gain. Lots of the user12345 folks seem to be asking for work-related answers: even full-blown solutions.)

Coming back to my first point about wanting to know who I'm dealing with; I actually can't tell the numbered users apart. Those numbers just don't stick in the brain, so it becomes like trying to interact with the Borg. Even if people have reasons to conceal their 'passport' identity, why can't they at least be encouraged to put some minimal imagination into making up a fake?

Stack overflow has successfully gamified all sorts of things, so isn't there a way to lean on people (ever so gently) to put a little bit of effort into dumping the auto-generated name. Nag them every 5 logins? Whatever.

Answer 1

Everyone's focusing on forcing users to use names; I think even the asker knows that's not a good idea. However I Think there's something to be said for gentle, maybe even one-time reminders that you can set a username.

For the longest time on User Experience we had a user49999 or something. Forgetable name. Good posts, good reputation. And every time I saw that name I though "wait, is that that guy, or some other guy?" No, social aspects are not the focus on this site, but they're not irrelevant either. There's a reason we have profiles which list all of our answers and questions. If someone posts good answers sometimes people are legitimately curious and want to continue to see their posts.

I think this could be a good idea if there's a gentle reminder sort of like the "consider accepting this answer if it helped you" reminder, but rarer. Maybe only show it once, but some people seem to have just honestly forgotten to set a user name.

As for anonymity requests, that's totally ancillary to this suggestion. No one is being required to add a name.

Answer 2

While I have nothing against informing users that they can set a username on signup, I don't agree with your issues with unidentifiable users.

I'm going to be quite repetitive, but you'll have to bear with me.

I think the quality of questioning is generally better from users who have an identity

And encouraging those users without an identity to have one will get rid of bad contributions? Besides, if you want a true identity there still is the whole problem of verification of the identity. I could still call myself Sir Bunnyfuzz Hopandskip without any problem.

Somehow it seems like cheating... disrespectful in some intangible way.. here we all are helping each other for free, and what? You can't even be bothered to show your face?

I deeply apologize for my disrespectful glasses. ;) But where does that come into play at all? Judge the contribution. That's all. That's what the system is based on and the only thing that matters anyway.

My problem is with people who can't even be bothered to have an identity at all.

Once again, judge their contribution, not their identity. A user with full personal details in his profile can be crap as much as an unidentifiable user can be good. And if there is some sort of correlation between identity and quality, just judge the quality as you normally would anyway.

I actually can't tell the numbered users apart.

So? Judge their contribution. Don't remember you have encountered them before? Who cares. Judge their contribution.

In short, none of the reasons you list convince me there is a direct need for a user to have an identifiable name. Not even with an alter ego.

Answer 3

I disagree with the premise that having a post associated with your real life identity somehow magically motivates people to produce better quality. It may do that for you, me and some others, but there's a ton of flags and Youtube comments suggesting that it tends to help only when the person can be motivated to produce quality in the first place.

In order for this to fly, I think you first have to demonstrate the reverse by showing data suggesting that questions written by someone that elected to use their real name receive better answers than they would otherwise.

If that is the case (and it very well may be), implementing this would indeed contribute to the overall quality of the site.

Answer 4

If the StackOverflow community doesn't care who or what new users are called, but some, such as Dominic, prefer easier-to-identify names help, consider borrowing ideas from games, email, and other online platforms:

Offer new users names that vary from the user + number format or allow users the ability to tag or otherwise identify individual users.

Unless some actually prefer "user + number?"

For example, I've seen:

• when signing up, system (game, email account, or forum) might prompt for a preferred user name
• if selected name is not available, user selects another or the system suggests some options
• if user prefers not to choose at all, the system may offer selection of available user names--these might be a combination of nouns or verbs, possibly appended with numbers
• in terms of other users, some chat programs let us rename how other users display

I don't mind the anonymity, but user names with even random phrases, nouns, or verbs are easier for me to follow in discussion. Yes, we answer on the merit of the question or answer. But we do contribute, comment, and offer answers for the same question. For example, I can follow Ben, Bart, Andrew, Yannis, and others here. I feel it'd be slightly harder to follow multiple Ben's, Bart's, or "users."

I don't completely line up with Dominic's reasons, but I do like the idea of new users simply having "user + the next available number."

I'd prefer to know who I'm dealing with

I like being able to recognize contributors, even if they're anonymous and I don't really know who they are.

I think the quality of questioning is generally better from users who have an identity

I think the quality of questioning is better for users that care about such an identity (or care enough to try to avoid getting booted).

Somehow it seems like cheating... disrespectful in some intangible way.. here we all are helping each other for free, and what? You can't > even be bothered to show your face?

I don't think this applies to all questions and all topics, but for some tags that I've seen Dominic contribute to, we'll see users that treat StackOverflow almost like support requests or worse. Questions act like anonymous ticket submissions and attempts at getting free coding, training, etc (this might be unique to code involving a mix of familiar languages plus proprietary/non-public APIs).

Serial bad askers already get removed, so I'm not sure "less anonymous" usernames would help any more.

Would it be better to encourage people to set a user name?

Yes, but for different reasons.

• I think it will help StackOverflow if users had easier-to-read, recognize, and/or follow user names.
• I don't think users need to be forced or even "encouraged." These types of names could be selected from available options or generated (somewhat) randomly.
• Ways to let users tag, follow, or otherwise identify other users might also help (no idea if it'd be feasible on a per-user basis)

Answer 5

Yes.

I don't understand why people are resisting your suggestion. The "it's not a social network" argument just doesn't hold water here. I mean, Pekka & Co messing with their usernames just wouldn't be funny if we didn't even 'know' who they were.

And the question says 'encourage', not 'force'.

I quite like Ben Brocka's suggestion of a badge for a unique user name. But that could be a pretty tall order, given the number of users we now have.

Or you could take a leaf out of The Register's book, and have the default user name be "Anonymous Coward" :)