Long before I actually officialized my geekdom by gaining a full-fledged member-ID and nick, I made my comments as good ole' Anonymous Coward.

Many of those comments were modded up, and quite highly so. Some +5 Insightful, a few +5 Informative, most +5 Funny as I'm a glorified smartass. In the process, I learned something: Anonymous Coward has two benefits when one seeks to make a point (Or joke, for that matter).

Advantage one: Nobody knows you. No stigma is attached, no checking up on the name for past comments is done, nothing. Every post is the first and last post in that little world. This may not seem like much, and it usually isn't, but when you post something even remotely disparaging towards Mac or Linux, unless you 'prove your credentials', you're a troll, and even if you do, if you make multiple disparaging remarks, even if your 'credentials' and complaints are completely valid, you eventually get labeled a troll. AC's allow one to avoid this taint. I could go on about what a sad state of affairs it is that one must 'prove' themself to make a bad comment about a UNIX derived system, but that's best left for another entry.

Advantage two: This one is what got me thinking about the kernel of this journal entry. AC's have a lower bar of expectation. To quote Stewie from Family Guy: "I see, I give you comedy gold and I get nothing, the fat man makes a pun and you all shit yourselves". Well, not quite that bad here at Slashdot... since my registration I've gotten plenty of +5 moderations, and plenty of my anonymous postings haven't. But the point remains. Some of my anonymous postings (Like so) I just have a sneaking suspicion would be modded to hell as a troll or flamebait if I slapped my name on it... but Anonymously? Heck, Coward made a joke! Laugh!

If I had stepped up, fessed to this posting, and taken the moderation like a man... would it have gotten +5? Maybe. The more I think about it, the more this one probably would have, as it panders to Slashdot's Libertarian bias (I'd like to take this time to pimp out my boy Badnarik, whom I'm voting for as soon as I get down to the early voting station). But as I think about all the other comments where I was too concerned about my precious karma to sign my name to, that ended up +5, I sadly DON'T think all would have faired as well, which I learned early on at Slashdot. The fact that "Funny" mods don't grant karma, but "Flamebait" and "Troll" et al take them away doesn't help, and only encourage that comments like this are done anonymously, as they could be taken either way, and one mod sets the mood when looking at it...

Bah, I've ranted long enough. I suppose what I'm saying is that Slashdot is a community which is subtly encouraging anonymity, the very antithesis of the foundation of a community. While we may have anonymity in the sense that you have no idea whether I'm in Perth, Australia, Kabul, Afghanistan, or Des Moine, Iowa (I'm in none)... but you still know this is "FrYGuY101". You can see some of my more recent comments. You can label me a friend if you like my comments, or a foe if you don't. If I think highly of you, I'm a fan, if I don't, I'm a freak... but when comments which are the most controversial cause me to fear reciprocity to my karma, not because I'm lying or trolling or flaming, but because my views are unpopular, the comments which would most define who I am, and give the best measure of whether or not you become a fan of mine or a freak, are almost forced into the microcosm of a single AC post, you lose that. And, in the end, isn't that what the Anti-Slash idiots want? To disrupt this fun, vibrant community? Well, sadly, they've succeded at that, in spades.

Pat Tillman gave up a $3 Million contract to become an Army Ranger, fighting on the front lines of Afghanistan. He was also a modest man, requesting that the media not make a big deal out of it. He wanted to be just like any other soldier, and like any other soldier could, he ended up giving his life when he was ambushed on the Afghan-Pakistani border.

Rest in peace, sir. You are truly worth of the title 'Hero'.

Okay. I'm rather annoyed.

I made a rather valid point in the article about the Australian traffic department's statement about their switch to Mac being based on it being 'open standards and systems' being rather odd, since Apple is known for being rather closed when they can. Hardware, software (OS-X isn't open, even if its Kernel is), whatever.

While the article was being read by the general slashdot populous, it was modded +5 insightful. Granted, +5 may have been a bit excessive, but that's besides the point. The point is that as the story moved off the main page, but stayed high on the 'Apple' page, the Apple fanboys started (ab)using their mod powers. Because my statement wasn't pure praise for Apple (it DID contain a positive statement about Apple) it was modded down as "Flaimbait" and "overrated". Now the statement is listed as " -1 Insightful". Moreover, it dropped my Karma from Good, to positive, to neutral, to bad.

Gee, thanks. Take a +5 post making valid claims, and trash it because you don't like the statement made. It's reasons like this I fucking hate Apple users sometimes. Rather than dealing with criticism, valid or not, they dismiss it as 'stupid windows users'. In the future, I'll take specific note to mod down Apple fanboys, simply for being in the same crowd as those assholes. You want to ignore criticism? I'll ignore the dumbass remarks of the 'inherent superiority' of Macs by its zealots.

Like I said in a post in that thread, there are few memories longer than that of a geek scorned.

I've given in to my inner geek, and finally gotten a /. ID.

Curse you, geek! CURSE YOU!