Another 1-3 inches are expected today. You can’t tell from the photo, but it has already begun to snow, and fluffy flakes are swirling in the air.

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My favorite thing about soup: the days I don’t feel up to making something from a recipe, I can just throw an assortment of ingredients in a pot, and it will turn out all right. If only life were like that all the time!

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Or else someone had a badly misguided DIY snowcone experiment.

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I can’t believe I am wishing this, but let it rain soon! Yeach!

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Only online subscribers can create groups, so I created a (free) account to see how the group feature works. In the process, I noticed something interesting in the registration dialog box, but only after I expanded the fine print.

The line that caught my eye in particular was, “The quality of conversations can deteriorate when real identities are not provided.” Okay…under certain circumstances, with certain individuals, it can. People can more easily avoid real-world consequences when they post inflammatory comments anonymously. 

More generally, attaching a person’s legal name to comments increases the likelihood that something they post could affect their personal lives or work. But anonymity is not a shield exclusively for bad behavior. 

Say someone posts with their legal name in a discussion about healthcare and shares the fact that they are coping with an illness. An insurance company could conceivably use that information to deny the person coverage on the basis of a pre-existing condition. Or say someone who has been victimized posts with their legal name in a discussion about dealing with domestic violence, sexual assault, or harassment in the workplace. Oh wait – most wouldn’t do that. Would allowing them to post anonymously really deteriorate the quality of the conversation?

One might argue that the WSJO is a source for business and financial news, so the kinds of discussions that would take place on the site aren’t as sensitive as the examples I just gave. Well, I am browsing the Groups directory and here are some discussion groups I’ve found in the past minute:

Heathcare

Addictions (Members: 3)

Drugs and medical care (Members: 7)

Faces of Health Care (Members: 29)

Health Care Economics (Members: 98)

Workplace & Career

Diversity and Inclusion (Members: 7)

Global Neighborhoods & Social Media (Members: 313)

Management issues (Members: 1081)

Rebuilding Trust (Members: 5)

Looking at these numbers, I wonder how much the site’s policy of self-identification influences the groups people choose to join and what they disclose in their posts. In placing such focus on real identities, how much of the real conversation is not being voiced?

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For those who are tired of all the snow pictures

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Pittsburgh meteorologists forecast 4-7 inches of snow with the storm arriving this afternoon. My personal forecast for the weekend: homemade soup, literature review, and brainstorming project ideas.

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