Question Enabling "anonymous" posts in a Kunena discussion

All of your assumptions are 100% correct. The "Optimal" solution would be to allow users to be identified or be anonymous selectively by discussion. A workable solution would be for them to do it globally (user by user).

BTW, I'm not sure of the protocol here, but I'm happy to continue this discussion the Kunena forum, or if appropriate, I'd give you my real email address and we could continue offline.

Thanks in advance.

Thank you. I'm happy enough (in a general sense) to continue these discussions off-line but I think there's some merit in permitting hypothetical what-can-Kunena-do-for-your-business discussions to be carried out in public so that we can entertain a variety of opinions, not just mine.

I am forming a technical "solution" in my mind but, I gave you fair warning earlier, you're probably not going to like it. :lol:

Now that we understand that your website does not (or will not) allow non-registered access, that is genuinely anonymous browsing and posting, you want your users to be able to assume different disguises. Sometimes your users should be able to represent their thoughts by their real names, sometimes they should be able to mask their identities. It's an interesting set of rules, but I can see why there are politically good motives for playing this kind of game.

So I have another question. Would this ability to disguise users (from the detection of other users) also extend to forum moderators or system administrators as well? In other words, if "Chairman Mao" (in my slightly absurd illustrative example) wanted to post something as PekingDuck, would you want him to feel confident in the knowledge that no-one, not even the system/forum moderators could correlate his messages with his "true" identity?

It is not important that the system administrator or moderators not be able to ascertain the identity. It would be optimal if it was totally anonymous, but we could live with having the admins etc. be able to see the identity. I always like simplicity. Hopefully, some of your ideas will not involve code modification (or at least minimize it)

Oh no, not at all, the solution is quite simple. Forum Moderators have the ability to change their identities; they can also change the identities of other postings, too. This message partially illustrates the concept: you should experiment with it more on your own test site.

There is a technical solution that will allow you to extend this functionality to your users The downside, though, is that any avatars your users have chosen will appear with their "disguised" messages - which rather defeats the purpose of having avatars. You might want to discourage avatars for this reason. (I warned you that you may not like the solution).

The "technical" solution is, nonetheless, easy:

Go to Components » Kunena Forum » Kunena Configuration » Security » Allow Name Change = Yes

That will work. Your moderators can figure out who "PekingDuck" is. Your users might be able to figure it out too, if the user has his own unique avatar. But there's the solution.

After applying this setting, when your users post something they can amend their name.

An alternative idea, also fairly easy to implement, is this: when you approve each new user registration, you assign each a second pseudonym account and issue the details to the user. Only you know who has been assigned their pseudonyms. Explain to your users how you would like to see each of their two accounts used.

Thanks for your ideas. The latter idea could be difficult to manage but might be very workable in certain cases. I am having a problem getting the "allow name change" to work. I've got the settings as you've indicated and they don't work for regular users. An Admin posting a new thread can change his user name. And the thread is posted with the fake user name. HOWEVER, when you click on the link of the fake user name, it displays the real user profile I did this from a regular user account.

I'm in California. If you have other ideas on how to make this work for normal users (or an idea on what I may be doing wrong), let me know. I will resume work on this tomorrow. FYI, it's easy to encourage our users not to us an avatar.

kross76 wrote:

... when you click on the link of the fake user name, it displays the real user profile.

Oh, right. Yes, of course. I forgot about that! :blush: Touché! I guess it's back to the old drawing board.

I had another idea. You could have two websites: one in which people were authoritative and the other in which they didn't have to be. :silly:

Like I said before, I don't know what your site goals are, or what purposes the forum serves. Perhaps, though, the kinds of discussions you are intending to have were not meant to be conducted using in an open arena? The simplest solution might be to say, "If you have something to say, then say it. If you're worried about treading on someone else's sensitive toes, write a letter to the Personal Advice column". I dunno. :lol:

"Letting a hundred flowers blossom and a hundred schools of thought contend is the policy for promoting the progress of the arts and the sciences and a flourishing socialist culture in our land. Different forms and styles in art should develop freely and contend freely. We think that it is harmful to the growth of art and science if administrative measures are used to impose one particular style of art or school of thought and to ban another. Questions of right and wrong in the arts and sciences should be settled through free discussion in artistic and scientific circles and through practical work in these fields. They should not be settled in summary fashion." - Mao Zedong, On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People, 1957