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Reader says : Everyone tries to criticize anonymity on The Blog, but the fact is you get utter honesty here and that is what we really need

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On The Blog people are the most honest of all because they are not afraid of repercussions from their employer (if they work at village hall) or the board of ed (if they work for the school system) or their neighbors or school acquaintances. Let’s say you hate the teachers but your neighbor is a teacher. Well, you are not likely to post honestly your feelings on the contract negotiations if you have to identify yourself. In fact, you are likely to post whatever you think your neighbor wants to hear, because you want to remain friendly with the neighbors. Let’s say you are a fireman in town or your spouse is a cop. Well, you are not going to write anything negative about the village manager if you have to be identified in the posting, because this could impact your employment or that of your spouse. Supposing you are totally opposed to the parking garage but you live next door to a person with pro-garage signs all over his front lawn. Are you going to keep the peace in your little world or go to war with him by posting under your own name how much you oppose the garage? The online discussion forums in which everyone has to be identified tend to contain a lot of politically correct BS and not a great deal of gut-wrenching honesty.

Now there are some exceptions, some people who are more than willing to state their case and not worry about repercussions. To these people I say thank you, but I also suspect that they are not in any of the situations described in the previous paragraph.

The Blog = honesty = transparency = THE BLOG RULES

Everyone tries to criticize anonymity on The Blog, but the fact is you get utter honesty here and that is what we really need.

Thank you James Foytlin for serving our community so well.

18 thoughts on “Reader says : Everyone tries to criticize anonymity on The Blog, but the fact is you get utter honesty here and that is what we really need

  1. I agree wholeheartedly with the value of anonymity on this board. I am in the position of opposing the teachers’ demands with children in our schools. As evidenced by their signs and behavior I would not put it past them to take it out on my child in the classroom. In fact, we are considering moving from Ridgewood to Allendale where the schools are outstanding. The sad part is, Ridgewood pays their teachers more — guess which educators are more dedicated.

  2. Yes, yes, a thousand times YES

  3. RE: “Everyone tries to criticize anonymity on The Blog,…”
    .
    Everyone does not criticize anonymity on The Blog… only the haters and those who are losing an argument do it.

  4. The anonymous posters on this blog are (largely) not trolls. That is why anonymous posting works.
    If the anonymous status was regularly abused then it would not work.

  5. Keep in mind folks, numerous posters have been outed on this blog if their views differ from the moderator’s.

    1. Fred they were outed because they were lying

  6. They were outed because those particular lies disagreed with your narrative. Anon posting just enables a bunch of internet tough guys to froth at their keyboards without fear of retribution.

    1. they were outed because they were lying cowards

  7. You are the fucking liar James.

    1. like we said outed for being a lying coward

  8. So for starters we see that James does not hesitate to present both sides of an issue. That’s for 1:18 with the vulgar language.

    And the only one he outed was Gwenn Hauck’s husband David who was posting outright lies about Michael and Susan. the Haucks might be high society, but they are lowlife.

  9. 12:25….BINGO…’without fear of retribution’. PA has left a long list of damage he inflicted on residents just for disagreeing with him.

  10. He censors the comments. Anytime anyone has anything negative to say about Scott Garrett it is never posted. Trust me, I know. I have challenged him on Garrett on numerous occasions and not one of my comments has been posted. Right, James?

  11. Oh, and he tries to look up IP numbers and the area where they come from to figure out who is posting. Right, James?

  12. A benefit of having your own blog is that you can post whatever you want and back the issues/ people you support. I don’t understand how anyone can believe they can say snything they want no matter how disagreeable it is and not think they might be outed. All of us have a breaking point and I think James has used much self control in his responses. If you blog anonymously, it doesn’t always ensure anoyminity. If you put something in print a person might want to consider the validity of the statement. Once it’s out there, it is in the public domain. Privacy might not be an option.

  13. IP addresses are useless. People post from Starbucks, The American Bulldog Cafe, cellular all over town and some people even have their posts routed through out of state sites. James does not worry about who is sending what, even though I am sure he can pretty much tell some of the time. Gwenn’ stu[pid husband got outed because he used Gwenn’s email address. How cute, the two of them share and email.

  14. I feel much freer to express my honest opinions without naming myself. Anonymity can work against a blog but in this case I think it’s most often effective. What I hate is the troll stuff where someone disingenuously posts in a fake voice some backwardly phrased opinion such as “I used to (or want to) like X, but gee, I just can’t.” Hate that.

  15. “Utter honesty”, what a joke.

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