Is it me or are some people abusing the anonymous question loophole? [more inside]
posted by disillusioned on Oct 21, 2008 - 55 comments

Why is it that you can post to AskMe as Anon and then make a normal post, but you can't do it the other way around? Once you've made a post the Anon link vanishes from the post page. Is it just the link vanishing, or does the ability go too? Can it be changed? [more inside]
posted by twine42 on Oct 21, 2008 - 12 comments

Why close an anonymous question at the poster's request? Here's an example (the recent question from a young guy who wasn't sure he wanted to marry) [more inside]
posted by desjardins on May 13, 2008 - 35 comments

I think it'd be cool if when posting as anonymous on AskMe, you had the option to provide a separate password which would let you log in as anonymous just for the thread you're creating and post comments. The main benefit is that it would allow responders to ask for more information. The main risk I see is that someone could out themselves by accident if they forgot to log in as anonymous before commenting...
posted by Coventry on Nov 19, 2007 - 51 comments

MetaMail question: Would it be possible to allow users to MetaMail posters of anonymous AskMe questions without revealing the identity of the poster (and possibly the sender)? [more inside]
posted by baphomet on Oct 30, 2007 - 15 comments

In light of this art project, UbuRoivas went to 59,469 Mefites, chosen for their intarnerdiness, to analyze, translate, or reinterpret a selected anonymous AskMe. The resulting collection of responses filled the grey place at MetaFilter with beauty, music, snark & mirth. [more inside]
posted by UbuRoivas on Sep 27, 2007 - 67 comments

How personally embarrassing does something have to be to qualify for an anonymous AskMi? Mold in one's microwave?
posted by beagle on May 3, 2007 - 86 comments

I recently posted an anonymous question to Metafilter (within the past week). I browsed to the 'New Question' page without thinking about the question limits because I had a new query, but to my surprise the page didn't restrict me from posting. A bug? A way to get around the question limit? Am I shortly going to be shot for pointing this out?
posted by Phire on Apr 30, 2007 - 16 comments

Don't do it, mathowie!
posted by c:\awesome on Dec 11, 2006 - 49 comments

When someone asks an anonymous question on ask.metafilter, are people at Mefi or anyone else aware of the asker's identity? How anonymous is it really?
posted by vizsla on Aug 28, 2006 - 19 comments

Little Abigail and the Beautiful Pony: For the "Posts by category in the past month" list on the green, can we include a section for Anonymous questions?
posted by cior on Jul 5, 2006 - 4 comments

Are anonymous posters to AskMe notified if their question is rejected? (I did a search but didn't see the answer to this question.)
posted by tastybrains on Jun 28, 2006 - 7 comments

Anonymous questions in AskMe, as I understand it, are for those questions which are of a delicate nature, could cause serious embarrassment, result in legal trouble, or cause some sort of other harm.

So how is a question about what tattoo to get deemed worthy of anonymization? [MI]
posted by dirtynumbangelboy on Feb 5, 2006 - 70 comments

When one submits an AskMeFi question anonymously, how long does it typically take to get posted? And if Matt rejects it, how would one know?
posted by jedicus on Feb 2, 2006 - 1 comment

I've noticed that many AskMe threads (like this one) dealing with potential crimes and/or civil suits could be subpoened as evidence if the right person connected the dots. Should there be a notice on the anonymous question page that Metafilter may be compelled by law to release the IP address of anonymous posters?
posted by justkevin on Dec 27, 2005 - 40 comments

Matt, threads like this underscore the need for the anon poster to have the ability to respond in his or her thread. I'm sure that it's not a trivial amount of work for you - what would it take to make this happen, and what can we do to support your efforts?

I think that this is one of the most important features on the to-do list. It must be so painful for the poster to be unable to respond in many cases.
posted by By The Grace of God on Dec 9, 2005 - 56 comments

Hasn't the Gulf Coast suffered enough? The fact that this is an anonymous post suggests that some MeFi admin thinks it is reasonable to forcibly send a troublesome kid off to some "volunteer" rebuilding program. I suppose if you wanted to harm the rebuilding process, this might be a reasonable approach.

How did this post get through?
posted by b1tr0t on Nov 6, 2005 - 35 comments

I created a gmail account for anonymous askme followups. The username is anon.metafilter and the password is metafilter. Anymore can post there. Just log in at gmail.google.com and send email from that account TO that account (anon.metafilter@gmail.com).

Since gmail allows tags, you can tag your messages. You can also reply to them (or other users can reply to them) and gmail will automatically keep all the replies together.

Why hasn't someone already done this? Is it a bad idea? (No one will be forced to use it). If it's a bad idea, why is it a bad idea? Of course, it could (perhaps will) get utterly chaotic with people deleting each others posts, etc.

Lets see what happens.
posted by grumblebee on Aug 22, 2005 - 40 comments

Please, bring back anonymous AskMetafilter. kthxbi (1, 2)
posted by geoff. on Apr 16, 2005 - 12 comments

If an anonymous question is posted to AskMeFi which is deemed inappropriate for the page, do the administrative powers e-mail the original poster to explain why?
posted by TeamBilly on Feb 12, 2005 - 12 comments

Just noticing a quirk: The thread IDs of the anonymous AskMe posts seem to reflect the number that would be assigned to them had they been instantly posted at the time of submission. The three latest threads on AskMe are 14998,15006,15016 (all Anon threads) followed by normal threads 15032, 15031...etc.
posted by Gyan on Feb 11, 2005 - 13 comments

Right now I see three "January 23" headings in AskMe, atop three "January 22" headings. Prior days display just fine. What's the story, Morning Glory?
posted by killdevil on Jan 23, 2005 - 6 comments

How does one post to Ask Metafilter Anonymous?
posted by ParisParamus on Dec 26, 2004 - 30 comments

I, like many people, have added Anonymous AskMetaFilter as a contact, due to his/her interesting, thought-provoking, often sex-related questions and complete self-restraint when it comes to making snarky comments.

However, I noticed a weird phenomenon. On my contacts page, I see several anonymous questions that link to deleted/nonexistant posts. These do not show up in "Anonymous AskMeFi"'s posting history, and I never saw them on the AskMe page. Did they ever appear on the main page? Is there a reason they are still visible from my contacts page?
posted by louigi on Nov 22, 2004 - 11 comments

People are concerned about the NSFW nature of AnonyAskMe questions and about the large volume of AnonyAskMe Qs pushing posts off of AskMe more quickly than before. What if AnonyAskMe had it's own page? And what color would it be? Maybe a hot red or hot pink?
posted by Shane on Oct 19, 2004 - 17 comments

The first question in this anonymous AskMe post made me realize that there is no way for anyone posting anonymously to provide information beyond the initial query.
posted by eyeballkid on Oct 16, 2004 - 18 comments

Once I ran to you, I ranNow I'll run from youThis tainted love you've given
75% of this "anonymous" guy's output is love-related. I keep reading that we suck at politics, we suck at religion, we suck at (insert your favorite pet peeve here). I dare to suggest that, no disrespect intended, we suck at giving love advice (assuming that giving useful love advice is actually possible, which I doubt). Is this just a coincidence, or we'll use the anonymous feature mainly to turn AskMeFi into Mr/Mrs LonelyheartsFilter/BrokenheartsFilter?
posted by matteo on Oct 13, 2004 - 30 comments

I'd greatly enjoy an anonymous feature on Ask Metafilter. Just last week I was going to ask for tips on buying an engagement ring, but worried the Google Indexing of the question might result in the surprise being ruined for my (now) fiancée. I'd be ok with it not *really* being anonymous (ie, for tracking down abusers, the data would still be stored, just not displayed).
posted by davebug on Sep 10, 2004 - 18 comments

I have a question I think I want to Ask Metafilter, but I want to do it anonymously. (How) should I do this?
posted by weston on Apr 19, 2004 - 71 comments