Anonymous cowards

Many internet bulletin boards allow anonymous postings with participants choosing a name, perhaps expressive of their outlook or personality, or employing an avatar. One such site that I read from time to time and to which I, like a number of other users, contribute in my own name, allows anonymous contributions. The contributors use such non-identifiable pseudonyms as “undercover”, “horseradish”, “inferno”, “busybee”. One frequent contributor has adopted the persona of “Herr Doktor Pangloss”, Voltaire’s professor of "métaphysico-théologo-cosmolonigologie" and self-proclaimed optimist in Candide.

Another is calls himself “hamlet” and is, as I understand it, in internet parlance, an anonymous coward — someone who uses posts to make critical comments about other people, hiding behind a cloak of anonymity. The best thing to do with anonymous letters is to burn or shred them, giving no credence to what is written because the reader cannot know the credentials of the writer. “Credentials” are those things that entitle a person to be believed. The anonymous have no right to be believed and when anonymity is used to slander than the perpetrator is rightly labelled as a coward.

“Hamlet” is the pseudonym of this coward. Shakespeare’s character of that name is melancholy, introspective and of such a scrupulous nature that he is irresolute and dilatory in action. In order to escape the suspicion that he is a threat to the new king, Claudius, he counterfeits madness. The rest of the story is too well known to require commentary, other than to say that Hamlet, and nearly every other character, is dead before the curtain falls. What sort of person, we might ask, would choose “Hamlet” as a pseudonym?

By now you may be curious about Hamlet’s posts on this bulletin board. He or she has made about forty posts and three of them referred to me, two during elections, and one in response to my recent blog about the point at which a “church” ceases to be a “church”. That blog was copied by someone on to the site to which I refer, without intending to cause mischief, I feel certain, but that was not the result. The law of unintended consequences was in operation!

My blog was described by someone as an “extra-ordinary rant” — such a response might be the bulletin board equivalent of road-rage, and I can’t help wondering why so many people seem to be so angry so often and about so many things. Hamlet responded by posting this:

“Unfortunately this is far from being an "extra"ordinary rant from a man who somehow manages to alienate a substantial proportion of people who come across him. I actually blame his careers' tutor since he shows little aptitude, (as one professing a Christian faith), to be anything other than self serving.”

Well, that was certainly sobering, but I recalled one of his earlier posts when I stood, unsuccessfully, against the excellent David Graves for Alderman of Cripplegate. Hamlet then wrote:

“I have been tempted to move to the Cripplegate ward simply to vote for David Graves who has been a staunch supporter of the residents of the Barbican. I have never met Mr Graves but I have had dealings with Rev'd Dudley and I thank Mr Graves for his candidacy -'nuff said.”

Someone asked Hamlet to tell what these dealings were but there was no response to the invitation. One earlier post, also at election time, in 2005, carries a similar message:

“I will admit to being favourably inclined to vote for an "outsider" rather than at least one of the standing residents (who has proven to be arrogant, officious and deeply unpleasant).”

I should like to know what I did to attract such venom from the person who is concealed by the pseudonym Hamlet. If I knew I might be able to remedy the fault and apologise, if appropriate, or else, perhaps, to justify my actions, whatever they were. But if Hamlet prefers to allow the offence to fester like an unhealed wound, to make it a source of poison, and to strike at me from time to time sheltered by the pseudonym from recognition and from all possibility of dealing with this estrangement, then it must be thought that like Shakespeare’s character he or she prefers introspection and melancholy, and should accept the appropriate internet label “anonymous coward”.