User:Leyanese/Identity

I've been hanging around Wikipedia anonymously for a few years, and over that time I've probably edited 100 articles, translated 10 from French, and written 3 to 5 from scratch. The fact that I've done this all without anyone knowing or caring who I am still amazes me. It's the fufillment of the dream of invisibility, which finally answers the ancient puzzle: If one had a ring of invisibility, would the user stay moral, or would she succumb to evil knowing that she can't be caught? Apparently morals truly do lie beyond one's reputation.

For others, invisibility is apparently not such a dream. In Why create an account?, it notes that "People's opinions differ on the desirability of perfect anonymity. Some people find anonymity reduces perceived accountability, which can lead to unproductive behaviour. Some people find contributing without having a fixed identity to be disempowering and unpleasant. Creating an account is one way to resolve such feelings."

Creating an account and having my name tied to my contributions, on the other hand, makes me somewhat stressed. I suddenly feel tied down. People will glance at my contributions page, which currently has Michel Butor, Le Monde, Nouveau roman, Waybill, and Virginia Wolf, and make an assumption that the fact that I've edited those particular topics says something about me or my interests. That perception would be entirely false; I've never listened to Virgina Wolf nor read Virginia Woolf, I do not read or care for Le Monde, and at the moment I don't even remember who Michel Butor is. I've used a waybill in the past; I imagine I researched it when I saw the word somewhere out of context and made some grammatical edits to the article as I read it. Nouveau Roman, on the other hand, is indicative, since I edited it as I was studying Nathalie Sarraute. (I see now that Michel Butor was an writer associated with Nouveau Roman whose stub I must have added to to make it more consistent with the main NR article.)

Then there are the omissions, the articles that I've not only contributed to but written that do truly reflect my interests and knowledge. I never minded not receiving acknowledgement for having written them, but now that I am asserting an identity, I feel dishonest for not disclosing those items I really am proud of.

This is my problem with identity. It is incomplete, inaccurate, and misleading by its very nature, yet my culture ascribes extreme importance to this nebulous concept. When I had no identity to enclose myself within, I had infinite room for everything that I've done and that I am, as well as the possibilities inherent in everything that I haven't and that I'm not. Still. as long as the possibility exists for me to continue editing anonymously, I can always slip back into that realm of invisbility, where I am not held accountable for what I do and be all the more delighted that I do it anyway.