Am I really anonymous when posting to xgwe-anon?

On this forum you are ‘pseudonymous’. That means other users cannot see your identifiers, such as the email address you signed up with. None of your posts will be associated with your user account. Instead, you’ll get a new anonymous name attached to your posts every 60 seconds.

Be aware that the content of your posts may lead people to recognize you, if you include too many personal details.

Also, moderators can find out who posted what. We will only do this if we need to respond to misconduct, to keep the community safe. We expect this to be extremely rare.

Is my username private?

Anyone visiting the forum, regardless of whether they have an account, can discover which usernames exist - but not which posts you’ve created. You can change your username at any time.

How do I post anonymously?

It’s automatic; just post!

How can I test whether I’m really “anonymous”?

Create a post in the Testing category. It works just like the General category.

Help, I want to edit/delete a post!

The anonymity features prevent you from editing or deleting your posts. However, in exceptional circumstances, mods have the ability to do so manually. Please try not to rely upon this capability. Note that people may already have copies of the post in their email inboxes, which we can’t do anything about.

If you need to alert the moderators about a post (including to delete your own posts), click the “flag” button. It will pop up a box asking you why you’re flagging it; click “something else” and add your reasons in the text box that appears. Only moderators will be able to see these remarks. You’ll get a notification when we reply to you via private message.

Can I privately get in touch with the moderators?

Yes! Create a post in the Contact Mods category. One of the moderators will contact you via private message. (Your post will not be visible to non-moderators.)

What if I want other list members to be able to contact me?

Create a Google Docs document with default (private) sharing, and add a link to it in your post. When readers click request access to your document, Google Docs will show you their Google account.