Anonymity

I recently read a story about anonymous bloggers, and I thought I would share my thoughts on anonymity.

It may come as a surprise that the anonymity of this blog limits what I publish. There is a lot of material that doesn’t make it to the web because I feel it is the type of thing that should only be said when someone is willing to take ownership for it. The items I print are common knowledge among UCF employees. Most of my conclusions are not particularly controversial – obviously the people getting slammed and their friends disagree, but in most cases they are the only ones.

Anonymity also restrains the severity of my individual critiques. When I am critical of an individual, I try to see things from their point of view. It may be that my perspective is distorted, but I would be okay with being cited in this blog. For example if I were Karen Jans, I wouldn’t like what was written about me, but I could understand it; I would figure it was a small sacrifice to make for an unbelievable reward.

To digress briefly, most of the people who have made the cut of the day seem nice and are probably good to their family and friends; some of them I genuinely like. I do the cut of the day because stating in the abstract that UCF has worthless employees is not as convincing as actually listing employees, salaries, and responsibilities such as they are. I once expressed my remorse over a particular cut of the day to one of my favorite correspondents, and this person worried that I was “going all warm and fuzzy.”

If my identity were to become widely known, it would free me up to say much more, and I could write with a greater level of detail about my experiences with UCF. Additionally, as I had a very nice correspondent point out, if I reveal my identity then it could give much more credibility to my conclusions. Of course, if my personal characteristics suggest that I’m a crazy malcontent then it would have been a mistake to reveal myself.

When it feels right I will announce who I am. That this announcement will one day happen may provide comfort to those who are falsely suspected of being Arthur Barnhouse.

Although it is fun to write this blog, I do it for a more serious reason. It is written like a foul-mouthed, fifth grade slam book to draw attention to the reality that UCF is at a crossroads. There are two choices: Either UCF can become an enrollment juggernaut with lots of buildings and Assistant Vice Presidents for Wasting Tax Dollars, or UCF can become a serious place of learning that provides meaningful credentials. It is not possible to do both.