Identity and democracy; punishment and enforcement

[Catherine Woodgold]

This is in reply to Larry Sanger's post "Identity necessary for democratic polity" of May 17, 2007 in Citizendium-l digest, Volume 9 issue 7.

Identity and democracy:

Larry gives a definition of "identity" as "the set of facts, including a real name, associated with a person", and argues that the use of identities (i.e. real names) is necessary for democracy.

I argue that the use of real names is not necessary for democracy.

Another meaning of "identity" can be things like "That person over there" or "The third person on the left".  One way to carry out a one-person-one-vote system is to use that kind of identity.  For example:  Everyone enters the polling stations at the same time.  The entrances are locked, and people then begin to vote, with each person leaving when they have voted.  The people can wear veils and not have to show identification, yet it will still be obvious that each person has voted only one time.  There are other systems that achieve the same effect, such as painting a part of each person's body, at the moment that they vote, with ink that can't wash off for several days.

An example of an online system that would be fairly effective in restricting people to one vote each, without requiring "real names" to be used at all, is this:  The vote is scheduled for a particular time, and everyone who is to vote goes online at that time.  Each person is required to complete tasks for about a minute:  things like typing in words that are shown as human-readable (but not machine-readable) images, and having done so they can then vote.
The idea is that it would not be feasible for one person to carry out two sets of tasks during the same minute.  (Or perhaps they establish an identity once, or once a year, by doing such tasks and can then get a password that allows them to vote in any elections or referenda that come up that year.)  This method would not be perfect but it might be pretty good;  a "real names" system is not necessarily perfect, either, as two people can have the same name.

It's also possible to have a system where people show their real name in order to get a password, but where their real name is not displayed and perhaps not even stored as such.  It could be stored as a hash, the way I believe passwords are usually stored on computers, so that the system would notice if someone else tried to use the same name, but nobody could find out the person's name by looking in a database.

So, there are ways of having democracy and only one vote per person without displaying, or even without necessarily using, real names.

Punishment and enforcement:

I disagree with Larry's statement that "If the identity of someone who breaks a rule is unknown, it is impossible to punish the person effectively."  I also disagree with Larry's statement "Rules cannot be enforced without effective punishment (from the definition of "enforcement)".

I looked up several definitions of "enforce" and I don't think I saw forms of the word "punish" in any of them.  I saw things like "to compel to behave".  This fits with my intuitive understanding of what "enforce" means.  It's not about punishment.  Punishment is only one method of enforcement.  For example, locks on the front doors of houses are highly effective ways of enforcing the law against stealing, but they don't involve any punishment at all.

In an online community like Citizendium, punishment is completely unnecessary for enforcement of rules.  Punishment might be preferable to other methods in some circumstances or even in all circumstances or in some peoples' opinion, but it is not necessary.  All that is necessary is the ability to ban participants.  Banning is not necessarily a punishment;  the person might not much care whether they can post on the wiki or not.  But it is a fully effective way of making sure that the person doesn't repeat unwanted behaviours on the wiki.  (There are probably also lots of other ways to enforce rules, such as:  warnings and reminders;  praise and rewards;  page-protection, etc.)

Knowing identity in the sense of real names is not necessary for banning people.  Wikipedia has a fairly effective method of enforcement using banning without knowing real names.  It is not perfectly effective and it is somewhat time-consuming for administrators.  It could be tightened up quite a lot, still without using real names.  Wikipedia chooses not to do this because the benefits of doing as little banning as possible are seen as outweighing the costs.  Banning can be made fairly effective (not perfectly effective) using methods such as banning IP addresses and ranges of IP addresses, requiring usernames and requiring any registration of a new username to go through a process involving a significant amount of work, e.g. filling out a form that takes most people at least 10 minutes to fill out, waiting a few days etc.

It's also possible to use a system as I mentioned above that stores the real names as hashes.  Thus, an administrator could ban a person from the system by banning their username, without knowing their real name, and the banned person could be unable to register a new username because their real name is stored as a hash.  And, it's also possible to use a system such as I mentioned above requiring everyone to go online at the same time to prove they're all different people.

So, enforcement of rules does not necessarily require either punishment, or knowing real names.

[Derek Harkness]

I looked up several definitions of "enforce" and I don't think I saw forms of the word "punish" in any of them.  I saw things like "to compel to behave".  This fits with my intuitive understanding of what "enforce" means.  It's not about punishment.  Punishment is only one method of enforcement.  For example, locks on the front doors of houses are highly effective ways of enforcing the law against stealing, but they don't involve any punishment at all.

I agree with this. It is better to have a system where either the rules cannot be broken or where the populace see no possible benefit of breaking a rule than to have a strong police force detecting and punishing breaches of the rules. I have several times seen the comment "but we have a strong constabulary" used as an excuse to not change the system. I'd rather have a strong constabulary that had no work to do than a strong constabulary that has allot of work to do.

As for Identification of the individual. It is absolutely necessary but not real names. Identity is simply a collection of features or facts that prove you individual status. Your name may be one of these facts or it may not be. For example, In my university exams, my matriculation number was the form of identity required. In voting, my electoral role number is the key. Yes these were obtained by providing my name as some point, so these are dependent on my name. But then isn't my name just a social construct. It was given to me by my parents. It was a novel item in my identity at one point. So my name must be dependant on some other factors that for my identity. These factors were on my Birth Certificate. Items like the names of my parents, place of birth, time and date of birth, weight at birth and my fathers occupation. These facts are what my identity is based on. My name is simply a convenient tag that groups all these factors together.

Democracy requires identity but also anonymity. My identity must be established in order to get my ballot paper but my identity must then be completely removed form the ballot paper (when I place it in the ballot box) in order that the secrecy of the ballot is maintained. So we have a contrast. Both identity and anonymity are essential at the same time.