Feedback on Anonymous Posting and Admin Visibility in Community

Paul W. · 2025-05-15 00:45:41.120428+00

Hey team, what does everything think about the way anonymous works? I think that admins should be able to see who posted it, but obviously the general community should not. Otherwise we have no way of jumping in and helping that person who wasn't confident to ask the question publicly.

Feedback on Anonymous Posting and Admin Visibility in Community | Tightknit Community

9 comments

· Sorted by Oldest

Stephen C.
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That's a tricky one! I'm inclined to think most cases of a user choosing to post anonymously is because they wanted to be absolutely anonymous. If the intended audience is only admins, wouldn't they DM an admin? (I know there are issues with that too, just posing the question) Could you expand on example scenarios where one might want this?
Zach H.
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Nikki T. Jocelyn H. Scott B. I feel like you three might have some thoughts on this one.
Nikki T.
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I do have feelings about this one 😅 Anonymous posting should be completely anonymous. If there is a post that you want someone to be able to feel safe posting with their username, then my take is that you can use other methods of conveying that. Most of that comes from the reactions of you/the community to that anonymous post. Also, it could signal to your team that there is work to do to make others feel safe in future to post things like that. One way to foster that could be to share a link to a similar thread that has useful information about the anonymous share that was shared publicly. If there isn’t a thread of similar content, that should signal to your team that an activation around that content could be shared publicly down the line. My two cents!
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Scott B.
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This ☝️
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Zach H.
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And just for anyone jumping in and wondering what is “anonymous posting”, you can read more about it here in our documentation.
Jocelyn H.
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In general, I'm strongly aligned with Nikki & Scott here. The one thing that I will call out is that recently in a FB group I'm in, someone(s) was abusing the Anon feature and posting things against the group rules/guidelines consistently (as in, reminded it was not appropriate, deleted, reposted knowing it wasn't allowed). They were able to remove the person because the admins knew who was posting it (FB groups show who the anon posters are to admins and not members).
👀2
Jocelyn H.
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So I'd say take a pulse check of your community. Do people generally follow the guidelines and post in the spirit of the community? Or do some folks like to break the rules and will they abuse the anon option to do so without repercussion?
Zach H.
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What you mentioned is actually exactly what Paul W. was mentioning to me—Facebook allows anon posting where only the admins can see it. But yes, just as Nikki T. mentioned, maybe there’s something different with Slack communities where admins have less of an elevated power and true anonymous (similar to how Apple does it) is a better stance.
Jocelyn H.
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I think it also ties back to the platform you're on and how people inherently behave on them. Facebook, Twitter, Discord are more platforms where folks come in flames ablazin' about their perspectives so you're more likely to see people who abuse anon posting. Vs most people are on Slack for work or work-related reasons. There's a different mindset there and you're less likely to see abuse of anon posting. I'm sure it still exists but I'd wager it's a much lower percentage. But that's not really Paul's question either! My take is that you should be able to help people whether or not they're anon. You can still jump in and help the person by replying to the thread publicly.
1

Stephen C.
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That's a tricky one! I'm inclined to think most cases of a user choosing to post anonymously is because they wanted to be absolutely anonymous. If the intended audience is only admins, wouldn't they DM an admin? (I know there are issues with that too, just posing the question) Could you expand on example scenarios where one might want this?
Zach H.
·
·
Nikki T. Jocelyn H. Scott B. I feel like you three might have some thoughts on this one.
Nikki T.
·
·
I do have feelings about this one 😅 Anonymous posting should be completely anonymous. If there is a post that you want someone to be able to feel safe posting with their username, then my take is that you can use other methods of conveying that. Most of that comes from the reactions of you/the community to that anonymous post. Also, it could signal to your team that there is work to do to make others feel safe in future to post things like that. One way to foster that could be to share a link to a similar thread that has useful information about the anonymous share that was shared publicly. If there isn’t a thread of similar content, that should signal to your team that an activation around that content could be shared publicly down the line. My two cents!
1
Scott B.
·
·
This ☝️
1
Zach H.
·
·
And just for anyone jumping in and wondering what is “anonymous posting”, you can read more about it here in our documentation.
Jocelyn H.
·
·
In general, I'm strongly aligned with Nikki & Scott here. The one thing that I will call out is that recently in a FB group I'm in, someone(s) was abusing the Anon feature and posting things against the group rules/guidelines consistently (as in, reminded it was not appropriate, deleted, reposted knowing it wasn't allowed). They were able to remove the person because the admins knew who was posting it (FB groups show who the anon posters are to admins and not members).
👀2
Jocelyn H.
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·
So I'd say take a pulse check of your community. Do people generally follow the guidelines and post in the spirit of the community? Or do some folks like to break the rules and will they abuse the anon option to do so without repercussion?
Zach H.
·
·
What you mentioned is actually exactly what Paul W. was mentioning to me—Facebook allows anon posting where only the admins can see it. But yes, just as Nikki T. mentioned, maybe there’s something different with Slack communities where admins have less of an elevated power and true anonymous (similar to how Apple does it) is a better stance.
Jocelyn H.
·
·
I think it also ties back to the platform you're on and how people inherently behave on them. Facebook, Twitter, Discord are more platforms where folks come in flames ablazin' about their perspectives so you're more likely to see people who abuse anon posting. Vs most people are on Slack for work or work-related reasons. There's a different mindset there and you're less likely to see abuse of anon posting. I'm sure it still exists but I'd wager it's a much lower percentage. But that's not really Paul's question either! My take is that you should be able to help people whether or not they're anon. You can still jump in and help the person by replying to the thread publicly.
1