When an admin has a custom title and is set to “Remain Anonymous,” their messages in chat are tagged with their custom admin title. This reveals the admin who sent the message, if each admin has a unique custom title. Some groups use this feature as a kind of “putting on the moderator hat,” only turning it on when it is necessary to make announcements as a moderator. Leaking the custom admin title when using “Remain Anonymous” is, by definition, not preserving anonymity.
Admin Dog comment
The described behaviour is intended at the moment to allow to distinguish between several anonymous admins in the group. This feature is designed to provide a permanent solution for admins who do not want to reveal their identity.
Anonymous admins being marked as admins at all in the member list is potentially deanonymizing - i.e. if only one admin doesn't speak [with their true account name], or if there's only one admin.
On the other hand, if enabling anon mode makes your star disappear from the member list, that is *also* potentially deanonymizing.
Allowing people to toggle anon mode for themselves, like the "notify" bell in channels, might be useful.
Status changed to Closed
Admin Dog
The described behaviour is intended at the moment to allow to distinguish between several anonymous admins in the group. This feature is designed to provide a permanent solution for admins who do not want to reveal their identity.
riley
Update: Caching was confusing us. Anonymous admins do not show up at all in the member list, except to other admins. It would still be good to show a warning when enabling anon mode on an admin with a custom title - e.g. "Warning: Custom admin titles are still shown on anonymous posts."
Andrij Ghorbunov
Maybe then this behavior should only be present in groups with hidden administrator/member list? What's the point if anyone can search the user with the given custom title?
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On the other hand, if enabling anon mode makes your star disappear from the member list, that is *also* potentially deanonymizing.
Allowing people to toggle anon mode for themselves, like the "notify" bell in channels, might be useful.
Anonymous admins do not show up at all in the member list, except to other admins.
It would still be good to show a warning when enabling anon mode on an admin with a custom title - e.g. "Warning: Custom admin titles are still shown on anonymous posts."