Author: Don Dailey
Date: 13:55:07 01/23/99
Go up one level in this thread
On January 23, 1999 at 16:35:57, Paul Richards wrote:
>I'd like to add my two cents here. I'm a pseudo-anonymous poster in that
>I use a fake name, but don't try overly hard to conceal where I'm coming
>from. My philosophy is to adopt the same level of anonymity as a potential
>abuser could adopt for a given medium. Why? I don't mind giving my
>real name and email address if everyone else on a forum does too, but
>if they don't, I don't. The reason is that I don't want abusive
>anonymous posters hounding me at my real address. For example, since
>this forum allows anonymity, why should I as a anonymous person have
>the right to know Robert Hyatt's real name, location, place of work,
>etc.? I could become an obsessive Sean Evans and hound him ceaselessly
>while hiding in comfort. That's not a level playing field. I choose
>to level the playing field. Note that this is apart from being able
>to post, the fact that anonymous people can read means that I could
>become a Hyatt stalker too. ;) Given the state of the net I personally
>have come to the conclusion that it is foolhardy to provide real
>information about oneself in a open forum. This is not feasible for
>Dr. Hyatt because of his role in the field, but for myself the only
>forums where I use my real name and primary ISP email address are
>mailing lists where everybody does the same, and those people who use
>providers like AOL that could be abusive must provide some other
>authentication to the list admin.
>
>For a forum like this, perhaps an alternative authentication method
>is possible. For example I would provide my real address to the list
>admins in exchange for posting privilege, and be allowed to use a
>"handle" so long as anonymous ("untrusted") people are allowed read
>the conversation. In other words I have no problem authenticating
>for those I choose to trust, like the admin of a list I want to
>participate in, but I will not trust untrusted users.
Hi Paul,
I don't fault you at all for using anonymity in your posts. You
can do this for good reasons or bad. In a previous post I refered
to the "cowards" who do this but I was only refering to the cowards,
not the reasonable people like yourself who do it for legitimate
reasons, such as to protect yourself from crazies.
- Sean
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