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Subject: Re: People Posting Without Real Names

Author: Robert Hyatt

Date: 10:21:59 12/20/98

Go up one level in this thread


On December 20, 1998 at 05:16:27, Amir Ban wrote:

>On December 20, 1998 at 04:12:57, Dave Gomboc wrote:
>
>>On December 20, 1998 at 03:14:03, Will Singleton wrote:
>>
>>>On December 20, 1998 at 02:02:48, Bruce Moreland wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>>On December 19, 1998 at 23:27:24, Will Singleton wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>There have been a number of messages recently pertaining to the moderator
>>>>>election, that have been posted by unknown members, usually using only a first
>>>>>name.
>>>>>
>>>>>Just for informational purposes, I would support restricting memberships to
>>>>>those who provide a full legitimate name, with a valid email address.  And,
>>>>>mambers must show a track record of legitimate computer chess posts prior to
>>>>>posting on procedural issues.
>>>>
>>>>Actually, if you look into it further, you will discover that some of these
>>>>people have been using secondary email sites (I don't know what they are really
>>>>called), which let you make a new email address to order, effectively.
>>>>
>>>>The use of these things can cause a lot of problems here, for instance someone
>>>>can vote many times in the moderator election, and someone can attempt to
>>>>legitimize their viewpoint by agreeing with themselves, which is actually a very
>>>>powerful rhetorical tactic, as you'll know if you ever have it used on you.
>>>>
>>>>I think it is possible that this is happening in the "ChrisW Nomination Snow
>>>>Job" thread, where at least three "different" responders have been using these
>>>>things, and all have expressed similar viewpoints.
>>>>
>>>>I think it might be worthwhile to allow votes only from accounts established
>>>>before the election schedule became public, unless it is possible to reliably
>>>>detect users with multiple accounts.
>>>>
>>>>bruce
>>>>
>>>>Copyright (C) Bruce Moreland, 1998.  All rights reserved.
>>>
>>>I would support the idea of allowing votes only from members who have had active
>>>accounts for at least 60 days.
>>>
>>>Will
>>
>>There are any number of reasonable suggestions, but now is perhaps not the best
>>time to be tinkering with the rule set.  I'm not sure how it is really possibly
>>to enforce OPOV (one person, one vote) when people can have multiple accounts,
>>but it is probably worth a shot.  But before we start from scratch, I think we
>>should clearly identify the rules that were in force for the previous election.
>>
>>ICD is the sponsor of the site, and perhaps these sorts of issues will require a
>>statement from them.  Given the Christmas rush, perhaps ICD may prefer to
>>delegate dealing with this situation to the moderators?  It seems that ICD is
>>content to host the site, and not really get involved too much in the details of
>>its governance, so long as the charter is upheld.  (In general, this is probably
>>a good thing.)
>>
>>Some food for thought:
>>
>>Are there any authenticity checks performed on the names provided?  (I don't
>>know, but I suspect not.)
>>
>>If not, how realistically can we say that OPOV is enforceable?  (If the answer
>>to the first question is no, then the answer to this one is "not very".)
>>
>>Many people read the posts on-site, without posting themselves.  Do they have
>>less of a right to determine the future moderation direction of this group?  (I
>>think "clearly, no".)
>>
>>There's also this mix-up regarding Chris W., but I have never been a player in
>>what went on and how.  I guess I will watch to see what shakes out on this one.
>>
>>Dave Gomboc
>
>
>I share Bruce's concern, and I think the danger is very real. I didn't think of
>this before, but now I think it's quite probable that if we would let Chris run,
>he would be supported by many new signups, all of whom would never be heard of
>again.
>
>Anyone who remembers the "Evans" family, and the "Steve" series, starring "Steve
>Blatchford", understand that this is not only possible, but has been done here
>before. It seems that yesterday we saw another wave of that.
>
>I propose to limit voting rights to people who were registered as members on the
>16th (last Wednesday). This is good enough for now.
>
>Amir


Personally I have long since "had it" with this anonymous junk anyway.  I would
like to see a policy that simply outright rejects applications from known
remailers...  Yes it would hurt a few...  but I'd immediately reject hotmail.com
as one example, since you can create 100 id's there if you want to.  If we only
accept applications from "real" domain names (ie aol.com is difficult to "trick"
since you have to pay to play there.  Ditto for most places, although it would
be very difficult to enforce.

This is just one example of how things go wrong.  Does anybody remember
"thedodo" as one example?  Or the "evans family" as another?  It's a serious
problem.  Maybe we need to resort to "paper votes" as most modern computer-based
organizations use.  IE discuss it here, but physically send ballots to
verifiable addresses, since the post office won't deal with fakes very easily...
And since using a fake mail address is a Federal crime, it might make this work
a little cleaner?




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