Author: Bruce Moreland
Date: 02:19:12 01/21/99
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On January 20, 1999 at 17:16:05, KarinsDad wrote: >On January 20, 1999 at 16:28:14, Bruce Moreland wrote: > >[snip] > >> >>I think that a real name should be required, even though enforcement would be >>difficult to the point where it may not be worth even trying to enforce it. >> >>I think that anonymity leads to poor posts > >Are you claiming my posts are poor? Or KK's posts? What is the real reason that >anonymity bothers you? KK is Alan Tomalty. I am not saying your posts are poor. I'm saying that you remove all possibility of being held accountable. >>, since accountability is nil, could >>cause extremely serious problems, since we occasionally have real votes, and >>leads to other distractions as well. >> >>I brought this issue up once before and it seemed likely that I was in the >>minority, but I predict that we will have to deal with these issues for real >>eventually. > >Why? If someone is not being abusive, who cares? A few reasons. Saying you who are is like taking out a bond on yourself. If you mess up, you forfeit the bond. Anonymous people don't take out a bond, if they mess up they simply leave and return again later, with a clean slate, so they don't have to worry about messing up, and they can do things that are borderline messing up without having having to worry that the situation will get worse and it will reflect badly upon them. If someone's identity is known, others can have a little more confidence when dealing with that person. When someone's identity is unknown, there is always the concern that they will explode and disappear. Identifying yourself are is simple politeness in any conversation. If you call someone on the telephone, in order to conduct honest business with them, you identify yourself, so people can feel like the relationship their are developing with you in has some permanence and seriousness (see previous paragraph). Real names lend more seriousness to a conversation, it is distracting to have to refer to someone as something like "Captain Skippy" or "ThePickleFromMars". How do you refer to such a person without the reference overshadowing what you have to say? If you register with your real name, then are banned, you are banned under that name, not just the email address. Sure, someone doesn't have to give their real name, but if they do it is easier to track them. Little "guess who I am" games are less likely when people use real names. There hasn't been much of this here, but there could be. There have been some of these games on r.g.c.c. I know of a case over there where people were fishing around for the identity of one anonymous guy, and were making all sorts of wrong guesses. I know they were wrong because, while I don't know who the guy is, I know for sure that he's not a few people. The guesses themselves were destructive, I saw one cases where someone guessed that this guy was a certain person, then another person wrote a post calling that person an asshole. If this second post hadn't been written there still would have been people thinking it. >Your entire reasoning appears flawed. Even with real sounding names, you cannot >have accountability, you cannot enforce it, you cannot even guarantee that all >of the names you currently have in the group are real, so what is the point? Actually CCC can, but hasn't yet. A friend of mine is involved in an investment discussion group, where they had a real problem with people registering multiple accounts in order to rave up certain stocks, so eventually they just said fine, send in photocopy of your ID via mail. This wasn't perfect but it worked well enough for them. I don't think we are at that point in CCC yet, although it's possible we could get there if a few people get more malevolent and more effective. Meanwhile, some handles are surely not real names. >I have received an Email as well from a person who did not like anonymity, >however, this is not a requirement for this group. My belief is that anonymity >bothers some people cause "they don't know". That is the real crux of your >message Bruce. It has nothing to do with accountability or voting or anything >else except that it bothers you (and possibly a few select others). One of the reasons I don't like anonymity is that it is a distraction. Other reasons I have expressed, and they are valid, I believe. >Are you afraid that I am secretly Sean? Heaven forbid! I don't believe this and never suggested it. >Have a nice day :) > >KarinsDad
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