On Jul 14, 2019, at 7:21 PM, Fitchett, Deborah <deborah.fitch...@lincoln.ac.nz> 
wrote:

> Less metaphorically: if someone has in the past faced harassment because of 
> who they are, or job repercussions because their manager didn't like 
> something they said, and wants to avoid that in future by using a pseudonym 
> for public discourse, why shouldn't they?


IMHO, the Code4Lib mailing list should not be akin to an anonymous chat room 
where anyone can come in and say whatever they desire under the cloak of 
anonymity.

One must be accountable for what they say, and accountability is increased by 
knowledge of the source. It is similar to information literacy and citing one's 
references so the validity of an argument can be substantiated. Moreover, I 
don't believe public forums, like Code4Lib, are the sort of place to voice 
things like "my boss is a baddy, and here's why...". Such topics are too 
sensitive when there are so many people just lurking. Email is not a good 
medium for such things because too many things get lost in the writing and in 
the reading. There is too much emotion. A mailing list is poor medium for such 
a things because too few people really respond; too few people respond and 
there is no real way to gauge what the group thinks. Face-to-face 
communications or communications to a small, known list of people are place for 
such topics. 

What I really don't want is a no-nothing username and an obfuscated email 
address. Mail coming from EM <0000001fd0f2bb98-dmarc-requ...@lists.clir.org> 
sans any signature is irrespecutful. "Who is EM, and why should I care? How do 
I know whether or not EM is a real person? If I reply to EM, then where is the 
email going?" I can live with eric-mor...@gamil.com sans a signature, but a 
signature would be nice. Mail from something like liveforjust...@gmail.com sans 
a signature is okay, I guess. At least the email addresses not obfuscated. But 
what about long-live-hit...@gmail.com?

--
Eric Morgan
University of Notre Dame

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