On Fri, Feb 25, 2005 at 01:39:16AM +0100, Francesco Poli wrote: > > It is the convention in most mailing-lists, newsgroups, etc. connected > > to Free software that you identify yourself by your name, not some > > pseudonym or 'handle'. > > I don't agree.
It's the convention on all technical mailing lists I'm on and have been on in the last several years. Debian lists, sdl, usb-devel, alsa-devel, linux-utf8, lftp-devel, lua-l, etc--it's very uncommon for someone to post on any of these with an obvious pseudonym. > I'm a subscriber of various Free software related mailing lists and some > of them have a well established tradition: nicks[1], anonymous > senders[2] and nyms[3] are welcome. > I personally have nothing against people willing to hide their real > identity (we care about dissidents when reviewing licenses: why > shouldn't we care about them when ruling mailing list policies?). If somebody has a legitimate reason to want to hide his identity (most people really don't), then that's fine with me, though I'd hope he'd choose a reasonable pseudonym that I can use to mentally identify the person. I think the most common reason some people use nicks, though, is because it *is* the convention in other places (eg. web forums, IRC), not due to any particular desire to not identify oneself. On a technical list, you're simply not going to be taken very seriously by a lot of people with a goofy nickname--can *you* read a technical post by Elvis Presley with a straight face? :) > > I don't pretend to speak for Debian, but I > > haven't seen a single person (apart from yourself :) that doesn't use > > their real name on this mailing list. I would therefore surmise that > > it is the convention here to use your real name. > > I don't think it's a convention: it just happens to be so... > I didn't find this "rule" in > http://www.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct A convention is not a "rule". It's perfectly normal for conventions to form which don't have the weight of "rules", and for people to gripe a bit when those conventions are broken. -- Glenn Maynard -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
