At the present time Hagar has chosen to appear under a pseudnym for what seem to him good reasons. Members of the Forum on this list accept ths persona and have no doubt about the postings to this list from that persona being genuine. There is no requirement _at this time_ for him to appear _in propria persona_, but when and if the rules require him to disclose a real name he must conform to such rules or vanish; I have no doubt he understands that. The Apache regulations to which he must conform at a certain stage provide for privacy in exceptional cases; it is premature to invoke these at this stage as they do not cover this list, and even more premature to speculate as to whether their privacy clause might be invoked.
Andrew Pitonyak has pointed out the intrusion using a real name can be to a Forum volunteer's personal life; I have sketched this out also in another posting. In fact, even with email such intrusion can arise. I used post over a full sig of personal name, physical address and contact numbers; I used get support calls on another matter in the middle of the night from people who don't understand time zones so had to remove contact numbers; I was later adviced by central police services that it was better policy to disclose minimal information in a sig to help obviate identity theft. As with Andrew Pitonyak's "John" person, I also know people who use and are known by names different to their given name, some of whom have been active on the Irish political and social scene at highest levels; sometimes it is a mark of the closeness of friendship that one knows a person's "secret" names. Perhaps Hagar and eric b have not yet reached this happy stage :-) -- Rory O'Farrell <[email protected]>
