Cowboy's right -- real names may not be "realizable" these days. There are lots of lurkers out there who don't use real names on the 'Net for whatever reason.
Besides, how would you (or anyone) figure out or "validate" if someone's name on the forum is "real" -- especially if you don't recognize a foreign name? (I.e., is mine a fake name, or foreign? And would it be foreign from *whose* perspective? And does a foreigner really deserve ostracism or special treatment, anyway, just because their name may not look familiar? I think not, given the global community of users that Rivendell shares already.) Methinks it might be better to worry more about whether another forum is really needed. It would most likely fragment the population instead of cohering it. Just because a few people prefer a different method, style, or dissemination of communication doesn't mean that it will be better for everyone. As a famous president of the United States (it was some guy named Abe - oh, wait, that's a nickname - we'd have to ban him from the new forum ;-) said once, "You can please some of the people some of the time, all of the people some of the time, some of the people all of the time, but you can never please all of the people all of the time." Sometimes you just have to accept that what others have done already just may be adequate (yet not perfect) - it's not like the world needs yet another mousetrap. There are plenty of dead mice already around this world from the imperfect and penultimate works of others... I'll get back down from the soapbox now. --Sherrod (Is that a real name, anyway? And is that a girl's or a boy's name? Does it really matter? ;-) _______________________________________________ Rivendell-dev mailing list [email protected] http://caspian.paravelsystems.com/mailman/listinfo/rivendell-dev
