From: mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin)
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
Subject: Re: WELL anonymity policy
Date: 23 Dec 92 21:51:34 GMT
Organization: Electronic Frontier Foundation
Originator: mnemonic@eff.org

In article <1haai3INNenk@agate.berkeley.edu> spp@zabriskie.berkeley.edu (Steve Pope) writes:
>In article <1992Dec23.152323.25579@eff.org> mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin) writes:
>> I disagree with characterizations of the WELL here *not* because I
>> have personal relations with anyone, but because I use the WELL, 
>> and what Steve is saying doesn't seem to be connected in any 
>> way with the system I know.
>
>Humm.  Characterizing my posts as "not connected in any way" 
>with the WELL is false on the surface ....

So is your statement of what I said. Specifically, I said that,
based on my experience of the WELL, your statements "[don't] seem
to be connected in any way with the system I know."

Are you telling me that my characterization of my own perceptions
is "false on the surface"? I should think I know a bit more about how
things seem to me than you do.

>... the starting point of
>this discussion was the WELL's pseudonymity policy as stated to new
>users ....

Which doesn't seem particularly limiting.

; the very small percentage of psedonymous users ...

Which, as has been pointed out, says nothing about whether it's a feature
WELL users want to have on demand.

> ... and
>their frequent celebrity status ....

When WELL management tried to explain who generally asks for anonymity.

> ... and the fact that some
>WELL users and potential WELL users have expressed the view
>that the unavailability of pseudonymity is a disadvantage of
>the WELL.

Could we have a number of the *actual* WELL users who are complaining
about this? "Potential" WELL users would do well to experience the system
a bit before speculating about its disadvantages.

>If this seems not to be "connected" to the system you use
>every day, I can only assume that this is because you
>are SO familiarized with the way the WELL works now
>that you don't want to even THINK about whether there's
>any alternative ways of doing things.

As the user of countless online forums, I think I'm fairly familiar with
the range of ways in which systems can be run. Sorry if this runs
against what you "can only assume." Perhaps you should try "assuming"
that the WELL may not be laboring under any particular disadvantage.

>The *perceived* suggestion that pseudonymous services should be 
>reserved for a privileged class of users (e.g. celebrities)
>initially struck me as wrongheaded, in the same sense that I would
>consider it wrongheaded to suggest that encryption services 
>be limited to only military users.

I think you are basing this criticism on a misreading of what was
said in explanation of the policy. WELL management simply told you
that most people who sought pseudonyms are celebs. It's a leap
from this fact to the conclusion that pseudonyms are reserved *only* to
the celebrities (a conclusion that no one from WELL management has
affirmed).

>I will acknowledge though, after reading what Cliff and a
>few others have written, that in practice the WELL has managed to
>administer this restrictive-seeming policy in a pretty
>much reasonable fashion.

This seems to suggest that your characterization of my blindness
as to the WELL's flaws may itself be mistaken.


--Mike



-- 
Mike Godwin,    |"I'm waiting for the one-man revolution
mnemonic@eff.org| The only one that's coming."
(617) 864-0665  |                           
EFF, Cambridge  |                   --Robert Frost