From: spp@zabriskie.berkeley.edu (Steve Pope)
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
Subject: Re: WELL anonymity policy
Date: 22 Dec 1992 03:52:34 GMT
Organization: U.C. Berkeley -- ERL
Distribution: inet
NNTP-Posting-Host: zion.berkeley.edu

In article <1h5ufqINNovq@morrow.stanford.edu> karish@pangea.Stanford.EDU (Chuck Karish) writes:
>In article <1h5qkoINNl60@agate.berkeley.edu> spp@zabriskie.berkeley.edu
>(Steve Pope) writes:

>>|Another reason people want pseudonyms: to stay a bit further
>>|out of the line of fire from those who take intellectual
>>|disagreements personally, and escalate to scatology and
>>|personable abuse on the slightest of pretexts.
>>
>>OK Chuck, you have now added a complete non-sequitar to
>>this thread.  Please explain yourself.  
>
>I'm sorry, Steve.  I excised some of the ruder portions
>of your article (<1h5qkoINNl60@agate.berkeley.edu>) out
>of consideration for the other readers off this group.

This is a totally gratuitous remark, there is nothing
at all rude about my previous articles on this threadarticle.  
Your comment is completely spurious.

Can you stay on topic please?  And if you *do* feel 
anything I said was "rude" why don't you quote it
so that your accusation is believable?

>Other, less assertive people shrink from this sort of abuse.

You're the only one issuing "abuse" here.  I'm trying
discuss the WELL's apparent policy on pseudonymity, you
are going off on spurious tangents.

And you _still_ didn't connect your comment I quoted
above to the rest of the discussion.  Try to stay on
track.

>The obvious followup question is "consistent with what?".
>For your usage to be meaningful, you have to ask and
>answer this question.  From the context, I assume that
>the answer is "with accepted concepts of basic fairness".
>And I'll still disagree with you.

No, the answer I mean is "self-consistent".  E.g. celebrities
being treated the same as non-celebrities would be a level
of consistency this policy definitely lacks.

>>|We've all heard the
>>|famous dictum about those who see consistency as an
>>|end in itself.
>>
>>Another non-sequitar.  What IS your point??
>
>It's a literary reference.  A well-known quotation.  You
>can look it up, using "consistency" as a key word.

Well known or not, you _still_ haven't connected this
second non-sequitar (sp?) to the topic of this thread.

>Knowing that the WELL subscribers are not pacified
>children, and that, on the contrary, they're among
>the most demanding audiences around in terms of
>fairness and political correctness, I don't feel the
>need to answer this in terms of formal logic.  If
>that audience is happy with the policies, I trust that
>they're at least reasonable, if not exemplary.

Sorry, Chuck, that doesn't wash.  Your premise seems
to be the WELL's subscribers, and therefore the
policies they condone, are so obviously reasonable
that no debate is merited.  That's pretty weak.

Has it ever occured to you that this kind of policy
question is of legitimate interest to users of on-line
services in general, not just WELL subscribers with their
own flavor of "political correctness"?

>>|>My guess -- correct me if I'm wrong -- the Well admins would
>>|>say "sorry" to such a request. [pseudonymity 
>>|>requested because a subscriber is too shy to use their
>>|>real name]
>>|
>>|Mr. Pope, your guess is not well informed.  
>>
>>Justify this gratuitous, groundless remark if you can.
>>
>>My guess is logical given the facts in evidence.
>

>Now you seem to be claiming that the "facts in evidence"
>are the only relevant facts.  
>My remark was in the way of
>advising you that this is not correct.

One should always advance the most likely
hypothesis given the facts in evidence.  This is the
essence of the scientific method....


Steve
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk