From: spp@zabriskie.berkeley.edu (Steve Pope)
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
Subject: Re: WELL anonymity policy
Date: 22 Dec 1992 01:22:32 GMT
Organization: U.C. Berkeley -- ERL
Distribution: inet
NNTP-Posting-Host: zion.berkeley.edu

karish@pangea.Stanford.EDU (Chuck Karish) writes:

|spp@zabriskie.berkeley.edu (Steve Pope) writes:
|>jfw@neuro.duke.edu (John F. Whitehead) writes:
|>> Anonymity is available 
|>
|>You mean "pseudonymity is available"  -- don't complain about
|>my misnomer, then use it yourself!!
|
|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.  

|>The only *consistent* way of deciding who is eligible to
|>have a pseudonymous account is to simply leave it up to
|>the discretion of subscriber.  Anything else is arbitrary.
|>Since it is not done this way, I am correct in saying that policy 
|>is inconsistent.  
|
|This is the first time I've seen "consistent" held
|up as an antonym for "arbitrary".  

Not a direct antonym, however it's obvious that
given the usual definitions of the terms, if a policy
is arbitrary, then it cannot possibly be consistent. 
That is the meaning of my statement above.

|We've all heard the
|famous dictum about those who see consistency as an
|end in itself.

Another non-sequitar.  What IS your point??

|The WELL tries more to be about people and about human
|interaction than it is about legalisms.  The managers have
|been able to exercise their powers in ways that have earned
|them the trust of the subscribers.  The subscribers don't
|mind that some of the policies are dealt with according to
|the managers' best judgement, because they trust that
|judgement.
|
|What better criterion than subscriber satisfaction
|can you propose to decide whether their policies are
|appropriate for a commercial service?

I do not think the WELL's policies are off limits
for discussion just because their subscribers are
all happy.  If you lobotomized all 12-year-olds then
the high schools would be full of kids who are
happy.  Does that make lobotimization good policy?

|>Example: suppose a user asked for a pseudonymous account because they
|>are simply too shy to socialize on the computer under
|>their real name?
|>
|>My guess -- correct me if I'm wrong -- the Well admins would
|>say "sorry" to such a request.
|
|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.  The only public 
information the WELL gives out on this policy is that "anonymous 
accounts are not accepted except by special arrangement".  This 
directly implies that they are not given out routinely.  Which
implies that the most common reason for wanting a pseudonymous
account -- simple shyness about posting -- is not acceptable
to the WELL admins.  You need more of a reason to qualify.  This 
assessment has been corroborated by a couple posters here, plus every
WELL user I have talked to agrees that this is the way it works.

| You greatly
|underestimate both the sensitivity to subscriber concerns
|exercized by WELL management on their own initiative
|and the pressure they would feel from their subscribers if
|they were not that sensitive.

I'm sure WELL management is exteremely sensitive.  Even
so you could be right, I might still be underestimating them....


Steve