NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #31/NN_1992_31.iso/spool/comp/org/eff/talk/7873

Internet Message Format | 1992-12-22 | 2.9 KB

Path: sparky!uunet!europa.asd.contel.com!gatech!concert!duke!news.duke.edu!neuro.duke.edu!jfw
From: [e-mail] (John F. Whitehead)
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
Subject: Re: WELL anonymity policy
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 21 Dec 92 20:49:42 GMT
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
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Organization: Duke University; Durham, N.C.
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In article <[e-mail]>
[e-mail] (Steve Pope) writes:
>Whereas WELL anonymity is unavailable to J. Random Subscriber
>at any price.
>
>What it is, in a minor sort of way, is inconsistent and a little
>elitist.

First of all, our thread on "Well anonymity" is a misnomer.  There are
no "anonymous" users on the Well, but there are some that have aliases.
Celebrities can't be unaccountable or completely anonymous; they just
have their true names withheld.

But in any case what you say isn't true.  Anonymity is available (as
mentioned earlier "by special arrangement") to anyone who signs up on
the Well.  It is given for good reason.  To protect yourself if you are
a celebrity has been a valid reason in the past (though there are quite
a few celebrities who have had non-anonymous accounts).  If you as a
non-celebrity could come up with a good argument as to why you wanted to
be anonymous, you could probably get an account that way.  It's just
that celebrities are the main group that have wanted to protect their
identities and have the most valid reasons.

The benefits of the individual are weighed against that of the
community.  Most of the time, for reasons Cliff described, it has been
decided that users' true names should be available for the benefit of
the community.  Celebrities have to deal with a lot of privacy invasions
if they follow these rules, which would mean that they would not join.
Anonymity actually helps the celebrities fit in because they don't have
to worry about playing the role of a celebrity.  They can just be
"normal people", whereas they can't do that in any other aspect in their
lives.  They can't go to the store or a movie without getting stared at
or confronted.

Now we have a medium that gives them the potential to avoid the
negatives of celebrity, so why not let them use it? It really does no
harm to the community, since within the community they are still
identifiable.  They just have left their celebrity behind to enter the
Well, a problem that most of us don't need to deal with.

And isn't that a wonderful thing we can do with this technology?

--
 ________________________________________________________________________
|   John      [e-mail]          Duke University Medical Center |
| Whitehead   [e-mail]           Department of Neurobiology     |
|________________________________________ Durham, North Carolina ________|