The Use Of Pseudonyms Is a Prima Facie Symptom, Of Emotional, Mental, And Moral Dysfunction (EMAMD) Options Rating

[Jon Awbrey]

Resolved —

The Use Of Pseudonyms Is A Prima Facie Symptom Of Emotional, Mental, And Moral Dysfunction

'Nuff Said

Jon

Notice. Pseudonymaniacs Anonymous Meets Here Wednesday Mornings, 3:00 AM.

This post has been edited by Jon Awbrey: Sat 26th April 2008, 2:24pm

[jd turk]

Resolved —

The Use Of Pseudonyms Is A Prima Facie Symptom Of Emotional, Mental, And Moral Dysfunction

Disagree completely. In the case of WP, its very structure and encouragement of anonymous IP editors makes pseudonyms necessary.

I've edited on there for about a year, mostly just minor edits and the like. It's not like I edit war at the Gaza Strip article or anything else that's a hotbed of emotional conflict. That's just not what I'm interested in.

I'd love to be able to edit under my real name, but about six months ago some punk college student got ticked off that I removed his name from a college article. He found my websites and spammed them, threatened my ebay account, and caused trouble for me at work with anonymous emails. My old username was connected to my email account, so a few pages of googling me was sufficient to find me out.

I'm a semi-public figure. If everybody else is afforded the luxury of being anonymous, I need the same for the purpose of safety. Even if ninety-nine percent of people on the internet are normal, that one percent can cause a lot of trouble with very little cause or effort.

[Jon Awbrey]

Resolved —

The Use Of Pseudonyms Is A Prima Facie Symptom Of Emotional, Mental, And Moral Dysfunction

Disagree completely. In the case of WP, its very structure and encouragement of anonymous IP editors makes pseudonyms necessary.

I've edited on there for about a year, mostly just minor edits and the like. It's not like I edit war at the Gaza Strip article or anything else that's a hotbed of emotional conflict. That's just not what I'm interested in.

I'd love to be able to edit under my real name, but about six months ago some punk college student got ticked off that I removed his name from a college article. He found my websites and spammed them, threatened my ebay account, and caused trouble for me at work with anonymous emails. My old username was connected to my email account, so a few pages of googling me was sufficient to find me out.

I'm a semi-public figure. If everybody else is afforded the luxury of being anonymous, I need the same for the purpose of safety. Even if ninety-nine percent of people on the internet are normal, that one percent can cause a lot of trouble with very little cause or effort.

I'm just telling one of the few things that I have learned from Wikipedia over the last four years.

Just by way of clarifying the terms of the statement, the qualification "prima facie" is there to stipulate what computer geeks call a "default assumption". There can be exceptions on account of extenuating circumstances. But the essence of exceptions and extenuating circumstances is to be few in number and even accidental. But the rule remains valid — if a non-trivial subpopulation starts claiming exemptions from the ordinary norms of scholarship and society — as they do in Wikipedia — then there will be Emotional, Mental, And Moral Dysfunction (EMAMD) abroad in the Land, you can bet your bottom dollar on that.

Jon

[wikiwhistle]

If most of the Western population starts claiming exemptions from the ordinary norms of scholarship and society — as they do at times on the internet — then there will be Emotional, Mental, And Moral Dysfunction (EMAMD) abroad on said internets, you can bet your bottom dollar on that.