On Sat, Feb 27, 2010 at 6:26 AM, Jeff Ryan <jeff.a.ryan at gmail.com> wrote:
This seems quite arbitrary to me as I can subscribe to GMail using any real _looking_ name which still isn't actually _my_ real name.
Of course you can -- one can also provide disinformation (deception?). ?Just because you can doesn't mean it is good. Certainly it may be important for some to remove firm affiliations, for legal or personal reasons. ?Your name/signature serves as a measure of trust. ?If you are willing to attach your real name, that says something important to me about your integrity and honesty. ?It says even more when you don't.
E.g We don't want a modern day Mr Student's contributions? Now, jokes aside. I do understand the attaction of superficial rules of thumb for making quick judgements about both people's motives, and the likely quality of their contributions. It's an age old solution to the same problem and it seems not easily escaped, even today. IMO, it would be useful if the list was open, if not welcoming, to productive contributions from any 'Keyboard Monkey' alias, where the true identity is unknown. Equally, it is useful if the list was open to rejecting noise from "John K. Smith, Phd (MIT)" where the name and qualifation have been vetted. Overall, I think an approach favoring substance over style is best. I do appreciate that validating genuine email addresses is not trivial, nor is it simple to establish that a human is always driving the keyboard. However there are resaonable tools and services to help make those administration tasks less onerous. My 2c Mark
It is a fairly simple expectation that I have. ?If you want assistance, or to engage in discussion, it strikes me as rude that you wouldn't share with the audience your name. ?If we were in a physical forum, it would be akin to making me stand behind a curtain so I didn't get to see who you were. While this game sometimes boils down to egos, I think this list is stellar because it does not. Jeff
While I don't do it I think there are real world privacy concerns some people have about using their real names on lists like this and I would vote not to require something that looks real if you're not interested in ensuring that it actually is real. Just my 2 cents. It's you're list so you're free to do what you want. Cheers, Mark
_______________________________________________ R-SIG-Finance at stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-sig-finance -- Subscriber-posting only. If you want to post, subscribe first. -- Also note that this is not the r-help list where general R questions should go.
-- Jeffrey Ryan jeffrey.ryan at insightalgo.com ia: insight algorithmics www.insightalgo.com
_______________________________________________ R-SIG-Finance at stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-sig-finance -- Subscriber-posting only. If you want to post, subscribe first. -- Also note that this is not the r-help list where general R questions should go.