Usenet falsehoods (was Re: Bitching about the documentation...)

[Aahz]

In article <11p9kl1cm57dr7b at corp.supernews.com>,
Grant Edwards  <grante at visi.com> wrote:
>
>Hmm, I though he explained it:
>
>  1) Not using your real name.
>
>  2) A yahoo, aol, or hotmail address.
>
>In the ancient and hallowed (by net standards) history of Usenet, both
>of these (particularly the first one) have been pretty good predictors
>of crankness.  The correlation isn't as high as it used to be, now that
>hiding behind silly nicknames has apparently become socially acceptable
>in other venues (web "forums" and "boards" and whatnot).

To use a Panix in-joke, how old are you, anyway?

I've been on the Net for more than fifteen years, and while this canard
about real names gets trotted out from time to time, it's quite clear
that many many people have been active on the Net *and* taken seriously
using names that aren't what you'd call a "real name".  (People named
"piglet", "tigger", and "pooh", just for example, who were active long
before I showed up.  Not to mention "piranha".)

ObSheesh: Sheesh
-- 
Aahz (aahz at pythoncraft.com)           <*>         http://www.pythoncraft.com/

"Don't listen to schmucks on USENET when making legal decisions.  Hire
yourself a competent schmuck."  --USENET schmuck (aka Robert Kern)