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

[Grant Edwards]

On 2005-12-06, Aahz <aahz at pythoncraft.com> wrote:
> 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?

Hmm, let's see....

"Wasting Time on Usenet Since 1989"  

> 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".)

I didn't said it was 100% reliable, but in most of the
technical groups there sure seemed to be a good correlation
beetween "screen names" and kooks/trolls.

-- 
Grant Edwards                   grante             Yow!  Uh-oh!! I'm having
                                  at               TOO MUCH FUN!!
                               visi.com