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Nicks, anonymity and pseudonymity [was: Re: Bug#296369]



On Fri, 25 Feb 2005 06:00:06 +0000 Andrew Suffield wrote:

> People who are not operating under their real identity *cannot* be
> trusted because there can be no penalty for breach of trust, it's that
> simple.

Well, trust and respect can grow for a fake identity (nick or nym), if
this fake identity is used consistently in time.
Perhaps you don't easily know what's the real identity behind that nick;
or, in the other case, you *cannot* find out the real identity behind
that nym. But you may know that the majority of his/her messages are
pertinent and/or useful and/or smart and/or ...

> So while you can participate in this manner, you'll always be
> an outsider. Anything that you say or do will not be taken at face
> value, it will be scrutinised and double-checked.

I thought that reasonable care was spent to scrutinise anything being
said by anyone, here.

> 
> The impact this has on free software development should be obvious.

Well, if you mean that anonymous and pseudonymous contributions are more
difficult to handle copyright-wise, it's true.
But, for instance, would you treat a (reproducible) bug report by an
anonymous sender as less valuable?

-- 
          Today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday.
......................................................................
  Francesco Poli                             GnuPG Key ID = DD6DFCF4
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