Mike Copeland wrote in a message to Kim Forwood:
 MC>      I think it's time to set the record straight:
 MC>   1. SH originally came into this echo using the handle
 MC> "BlackDeath", and had to be admonished to follow the echo's rules
 MC> requiring everyone to use their real names 
I think a polite 'Could you please use your real name in here' from the 
actual moderator(s) would have done the trick.
 MC>   2. Yes, I have always regarded the "hiding behind", 
I've seen that argument brought up so many times in the past. We had a group 
of SysOp's with the 'best interests of fido at heart' attempt to shut down an 
echo, simply because the moderator allowed the use of handles and because 
UUEncoding was common in there ('Oh, everyone in the echo is obviously 
writing virus's and encrypting them so we cannot see them, and they're hiding 
behind their handles'. Truth of the matter is, the only time a virus went 
through the echo was by accident, caught in a .exe someone sent. Most of the 
UUE's were actually raw code which almost anyone could read. Of course they 
tried to axe that as well.
I was challenged to name the participants of the echos by their real names, 
and did so easily. Some are/were users on my BBS, but all of them had at some 
stage posted their real names, or I could get them from their SysOp.
There is *no* hiding behind alias's in Fido. It simply cannot be done. There 
is always some way to tell where something came from or who it came from 
unless it's 'injected', and in that case real name or not, you have no chance 
of proving who did or said what without involving the police and telecom 
companies (at least not in this country).
 MC> false portrayal of one's self, 
My handle, Gnome, is not one I chose for my self. It's an accurate protrayal 
of myself in many aspects, but was 'given' to me by someone who decided that 
I 'look like a garden gnome'. BTW, neither that person nor anyone else on the 
course where I got that name were into computers, including myself. Despite 
my dislike of it, I became known as 'Gnome' and by the time the following 
course finished, few people actually knew what my real name was. Oh, had they 
asked I would have told them - in fact I told many of them without them 
asking, but it was a name I had to accept.
By the time I got into BBS'ing, I had accepted it - to the point that it 
forms part of my company's name. Many of my users know me only by that name, 
but note that I do not use it on messages very often - this being the first 
one this year and also the first one in about 18 months. Sometimes I use 
other names on messages, but those are character names in the RPG's that I 
play in (and no, I do not have anythingto do with magic or fantasy, I hate 
that style of RPG with a passion)
You need to get out more, and take a look around you at all the people who 
are using handles, and have done a lot of good for the world. Was 
Marylin Monroe(sp) hiding behind her name, trying to do as much harm and 
commit as much crime as possible? What about all the authors who've used 
alias's or (shock horror) don't even put their name to their books? What 
about all the people who are doing good?
The last time I came across someone as strongly against handles as you are, 
for the (usually trumped up) reasons of 'security' etc, the end result was 
them no longer having anywhere near the respect or position they had with 
their peers, as so many people around them decided that they wanted to have 
little or nothing else to do with them.
Oh, BTW, as long as you post with a name that is unlikely to be your birth 
name (Mike), you only make a fool out of yourself because that is the *exact* 
same thing that others are doing - using a name they (and/or others) feel 
comfortable with, and a name that they are generally well known by, or become 
well known by.
David Chord
Save your BBS! Join INTBBS_WK now! 
--- timEd 1.10
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