Hi Santosh, That's *your* interpretation of the rule. To my mind, it seems a very clear re-intrepretation of the rule :-)
I'm clearly not talking here as a member of the Goanet Admin Team (because we speak in that capacity only after we've evolved a consensus or common understanding). But to my mind, the rule means just what it says. No anonymity. Santosh's argument that one can use either the first name or the surname seems to be a subversion of the rule as I understand it. If I sign as Noronha (without a known ID or a new ID that emerges from the skies), it's as good as being anonymous. You can be as anonymous as you want if you want to read Goanet. To post you should have to identify yourself. This is just the bare minimum in terms of conditionalities for participating in the public discourse. Of course, there are other complications. Like the hazards of being a woman on the internet (and particularly patriarchy-dominated Goanet). But, as the rule stands, I don't think it helps to reducing posting to anonymity by subverting the rule with an any-one-name-will-do argument. If this were so, why not just accept my middle names? From tomorrow, can I sign as "Noel John"? Or "N John" if I want to rake up more chauvinism against those "non Goans" while dishing out some unpalatable views? That's my personal view. While talking of names, in the past I was personally mistaken into believing that Ole Xac didn't exist. However much I disagree with his viewpoint, he has a right to express it, if he's willing to sign his name to it (provided these fit into the other rules of Goanet, that is, nondefamatory, etc). And we're all grateful to Teo for coming up with a photograph of the flesh-and-bones man, as he exists in Macau. My apologies to Ole and all concerned for thinking he was a ghost! Such gross errors only remind us that we are human, something we forget while writing off things to a mass audience via the keyboard. Providing an identity check *only* to Goanet Admin could also overturn the need for the no-anonymous-posting clauses. That of openness to all on the community, so that everyone knows where the views are coming from, who (if anyone) is taking responsibility for the same, and who they are dealing with. Of course, some newspapers, in their letters-to-the-editors columns (the closest thing in a traditional media to an open-to-all mailing list) do allow for anonymity, if the editor is convinced of the reasons for the same. Such a rule, as yet, doesn't exist on Goanet's rulebook. All I can say is that the Admin Team is looking at various options. FN PS: Talking about names, of the many names I call myself, one certainly isn't "Fred". This came about because, in the early days (circa 1995), email systems wouldn't take more than eight alphabets as addresses. So as frederick.noronha would not fit, some technician suggested [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- and so many came to believe that my name was what it was not. Maybe I should have just protested earlier :-) But what was that about a thorn being as hurtful under any name? On 17/08/06, Santosh Helekar <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > >On the other hand, the 'Use your real name as the > >sender, not an alias' rule still stands. > > This rule that stands is as follows: > > "*Use your real name as the sender, not an alias. > > *The Goanet Admin team reserves the right to ask > members for proof of identity or contact details, if > it has any reason to suspect their identity. > > Members suspected of using an alias may be suspended > until satisfactory proof of identity is provided." > > Let us look at what this rule means. The rule asks > people to use their name, not necessarily their full > name. So it leaves open the option of using only the > first or the last name. > > Furthermore, it requires that the proof of identity or > contact details be provided to the Goanet Admin team, > and not necessarily announced publicly on Goanet. -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Frederick Noronha http://fn.goa-india.org 9822122436 +91-832-240-9490 http://fredericknoronha.wordpress.com [EMAIL PROTECTED] _______________________________________________ Goanet mailing list Goanet@lists.goanet.org http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org