On 2005-12-06, Aahz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, > Grant Edwards <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 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 -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list