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Let's start with the last words of Frank's recent posting, in which he
wrote-

"As for the fact that your detailed personal info, address and phone number,
has not been used for any malicious purpose, you should consider the
possibility that you have merely been lucky. Here's hoping your luck holds."

Well, those details, name, address, phone number, have for many years been
made available in the most public form possible, in my local telephone
directory, handed out around the whole district, and accessible the World
over via internet, without ill effects that I am aware of. It's possible to
choose to be excluded from that, but only the paranoid, and those with
something to hide, do so.

===================================

Now, back to Navlist. When it recently became possible for a non-member to
post messages from the message board, the sender's identity was no longer
provided in the email header, as it is for all other postings. Instead, the
only information given in its place was the navlist address,
Navlist@fer3.com . That provides difficulties when looking back to locate a
particular message, from the header information. We've all got to know, by
now, our favourite "posters"; the ones that need to be taken seriously, the
ones that are flippant, the ones that can be discounted. Searching by the
sender's name or identity becomes impossible if there's no name given in the
header. It hasn't become a serious problem, as yet, because few postings
have arrived that way. If they become common, that will become a real
nuisance.

But at least, the sender's email identity has been provided, within such
postings if not in the header, in a recoded form that omits the @ symbol.
Until now, that is. But we have lately had postings coming in, in which the
sender is identified only as [Sent anonymously from the message boards].
Neither name, nickname, or email address is provided. I do not think that
should be acceptable. If a poster wishes to put his thoughts before us, the
least we should insist on is that he does so in a way which allows us to
communicate back to him.

I see, from a look at the message board, that all messages continue to be
allocated a message number. However, this no longer appears within the
message itself, nor does it appear on emailed postings, as a header or
within the text. I think this is a significant loss. And displaying that
message-number only on the list in the message-board is the worst option.
Anyone working from the message-board may well choose to refer to a posting
by its message-number, but that number is, from now on, hidden from those
receiving postings by email; a recipe for confusion. If the message-number
is to be hidden from those using email, then message-numbers should be
dropped altogether, everywhere. But given a choice, I would prefer to see
message-numbers reinstated everywhere, emails and all.

George.

contact George Huxtable, at  george@hux.me.uk
or at +44 1865 820222 (from UK, 01865 820222)
or at 1 Sandy Lane, Southmoor, Abingdon, Oxon OX13 5HX, UK.

----- Original Message -----
From: 
To: 
Sent: Monday, January 04, 2010 10:34 AM
Subject: [NavList] Online anonymity, real names, and NavList posts


I switched the thread title since the poor guy who came here asking about
his Kollsman sextant is going to think we're a bunch of idiots for babbling
about this meta-topic rather than addressing his question.

George H, you wrote:
"Already, with the new Navlist arrangement, we have had two messages [Sent
anonymously from the message boards]."

George, ALL email is anonymous (including in some ways that worried me
enough to get us off google groups). But before the recent change that I
made, people have been sending anonymous posts for years using services that
mask their "real" email addresses and other tricks. The only difference now
is that people can CHOOSE to state explicitly that they are posting
anonymously. If they make that choice, why should you complain? If you
answer their questions or help them in some way, they'll feel welcome and
introduce themselves. Most people will say who they are by name at least
after they have explored the group for a while and become comfortable with
the place. And really, isn't that exactly how things usually work in the
real world? If you go to a public lecture or meeting, and someone has a
question, while some people will introduce themselves before asking their
questions, many feel more comfortable asking first. It saves time. And yes,
it preserves a little bit of privacy for them. And in this age, preserving a
little privacy is something we should all try to do.

And you wrote:
"I do not understand this quest for anonymity, and deplore it."

Well, then maybe you could have asked him or her, "hey, by the way, what's
your name?" Anonymity and privacy in general are, in fact, rapidly
disappearing online. I prefer to talk to people that I know by name, and
especially dislike "handles" and online "nicknames", but it's up to each
person to decide.

And you wrote:
"Why should anyone posting on Navlist wish to conceal his identity from the
rest?"

I can think of lots and lots of reasons. Here's a list for NavList:
1) general concern about online security, abuse of personal information,
etc. for the purposes of criminal activity: identity theft, extortion, etc.
2) mild embarrassment among one's peers regarding the topic of celestial
navigation. Many people find that their friends and even loved ones think
that they are "weird" for taking an interest in this topic. So they post
anonymously or under a pseudonym so that their friends won't find out about
their secret interest. How would they find out? Googling.
3) professional concerns. Some people want to limit online references to
their names to matters in a specific topic. For example, if you're a young
academic climbing the ladder, you might not want someone googling you and
finding that you engage in pursuits which they might interpret as frivolous.
A search should yield your academic papers and nothing else.
4) anxiety over becoming a member of any group. This is quite common. Many
people like to "hang out" along the periphery (in the real world and online)
getting the lay of the land, learning the ropes, finding out how it all
works before they're willing to become part of "it".
5) posting efficiency. Most people who have been online for a while have
learned that if you give your email address then you're shunted off into
some long click this- click that, interpret the artistic merits of this
fuzzy text to prove you're human, etc., when all they want to do is ask a
quick question and get on with it!
6) experience from reading archived posts. Plenty of NavList newcomers spend
a lot of time reading the archived messages, and several newcomers have
shared with me their concerns that one of the "veterans" will bite their
heads off for asking a stupid question. This, too, is a common phenomenon in
the "real world". Incidentally, when they ask me, I tell them to post with
their real names and don't worry -- we love thinking about the basics.
7) avoiding sexism and inappropriate offline interaction. This mostly
applies to potential female participants. Even men who consider themselves
"enlightened" will act differently when they believe they have met an
available woman online. It's unfortunate, but it's definitely true. If you
don't believe this, I highly recommend signing up in some technical online
community, something which you are quite sure is gender-neutral as far as
discussions are concerned, under a female name. Observe how differently you
are treated.
8) and the biggie... [insert drum roll...] fear of spamming. It's sad, but
it's true. If you give up your email address online, it may come back to
haunt you with a barrage of messages trying to get you to visit some online
pharmacy to solve whatever "little problem" you may think you have. Any
message posted online that includes your email address "in the open" and
unmasked is harvested by automated search programs that seek out the pattern
of an email address in all the text they find online no matter what the
context. THAT is what gets you on spam lists.

I am sure there are more reasons. But the bottom line here is that there
really are good reasons. It's not just somebody being "shady". So give 'em a
break. In the past year since I instituted non-member posting, nearly ALL of
our active new members have begun by posting without joining. It's all about
providing people with an easy pathway into the community that suits THEIR
needs and attitudes. Have a little sympathy for the reality that all people
are different. Some have concerns which don't match yours, and they might be
right or they might not, but vive la difference. There's no need to deplore
anything.

By the way, I am fairly sure that one of the "anonymous" posts in the past
few days was just an accident. He forgot to enter his posting code. I think
I will probably modify that to ask for confirmation to avoid such accidents.
The other post was probably genuinely anonymous. Why should we discourage
conversations that are right on-topic, no matter how they're delivered to
us?

George, you wrote:
"I don't know about other Navlist members, but quite a lot of my
communication with others is done backstage, off-list, and indeed most of
that has been both informative and enjoyable. It's easy for me to
communicate one-to-one with others, as they can with me, without bothering
the list."

Yes, I am aware of that, and I am sure that many others on NavList do the
same. But myself, I try to keep all my navigationally-relevant conversations
ON-list. Why have a community otherwise? But that's just my personal
preference. I would encourage all of you who take your
navigationally-relevant messages off-list to consider that you may be
denying yourself broader input and a more interesting conversation, but the
trend these days is towards one-to-many online communities (also known as
"blogging") while many-to-many communities like NavList are slowly
declining, and there is a reason for that. Then again, NavList had its two
biggest months in years in the past two months, so we must be doing
something right.

You wrote:
"For many years now, all my postings have included, with the email address,
my postal address and phone number, which have proved useful when the email
address is deliberately garbled, as it seems to be on the message board.
That openness has never caused me any problems. What purpose does the
garbling serve?"

Masking of email addresses has been the rule in online communities for
years, and with good reason. Do you honestly not understand this, George? I
am asking in all sincerity. If you don't see why it's done, I would be happy
to elaborate.

Having said all that, have you bothered to visit the new "Join Now" page or
the page that lets members edit their preferences? If you do so, you will
see that there is ample encouragement to include a "real name" (no handles
or nicknames, please). Also, you will see that established members can send
email to any other NavList member through the message boards and doing this
directly exposes that underlying bit of data that you were wondering about.
That is, it will give you the text that appears on either side of the 'at'
sign.

As for the fact that your detailed personal info, address and phone number,
has not been used for any malicious purpose, you should consider the
possibility that you have merely been lucky. Here's hoping your luck holds.

-FER


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