Anonymity vs Privacy on the Net54baseball

[steve B]

Board privacy is a complex issue. I'm on a few mailing lists/boards for bicycle collecting and/or repairing. I've also been on a few that are no longer running.

All the ones no longer running allowed complete anonymity. And they devolved into a fesival of very low name calling and coarse language. Even by my low standards. Once a lot of content got lost the collapse was quick as only the ones doing the stuff were left to abuse each other.

Most allow some anonymity, but not total, and usually there's no clear policy. The one that comes to mind is a mailing list for bulders or wannabe builders of custom bike frames. Some people are in the business, and are quite well known. Some are just starting and want to be known. The mostly anonymous ones are usually hobbyists. And usually everyone is ok with that. The exception lately was someone who wanted to be anonymous, but also wanted to split a $2000 parts order with one or more other people. How he planned on doing that without giving any info escapes me.

Another requires a lot of transparency, full name town and country on every post. That one has rarely had any full on arguments. (There was one guy who used to regularly post while either drunk or off his meds, but he's ok now)

But the money involved isn't as big as what goes on in cards. So there's less likelihood of theft. And it's closer to blue collar, so there's less sensitivity, and less chance of a lawsuit of any sort. (Except product liability, some new framebuilders are pushing the envelope a bit far in my opinion)

The challenge is how to allow some anonymity without giving the worst people a free hand to ruin things.
T206 collector has a point that we don't really have to actually know each other. And that there are security concerns.
But..... If a prospective employer won't hire me because I have a life outside work that includes baseball cards I'm not really interested in working for them.

I like the idea of potentially flagging threads as controversial, but it sounds like more work rather than less.
Pre approving people with good reason for keeping anonymous and maybe adding a logo of some sort? Although this just marks someone as maybe more interesting to the curious/nefarious.

I try to remember to add my name if it's a controversy. Like Kawika I feel that I am responsible for my comments. I also do first name last initial on most posts.

Another element that I think is lost with full anonymity is knowing whose opinion is being read. There are areas where I feel confident in my opinions. And areas where I don't have as much confidence. One of the fun things when I first came here was seeing some names I knew from the past. Guys that I knew had been around a long time and had a good deal of knowledge.
I also actually liked the overall atmosphere of the board. One of my welcomes was me mentioning that I had some blank back Southern league T206s. The very next response was I think literally "yeah right.." So I had to do scans. Being held to standards works well for me, probably a product of a backgroung in machinery/ manufacturing/engineering etc.

Steve Birmingham