Anonymity- should it be allowed ?

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Posted By: Ben

I like to think that our first and last names are safe within the friendly confines of the forum. I've always posted using only my first name, not because I'm uncomfortable revealing my last name, but just because there are no other Bens that post here. That being said, this forum is not what it used to be. There's about 10x more traffic now then there was a few years ago, which means there are many, many more eyes reading over your posts and perhaps learning something about you. So, one would be foolish to not at least be somewhat cautious about revealing personal info.

Also, one should also consider things like personal webpages, and ebay "about me" pages as potential avenues for a breach of personal security. In light of my unfortunate situation, I've decided to shut down both of mine.

To address Leon's initial inquiry: I do not think anonymous posting should be allowed, EVER, regardless of the context of the post. Accountability for one's words is of utmost importance here I think. Don't know if anyone noticed, but I served as co-moderator (along with Elliot) for the forum when Bill was in charge. For the majority of that time, anonymous posting was fair game and consequently, it was quite often taken advantage of. One guy, for example, would love to bring up huge numbers of 3 year old posts by replying at the bottom with a single word, thereby screwing with the the whole order of the forum. While deleting his posts was possible, it was an annoyance I'm sure the current moderators would rather not deal with. It hass been said plenty of times before, but the bottom line is that if you'd like to enjoy reading the forum and remain anonymous, that's FINE. But as long as you choose to post here, that priviledge must be met with some degree of accountability.