Should Anonymity be allowed on the board?

[drc]

Tell me if this would solve the problem:

Unless I am mistaken, one's personal page info is only available to those who are registered and signed in (I assume would not show up in a google search). When you are not signed in as a member, you can't access anyone's personal page, not even your own. Thus, one could put his or her name on that page and it would be viewable only to fellow registered members (If I am correct). To find out what real legal name belongs to a poster's nickname, a signed in member would simply have to click on the poster's link. Thus, the poster's name would be cloaked from the the outside world of googlers, yahooers and nefarious lurkers, yet there would be no anonymity within the membership.

[Leon]

Fred- Some statistics are not available on this board as they were the old one. The number of threads started is about the same or maybe a little more. I actually think participation is up just a little. I have had dozens of people that have registered that said they were just a lurker before but now will be a participant.

David- Yes, it is only our members, who aren't banned, who get access to certain things. The BST threads and user profiles are among them. Lurkers can still see the general forum threads though. I think the way it is set up now is a pretty good system. Membership does have it's privileges..I do feel the new board is safer than the old one...take care

[Doug]

Originally Posted by drc

one could put his or her name on that page and it would be viewable only to fellow registered members (If I am correct). To find out what real legal name belongs to a poster's nickname, a signed in member would simply have to click on the poster's link. Thus, the poster's name would be cloaked from the the outside world of googlers, yahooers and nefarious lurkers, yet there would be no anonymity within the membership.

That's a good idea. Maybe it could be required for people to fill out the "real name" section of their profile so everyone on the board can have the ability know who a poster is, but at the same time it would protect the people that want to be anonymous outside of the board from popping up on search engines.