davidson (07/05/82)
I understand that studies of computer conferencing have consistently shown that being able to make anonymous contributions is very important. People with good ideas that run counter to the philosophy of their bosses, or counter to the necessary posture of their companies cannot submit them unless there is some way to do so anonymously. If anonymous submissions are to be tolerated though, there must be a way to reply to their authors. I think it would be nice if there were a way to create a secret alias (perhaps only one per person would be possible) which could send news and mail, and receive mail. Rogue players might enjoy using their Rogue name. Greg Davidson usenet: ...!ucbvax!sdcsvax!davidson arpanet: davidson@nprdc
essick (07/15/82)
#R:sdcsvax:-216600:uiucdcs:10900006:000:954 uiucdcs!essick Jul 15 10:33:00 1982 If an article is to be anonymous, then it should be completely anonymous. As long as there is a way to get back to the author the article is not anonymous. Someone will have the ability to follow that path and find out the author (after all, the reply had to get there). Using the idea of signing anonymous articles with some mail alias, I can probably figure out who the author is by sending him some mail, waiting for delivermail (or whatever mail facility is being used) to do its dirty work, and then see whose mailbox was touched. This would narrow things down to at most a few users. Of course, mailing to remote anonymous authors is a little more difficult to track down. I like the idea of anonymous notes. As Greg Davidson pointed out, the ability to make anonymous contributions is important. You just have to guarantee that the contributions are really anonymous. Ray Essick University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign uiucdcs!essick