TammyJo "why do people change their contributer name on OLO" - If you'd posted some of the things Boazy has over the years wouldn't you want to try and distance yourself from them?

I've not paid a lot of attention to Polycarp's postings but the writing style is close enough to Boazy's for that to make sense.

Robert

Spikey,

Its not of much interest to me, it may be hard to do as OLO's article list is broken right now, and I am lously at picking the gender of the writer. That said, I could possibly generate a list of author names and articles and dates. If you are interested then:

- You would have to determine their gender yourself.
- I will email the list to you. You will need to post an email address here. Just a temporary one, such as a hotmail address. If you have a preferred format (eg csv, spreadsheet) then say what it is.
- You must promise to post any results you get here.

rstuart

Thanks for the offer. I appreciate it. However, I have to decline. Last time the identity of a family member was given away or guessed on OLO they were sent hate mail and threats.

They complained to Graham Young and asked for a new pseudonym but he just brushed it off - he pointed to 'technical difficulties'.

I'd love to have what you are offering but I dare not.

Spikey,

Not that I am unhappy with you saying no - it saves me work, but I notice a good deal of concern about anonymity here, or more to the point of loosing it.

Firstly, it is not hard to change your nym here. I presume changing the email address on your account to a temporary one, then create a new nym with your old email address work work.

Secondly, a temporary email address reveals nothing about you whatsoever unless you SEND an email from it. If you do send you have to be careful. But in this case I was the one sending to you.

Thirdly, when people guess identifies, I suspect its not via some magical ability to extract information from the internet. Its from little snippets of information in they see in the posts of their target. In one post its a job description, in another its a location, in another its a hobby, and of course there is always the politics. When you combine those snippets you it isolates the person fairly well. I have no doubt that if there are people here who know me personally, they know who is behind my nym.

Fourthly, and possibly worst from your point of view, I think Scott McNealy (CEO of Sun) hit the nail on the head when he said something along the lines of "privacy is history, get over it". This was more of a prediction at the time, but its remarkable how true it has become. And it will only become more so as time goes on. We have had articles here on OLO pointing out this is a cultural thing - the kids nowadays seem to regard the wrinkles view of privacy as "quaint".

Its also remarkable how wrong George Orwell was in his picture of a world without privacy. I guess his downfall was in not understanding it works both ways. Yes someone could pursue you. But imagine how damaging it is to them if everyone knows they are pursuing you, and like to engage in that behaviour.

Hi all

I think OLO is a great opportunity for people who may not be accomplished writers or journalists to get their views out there and get discussion growing. Such is democracy, and the rich "tapestry of life".

Even though I am no doubt regarded as one of those appalling "animal rights extremists", I have appreciated the debate and learned a lot as well.

I thought I read somewhere that PALE got its money refunded through lodging a credit card dispute or something similar, but I might be wrong.

Cheers
Nicky

Foxy & dickie,

Thank you

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7IiRYhWN6A

Bye