In a message dated 3/3/2005 10:45:14 AM Eastern Standard Time, twobouvs@yahoo.ca writes:
<< Brian Toronto, Canada >>
Sorry, Brian to use you as an example, no huge deal here, but....I have a problem. I am spending 10-20 minutes a day lately asking folks to sign off as per the rules of this e-list.
I guess we have a number of newbies or folks are just forgetful, so I thought I would spend another minute or two and remind and explain....
Here what it says in the <A HREF="http://www.classicrendezvous.com./CR_list_rules.htm">CR list rules</A>: "No anonymity please.. Sign off all posts with your real name, home town, state/province and country. If you cannot do this, for whatever reason, please do not join. "
My reason for this: When I started this whole thing way back when, I was negatively impressed by patterns I observed on the Internet, those of people participating in forums, using pseudonyms and often acting out in unpleasant ways, presumably hiding behind their anonymity. Some people think that if they can hide behind a fake name, they can act horribly...It still happens today on many e-lists.
So when formulating a way to achieve more civil and polite behavior of e-list participants, I decided that I wanted everyone to sign off using her/his real name and home town... To me, that would mean people talking to people and not lurk behind some smoke screen persona created for the web.
In addition, having a complete name and city "signature" would give folks a feel for what part of the world each message originated and that a poster was not embarrassed to sign their mail, be identified and be responsible for her/his words. New members would not have to remember who "Howling Wolf" was or some other pseudonym. And it would ease language barriers and help foreign members feel at more comfortable on our list.
So, those are good reasons in my opinion and still valid. I think it has helped this list achieve that atmosphere I hoped for. The CR list is far from perfect but not bad!
How do I get compliance and save all these messages I have to send? Should I disable the list for violations? It seems not worthy booting people off, because it's not a nasty violation. Anyone have ideas?
And THANKS to the good folks who sign off correctly each & every time!
Dale Brown Webmaster/list owner Greensboro, North Carolina, USA <A HREF="http://www.classicrendezvous.com./main.htm">ClassicRendezvous.com</A>