Publius disagrees

He does? The bastard. I believe I still have some wriggle room there with the “compelling reasons” clause. I would like to expand that clause to include things like WOW, etc. An grand elf or whatever called Darren Smith would be kind of weird I accept, but those situations aren’t truly anonymous, anyway, identity can be tracked.

Point taken, re: verifiability, but the fact is this rarely happens and is usually quickly corrected when it does.

I decided to use my real name (when it’s relevant) online for precisely these reasons. Also, I believe you should be prepared to take responsibility for the things you say: If you can’t stand behind your opinions, how much are they worth?

Publius disagrees.

I was going to post using patrickg as my name in order to prove a point, but it would be too much like being an arsehole. Anyway, on the internet, no-one knows if you’re a dog.

Blogs, postings, etc. However popular are still largely a minority hobby - even in the West where internet is widespread. It’s easy to forget this I think, simply because you never see the people who aren’t online (of course), and they don’t pop up to explain themselves on blogs, forums, etc.

Personally, I think in most cases less anonymity is good. Obviously if I was blogging from China, no, but where there’s no compelling reason, I think it generally encourages better and more civil behaviour online - behaviour that takes into account the consequences of abusing someone, social and legal if need be.

Obviously, this only happens generally, they’re are several real-named idiots out there, too, but this isn’t so different to real life.

I decided to use my real name (when it’s relevant) online for precisely these reasons. Also, I believe you should be prepared to take responsibility for the things you say: If you can’t stand behind your opinions, how much are they worth?

Dear politicians of all stripes:

Everything you have ever said is on Youtube. Please adjust your behavior accordingly.

Thank you.

The next logical step is to start preserving, transcribing, tagging, indexing, ontologising and generally applying semantics to everything any politician of any stripe says.

“Oh, you never said that? Well, this says otherwise. Accountability is a bitch, neh?”

No worries, really.

Could either of you provide a link which settles her political affiliation? Then I could update the post. I followed the original story.

I can’t wait until she is older and expressing how bad underage drinking is.

Typical republican.

see everything from my horrible early juvenesque science fiction stories to the latest posts here at Club Troppo or on my personal blog. In between there is a vast spectrum of fiction, political mutterings, economic conversions (several in fact) and even (forgive me O Lord) the odd bit of poetry.

You forgot to mention the 6 years of IRC logs I have.

If Jacques theory holds true it may become harder and harder to spin when Google’s cache has the truth there in cold hard bits.

About the only group that could be thrilled at this are therapists, who are rubbing their greasy hands together at the thought of new patients coming in depressed at the visibility of their pretentious late-teens and early twenties…

“You called yourself what? Oh dear, hold on a moment…Miss Wilson, clear my appointments for the day. And get me a towel.”