8/19    This is a branch from the jouranlism/israel/palestine thread
        below ... just out of curiosity, why do you anonymous but substantive
        responders do so anonymously? i can understand if you are asking an
        emnarassing question, saying something that will geet john ashcroft
        to visit you but why in this dicussion? concerned about not having
        your opinion dismissed because you are jewish? [i'm not one of those
        people who are somehow offended or outraged by any and all anon
        posts ... just curious]. ok tnx. --psb
        \_ It just doesn't matter.  The notion that signing a post somehow
           magically legitamizes it or adds some sort of mystical validity is
           stupid.  If there was an advantage to signing, I would.  But I have
           yet to see a substantive reason aside from some snooty nincompoops
           claims of some sort of fallacious code of nerdy chivalry.  My
           signature is not required for my ideas to have merit worthy of
           consideration.  *shrug*
           \- well i certainly am able to separate the ideas from the man
              but sometimes it does seems easier to know if i am talking
              to the same person at all points in the coversation. maybe
              you can sign with some hash. the default seems to be to sign
              rather than not to. so if anything it's not signing that calls
              for an explanation ... again i mean "calls for" in the sense
              that "i wonder" not requires. suum cuique. --psb
              \_ The default is to sign?  Are we posting to the same motd??
                 I've been posting to motd for several years, and I have yet
                 to see this default in effect.  It's cool that you can
                 separate the ideas from the man, and I certainly respect
                 that -- but this doesn't translate to any sort of tangible
                 advantage or reason in my mind.  Additionally, I seriously
                 doubt that your point of view in this respect is the
                 'default'.  A very high percentage of the people that
                 routinely sign seem to have quite vocal and anonymous anti-
                 fan clubs riding their coat-tails.  This tends to water down
                 the content of a thread with needless ad hominem, obscuring
                 the OP's point.
                     \- sounds like you are a rationalizing animal.
                        it's just easier to have a lot of conversations
                        when they have more "state". e.g. a while back
                        someone asked for a reference on currency trading.
                        now it would be a lot easier to answer that question
                        if you had some sense if it was coming from someone
                        who had presented evidence of having a large or
                        small brain. etc. --psb
                 \-you know it's pretty easy to figure out who is non-idle
                 goes non-idle when the motd time stamp changes ...
                 especially if you have all these motd relics and watching
                 scripts in your home dir. lastcomm makes it even easier
                 but that is turned off on sloda. --psb
                    \_ Well, yeah.  It's 3am.  If I really cared that much,
                       I wouldn't post at all.  I just see more advantages to
                       not signing and almost none the other way.  I can
                       repeat my earlier points, but there seems little point.
                       Shoot me an email or something if you really want to
                       continue this debate....
        \_ I sign my name or not based on a gut feeling of whether the message
           would benefit from having my name included.
             -- anon poster from palestine/israel thread
        \_ labels.  I don't like being label based upon my view and voice.
           and there are plenty of people will happily perform targeted
           censorship based upon these labels.  You may not agree with me,
           but I view targeted censorship as a form of repression.
           Being anonymous is a form of protection from
           such repression at a personal level.
           \- well it seem to me if your concern is about censorship of your
              ideas, i dont think it will make a whit of difference wheter
              your posts are signed or not. [well unless maybe you have some
              anti-fans like me :-)] in fact it might buy you slightly more
              deference from the anon coward crowd. so if you think it will
              engender some personal antimosity, i dunno if i'd call it
              censorship. the target censors i believe mostly target ideas.
        \_ i don't do it because aaron deletes my posts.
        \_ one reason i post anonymously is i want the ideas to stand
           on their own
           \_ have you seen the move "the call me mr. crebbs"? --psb
              \_ no, please explain
                 \- it's a movie about a black fellow