Mongrel users - Nov 2007 - Meta-question: anonymity makes me cranky

Fellow mongrelians,

forgive a slightly off-topic rant; my hope is that it can lead to a better
world.

In the past few months, I have seen an increase in "anonymous"
questions on
this list, "anonymous" in the sense that the sender names do not
resemble
real human names, and also in the sense that the messages have not been
signed.  Just today, we have seen "Geek Moth <geekmoth at
gmail>" and "gmail <
neongrau at gmail>", neither of whom signed their questions.[1]  In the
past
months, there have been many more.

Of course, each individual may have good reason not to disclose his or her
name and affiliation, but they don''t say so.  And frankly, I''m
not terribly
inclined to help someone who doesn''t introduce himself and
doesn''t greet me
or say goodbye at the end of his message.  In fact, unless you all tell me
that I''m a sour old git, I will not answer anonymous pleas for help in
the
future.[2]  It might be that my reaction is more anti-social than their lack
of manners (as I perceive it), but at least I''m not making people
cranky by
shutting up.

My ceasing to answer anonymous questions won''t lead to a huge dip in
the
traffic on this list, of course, but perhaps others have already reacted in
the same way, and we are missing a lot of good traffic already.  What do you
think?

Best regards,

/David

[1] I don''t feel that I''m pointing fingers here, because I
can''t see whom I
am pointing at.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL:
http://rubyforge.org/pipermail/mongrel-users/attachments/20071107/7cb8f17b/attachment.html

On Nov 7, 2007, at 9:14 AM, David Vrensk wrote:
> My ceasing to answer anonymous questions won''t lead to a huge dip
> in the
> traffic on this list, of course, but perhaps others have already  
> reacted in
> the same way, and we are missing a lot of good traffic already.   
> What do you
> think?
I think that SMTP makes absolutely no guarantee that I am actually  
Nathan Vack <njvack at wisc.edu>, nor that you are actually David Vrensk  
<david at vrensk.com>. All unsigned email is fundamentally unverified  
and should be treated as though it''s essentially anonymous.

It''s all good and nice to put in a real name in your email client...  
but how would anyone know if you''re lying?

Cheers,
-Nate...?

On Nov 7, 2007, at 9:14 AM, David Vrensk wrote:
> [1] I don''t feel that I''m pointing fingers here, because
I can''t
> see whom I am pointing at.
See? I can change two lines in my email client and I''m you! (Note:  
this is HORRIBLE MANNERS... but essential to remember. Also, you can  
usually examine the mail headers to see where a message was sent  
from, though this has its own shortcomings...)

Anyhow, my offtopic diversion is now over, and I''ll go back to being  
me before I accidentally answer mail as David ;-)

My take: don''t sweat the anonymous questions.

Cheers,
-Nate...?

On Wed, 7 Nov 2007 09:47:50 -0600
Nathan Vack <njvack at wisc.edu> wrote:
 
> I think that SMTP makes absolutely no guarantee that I am actually  
> Nathan Vack <njvack at wisc.edu>, nor that you are actually David
Vrensk
> <david at vrensk.com>. All unsigned email is fundamentally unverified
> and should be treated as though it''s essentially anonymous.
> 
> It''s all good and nice to put in a real name in your email
client...
> but how would anyone know if you''re lying?
Yep, and most of the anonymous questions are good questions without any
astroturfing or trolling.  Be thankful this isn''t the many other ruby
lists where the problem is combined with griefers.

Now if I can just get back to working on Utu.

-- 
Zed A. Shaw
- Hate: http://savingtheinternetwithhate.com/
- Good: http://www.zedshaw.com/
- Evil: http://yearofevil.com/

I think everybody should be required to be MUDCRAP-CE before being able 
to post...

Joe
-- 
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.