[appeal to folks considering leaving]
please don't go. your privacy is not at issue here. unless you truly believe the SI administrators are going to publish or otherwise abuse the information on your voided check, you will remain as anonymous as you want to be to the users of SI. no one is saying you now have to publish your e-mail address as part of your profile. no one is is saying your SI handle has to be your real name.
until VeriSign digital IDs are ubiquitous, administrators like the SI folks will have to use clumsy tools like voided checks to confirm uniqueness of posters. SI has every right to set and enforce that rule.
certain people have been baned from SI for breaking the rules. SI has the right to verify IDs to confirm that those people stay out. they also have the right to create rules that promote the integrity of discourse on their boards. to deny that fraud has occured in the past is simply untrue.
btw, none of this is about individuals' opinions of certain stocks, it's all about people following the rules of the baord. i sent in a voided check too, but look to the day when companies like verisign can provide third-party authentication instead.
i don't think of you, bill c., Will. C., Curly, Norman, or others as "WSTL-ians" "visiting" the AMTX thread any more than I think of myself as an "Amatian" "visiting" the WSTL, ORCTF, AWRE, or other threads. It's all here for all of us and the threads are just devices for keeping focus.
i think we can all agree that regardless of line code biases, vendor biases, and so on, we're all bullish on bandwidth and interested in ADSL. in that sense we're all like baseball fans. Some like the DH rule, others don't. everyone has a favorite team. there are rivalries. nonetheless, we're all fans of baseball and that shared love of the game should be the basis for mutual respect and friendship, even if we're passionately opposed on aspects of the game or don't get along personally. i remember the title of a book that came out a few years back: "anyone who plays golf is a firend of mine". we should have the same outlook here. anyone who's interested in ADSL is a friend of mine.
"can't we all just get along"?
please don't go.
mark
p.s. to brice:
<<Mark Lewin is the most unbiased contributor and IMHO one of the most qualified.>>
thanks! i couldn't have said it better myself... OOOPS! |
