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To: Spots who wrote (764)	3/19/1998 10:21:00 PM
From: Heard	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 32873

Can some tell me how to change my login HEARD which is all caps to Heard. Thanks

To: Spots who wrote (764)	3/20/1998 4:55:00 AM
From: 246810	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 32873

I am totally opposed to duplicate screen names. In the real world one takes the time to relate various identification factors to be sure who someone is. I don't want to have to check and remember, or worse yet record, email addresses to be sure that each Wayne J. that I talk with is the real Wayne J. I get to know Wayne J. only by tone, and dispositions can change, or it could be an imposter, or it could be an innocent party that gets caught in the middle of something. .

To: Spots who wrote (764)	3/23/1998 12:47:00 AM
From: Nazbuster	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 32873

But we're also a collection of human beings enjoying social exchange. Did you ever meet anyone else named Gold? Or more than one Smith? How did you distinguish among them? Spots, Sorry, but you are being far too altruistic. Obviously, (to answer your last question first), in normal circumstances, one has sight, sound, and the context of the encounter to identify another person. Those are luxuries we don't have here. You also usually get an honest interchange in a face-to-face situation or at least have more than one way to assess the other person's sincerity. I suppose you feel anarchy is more desirable than a constitutional government since it affords the individual the fullest ability to "choose their 'political' identities" and act upon them. To adopt the chaos of duplicate names in the context of anonymous conversations is, IMHO, ridiculous. There is NO OTHER WAY to distinguish authors in this arena except their self-identification. As an example of your "social interchange", I got flamed by someone impersonating another poster in the same thread. (They had the identical tag name of a recent post.) I responded to the flame by searching for a recent post by the same party, but this resulted in responding to the wrong person! This kind of confusion is harmful to SI. It is also avoidable: Let us all have unique tags. You said, "We should, I think, take responsibility ourselves for knowing to whom we're speaking." In the real world, people usually can be identified and are held accountable for their actions. Here, they are frequently anonymous electronic hooligans. To say it was my error for not responding to the exact post which represented the flame is avoiding the issue. How would you like it if someone took on your SPOTS identity, then went around making obscene, racist, or damaging remarks, allowing your name and reputation to be damaged? Are you going to defend their right to do so? Or would you like to avoid the problem in the first place by having SI require unique identities? Let people express themselves on the thread with their comments and live with the "hardship" of having to choose an unused tag name!