| |||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||
Alternative GUIs: GoblinX (TuxMachines)Alternative GUIs: GoblinX (TuxMachines)Posted Jun 21, 2007 17:41 UTC (Thu) by yootis (subscriber, #4762)In reply to: Alternative GUIs: GoblinX (TuxMachines) by lysse Parent article: Alternative GUIs: GoblinX (TuxMachines)
Not really true. If someone gives a real name you can look around to see if they have betrayed trust while using their real name before. However, since pseudonyms are essentially free and limitless, they can take a new one every time they wish to betray trust. You can't track it back to a unique person.
Your next point will be that even if someone gives a real name, they could be doing bad things under pseudonyms. That is true, but they can only do bad things once under a real name. So there is an incentive to be trustworthy when using the real name.
(Log in to post comments)
Alternative GUIs: GoblinX (TuxMachines) Posted Jun 23, 2007 17:20 UTC (Sat) by njs (guest, #40338) [Link] >[T]hey can only do bad things once under a real name. So there is an incentive to be trustworthy when using the real name.
One could just as well say: they can only do bad things once under a particular pseudonym. So there is an incentive to be trustworthy when using a pseudonym.
They can switch pseudonyms, of course, but on the internet they can switch "real names" just as easily, and with the same cost: the new name won't have a history of trust built up. We wouldn't be having this discussion if the author were using a realistic-sounding pseudonym like "Daniel Marnier" or something.
Alternative GUIs: GoblinX (TuxMachines) Posted Jun 26, 2007 19:16 UTC (Tue) by yootis (subscriber, #4762) [Link] Probably true -- if the pseudonym sounded realistic we wouldn't have had this conversation. But we could check if it was real if we were going to run the distro and were worried about the person's history.
Alternative GUIs: GoblinX (TuxMachines) Posted Jun 26, 2007 17:46 UTC (Tue) by lysse (guest, #3190) [Link] > If someone gives a real name you can look around to see if they have betrayed trust while using their real name before.
Exactly as you can with a consistently-used pseudonym. Moreover, I can legally change my name at any point, for free, as can anyone else in the UK; all I need is a witness to sign the deed poll. And that's only if I want it to be legally binding - in less formal situations, I can call myself anything I please at any point. How exactly would you divine the difference?
> ...pseudonyms are essentially free and limitless...
Exactly as real names are - see above. Moreover, you are overlooking that many people who use distinctive pseudonyms see them as far more personally meaningful than their given names - much more tightly binding, if you will and stay with them for years, even to the point where they have a much stronger pseudonymous reputation than eponymous. (I'm in this position myself, as it happens.)
The assumptions you are arguing from, about the strength of legal names as opposed to pseudonyms, are simply wrong. Pseudonyms are not the throwaways you think they are, and legal names are nowhere near as permanent as you would like them to be.
> Your next point will be that even if someone gives a real name, they could be doing bad things under pseudonyms.
What you are doing here is popularly known as raising a strawman. It's arrogant and fallacious; don't do it.
In fact, I have no next point. I don't need one yet; you don't even appear to have grasped, let alone refuted, my first one - which is that what matters in building trust is reputation, not identity, and given a consistent identity whose reputation can be checked, it doesn't matter WHO assigned the identity, or what legal status it has. Conversely, if an identity has no reputation behind it at all, it's an unknown quantity no matter how much ceremony went into its assignment.
Alternative GUIs: GoblinX (TuxMachines) Posted Jun 26, 2007 19:21 UTC (Tue) by yootis (subscriber, #4762) [Link] In the US it is extremely difficult and time consuming to change your name (unless you are a female who just got married and are only changing a last name). It creates a very long chain of information connecting your old and new names. It involves the courts and public records, and is easily googleable. So you can never get away from an old name. I guess this is different in different places.
|
|
||||||||||||