Re: st: Anonymous nonnies

[Richard Williams <richardwilliams.ndu@gmail.com>]

At 11:39 AM 2/6/2012, Marcello Pagano wrote:
> Dear Listers,
>
> As list owner, I don't often lay down the law on Statalist. Nick 
> Cox, some others and I usually play bad cops and good cop. They are 
> the bad cops niggling away if you are unclear, don't give precise 
> code, omit references or even misspell Stata. There is, however, one 
> key point on which I want, gently but firmly, to be adamant, and on 
> which Nick and I agree. The Statalist tradition over its entire 
> history has been that people give their real names and do not hide 
> behind fake or cute names or identifiers. If you wish to post to 
> Statalist, you should use your real name. This is, please, to be 
> considered a requirement, not an option. Other lists and forums have 
> their own styles, which are often different, and that is for them to 
> decide. There should be no reason why you can't say who you are on 
> Statalist -- or if there is, please keep quiet, or ask your question 
> elsewhere. If you don't want to comply with this requirement, that 
> is your view, but you are likely to find yourself removed from the 
> list, or even ostracized and not have your questions answered. You 
> choose, but this is becoming more of an issue of late, and I hope we 
> don't go down the anonymous road because that removes a level of 
> trust and friendliness from the character this list has acquired 
> over the years.

I wouldn't insist on it, but I also like it when the geographic 
location and/or institutional affiliation of the person is 
semi-clear, which is especially hard to tell when people use gmail 
addresses. Is the person 100 miles away from me or half a world? 
Knowing the field a person is in helps me to see disciplinary 
differences. This is mostly idle curiosity on my part, but I suppose 
there might be situations where the characteristics of the poster 
might affect the way I phrase my response.


-------------------------------------------
Richard Williams, Notre Dame Dept of Sociology
OFFICE: (574)631-6668, (574)631-6463
HOME:   (574)289-5227
EMAIL:  Richard.A.Williams.5@ND.Edu
WWW:    http://www.nd.edu/~rwilliam

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