Re (tilly) 3: Licensing and Rape-Proofing your ideals.

[tilly]

Who are you?

deprecated has been here a few months. He has a few dozen posts. I have a bit of a sense of him.

You don't even have an account here that you are willing to admit to.

As my friend Karsten pointed out to me, deprecated is not anonymous to me. He is a pseudonym. He is an identity. He has a lot invested in that identity. From that identity I could probably track down the person. Then he really wouldn't be anonymous. In fact I could probably just ask him who he is. The odds are that he would tell me, I could call directory assistance and could tie the identity he has built up to a name known in the real world and a voice on the phone. I would then have attached the identity to something the real world recognizes.

You could tell me your name, phone number, give me a personal biography and I would not know you as well as I know deprecated.

Given that, accusations of anonymity, no matter how reasonable they appear to you, make you look truly clueless.