New Forum Rule #10 Effective Immediately!

The following new Forum Rule #10 has been added and is effective immediately:

quote:

---

#10 - Except upon request and by prior approval by the Administrator, an individual can only register under one username as a member of Maritime SDA OnLine. Intentional infraction of this forum rule will result in the suspension or loss of posting rights.

---

___________________
Daryl Fawcett
Administrator
Maritime SDA OnLine

[This message has been edited by Daryl Fawcett (edited April 12, 2001).]

Daryl, I don't understand, people are posting under different names, or they have soo many differnt things they do on soo many places on the computer pages or webs that things are getting confusing to you as well as them?

The rule is so that the same person will not purposely register more than once under different usernames.

__________________________
In His Love, Mercy & Grace

Daryl

Daryl

This is a really good rule to have. I heartily applaud this one.

As you know, I am a Moderator on another forum, and I am currently investigating a case where I suspect someone of registering under several different names.

It can be a real problem, as most people who do this, have good reason to keep their real identity a "secret." Their posts are often volatile, argumentative, or other-wise disruptive to the given topic.

[ December 05, 2001: Message edited by: DavidTBattler ]

I do not disagree with the basic rule. But, I will suggest that there are some vary valid reasons why one might post under a pen name.

A SDA administrator might wish to speak freely without his statements being considered as an official Church statement.

There are also other reasons that I could give. But, I will let it go with this one.

Unless I disable it, a person needs to only register once, and can change their display name any time as long as they don't pretend to be a different person.

Anyone who is broad in vision and narrow in purpose doesn't need to post under several different names.

Notice, in this rule Daryl also gave an option of discussing certain cases with the administrator. Does this mean that the "one name" idea could be waved in some exceptional circumstances?

That exclusion was under the previous version. With this upgrade and the display name ability, there will no longer be a need for any exclusions except in special cases relating to the Administrator and some, if not all, of the Moderators.

Why would the administrator or moderators use a disguised identity?

The purpose wasn't for disguised identities as much as it was for distinguishing between a moderator function and a member function, however, with the new upgrade that is no longer necessary.

The only other reason now would be for mainly testing purposes by the Administrator.

Also, another valid reason would be as was previously mentioned regarding any of the administration of the SDA Church. They would, however, need to first speak to me about an exclusion for them.

Mark, I hope that answers your question

The purpose is not to be in disguise to spy on anybody.

__________________________
In His Love, Mercy & Grace

Daryl

But members including moderators are permitted under rule 10 to change their identity ad hoc, so long as they only have one identity at a time?

With this new upgrade, the new requirement is that a person can now register once using their real name with the ability to choose their own display name.

I may be missing something, but I don't think the forum rules have been posted here for two or three weeks now. They were here before that but I haven't seen them for a while. Since the topic heading recommends checking this section periodically for rule amendments, I thought you might not be aware of that. Mark

No.

What I posted hasn't been amended to say that in the forum rules yet, however, that is probably what will be happening.

I prefer to discuss it with the moderators first.

Hmmmm
I guess Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, John Locke, and many other great writers and thinkers from the southern half of the NAD would not be welcome on this forum. All of them wrote vast amounts of material under assumed names, some even wrote some of their best material under an assumed name. Does this mean that every one who is visiting the forum must know the identity of every one else? Is it the identity of the writer that is most important or the idea presented? What if a person desired to present two sides of an issue? Doing that under one name loses the strength of the discussion. But your the high grand umpah, so be it.

I checked a discussion in one of the moderators forums that we had on requiring real names in the registration process.

It was decided that, for security reasons, we would not require real names in the registration process, however, it would be nice to know whether or not we are posting to a male person or a female person.

We may require the use of a persons given name in their post or display name which should still protect their privacy and security.

In the meantime, things shall continue as is for the time being.