There are a lot of Adam Bishops too, I even went to high school with another one. If there was a real name policy, maybe it would have to include middle names, even though that wouldn't always solve the problem either (but I don't think there should be a real-name policy anyway :))
From: Vicki Rosenzweig vr@redbird.org Reply-To: Discussion list for English-language Wikipediawikien-l@Wikipedia.org To: Discussion list for English-language Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Controversial user nicknames Date: Wed, 27 Aug 2003 08:00:58 -0400
At 09:57 AM 8/27/03 +0100, sannse wrote:
Adam Bishop wrote:
How would you stop people from creating fake "real" names? They could
just
use the random name generator that Tim Starling posted on Saddam
Hussein's
talk page.
As I understand it, the way the "use real names" policy is used elsewhere is to simply ask new users if the name they are using is theirs. So the choice is to either use a real name or to lie. This doesn't seem that useful to me, those likely to cause trouble are the same people as those likely to lie. For myself, I don't wish to use my real name and I wouldn't lie - so I would not participate in a community with a "use real names" policy.
There's another problem with "use real names." I'm using mine. If the other Vicki Rosenzweig I'm aware of wants to participate in Wikipedia, I doubt either of us would think it a good idea for her to edit as "Vicki Rosenzweig 2".
And that's with an unusual name: there are a *lot* of "John Smith"s out there. -- Vicki Rosenzweig vr@redbird.org http://www.redbird.org
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