[TYPO3] urgent help needed [OT: real names]

[Christopher Torgalson]

Well Dimitry,

On 10/18/06, Dmitry Dulepov <dmitry at typo3.org> wrote:
> Hi!
>
> Whatever you feel, this mailing list is not managed by you or me. There
> are rules set by owners of this list and I follow them. I generally
> follow rules set by owners of chats, forums, mailing lists. The same way
> as I follow laws of my country. If person X chooses not to follow
> mailing list rules, it means he does not have respect to people who
> organized all this to help people.

You have no way whatsoever of knowing WHY anybody uses a partial or
false name unless you've asked them--and to automatically assume that
you are being treated disrespectfully because somebody chooses not to
leave a record of their full name in a PERMANENT, PUBLIC repository is
unreasonable and takes no account of that other person's
circumstances.

I also don't know of another public mailing list for an open source
project that tries to maintain such control over the habits of users
of public mailing lists. Maybe there are some, I don't know--but I
guess it's relatively rare.

> Thus I do not have any respect to
> person X. This is my personal feeling, I have full rights to it. And I
> feel free to add those people to my personal ignore list and do not
> answer their questions.

No doubt it's your perogative to ignore whomever you like (or don't
like...), but I find it odd that 'respect' is something you're so
willing to deny others--and on such trivial grounds.

YOU have MY respect and admiration for your constantly helpful
presence on the lists and your extensive development work besides
(like your work on TV!) This would still be true if you suddenly
revealed that your real name were 'Elvis Presley' or that you secretly
do your best development work in your pajamas or some other
inconsequential fact.

<snip>

> > Add to all of this the nasty tone these discussions sometimes
> > take--for example, I was essentially threatened with the possibility
> > of expulsion from the HCI list for this reason last week
>
> That would be right thing to do in my opinion.

Ignoring for the moment the fact that it's *impossible* without making
the list non-public, this would benefit the community HOW? Cutting out
enthusiastic, productive contributors is no way to build community or
promote TYPO3 even if they ask you to call them 'Donald Duck' or 'HRH
The Prince of Wales'.

To avoid further aggravation of this sort, I've changed my mailclient
settings and will henceforth include my full name, but in order to
maintain /some/ sense of mystery, I still refuse to disclose the
contents of my breakfast, the colour and quantity of today's
belly-button lint, or whether my socks match...

-CT