... in response to Open ? To the Board re:Registering WITH ..., posted by Dan on Nov 23, 2002...I don't post an email, yet you have several of mine. This is because trust must be earned. And it seems to me the history of a poster establishes his/her "agenda" more than an email address does.
I see other reasons to avoid it. Today's pal on here is often tommorrow's adversary. Until a certin amount of trust is earned, I think it's safer to offer an email publicly when needed/requested than to have it available. It's not as if there aren't other ways to contact someone.
Frankly, I'm amazed at how easily many accepted JohnLV's post as fact. The way hs stroy is written and it being his first post is more suspious than the lack of an email. Even if he's legit they ought to be asking questions about how they can avoid his problem rather than only offering advice on how to solve it. Of course, they all think it'll never happen to them. Bet 'ol John didn't either.
Yes, some are paranoid about their identities and rightly so. The Net is fraught with security issues and is a double edged sword. Besides, some of us are simply less trusting than others due to life experience or work related issues. And being somewhat skilled at machinating, I fully understand the dangers of being too upfront with personal information of any kind. ;-)
As for stigma, social standing, and reputations being affected, tell me about it. I suffered through some of this and learned a valuable lesson. There are those who will say so what, that what others think is umimportant. Well, they clearly aren't considering the myriad of scenarios that can be applied and it's effects on one's personal life.
In addition there are those of us who, depending on the choosen career paths, have had our backgrounds probed and our reasoning, pyschodynamics, problem solving and risk assessment abilitites repeatably tested during our lives. Not to mention having to randomly pee in a cup and poked and probed medically for all sorts of conditions that, while minor to others, will drasticaly change our lives in a hearbeat.
All this leaves some of us with an increased awareness of how invasive society can be and a desire for more privacy. This sometimes carries over into simple things like a seemingly "harmless" internet BB. Call it paraniod if you wish. (lol, I wouldn't be paraniod if everyone wasn't out to get me.) Besides, one's business is just that.
Lastly my friend, I have some news for you. Some here are far from mentally-balanced and well-intended, regardless of posting an email or not.
