Hah, you complain about pseudonyms. Thats nothing. I come back from a trip abroad and find some looney has highjacked my boring nomenclature, and has been posting away like mad on the stinkpot forum, somewhere I'd never been seen to post before, as I'm sure my fellow SB posters will attest.
Can I make a formal complaint to Kimbo?
<font color=red>Jeremy Flynn/forums/images/icons/crazy.gif Dawn Chorus</font color=red>
Got tae add a wee bit of culture ye ken. Actually Ken's a Scot, and not very good at pontoon... thats why he keeps twisting, ken & has his boat on a swinging mooring!
Hmm, with what the imposter did under my name, the result is positively feckless.
Here I am, an innocent raggie, with the ocassional rant about wash, and my nomenclature gets seized by some eastender, who procedes to destroy a perfectly nice Bav 34 that me and my family enjoy quiet weekends.
<font color=red>Jeremy Flynn/forums/images/icons/crazy.gif Dawn Chorus</font color=red>
Re: ATTN:- Gutless wonders who use noms de plume &
I agree with your points (save for the fact that the spamming actually occured when your email addresses were visible on the free forums that were then in place, so no hack took place as such; some toe-rag tediously ran through multiple posts and copied addresses which is why they are now hidden).
The Pentagon's security is not perfect either; nothing is completely sacrosanct but I can tell you (without wanting to spell it out for any Tom, Dick and Harry that might be looking) that security of data here is a lot better than it was in the days that you mention. There is no direct FTP access to our servers, for example, as there was in Karl's day.
We have in fact explored going even further by looking at encrypted log ons for the forum but that would involve you logging in every time (the same applies if we dropped cookies) and the last time I so much as mentioned that here I was nearly depth-charged out of the water so perhaps we have the right balance.
This thread has served its purpose so I'm locking it so that it can gently slide down the heap. Summary responses:
1 I don't have an issue with the names people choose (provided they could pass muster on the ship's registry in terms of decency);
2 I do have major issues with the deliberate use of dual IDs when used for any boiler stoking or malicious purpose. Generally dual/multiple IDs are discouraged here.
3 I do not judge the success of these forums on the sheer volume of posts; success as far as we are concerned is measured far more in healthy debate, healthy entertainment, successful info sharing and at least a modicum of respect for other users.
4 No forum here can be allowed to be the fiefdom of the few.