"Larry Dighera" wrote in message
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There is a long history about the emergence of Usenet anonymity dating
from the early '80s. As I recall, it was generally frowned upon.

For better or worse, there is a lot of behavior on Usenet that was generally
frowned upon historically, but which is now accepted practice.

As far as this specific issue goes: how do I know that you are actually a
real person named "Larry Dighera"? How do you know that I am actually a
real person named "Peter Duniho"? Even if you learn that there is a real
person named "Peter Duniho", and that he happens to be a pilot, you have no
idea that the person writing this post and that person are one and the same,
without going to a WHOLE lot of extra effort (much more effort than I'm
guessing you'd be willing to do).

IMHO, the main person anonymity hurts is the person being anonymous.
Without a real name, there's less credibility.

But in reality, we are all about as anonymous as each other. That is, we
don't really know each other, and without some extra effort, we have no way
of knowing that even a displayed full name properly identifies the poster.
At the same time, even those who try to remain completely anonymous
generally aren't doing so, unless they go through a true anonymizing service
(none of the regular "anonymous" posters here appear to be doing that, nor
those of us using full names).

As far as the credibility goes, past performance in the newsgroup is a MUCH
stronger reference than using a real name or not. It's much more important
that a person use a consistent name, as opposed to a real name.

I agree that using assumed or partial names is foolish, and perhaps it is
even a sign of cowardice. But each person has their own reasons, and I
think it's poor policy for other individuals to ignore those reasons,
however foolish or cowardly they might be, without good cause (ie there's
some very important reason the identity of the person needs to be known).

Usenet is inherently anonymous. That is one of its problems and one of its
graces. I see no good reason to harass (and I use that word carelessly)
those who choose to extend that anonymity a little bit by choosing to not
use a full name to post.

Pete