Anonymity vs Privacy on the Net54baseball

[Leon]

Originally Posted by T206Collector

It should not surprise anyone that posts for anonymity are outweighed by posts for publicity. By the very nature of those two positions, I would expect nothing else. And frankly, if I believed my feelings were in the majority, I'd have very little to say on this topic.

So while I would agree that I am in the extreme minority -- I would add the caveat that I am only in the minority among the regular posters here. But I am speaking not only for this minority -- which, again, by its very nature has an aversion to too much public exposure -- but also for all the lurkers, who love to read our little posts, but abhor the clubhouse mentality and decide not to post as a result.

Nobody seems all that inclined to consider how to make our forum more inviting for collectors who like to remain more private. All those great collections of legendary collectors -- some extremely wealthy, famous and private people. The more you make this place a fishbowl, the fewer of them you will attract to make contributions. That is another price of outlawing anonymity.

I'm getting pretty close to beating a dead horse here, but in my view, there should be one thread available for those who want to swap personal stories, share photos of themselves and their families, talk about their careers, etc. The rest of the threads should be made up of card-related discussions. And if someone is an a$$hole to someone else, they lose the key to the front door.

Oh well.... down from my soap box.......

You make some good points, admittedly. I realize you are speaking for the silent minority and that is commendable. However, the one point you are not taking into account enough, is the fact that ANYONE can stay private as long as they don't get into heated debates or name calling. A lot of our members prefer not to be publicly known and they are happy as larks while staying out of threads that will make them be publicly known on the board. Overall, I do agree with your statements. It's not my intention to dissuade collectors from participating but it IS my intention to have people that want to argue stand behind what they are saying. I am beating that same dead horse too .One other quick thought. I also moderated the old board before the change to our new s/w. I can safely say we didn't have a large amount of collectors, who because they could stay completely anonymous (not known to even moderators) post very often, especially with regard to their collections or making helpful posts. Most of those anonymous people caused havoc. There will never be total anonymity allowed on this board. I feel very strongly about that. Your last sentence (not the soap box one) does state the situation very well. Honestly I expect that when this thread dies we will have very few problems going forward. My whole goal here was get out of intervening so much and I think these few new sentences in the rules should help. Again, I do appreciate everyone's thoughts on the subject. I wish it were an easy debate but it isn't. There really is no right answer that satisfies everyone. regards

take care