Great, now I'm picturing some Sesame Streetesque big foamy W looking all sad and droopy. I'm sorry, W!

Well, yeah. I mean, without it I could only eep for the letter W.

There's been a discussion of a list (static or otherwise) of all user names in BBaBB, starting here: Consuela "Buffistas Building a Better Board" Apr 5, 2004 6:18:20 pm PDT

I'm having trouble articulating exactly why it is, but it is.

I think you're helping me think it out.

It's just that, as a poster, my name is out there, visible to whoever. But that's a conscious and obvious decision I made at or before the first time I hit "Post message."

Lurkers have made no such choice. So the choice should be an explicit one, but then again has to be day forward which is all messy and stuff.

Can we make the decisions for lurkers that don't read here anymore? How fair is it?

(Not contentious questions -- discussion points)

As usual, I'm against making things easier on non-participants to the cost of the participants. It's simply not worth it when, ta-da, one can just say, "hey, Ro, you get confused with Rio."

There's something ooky about "a list."

OtherKate, I was unreasonably excited when I got married and moved all the way up to the second letter in the alphabet.

Me too, Heather.

Can we make the decisions for lurkers that don't read here anymore? How fair is it?

I would rather the name list was housed on site and only available to users who are logged on here, but like Gus's list and don't have a substantive objection.

ita, would it help your bother-level if we sent an email to all users notifying them there was going to be such a page?

I really don't like the list, although I'm having trouble articulating why. It's not a security thing -- after all, it's just a list of board names without any connection to anything. But I hatehatehatehatehate it. And it squicks. And it angers me deeply.

And it makes me want to take time away from here in a way that all the hurt feelings of last week didn't.

Last week, there was a lot of ugly, but it was ugly amongst Buffistas, and we made a lot of progress in understanding each other. This week, it feels like we're talking about remaking the whole place to suit an army of starfucker newbies who want to use our place to organize a campaign that won't work, and maybe get a VIP sighting in while they're here.

I'll probably edit this later.

fwiw, I think being honest like that at the first is a great way toward eliminating (almost wrote "illiminating" wtf?) some of the bitter subtext around here.

Also? It helps people make up their minds. If you feel that way amych, I don't want the function.

I would rather the name list was housed on site and only available to users who are logged on here

But that obviates the function -- if you can't get to it before you pick a user name, then it's not serving its stated function.

But yeah, having that list available seems a lot of info to hand "just anyone."

I do not see it as remaking the place to suit newbies -- it's a suggestion to support a decision we made a long time ago.

I just think it's the wrong suggestion, and that we should go the manual route we've been doing so far instead.

JesseBelle (who I imagine must wear a pink cowboy hat).

Hee!

Gronk.

What are all these West Coasters doing awake. It`s still too early to be up for me, and you`re four hours behind me. Go back to bed, while you still can!!

"illiminating" wtf?

Cross between illuminating and eliminating, which, actually serves the purpose very well.

amych, thank you for that. It's not exactly my squick, but it certainly comes close. I think

having that list available seems a lot of info to hand "just anyone."

comes closest. I think I've condensed my feelings on the subject to, "I don't want random unknowns unwilling to exchange information to have access to that information." And as I said before, it makes me feel squirmy.

I'm the one who asked the ingenuous question to start with. It seemed innocuous enough then. But ramifications, etc. I think a new registree will have to be willing to modify his/her username if the chosen handle is too similar to one already in use. And they're not going to know that till they either lurk awhile and run across a wide sample of user names, or register, post, and then ask a stompy for a change if necessary.

Is any of that unclear? (edited to add: I haven't had my daily ration of caffeine, so I make no claims to clarity)

Again, amy, thank you for being outspoken. And please don't go away.