I have been a registered member of this board ever since the requirement was made, under my own name. At one time this was a really informative and great board.

It seems lately that there have been a bunch of fake names, no personal description folks come on here, make assertions, and disappear, re "semp" on the 470 thread immediately come to mind.

I was under the impression that this was a place for the professionals, and other interested parties to discuss real topics related to preservation and tourist operations, not a place for foamers and those with an ax to grind to anonymously attack the other guy's project.

If you can't back up what you say with a real name, and an indication of why you have the standing to say what you say, why are they allowed to be here?

Can we get this place back up to the quality it once had? I know there is the steam tech group on yahoo groups, but I hate farting with yahoo groups.

I have long felt that it should be a requirement to use your real name in order to post on here but so far have lost the argument to those who feel that allowing people to use phony monikers increases participation.

As I have often stated,.... if something is worth posting it's worth signing your name to it.

Until we're able to get a real identity requirement established the best we'll be able to do is ignore those postings done by those unwilling to own them.

IMHO-Ross Rowland

In the case of Semp, it seems that he may have joined for the express purpose of causing grief for the 470 project.

He would serve his cause better by using his actual name, and detailing his relevant experience working in railway preservation, particularly with steam locomotives, operating or otherwise. Without that, he has little or no credibility on a board populated with professionals and experienced amateurs.

What I'd like to propose is that a one month waiting period be imposed on new members, before they can post. Alternately, that they be subject to moderator's approval. I hate to suggest additional tasks for our moderators, but in the long run it might be easier because fewer inflammatory posts from new, unidentified, members would show up.

Nothing personal, Semp, but you're pushing behavioral boundaries a tad.

Steve Hunter

What difference does it make whether a person uses their real name? What if “Semp” posted under a real sounding name, but it was a name you never heard of? It seems to me that what is really behind the call for people to use their real name is a demand for an accompanying resume of qualifications and credentials to give credence to the opinions of those people. Then once those credentials are stated, it turns the debate into a contest for the greatest credentials to dertermine who is right or wrong.

I judge what people say only on the basis of how convincing it is to me, based on my knowledge of the subject. If I don’t know have the knowledge to judge, I would never accept it only the faith of the claimed credentials of the person making the statement.

I often hear people with credentials say things that I disagree with because what they say does not seem true based on my knowledge of the subject.

Time for my Standard Rant on this subject.

Please explain to me how the moderators can force people to use their real name?

Yes, you can easily create a rule saying "You Must Use Your Real Name!"

Fine, problem solved, right? Not so fast! How do you prove that it's the person's real name? What verification method will suffice? Obviously, most folks will be honest, but we're not worried about "most folks", we're worried about the trolls who just show up to cause problems. Since they're here to make trouble, they'd have no problem simply using a fake name, or even impersonating another person.

I suppose you could require they provide a credit card as a way of verifying, but that's en expensive hassle, leads to questions of identity theft and creates an expensive that would deter new memberships.

Like many things, it's easy to say in the abstract "Just have everyone use their real name!" but when you get down to actually executing it, it's not quite so simple.

Sincerely,
Abraham Lincoln.

Further, there are individuals with a wealth of knowledge and experience in this field who could cause an enormous amount of grief for themselves, including disciplinary action or potential firing, for "publicly" providing input or insight on a "public" forum such as this, even if it's something as innocent or innocuous as simply confirming the construction number of a locomotive or the build date of a station. The problem is that being a government employee or official in the field (say, working for the FRA, Department of Commerce, or a state-run rail museum or rail advisory council), their words can be (mis)construed as "official government policy," rightly or wrongly. I've been shown utterly Draconian restrictions upon certain government employees, in some cases ones that fly in the face of common sense and can be misused to attack an individual for almost any utterance imaginable. I personally know of one long-ago frequent contributor that left because of such conditions--he valued a paycheck and career advancement more than this forum.

This is not the only excuse. One friend of mine in another field was forced to relinquish two blogs of his, one activist and one personal, as a result of accepting a salaried editorial position in the field. In exchange for the salary, they owned virtually all his writing output.

As an interesting side note, "Gary Bensman" has now shown up here under two different registrations, years apart. I'm forced to cross my fingers and hope one of them isn't a fraudster.

I favor the moderators exercising discretion on a case-by-case basis over such decisions. We can't have perfect security and identity, but common sense discretion should be able to weed certain "wannabes" from the experienced. (Though one "bad penny" keeps coming back here....)

We should consider ourselves lucky that we even have certain contributors here that work around or ignore such restrictions, or are allowed the freedom to post here, including the editors and an executive of certain magazines and one government official, and seemingly half the employees of one certain shop.....

Hi All,

I moderate the WW&F Railway Museum discussion forum where we have a "real names only" rule. While it is true that someone could conceivably submit a fake name, it has not been a problem. Basically, a Google search on the IP address and/email address when a stranger applies for membership will usually reveal his/her identity. (Note that only I can see email addresses and IP addresses - this is not something that is publically disclosed.) This also prevents spam and troll accounts from being created.

I also moderate pretty heavily. If a topic goes off-topic, I split it. I try to combine like topics. Most importantly, I am not afraid to "tone down" a post that crosses the line from constructive criticism to outright attack.

We have well over a hundred active participants on our forum. To date, only one (that I know of) has left because he didn't like me toning down (or, after repeated warnings, deleting) some of his posts. He still reads the forum though, and will likely be back (as he has done this before.)

But this takes a LOT of time and effort. I am always checking the forum and it takes a multi-step/manual process to sign up. So please give the moderators of RYPN some slack.

The point about sometimes needing to use a pseudonym for professional reasons is well taken. When pressed about it, I have responded that there are plenty of places on the web to discuss railroading. The WW&F forum is simply one of those places and we have decided to use real names.

That all been said, I think the WW&F forum works very well using the real name model, but it isn't for everyone. It certainly has its advantages and does significantly cut down on the amount of garbage posted.

Should RYPN use the same model - that is up to the moderators. Regardless, I will continue to read every day.

-Ed Lecuyer
Moderator: http://forum.wwfry.org

The real issue with people using their real names in any internet forum/ discussion is if you do a Google search on that person's name, plus maybe subject matter, it's easy to find a lot about him/her... some of which should not be made public.

Any forum (and this one is no exception) has it's share of kooks and people who give false/bad info and any experienced user can easily figure out who these people are.

Bob H

Anybody who read Semp's posts and compared the quality of his content to that in other posts can't help but reach the conclusion that his opinions aren't worth the bothering to read. Readers incapable of reaching that conclusion aren't worth worrying about anyhow. Having explored the web site, I'm very hopeful about the future of 470 should it find its way into their hands, not hopeful at all about a proposal to have the scouts paint it with house paint......

dave

I'm lucky that I'm now retired, because I do use my own name, and have mentioned my past employers. It's a good thing that my bosses followed their own advise, and didn't waste time on the Internet trying to read other peoples' nonsense.

The bottom line with this name thing is that people only want the type of people on this forum they want to hear from. It's really that simple.
The problem with that is if there were only, 'serious' people within RR preservation posting, you would have next to no traffic, because people really into presevration are mostly out working on stuff instead of spending time online.
Just like a bull session at the museum, you gotta suffer the fools and straphangers who happen to be around at the time.
It's not the names, folks, make no mistake about that. It's really all about who's 'worthy' enough to have a voice. And this forum has no monopoly at all on that, there'll always be those few people who feel that others aren't worthy of communicating on their level...

Here we go kicking this can down the road again.

My favorite comment from the last go around with this was the idiot who told me that he could not use his real name because he was too well known in his "real" industry. What a can of horse do-do that is!

I have said it before and I say it again: You are who you are, be proud of it and if you want to open your trap, take credit for it! The "real" people in this industry use their real names and often, if they are not working members of the industry, they make it known. There is no need......none at all.....for fake names. I can agree with a modification of your own real name.....mine is JohnE. (not Johnny, but JohnE, which stands for Eldon). People know me as JohnE. and I am called by JohnE. often.

Real names and faces or go home and keep your comments to yourself. If I can't put a comment to a face or a person, it means nothing to me. It has no value at all.

Getting ready to kick the can down the road.....there is the swing.....hit......dink, dink, dink, down the road it goes.

Cheers,

JohnE.....short for John Eldon Rimmasch, the one and only! Proud of it!

Amen, brother John.

And I'll also say as an IT techie at heart - if you really are posting slanderous information, and another party is upset at you enough to go legal at the forum, newspaper, or whatever digital media you chose to use, a fake name or ID is a pretty poor firewall for anonymous defense.

I've had to do IP tracing through corporate firewalls for clients, and the 'posters' were rather shocked that they could be fingerprinted down to the second if the firewalls and routers have active logging, and even consumer-level equipment has it now. In one relatively extreme attack case it was the ex-wife - surprised? But was she surprised by her immediate dismissal by her employer for violating company computer internet policy by posting it from work?

There's a difference between the occasional dumb comment and an actual troll. We've all seen both. I also understand that there are people who can't put their real names on a board for good reasons.

Back in the CompuServe days, we had to use real names on TrainNet, with exceptions for those who emailed the Big Boss and explained why they wanted to use a pseudonym. Only Dorr knew who was really who. Nobody got in trouble, and we all had a good time. Once AOL took over and decreed that we had to let everybody use screen names without question, things got less friendly and more chaotic.

I hate pictures of myself, but there's got to be one around here someplace if anybody needs to see what an overweight middle-aged woman with mostly gray hair and a limp looks like in person :) A few of you have had the misfortune to run into me at events. If you Google "Becky Morgan" you may come up with the Welsh golfer. Part Welsh, I am...a thin rich blonde golfer I'm not! You might want to look for Rebecca Steadman Morgan instead. As for stalkers, we had one in real life (husband's ex-boss) who didn't need the internet to cause all the trouble he wanted. The cyber kind doesn't worry me as much.

Becky -

This discussion about "real" names vs. "screen" names has come up before, and will most likely come up again. Looking a this thread got me to thinking that the Jeff Lisowski's thread idea of "Getting to know our Fellow RYPN-ers" also pretty much solved that whole problem. Jeff's idea was just to put a face with the name, fictitious or not. But what I realize now is, that it also solves that whole problem we are talking about here. If your face (real photo or "facsimile") and some info, is out there on that thread, then those of us who use RyPN can quickly find it to determine your credibility. New posters should be encouraged to add their name, face and a bit of info, to that thread. If they decline, then perhaps we can take their postings with that same logic.

Les