I dropped out of a certain railroad historical group's forum because it required full name, location, email address, etc. If this data is only visible to registered members, that might be ok. My fear (which may or may not be realistic-could be my Internet ignorance at work) is that a Google search would reveal all this info to a certain ex-relative (in-law), who's been on the run from the law for years...and blames this on others (including me), not himself. Why would I want that information to be freely available? Yes, there are other ways for said malcontent to find out where we live...but why make it easier?

Again-if I am displaying ignorance of how this might work on rypn.org, I stand corrected.

I use my nickname, just because I use it on every forum.

Real name is Will Gant. In case anyone was curious. Engineer up at the Georgetown Loop. I read here more then I post.

Same here. I've had it since the earliest days of message boards like this (as it's also my e-mail address prefix). Had I given it more thought, I'd have picked a name or at least a real word...

my name is Chris soucy and I am a cabinet maker and finish carpenter who knows absolutely nothing about trains. I joined this forum to learn about what you guys are passionate about and gain insite as to what you want with a piece of our city's history. after this post I will disappear and never return to this site again. I never meant to cause trouble. I hope you are able to raise the money and make this work. if you are sucessful you can guarantee ill be there with my kids to support you. however with that being said, I have reservations about whether it will actually transpire and do not want to see our city lose this history. if it stays we will not throw house paint on it. thats ridiculous. research would be done and satin impervo or some paint recommended would be used. anyway, again I hope it works out for you guys. I was very impressed with your website and do agree with the suggestion that the town should just donate the 470 to you guys or sell it for a dollar but not until youre serious about starting the restoration. good luck. ill be following along from the sidelines.

and oh yeah. semp is short for semper fidelis its my screen name everywhere. not a fake name

semp -

I applaud your concern about Waterville losing the 470. If more folks in Waterville had taken your attitude through the years, maybe things would not have come to this point. But come to this point they have. Hopefully the group trying to secure the 470 can come up with a program to bring the 470 back to Waterville on a regular basis once it is restored to service. You might want to consider joining NESCO so that your voice can be heard. Might well be worth the few bucks spent.

Les

Maybe semp is gone for good and won't read this, but I think some of the suspicion is because of another person who joins under assumed names and doesn't use capitalization or punctuation.

Proper grammar and composition goes a long way toward helping to establish credibility. I am more likely to believe someone who knows how to construct a paragraph than someone who does not.

Well, I don't post much here, and I may have phrased a thing or two in a fashion that I later regretted, (everybody that never ever did that holdup your hand now, OK, I see exactly zero hands).

I don't post with my real name because;

I have a unique name (Kevin J Klees) and I am the only one in the USA. Also the only one with multiple patents listed in the US patent office (just a little plug so folks might give some weight to my meager postings).

I like my privacy, there are several internet sites out there where if you enter my name a Satellite picture of my residence pops up (yikes). These are sites that buy access to public records (mortgages, marriages, deeds, etc) and the really annoying thing is they (the local government) charges you to record these details and then they SELL them for more money. These internet sites also buy satellite image data and put them together and point right to you (kinda of a karma thing here, I help build the satellites that capture these images). They leave out the exact street address, but I'm on a dead end street with a dozen plus houses and mine is the only tan one with a concrete driveway. It sticks out like a sore thumb.

I had to hire another internet site to go around and look for my name and get these references removed (the sites have to remove the info if you request it, but the default is they get to post whatever they've got). And I had to ask "Google Earth" to blur the street view of my residence, you could see just about everything, including the make and color of our vehicles parked in the driveway when they went by. If somebody wanted to "rub me out" they couldn't have an easier task.

I never hid my real name to make snide remarks, just for privacy.

And no, I am not hiding from; bill collectors, bail bondsmen, ex-wive's, alleged children, the FBI, etc.

We do occasionally get phone calls from "the law" looking for the wife's ex brother in law (he allegedly broke a few laws, actually quite a few laws) simply because her previous married name (which matches the alleged "perp") pops up in a database someplace and her previous married name is linked to this house (marriage licenses list the "before marriage" names). This individual "on the lamb" has never ever been at our location.

Cheers, Kevin.

It's a matter of personal preference, at least in my case i'm not hiding from anybody. I own a 1924 +/- Portugese (Oporto) meter guage trolley car #516, so I thought it would make a good screen name.

Someones name does not make any difference as you have no way to verify they are actually that person. What is important is the content, or information contained in the comment or post.

I just did a Google search of my name, amazing what comes up, business contacts, wife & kids info, Facebook crap, etc. etc. Sorry but it doesn't interest me to open myself up even more to whatever wierdo, Nigerian scammer, etc. comes along on the internet superhighway.

Anybody that has to know who the poster is can always P.M. them. In my case I will be happy to give you my contact info and my last name. I will also give you my home address if you want to drop by either for a friendly chat, or to start trouble (I'm one NRA member that will finish it for you :).

BTW I also wound up saving West Penn car body #32 a 1924 Cincinatti curvedsider from the scrapper. Both cars have nice indoor storage, until I get to them.

Bill (Im not telling :p )

Here we have the opposite extreme: good traffic but nothing is actually about preservation. It's all straphangers talking generalities about nothing.

It used to be 2-3 things on page one were actually pro to pro dialogues about doing it. Now, commonly, there are none at all.

It makes me think there is a forum somewhere they all have moved to, and i just haven't been invited yet.

By John Galt, probably.

Agreed, and lots of other people too, including some baddies.

What is also plausible is the scenario fleshed out in the first episode or two of "Caprica", where data about a person and left behind by them is sufficient to create a passable simulacrum of their personality. Maybe not quite as spectacular, but enough to target ads or criminal profile you, surely.

Names be it your full name or some other name you hide behind wont solve the problem either way. If you tell the truth there will always be an ex- spert with or with out their real name there to try and prove they are right regardless of what you know to be right. I have learnt the hard way that you can only tell the truth as you know it. Forget all those who then will shoot at you as it's the silent majority who will actually understand you.

All this actually limits what the most knolagable people can tell and in that seance Rly PN is no different to any other forum. I have to agree with some that the actual topics here have strayed away more from the technical subjects which brought me here in the first place and why I have made few posts recently.

RYPN used to have a lot of potential, as a place to get answers to technical questions quickly to those who needed information.

But nowadays it is quicker and easier to use the PM function to get the information directly to the person who requests it, without the need for a public debate.

And in that scenario, screen names are not important, what matters is the information.

PC

I'll do you guys one better, and provide a picture, though not exactly current:



There is a method to my madness... Googling my name, I find there are already more photos of people who are NOT me than of the real me... and I figure the more, the merrier.

Absolutely.

And no forum owner wherever can really ensure your details won't finally find their way to google. As well as no one can be sure the "real name" you read in a forum is always the real name.

I use a nickname because the real life risks count so much stronger than a possible fictitious "gain of credibility" in this or another forum. I am quite new here, yet I found two or three names I had contact with in another steam-related community. So if I should ever need to seek "credibility" here, I will seek contact to them over other ways than this forum.

Not to be misinterpreted: This surely means in no way any criticism towards this very forum, but I always go MY safety first.

Mike