Real name for CZ forums too?

[christian liem]

Does the real name policy also extend to the Citizendium Forums? I just saw someone registering with the name "prescottbush". But I guess Bush is quite a common surname, and Prescott, well, not that common, but still possible.

[Nancy Sculerati]

I think it should be a requirement for the forums. The forums, I thought, represent the discussion forum for work on the wiki and for the formation of the organization.

[Royalist0007]

I don't think it should be a requirement to have a real names policy here in the forum.I have used the first part of my email address as my user name,so I naturally sign my name at the bottom of each posting.Perhaps,this should be a requirement.

What do you think? Your views please.

Aidan.

[Zachary Pruckowski]

I don't think it should be a requirement to have a real names policy here in the forum.I have used the first part of my email address as my user name,so I naturally sign my name at the bottom of each posting.Perhaps,this should be a requirement.

What do you think? Your views please.

Aidan.

I feel like their needs to be some way to associate username here with username on the wiki.  I mean, these forums aren't for idle chit-chat, they're for working on CZ (either articles or policy), and so it makes sense to do real names in some way, whether that's via signing your post or via your username.

[Larry Sanger]

I think it should be a requirement for the forums. The forums, I thought, represent the discussion forum for work on the wiki and for the formation of the organization.

Well and concisely stated.  If real names are required on the wiki, and these forums are the discussion forum for wiki work, thne why aren't they required here as well?

(The historical answer is: because we didn't take the time to state and enforce the requirement. :-/

[analytikone]

If real names were required on this forum too, the Citizendium community might miss some useful discussions with people who are not enthusiastic about making their name public for "honest" reasons, that is reasons other than the pursuit of impunity. Or with people who still have some doubts about the nature of the enterprise and would like to submit them to the community before deciding to join Citizendium with their real name. Moreover, it seems to me that there has been so far no disruptive behavior on this forum, anonymity notwithstanding. Keeping this only interface with the pro-anonymity internet users might afford some interesting insights to Citizendium.

Anyway, before my time on this forum expires, I will seize this opportunity to propose a possible alternative for the real names policy of Citizendium (it is very much possible that someone has made some analogous proposal before, so I apologize beforehand: unfortunately at the moment I am too busy to read the other threads): an author (maybe not an editor or a constable) might be allowed to contribute to the wiki under a nickname, provided that he or she has given his or her real data to the "constabulary".

Among other things, this solution could allow a presumably numerous category of learned people to join the project more light-heartedly: people who are not bold enough to contribute to Citizendium under their real names because of the conjunction of their perfectionism and scarce spare time. 

P.S.: By the way, on page 11 of "Biology" it should be "hierarchy" instead of "heirarchy" (of course this friendly, trivial notation is not meant as an illustration of the previous theses).

[Zachary Pruckowski]

IAnyway, before my time on this forum expires, I will seize this opportunity to propose a possible alternative for the real names policy of Citizendium (it is very much possible that someone has made some analogous proposal before, so I apologize beforehand: unfortunately at the moment I am too busy to read the other threads): an author (maybe not an editor or a constable) might be allowed to contribute to the wiki under a nickname, provided that he or she has given his or her real data to the "constabulary".

For what it's worth we have such a system.  A person can apply to the constabulary for a pseudonym.  They would then use the pseudonym here and on the wiki, using information that is accurate in magnitude but inaccurate in details.

[David Tribe]

Can we approach this softly by saying in a few places that use of real names as FORUM usednames is strongly encouraged. A note on the signup portal could do this, also the welcome template

[Versuri]

Can we approach this softly by saying in a few places that use of real names as FORUM usednames is strongly encouraged. A note on the signup portal could do this, also the welcome template

I believe that the signature (or nickname) used in CZ is sufficient.

[Stephen Ewen]

I think it would be great if, in their signature, CZ editors would place a link to their userpage. This way one can in a glance know more of "who they are talking to". Can we make this a formal request at some point?

[Larry Sanger]

I see and support a lot of good ideas here.  Feature requests (with more research done in advance the better, and the smaller and more elegant the better) can be sent to bugs@citizendium.org.  I am particularly supportive of saying at sign-up that people are strongly urged to use the same name on the forums that they use on the wiki.

I'm also strongly in favor of telling people, in the various relevant places, at least to use their real name as an "alias" if not their login ID--and to provide a link to their user page.  I'll go ahead and do that myself now!