Re: Should the _Times_ be anonymous?

Jay Gischer (gischer@puget.mti.sgi.com)
Tue, 23 Aug 94 11:34:18 -0700

Rich Skrenta writes:
> > Of course, suggestion 2 (include ID of char credited) won't work without
> > another change. Forgers will just credit whoever they want folks to
> > believe really posted it. You'd have to change the format to:
> >
> > Subject: credit <id#> <password>
>
> Another way of donig it would be to have the Times submissions
> come from inside the turn orders, as POSTs currently do. Thus,
> you get the goldd when you issue your TIMES order, and it's
> attributed to the character that issued the order.
>

But this means that the GM can't preprocess Times submissions, which
makes the turnaround time for the turn longer.

Scott Turner writes:
> Unless I'm missing something, Times posts can already be
> authenticated. If you care to sign your name to your posts, people
> can certainly e-mail you and ask "was that really you?", at which
> point you can authenticate the message.
>
This isn't the same. You could post a message, and then deny posting
it, and thus create a disinformation campaign against yourself, to
garner sympathy or to falsify a causus belli.

Now this sounds like great fun, but it don't sound like authenticated
postings.

It seems to me that there already is a mechanism for character-authenticated
messages, namely the MESSAGE command, which also preserves the
anonymity of the faction, and player. Perhaps we could add a MESSAGE
ALL capability. And by the way, may I suggest an ENDMESSAGE command?
This will greatly reduce the number of errors in use of message it
seems to me, versus line counting.

MESSAGE ALL
Dewey, Cheatham, and Howe annouces the opening of
LITIGATIONS R US.
ENDMESSAGE

-j


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