I understand that board operators have to work to keep their system clean. Having reliable information helps to keep vegrants out, and probably improves the overall behaviour of people. However, we're not in 1990 anymore. Which is why some people are going to be concerned about disclosing any form of identifying information.
I bring up 1990 for a couple of reasons, neither reason has anything to do with the appropriateness of giving out identifying information back then (because it wasn't appropriate back then). One reason is that people are much more aware of what can be done with this information. These range from annoyances, such as being dumped into a marketing database, to criminal activity.
The second big reason is that a lot of this information hangs around for a hell of a long time. Almost everything that I did on BBSes 15 years ago is gone. The information was restricted to a BBS and it died with the BBS. Not that I did anything of interests (unless you are interested in OS/2 flame wars), but who knows how a potential employer will look at those uninteresting things. Switch over to the Internet and everything changes. All of a sudden those obscure postings on OS/2 and the Macintosh on Usenet are now public knowledge. Same with email archives for mailing lists. Keeping information is now the norm, as is placing it in a publicly accessible database. It may seem harmless enough, and in most cases it probably is. But it will help shape people's impressions of you.
So expecting real names, unless it is for very good reasons, just go to that place where little BSD daemons roam.
(Once upon a time I had Radio Shack ask me for my name, phone number, etc.. I told the guy, no. So he said, "but how are we going to inform you of all our great deals." I said, "exactly." Sometimes I just want to get something done, and not have a long term relationship. Particularly not with the marketing department.)
I bring up 1990 for a couple of reasons, neither reason has anything to do with the appropriateness of giving out identifying information back then (because it wasn't appropriate back then). One reason is that people are much more aware of what can be done with this information. These range from annoyances, such as being dumped into a marketing database, to criminal activity.
The second big reason is that a lot of this information hangs around for a hell of a long time. Almost everything that I did on BBSes 15 years ago is gone. The information was restricted to a BBS and it died with the BBS. Not that I did anything of interests (unless you are interested in OS/2 flame wars), but who knows how a potential employer will look at those uninteresting things. Switch over to the Internet and everything changes. All of a sudden those obscure postings on OS/2 and the Macintosh on Usenet are now public knowledge. Same with email archives for mailing lists. Keeping information is now the norm, as is placing it in a publicly accessible database. It may seem harmless enough, and in most cases it probably is. But it will help shape people's impressions of you.
So expecting real names, unless it is for very good reasons, just go to that place where little BSD daemons roam.
(Once upon a time I had Radio Shack ask me for my name, phone number, etc.. I told the guy, no. So he said, "but how are we going to inform you of all our great deals." I said, "exactly." Sometimes I just want to get something done, and not have a long term relationship. Particularly not with the marketing department.)