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Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!goutal
From: goutal@decvax.UUCP (Kenneth G. "Kenn" Goutal)
Newsgroups: net.followup
Subject: Re: signatures
Message-ID: <147@decvax.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 29-Jul-83 08:50:48 EDT
Article-I.D.: decvax.147
Posted: Fri Jul 29 08:50:48 1983
Date-Received: Fri, 29-Jul-83 13:34:36 EDT
References: <113@citcsv.UUCP>
Organization: DEC UNIX Engineering, Merrimack, NH
Lines: 27

(With reference to person who doesn't like first-name-only signatures:)

Oh, bother!  I generally use only my first name because my last name is
included in my Usenet address.  Or sometimes I don't include my username
because it's the same as my last name (well, except for initial case).
But there are some folks who don't have that dubious advantage
who don't sign with their last names (Mark Horton and Lauren Weinstein
come to mind), and I'm not about to suggest they stop.
Surnames are a relatively recent invention, and one of the more popular
types of surnames are place names, or expressions thereof.
Perhaps it's a folk etymology that like "O'Foo" come from "Of Foo".
Anyhow, I have no trouble thinking about certain people by the names
they happen to be assigned by the net, or that they take.
It took me a while to realize that cbosgd!mark had another name (Horton),
and, for me, that was just his name.  Just like "REM@MIT-MC"
(Robert Elton Maas, it turns out) or sun!kas (Karen Shannon) stolaf!borman
(beats me!  To me, that's his name!).

The net (*any* net) is a different culture.
It is not mainstream American culture, nor the mainstream of any other
continent or nation.  It is derived, of course, as are all cultures,
from those that came before, and it is influenced by outside cultures.
But it is its own.  When in Rome, do as the Romans do.
When on the net, do as the netlanders do,
which is pretty much as you please, as long as it isn't nasty.

-- Kenn (decvax!)goutal