Break the forum rules? You're now a Felon...

Yes, Richard, I am indeed a coal-burning lawyer, admitted to practice in 3 states actually. And, while it's kind of you to point out the potentially personal connection with some of the emotional generalizations which are cast about from time to time here (as they are elsewhere), I don't take them personally, at least in part because nobody here has ever been either a client or adversary of mine.

The statute you found is interesting. More and more forums are requiring people to use their real ID's because it tends to dampen some of the "hot language" which can get thrown around when people feel they can remain anonymous. And, in the case of the teen suicide, one might reasonably conclude that, if the teen had known that the harasser was her neighbor's mother, things likely would have been stopped sooner, and if the mother had known that her identity was going to be exposed, she would have been deterred from the despicable course of harassment which brought about the suicide.

Stocking, what type of law do you practice?

stockingfull wrote: More and more forums are requiring people to use their real ID's ...

The only way that I could think of that be enforced is either with a credit card e.g. and require a nominal fee for registration, require a scan of your drivers license and the site owner would have to send a "land letter" to the recipient with some kind of confirmation or use a phone verification. The last is quite interesting and I have done it twice already, I can only assume they match the phone record to the registration name. That wasn't for for a forum registration but for business purposes in both cases. They put a code on the website page and you hit the submit button to receive phone call You just have to then verify the code on the phone. Was kind of surreal...

Neither of these three is really 100% either except for maybe the credit card. Other than it not being accurate it also raises the issue of many people not registering. I'd imagine very few people would feel comfortable joining most sites if such personal information had to be given out.

Forums like this and elsewhere are a double edged sword, they encourage participation because of the openness and ease of using them but on the downside it's also easier for someone to use them in ways not intended.

kootch88 wrote:Stocking, what type of law do you practice?

I do "civil" (i.e., not criminal, and not domestic) and admiralty litigation, both plaintiff and defense.

Richard, I wasn't suggesting that you implement the ID thing, rather that anonymity happens to go hand in hand with the heightened "bluster factor." What my unscientific observations have shown is that, the more local a forum is, the more attention needs to be paid to "civility," since there is a greater chance that people might actually, ahem, "run into" each other. There's a local news forum where I am that recently went to real ID's to tone it down a notch, presumably for that reason (not that I'm aware of any incident).

Anonymity is the true beauty of the internet. Like I can say (fictional story) "hey funny story, my hunting buddy who claims he's hunted Grizzlies with his bare hands saw a black bear cub when we were fishing and he *censored* his pants and cried for his mommy" Now that is a relatively harmless anecdote when anonymous, if I put my real name on it his reputation could be ruined in the community.