I agree, and let me be the 1rst to confess, I used to be a pear! Seriously, there is nothing wrong with criticism, contructive or otherwise, and questions and answers. Stiring up trouble for this board and cruelty are reasons for an alias, but not good reasons, as we need neither here!

This topic has gotten past press here on this board and on the national board as well.  As with most issues, I think there's more to it than just a black-and-white "alias bad, screen name good" litmus test.

I agree that the anonymous nature of an alias shouldn't be used to be a jerk and just stir the pot for stirring's sake.

But there are two kinds of TER members...  Many are completely anonymous, the providers they see don't know that they're so-and-so on TER.  For them, even their normal screen name gives any opinion they express the protection of complete anonymity.  None of what I'm about to say really applies to them.

Others are more known by their screen names.  It didn't take long before a provider, reading my review of her, figured out who I was.  As I've posted in the past threads about too much info being kept/exchanged by providers, that linkage of my real identity (name & e-mail) to OmegaZap could just as well have been distributed by the AP wire service it got around so fast.  The next 5 or 6 locals I saw all knew that OmegaZap = ***@hotmail.com = my real name = my face before I arrived.

There has been a real price to pay for that.  Guys with "known" screen names who have given providers 5s or 6s, even if deserved, get screened out by providers all the time...  It happens every day.  MDL--How many times has it happened to you where you had a rapport brewing with a promising local, and all the sudden, they lost interest in seeing you for no reason?  Guess what, you have a nice, even distribution of review scores that shows fairness and objectivity to us, but that is NOT what a provider wants to see.  I got screened out openly enough times that I had some 5 and 6 reviews removed because they were killing me locally.  I even had a case where I got stood up on an outcall deal where I paid for the room...  Turns out the provider was upset about a position I had taken in a discussion post on TER.  My political views cost me $80 in revenge.  Ask around, and you'll find there are a LOT of local hobbyists that have been harrassed or threatened with being outed because of a 5 or 6 review.  I know several myself.

My posts a few months back about the dangerous nature of information handling were taken by many as outright condemnations of Madison personally...  Rest assured that while I meant no ill will, my decision to use my screen name means that neither she, nor any member of her group of gal-pals will ever take my call again.

The point of this never-ending diatribe of mine is that the issue is just more complicated than saying aliases are bad.  Yes, aliases allow us to behave poorly.  But they also allow us to speak more openly to each other about controversial topics without the fear of having our asses jacked by an angry mob of providers.