anonymous postings

[Martin Maechler]

>>>>> "Globe" == Globe Trotter <itsme_410 at yahoo.com>
>>>>>     on Thu, 2 Mar 2006 08:23:38 -0800 (PST) writes:

    Globe> Thanks! I will not give my e-mail address (hence the
    Globe> real name and affiliation), until the R-newsgroup
    Globe> moderators stop saving e-mail addresses to the
    Globe> archive, for spiders to pick up easily.

As we have explained repeatedly, this is not so easy.
The R-help mailing list is archived in several different formats by
different pieces of software,  and all of the archivers would
have to remove the e-mail addresses  {and yes, I agree there's
the specifically the point that for mailman's pipermail, there's
no such option, apart from the simple replacement of the at-sign

HOWEVER, and this is my main point:  Even if you use an anonymized
E-mail address, why can't you decently give your real name and
address (w/o E-mail or other URL course !) in your signature?

Similarly to Brian, I'm much more reluctant to help people who
don't exist :-) 
 -- who knows, maybe you're a computer program who has just
passed the Turing test  :-)

Martin Maechler, ETH Zurich