At TECFAMOO we probably will take the option of making available a persons e-mail address. This insures in the owners opinion accountability of users acts and more importantly it reduces the amount of monitoring needed.
A different stance can be taken as shown by a message posted by Richelieu on *MOOteach@DU (21 and 24, Jan 14 94):
--------------------------------------------------------------------------- To tell the truth, I don't really like the idea of a student player class at all (except maybe for young students), and I really don't like the idea that teachers should have absolute control over what their students can and can't do here. This place isn't just a teaching environment, it should be a learning environment too, and the more you restrict what a student can do, the less likely they are to want to learn what you're trying to teach them, and the less able they are to learn anything else. This is a brave new world, and I find it really distressing that people seem to be falling back into RL preconceptions and ideas about control. Having lived in MOOs for a long time now, I've found that even the more unruly people can usually be dealt with in much more effectively if not simply grouped into one big category of "troublemakers" and locked in shackles. And I also don't believe the point of Diversity University should not be to allow a captive audience for someone because they can't control their students in RL. Now, I do believe that some things are good ideas. There should be the ability for a teacher to make their classroom page-proof, and prevent similar disruptive influences from outside, and to be able to identify anyone they are responsible for (this does not necessarily mean all their students. By responsibility I mean primarily all characters with a group RL email account, since registered email addresses are the primary form of responsibility enforceable by the wizards). It must also, of course, be possible for a teacher to ensure that they're dealing with who they think they're dealing with when it comes to grades and such. Beyond this, I am strongly in favor of anonymity for anyone who desires it (please keep in mind that the wizards always have access to the information, and if there are problems, they are the ones who should be handling it anyway, so irresponsibility is not an issue here). The ability to be anonymous often results in people who are more likely to try new things, voice their opinions, ask questions, and generally experiment, particularly in the areas of social interaction, ideological preconceptions, psychological issues, and other things that they wouldn't necessarily feel comfortable dealing with in a RL environment, and I don't think that we should be so limited in our goals as to ignore this as a valuable potential part of D.U.s environment. I speak from experience in this respect, not only regarding others I have known but regarding myself as well. Moreover, lack of anonymity has a significant effect on how people perceive this virtual space that they're in. If user information is available, people inevitably use it, and this place simply becomes a bunch of people with masks on, not real at all. With anonymity comes a much more real social structure and a feeling that one is part of something that isn't simply a game or a computer program somewhere, but a real society, which often leads to a very real sense of belonging (often, in the case of people who are normally troublemakers, for people who otherwise don't feel that they belong very much of anywhere), and a feeling of social responsibility to _their_ society. While it is inevitably true that we will get our share of troublemakers and problem people, this will, for the most part, be unaffected by whether people are anonymous or not, and the treatment of real problem people will not be significantly improved by lack of anonymity anyway. I strongly believe that the ability of the individual to choose can not only significantly improve the academic atmosphere, but can lead to a better understanding of this new environment, and a much more mature attitude towards the MOO and the people in it. [...] [...] my point comes down to this: I have been in places that have complete anonymity and places that have very little. I have found almost exclusively that the places with anonymity are more interesting, have more discussion on a wider range of issues, and have a wider range of people and experiences available. It is my belief that this is the type of place that Diversity University should be, and it is my belief that a lack of anonymity is an unnecessary measure that would only serve to hinder this. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In some cases anonymity has clear advantages. Like ceejay notes on *MOOteach@DU (27, Jan 14 94) there are cases where anonymity is necessary or an advantage:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------- [...] an example might be a group of students for a class on human sexuality. in an ideal society i should be able to walk into this class and say that i am bisexual without having to worry about the other students. however, i have been in classes where i was told that bisexuals were untrustworthy. i could not reveal my sexuality in this class without having my opinions of everything else colored by it. another argument for anonymity would be so that another student is not prejudiced by what obvious characteristics make up who i am. for example on a mud i can play a male or female character, or a character with no gender that corresponds to genders in real life. like it or not, there is a great deal of stereotyping by gender in life. my field experience instructor appears to believe that females decide to stop liking math in junior high because they (the students) don't think it will make them appear feminine enough. in my women's studies class, it was believed that men could not discuss the topic because they just couldn't understand. [...] ---------------------------------------------------------------------------