As I outlined in "Emily Litella"'s post above, I marked myself as author of that post by using my email address. That can be faked too, of course, but Arrell correctly matched the IP address. Perhaps there's a definitional problem over the label "fake"?

Why did I do it that way? You should read my message in context. I'm replying to the subject line/message combination:

"I'm going to continue to challenge the idiots."

Careful, you can get into trouble doing that here....

That's pretty clearly a message covertly addressed to me by allusion to the past epic pissing contests with RL. The last thing in the world I'm inclined to do is take the bait and waste my time with another pissing contest. Instead, I chose to poke a little fun at the irony of Arrell posting a message at the HabitableZone complaining that his right to free speech is constrained.

A more serious purpose, of course, is to continue to challenge the false and unfair claim that I censor the speech of Zoners. Arrell knows full well that it was the problem of abusive speech, not free speech, that got him crosswise with me. Here he's trying to convince Art that he can get into trouble for grousing about Lee's posts, and while I'm confident that Art knows better, I also know that letting too many of those little snipes pass uncontested can, over time, erode confidence in free speech at the Zone.

I rassled with the question of how to sign the message. Using my own name would be an invitation to another epic pissing contest because Arrell would see it as a direct challenge. Using a psuedonym seemed, at the time at least, a way to soften the message and put it in a somewhat humorous context. Then I was faced with coming up with a psuedonym. Nothing came to mind as at all relevant, and so I fell back on simply reversing "ARRELL" to, in essence, bind the two messages in a sort of moebius loop.

So, Tom, your objections are as follows:

--fake name used for specific targeting of another poster

--fake name too similar to a real handle. There may be cases where something like this can be legitimately used for satirical or humorous purposes, but in those cases, most posters have identified themselves in the body of the post.

Well, as I described in my confession, I am guilty of choosing a fake handle specifically because it was related to "Arrell". I've explained my reasons for the choice, so what's your verdict?