• Responding to email notices you receive.
    **************************************************
    In short, DON'T! Email notices are to ONLY alert you of a reply to your private message or your ad on this site. Replying to the email just wastes your time as it goes NOWHERE, and probably pisses off the person you thought you replied to when they think you just ignored them. So instead of complaining to me about your messages not being replied to from this site via email, please READ that email notice that plainly states what you need to do in order to reply to who you are trying to converse with.

  • IMPORTANT! PLEASE READ!! About the Google Adsense ads being displayed

    =====================
    Posted 08/15/2025
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    Yeah, I know. They are a pain in the butt. But they pay the bills to keep my server running. Just a fact of life, I am afraid.

    Want to get rid of them? Simple. Just become a Contributor level member or above and they will be gone. -> Please click HERE."

    Is that too much for me to ask of you to keep this site running? Well, sorry about that. I too wish I could get everything for free. But alas.....

    =====================
    Addendum: 01/10/2026
    =====================


    Google Adsense ad revenue for December, 2025 was just $30 over the cost of the lease for the server running this site. So, in effect, the money providing the incentive for me to continue running this site is coming SOLELY from the paid memberships and sponsorships here. Which honestly ain't much....

Creating an “elite members club” or whatever you want to name it.

Verified identity members forum

  • Yes, I would consider becoming a member

    Votes: 26 83.9%

  • No, I'd rather maintain my anonymous status

    Votes: 5 16.1%
  • Total voters
    31
  • Poll closed .
The BoidSmith

The BoidSmith

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Creating an “elite members club” or whatever you want to name it.

Regardless of the differences in opinion we all have between each others it’s nice to be able to know who we are addressing when discussing a certain topic. With the recent proliferation of anonymous posters in Fauna, would it be possible to have a forum of verified members only? This idea just crossed my mind and would like to hear what other people think about it. This question is probably more for Rich. Is there a “low-cost” possibility to have willing members register in that forum by providing verifiable documentation of their true identity? That documentation will of course be maintained private by the site’s administration. Maintaining privacy is great but as of lately this has been blatantly abused. One thing is privacy a very different one is concealed identity.

Happy New Year! :)
 
Dan,
This is essentially what many of us have been asking for, for some time.
When the rules were relaxed, and non-paying members could post in all forums, anonymous members became an undesirable by-product.

A partial move back to the old ways would effectively stop most of this, but it has been made abundantly clear by Rich that this will not happen.
 
Mike,

What I'm not proposing is not going back to the paid system. This would just be a choice for those members that want to interact with people that are not afraid to provide their true identity. Just like there's a "Hell" forum where people choose to go to do whatever they do in there, this would be a forum where it's members will know who they are interacting with. You don't provide your true identity you don't participate (and you don't get to view what's going in there).

Regards.

Regards.
 
Mike, Rich has made it abundantly clear that many things would never occur here.

Some of these things have then occured.
 
What I'm not proposing is not going back to the paid system.
Click to expand...

Double negative; not good! :)

What I'm proposing is not going back to the paid system.
 
Dan,
I understand what you are saying, and I'm not saying that it does not have merit. The downside as I see it is this. Would such a forum be of such narrow focus and participation that meaningful discussions would be of a limited nature?

The primary area on this site where one's identity is important is on the BOI.
In the "Discussion" forums, it's usually not such an issue, with the exception of course, of the blatantly anonymous posters like Shrillomn.

So to create a forum where identities are confirmed, but that is outside the scope of the BOI, would circumnavigate a large portion of the meaningful discussions on this site, in my opinion.


Wes,
You are absolutely right and I guess we should just "never say never".
 
I get the gist of what you are saying Dan and like the ideal.

But what exactly are you proposing for "documentation"?
 
I agree with the ideal of the verified identity. The one simple way of doing this is via PayPal. Just a $1.00 charge to be sure we are who we say. We then can become Fauna Verified Members or something.
 
Verifiable can be name and address for those that are in the white pages, picture ID scanned with number and address blocked but photo and name visible, or???

The PayPal is a possibility.
 
Mike,

Yours is a valid concern. But to be honest I don't really care about exchanging ideas with people who don't want to disclose their true identity. What do we gain by engaging with someone in a discussion in the BOI or elsewhere if they don't want to reveal their true identity. In fact their only goal is to antagonize other members.
 
Dan,
That is my point exactly.
If we can do a confirmed identity in a separate forum, why not take the next logical step and apply it to the BOI.
 
The BoidSmith said:
Mike,

Yours is a valid concern. But to be honest I don't really care about exchanging ideas with people who don't want to disclose their true identity. What do we gain by engaging with someone in a discussion in the BOI or elsewhere if they don't want to reveal their true identity. In fact their only goal is to antagonize other members.
Click to expand...

Indeed we have had a spate of antagonistic and anonymous posters, but it does not have to be so. Depending on the content of their post we might gain the insights that anyone gains from talking with others.

Anonymity might be done for different reasons by different people, it does not always have to be the shroud for hostility?
 
One of the first things that attracted me to fauna is that I was talking with real people, not ones hiding behind a fake name.
No matter what anyone says, if one is on the up and up there is no reason to have to hide behind a fake name. That is starting out fresh as a fraud, a fake, and in my eyes not to be taken seriously.
 
Anonymity being the topic at hand, not hostility, Rozann hit it square on the head with how much validity can you give to an individual who chooses to hide their identity.

I can agree that an anonymous posters intent may not be simply the sake of hostility, and of course assuming that one is not trying to simply bypass the ban or fine system, I am not sure how else you would define some of the direct parody of another member. For I might not find that to be hostile, but I am sure the victimized member might just have another view of it.


A "spat" of antagonistic posts are going to come with or without the verified nature of membership. Lets face it there are those people who are not going to be liked by all no matter what they do. At least they will have the comfort of know its really them that are disliked. Unless they are deluding themselves into thinking it is their false persona that people do not like.
 
Stardust said:
No matter what anyone says, if one is on the up and up there is no reason to have to hide behind a fake name.
Click to expand...

I am glad you have chosen to return to Fauna. Lately, there have been a spate of personality conflicts, with those involved being judged not on the quality of what they are saying, but on whether the reader is aligned with them or not. Perhaps some anonymity is a response to this.

Your viewpoint is refreshing, and I agree with it, that people should be able to post under their own names and not have reason to hide behind fake ones. That takes courtesy, kindness, and the thoughtfulness to judge each post for its own merits.
 
lucille said:
Your viewpoint is refreshing, and I agree with it, that people should be able to post under their own names and not have reason to hide behind fake ones. That takes courtesy, kindness, and the thoughtfulness to judge each post for its own merits.
Click to expand...
Complete and utter nonsense. Once one is proven to be a troll, untrustworthy, able to change anothers written word to change the meaning of a post(taking you for an example), deletes the posts one disagrees with because it puts one in a negative light to have truth told (hmmm again with you, but I digress), says one thing and does another, one should be known for doing such, not have it swept under the rug and hidden away from newcomers. In the same vien, one who is brusque or not kind to those who stoop so low should also be known for that, as those who tell the truth should be known for that.

Kindness has nothing to do with honesty. To judge each and every post as an individual being is ludicrous at best. The history of a poster lends weight to whether or not ANY post should merit credence or laughter, whether one should believe what any one poster has stated, THIS TIME, as opposed to what they said LAST TIME (chumpco comes to mind for this scenario), and without knowing of the flipflops and WHO is supported or, more importantly, NOT supported consistently, any weight of merit must be suspect for lack of substance.

Maybe in your hello kitty world where all the cute and fuzzies use the box you so nicely put out and clean so regularly it works that way, but that is a world I would be loathe to reside it. Vanilla is fine and dandy (heh heh heh) but I like chocolate and strawberry too.

Sometimes it's kinder to say, "I don't think you're telling the truth," or "you are absolutely wrong," than it is to let someone traipse merrily along thinking they have pulled the figurative wool over the figurative eyes of real life readers.

Whether it's kinder or not, I see it as the right thing to do.
 
Thank you Lucille.
I am glad you took an actually stance (IE 3 or 4 make a few, you did not, yes I still read :) )
I do however understand that law school can and does at some point allow one to look at all sides until ones own side is lost. As I have been there myself, I am glad to see you are getting past that, lol.

Back on topic, when one deliberately comes to a site known for giving their real name I can not help but think that the anonymous person is here, no matter the facade, for no good and drama.
 
Why would I be inclined to recreate that wheel again?

The original impetus behind requiring paid memberships to post on the BOI was exactly for this reason. And we all saw how well that was received by the teeth mark scars on my butt. And I believe there was much more incentive for someone to become verified in order to post on the BOI than anything else that could be offered here. So quite frankly, I don't see where any minimal gains made would be worth the effort I would need to expend in order to get there.

Sorry, but no, I am not willing to do the sort of work being proposed for free to verify anyone. Which, I believe is what is being asked here. I believe I have already GIVEN sufficiently of my free time to this site. And yes, MANY other ways were proposed when I was discussing going to the paid membership requirement for posting on the BOI. All of them involved time and work for someone, most likely me. The paid membership requirement proved capable, if not well received, and most of all automated, so it didn't take an enormous amount of time and effort on my part. But still, it FAILED.

As for the $1 fee proposed, after PayPal's cut, I get something like 67 cents. It's just not worth having to file taxes and keep track of all those line items...... That is why I originally chose that $10 Participant level membership as the MINIMUM threshhold.

So in a nutshell, it is up to you to choose who you wish to give credence to. If you are so inclined, simply use the current paid membership system as a guide..... That's completely up to you.
 
Al, perhaps a personal forum, one in which you could verify identity and thereby grant or deny access is the solution to your problem.
 
:rofl: Webslave, are you saying you do not want to file for over 50,000 .67 on your taxes? :rofl:
Such a small sacrifice too! :dgrin:
 
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