To throw in yet another wrench, do we need to worry about maintaining anonymity when it is always entirely possible that the "John Smith" we are quoting could be any one of a thousand John Smith's out in the cybergalaxy.
A strange question, coming from Christian Nelson. http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&q=christian+nelson Your smiling mug pops up as the first hit on this particular search. Perhaps you (and Nancy Baym, and I, for that matter) are pareticularly priveleged. But it seems to me to be fairly clear that for works which leave behind a public archival text, and that are associateed with a real- or a net-identity, we are ethically compelled not to quote them word for word without proper citation and fair-use provision. Much as I wanted to show this example with some of Nancy's own work, Google Groups doesn't (yet) go back to the 1992 that her online work quotes[1], and I don't have a convenient copy of her book. This is different, I suppose, than interviews or discussions on private online social spaces, which are--er, "more" anonymous. [1] Say, in http://www.ascusc.org/jcmc/vol1/issue2/baym.html, which includes several extensive, creative works quoted largely in their entirety.
How can we breach someone's anonymity by simply citing their name when anyone can sign any name to an E-mail with complete impunity--i.e., when someone can deny they were a researcher's subject by simply claiming that the researcher quoted an E-mail by someone who illegitimately used the name in question?
Because we shouldn't put people into the position of needing to deny that it was them that was quoted. ("Um, it came from my email, but really, that two year discussion about the kinky sex with the researcher HAD to be an intruder!"). This one seems fairly straightforward, to me: it is easy to generate more identities, but fairly hard to steal others'. Danyel who is glad he has a name that blends into the background and can't be found on google.