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[RC] Complaints and anonymity - k s swigartHeidi said: I respect your right to an opinion, but by golly, I've never seen Lynne post something that she didn't own up to by signing her name. This is, of course, by definition true. If Lynne (or anybody else) were to post something anonymously, nobody would ever know. For all we know, THESE comments are from Lynne :) :) :). Which may be why Lynne knows who it is. :). The problem, of course, with anonymous reports is that they must, by their very nature, be heavily discounted. No report can be completely understood, or given credence, without taking into consideration the point of reference. As Einstein (generally speaking) demonstrated in his theory of relativity, that the same thing can be measured differently simply by having a different point of view and can only be measured in relation (which is why it is called "relativity") to each other (e.g. despite the fact that my computer monitor is hurtling through space, relative to the sun, at a phenominal rate of speed, don't ask me what it is, to ME it looks stationary because I am hurtling through space, relative to the sun, at the same speed). It makes virtually NO sense to give credence to ANY observation unless you know the reference point of the observer. And while this anonymous observer has given some clues as to reference point (e.g. s/he has claimed to have been AT the ride, although, this, too, might be total fabrication and there is no way to validate it), anonymity, by its very nature will lead almost everybody to discount those observations (and rightly so). People who post anonymously are ASKING to have their observations/opinions discounted to the extent that their points of view are unidentifiable. This does not, however, mean that every "ride evaluation" must be identified by name, just that the recipient of the evaluation is perfectly entitled to (and probably ought to)take any such comments with a grain of salt. The advantage of distributing and collecting evaluation forms AT a ride, is that you are fairly well assured of the form coming from somebody who actually DID attend the ride. If the form can be filled out afterwards online, it is entirely possible that the form was completed and submitted by somebody who didn't attend the ride at all, but heard about it third hand from somebody whose friend's cousin read about it in an anonymous post to Ridecamp :). AND it is also possible that all of the anonymous evaluations (even if they aren't the same) to come from the same person who thought it would be cute or funny to yank somebody's chain in this way. :) Very easy to "stuff the ballot box" so to speak. Unless anonymous evaluations contain some constructive evaluation that bears some resemblance to some identifiable source's observation of what happened, or might have happened, it is perfectly reasonable to entirely discount them (in fact, it is a little unreasonable NOT to :)). kat Orange County, Calif. ============================================================ REAL endurance is your water freezing IN the cantle bags! ~ Heidi Sowards ridecamp.net information: http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/ ============================================================
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