December 07, 2009 09:34 AM UTC

Tactcs, Ethics, and Acceptable Use on ColoradoPols.com

•  
• by: JO

I ran across this “signature” line, or whatever it’s called, recently on this site:

“I would never want to be part of a club that would have you as a member” — JO  

1. There’s only one “JO” who appears here, it’s me; if there’s another famous “JO” I’d like to know who it is. (Maybe it’s me too.)

2. The quotation marks imply that I wrote the words; that’s what quotation marks are used for in the English language, for anyone who was absent from school the day that was taught.

3. While that statement may–may–be true for me in the case of the individual using it for a “signature,” I’m not aware of having written it.

4. No need to be uptight, although I’m not eager to have people in general attributing quotations to me that I didn’t write. Some might be flattered to have a supposed quotation adapted by a pseudononymous user in this particular way. In this particular case…. well, I don’t think this particular technicolor user was trying to pay a compliment, and I’m hardly flattered to be associated with the rest of this particular sigline. If he/she needs, I did provide some suitable descriptive terms in a posting the other day. Feel free, with attribution.

If that practice is okay with the proprietors of this site, especially when it references contributors to this site, then LET IT BE KNOWN RIGHT HERE. It certainly entertains a lot more interesting possibilities: made-up quotes attributed to other site users as part of sign-off lines. Hmmmmm.

[Note that silence implies consent in Anglo-American jurisprudence.]