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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Huckleberries Online

Mailbag: Dealing With Online Imposters

Cynsmw: Last night someone impersonated me on this blog. I believe imposters can do more damage to a blog or chatroom than even trolls. Trolls can be ignored but imposters erode trust in an already fragile semi-anonymous forum. My policy toward imposters on my blog is zero tolerance. An imposter is banned. Period. DFO's policy is to send the imposter a warning; essentially a free pass. How would you feel if someone used your name and posted goodness knows what? What do you think the policy should be toward an imposter?

DFO: Cymsmw makes a good point here. Someone posted an item using her pseudonym a coupla nights ago that I've since killed. She was upset last night that I didn't slap a permanent ban on the individual via his/her IP address. Mebbe I should have. Then, I have embraced, as a default position, a policy the eschews permanent bans. Also, I've had only one other problem with an imposter, during the heated Mitchell-Amaro days. A Tinfoiler went over the top. I've dealt with this problem via private e-mail. However, anyone who tries to pull this stunt in the future might find that I'm not as understanding as I've been to this point.



Huckleberries Online

D.F. Oliveria started Huckleberries Online on Feb. 16, 2004. Oliveria's Sunday print Huckleberries is a past winner of the national Herb Caen Memorial Column contest.