[R] Unsigned Posts; Was Setting graphical parameters

[Jim Lemon]

On 03/05/2010 04:11 AM, Bert Gunter wrote:
> Folks:
>
> Rolf's (appropriate, in my view) response below seems symptomatic of an
> increasing tendency of posters to hide their identities with pseudonyms and
> fake headers. While some of this may be due to identity paranoia (which I
> think is overblown for this list), I suspect that a good chunk of it is lazy
> students trying to beat the system by having us do their homework. The
> etiquette of this list has traditionally been, like the software, open: we
> sign our names. I would urge helpeRs to adhere to this etiquette and ignore
> unsigned posts.
>
> Contrary views welcome, either via public or private responses.
>
Hi Bert (and anyone else who wishes to read this),

I had a working hypothesis about this, but decided to check the data 
before replying. Looking at the ten most recent obvious pseudonyms, all 
were from free email accounts like gmail or yahoo. A few of these 
included all or part of the name of the user anyway. As such accounts 
tend to be used for lots of things, the users may well be concerned 
about identification, even if everyone on the R help list is of the 
highest moral standing. I think Rolf's guess about the provenance of the 
request was based upon the carefully copied format, which Blind Freddie 
could see was homework (and the requester actually admitted it!). 
Personally, I never answer requests that have the due date for the 
assignment at the bottom.

Jim