1) I'm with Murph Sewall on not seeing the usefulness of anonymous posts, and would be glad to see a justification for it--with a view toward building a body of opinion that says it is not conventionally acceptable and that it is OK to construct lists that prevent it. I can think of one special case, and Murph's example of an HIV discussion is an example; so for example is the Uncle Ezra counseling service at Cornell. The special case I have in mind is where *all* postings are anonymous because that is integral to the purpose of the group, as in these examples. Can people give good cases for why unsigned or anonymous postings should otherwise be allowed, and can parallel cases in the non-electronic environment be cited to bolster their case? 2) As an example of the kind of list where anonymous postings could be damaging and inflammable: tune in to the various soc.cultural....yugoslavia /serbia/bosnia/ etc. lists. People there are saying quite unpleasant and damaging things to each other even with names attached. The kind of dialogue, if one can call it that, that goes on there, if introduced into other groups without accountability, would be destructive to the group I believe. --Peter Graham, Rutgers University Libraries moderator, ExLibris