J. P. Gilliver (John) said:
No, he changed his _name_.
You don't know what "nym" means? Comes from pseudoNYM, not from
anoNYMous.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudonym
Some users consider the comment field alone (usually a name) as the
[pseudo]nym. That means a poster could, for example, keep the same name
but cycle through an indefinite series of e-mail addresses and
supposedly be considered the same poster. If you saw "John" (providing
you had a means of identifying the same John poster) using a different
e-mail address on every one of his posts, you don't think he's trying to
evade filters? By using a non-descript comment field which is useless
in searches and constantly changing the e-mail address means he is
deliberately NOT generating a trackable or historical persona.
Some consider the nym as comment+email (i.e., the e-mail field is
included). If they cycle through different comments (names) or e-mails
then those are seen as different posters. "John" <email1> is not the
same as "John" <email2>.
I have heard of few that consider the nym as only represented by the
e-mail field. That is, "John <email1> is considered the same as "Sarah"
<email1> is the same as "DocsForSale" <email1>. That's a nymshifter who
forgot to update both the comment (name) and e-mail fields but will
probably get around to it. The exception is when the e-mail field is a
bogus value that is shared by many, like invalid@invalid or
(e-mail address removed) or other unimaginative and commonly used string.
Their server won't permit a blank e-mail field in the From header.
I tend towards the latter scheme but realize that *occasionally* users
do change their e-mail address; however, the suggestion is they use a
munged or invalid e-mail address to avoid spambot harvesting so they
don't really have to change it. It isn't directly tied to a real e-mail
address. There are tons of posters with different comment field values
(names) that use the same bogus but common e-mail address so you can
only differentiate them by the comment field (name).
Because I lean towards the comment+email definition of nym as how a
persona is identified in Usenet, "John Adams <email>" is different than
"J Adams <email>" as is "Jussi <email>". The email value was the same
but the comment field changed in the From header. Would you also
consider it the same persona for posts under "John" <email1>, "John"
<email2>, and "John" <email3>? Since you consider that the same email
string but different comment strings equate to the same persona then you
would also have to equate different email strings with the same comment
as the same persona. Twould be difficult to define persona based on
"sometimes the comment changes, sometimes the email changes, but somehow
they're the same persona" rule.
Unless there is a reason to ignore a portion of the From header, that's
what I go by. Their nym is comment+email. Hey, that's what THEY
configured their client to use and both were arbitrary and both were
specified. Both fields are how they defined their presence, not just
one.
While the OP nymshifted, it doesn't look like it was to evade
identification of a persona. It's more of a lack of deligence in
maintaining a persona.
Unless quoted and snipped a few times.
Which means somehow your post that got quoted disappeared from the
thread. Since they quoted you, your post is still in the [sub]thread.
Anyone can change anything in the quoted content in THEIR post. Seems a
rather unreliable means of identifying when someone quotes you. Someone
might reply to John Adams but in the quoted content or even in the new
content may refer to them as just Adams. Citing a poster in a reply
doesn't mean their full or exact name gets used. Hell, there are cutsy
posters that like to use lots of non-alphanum chars in their nyms.
There is no standard regarding the attribution line.
I figured you wanted to know which were YOUR posts and through which
SERVER, not where someone might use your hopefully unmodified nym in a
quoted portion of their reply.
Back to the OP, he has nymshifted. The first couple of times, the
comment field (name) didn't change much. Jussi is a far departure from
J[ohn] Adams, however. The e-mail field didn't change. Do you really
identify a persona only by the e-mail field, especially since that is
NOT what is shown in the From column shown in your newsreader?
When you look at most newsreaders and what is shown in the From column,
it typically shows just the comment field (name) from the From header.
That means the expectation when viewing a thread with lots of replies
and multiple subthreads where you see posts from John, Sarah, Mark,
Jussi, BoyToy, and WhatInAName would normally get interpreted as 6
different posters in the same thread. Not until you choose to more
deeply investigate who was posting might you see they have the same
e-mail address -- but what if that same e-mail address were a commonly
shared one, like (e-mail address removed)?
