Greetings:

I read the other thread, responded to by J Cornelius. I must respectfully disagree on several points.

1. The forum did NOT begin displaying real names until sometime between Saturday, December 20 and the time that the other poster made his complaint.

2. I agree that "introducing ourselves" is polite. When meeting face-to-face, that is. But that is not really common practice in public forums. It's a choice; and it should remain a choice. However, we were not forewarned that there would be a change in the forum policy. That also would have been only polite. Instead, without warning, It just suddenly happened, and my real name, along with everybody else's, was suddenly displayed in full view.

3. I use a pseudonym on all public forums. I've been physically threatened before. Not on this forum, and it was a long time ago, but it was though no fault of my own. I took a position that a forum poster disagreed with, and boy did the threats fly. Threats of violence and worse!

So I do this for my personal safety, and for the safety of my family and friends.

4. I also avoid using my real name so as to reduce the odds of becoming a victim of identity theft. Many people will attest to the time, trouble, and financial impact that identity theft can result in.

5. I don't even post my personal name or contact information to the public website that I maintain. I respond to my "contact the webmaster" feature with my real name, but only when I feel comfortable that the person contacting me is a genuine and legitimate user of my home owner association site.

I appeal to CoffeeCup Software to please reconsider this sudden change in policy, and to avoid revealing our personal information on a going-forward basis.

It could be potentially damaging and dangerous to those of us who were not notified of this, and who did not take immediate action in the interest of their own personal safety. And it could create a chilly climate for people like myself who need a safe place to interract and become better webmasters.

Oh yeah, and please tell me how to change my "title" to something other than "Trial User." I am a legitimate, fully-paid-up user of CoffeeCup Software. That also seems to have just happened recently.

Thank you in advance for your consideration of my appeal.

I agree with you. We should have been warned of this change ahead of time so we could have ample opportunity to make any necessary changes. I can tell you this, if something goes wrong with any of my accounts because of this and I am a victim of identity theft CoffeeCup will be hearing back from me.

We hear you. It appears that you have already partially solved this by changing your names. Nevertheless, as a gesture of good faith and wanting to please our users we will add a feature so that you can create an optional nickname in your profile. If you add a nickname, it will appear in the forums with your posts. If you don't specify a nickname, it will default to displaying your real name.

This should be available in a few hours, so check back with us.

Ok! Now you can choose a nickname in Your Profile and it will appear in the forums with your posts. let us know if you have any other suggestions.

The shopping cart brings many changes. A new website appearance, changes made to publically displaying names in the forum, and selling modules to a program. Watch out Microsoft.

Now if we can just get Tom to post an avatar

There you go. Just for you.

Awesome

Hello J!

Thank you very much for your understanding, and for responding to our concerns.

Merry Christmas to all!

-- BIF!

PS - The "Title" field still shows me as a "Trial User." That does not seem to be modifiable in the profile.

PPS - My very own silhouette couldn't be more accurate than the default avatar! It really looks like mine! But if I end up spending a lot of time here, I'll upload an avatar...

Thankyou J, it makes much more sense this way.

It is a shame you had to delete my post and close my thread from any other postings though. I felt that wasn't required, I'm not that hard to get along with as long as people are honest and nice.

Geoff

(Happy Boxing Day)