Why the hostility toward using full names for email addresses?
Because full names are not unique. For example, the computer community has two Peter Deutsches. At one time, Bell Labs had two Stephen R. Bournes with offices a few doors apart. You can create alternative addresses (e.g., Stephen_R_Bourne_2), but that’s even worse — which one of them has to have their name desecrated in this way? And you can bet that one of them will get most of the other person’s email. Moreover, at institutions with high turnover (such as universities), a given name may refer to different people at different times, which can again lead to mail going to the wrong person. So called “full names” are just an attempt to create longer versions of unique names. Rather that lulling people into a sense of security, I’d rather that it be clear that these handles are arbitrary. People should use good user agents that have alias mappings so that they can attach arbitrary names for their personal use to those with whom they correspond (such as the MH alias file).
Date: May 12, 1997 Updated: April 7, 2004 Because full names are not unique. For example, the computer community has two Peter Deutsches. At one time, Bell Labs had two Stephen R. Bournes with offices a few doors apart. You can create alternative addresses (e.g., Stephen_R_Bourne_2), but that’s even worse — which one of them has to have their name desecrated in this way? And you can bet that one of them will get most of the other person’s email. Moreover, at institutions with high turnover (such as universities), a given name may refer to different people at different times, which can again lead to mail going to the wrong person. So called “full names” are just an attempt to create longer versions of unique names. Rather that lulling people into a sense of security, I’d rather that it be clear that these handles are arbitrary. People should use good user agents that have alias mappings so that they can attach arbitrary names for their personal use to those with whom they correspond (s
