h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'd like to be annoying and unnecessary

With a short name it's like saying "Hi Jim, welcome to my page" but with a longer user name it's just too formal and ridiculous like referring to someone by their name, and job spec, and address, and memberships, etc.

I've only just converted to GuideML so don't know how to apply the tag in a post or anything.

There is an alternative... A1015084

Go on, you know you want to!

t.

Thanks for the invite, turvy, it's tempting.

If someone knows me, then I don't need to be told that by use of the tag. If I'm visited by someone whom I don't know yet, then use of the tag implies over-familiarity that I don't have the right to assume until we've spoken for a while (just my opinion). I know that researchers here are supposed to be one big happy family , but don't we teach our children not to give their names to strangers?

I'll stick to not caring for the tag, and finding it false or artificial.

I can understand what you mean and you are in good company. There were many more researchers who objected to the tag but never joined ViTAL. I found it surprising and amusing when I first came across it and wanted to know how it was done.

I think it is used mostly for shock value or for a bit of fun. I don't really have a problem with that.

I totally agree about the warnings we give our children and I do the same (we have also worked out a password system). That said my 'handle' on here and what I put up on my PS (not much at the moment) allows me to maintain anonymity at a level that suits me and does not seem to bother others so...

As is said regularly on this site "I may not agree with your opinion but I will defend to the hilt your right to hold it".

t.

I agree, when I first visited H2G2 as a browser, before registering, I often wondered what that "unknown visitor" thing was all about; I assumed that the phrase was the exact text written into people's sites. It was only later on that I worked out it was a fancy piece of coding that worked like a mail-merge, and began to find it jarring and false.

I suppose that as you get used to something being there, you cease to register it and can ignore the wordiness of it when one is using a long-statement nick.

The quote, Liebniz or someone of that era?