Catholic Answers e-mail ethics question

[Auberon Quin]

Not sure what to do about this one.

On my personal e-mail, I received a Catholic Answers forum e-mail from a poster I had never heard of. The poster asked several detailed questions about positions I had taken. I did not respond, because I do not want my True Identity to become known on this forum.

I did go and look the sender up. The person has never made a post.

I then sent them a private message; no response.

I went and looked at the e-mail again, and the writing style seemed, well, familiar. I name no names, but there were certain phrases that only one poster here uses (that I know of, anyway). I name no names--yet.

I pm'ed this poster and asked if he or she had sent the message under a different name. In fact, I did so twice. Although I know the poster has been on the board repeatedly since, I got no response at all. I take this as an admission of guilt.

This seems really weird, because the poster does not seem like the sort of person who shies away from expressing opinions. Is he or she just trying to learn my True Identity? Playing mind games? Schizophrenic?

So, two questions:

1. Has this happened to anyone else?

2. What should I do about it?

[darcee]

maybe thay have you ignored and that is why you don't get a response?


-D

[Auberon Quin]

Originally Posted by darcee

maybe thay have you ignored and that is why you don't get a response?

Who could POSSIBLY ignore lil' ol' me?

Besides, I've never PMed this poster before. Why would he/she ignore me?

[darcee]

Gee - I don't know... it was just a wild guess. Anybody COULD ignore you.... the question must be who would want to.-D

[wolpertinger]

Originally Posted by Auberon Quin

1. Has this happened to anyone else?

Not yet.

2. What should I do about it?

It depends.

If you do not wish to engage in a conversation, then simply don't. If you do, but don't want to disclose a personal email address, you could always reply from a disposable email address (like a temporary Yahoo or Hotmail account).

Depending on the profile settings, the recipient of a PM may not be notified of new messages, by the way.

[space ghost]

Originally Posted by Auberon Quin

Who could POSSIBLY ignore lil' ol' me?

Besides, I've never PMed this poster before. Why would he/she ignore me?

no one Quin.... no one...

[loyola rambler]

Some of us have been getting really bizarre emails and strange feedback for several days. We know (through trial and error) who many of these people are, but why they're doing it is just something they're not disclosing.

Secret IDs? Sounds like they're afraid to actually sign their names to their thoughts and they're trying to bait you without having the honor to be straightforward with you. It's happening all over the internet and it's one of those things we just have to accept when we participate in forums like this one. Whackos are everywhere, but even when the strange things touch us, we just have to keep our dignity and be responsible for our own behavior.

[AmandaPS]

For starters, you may want to take off the option that people can send messages to your email. Not sure what help that would be, but it's something. Good luck with the rest of the mystery.

[Auberon Quin]

Originally Posted by AmandaPS

For starters, you may want to take off the option that people can send messages to your email.

I think I'll leave it.

I need the laughs.