- #1
- 2,355
- 10
A small but possibly important correction:
Back in May 2006, pervect cited a page he found at the well known mathpages.com website, which often has some quite good stuff (although I certainly wouldn't agree with everything the author writes in http://www.mathpages.com/rr/rrtoc.htm, he is a thoughtful writer), and commented
Then clj4 wrote:
Not true; the author of mathpages.com is called KEVIN S. Brown, and in happier days his contact information (now very outdated) appeared in his website. Verification of the author's name can be found at websites like http://home.att.net/~numericana/fame/ .
(I can just hear some freshfaced InterNet newbie asking, "why would the author of a seemingly inoffensive pedagogical website remove his name from it after more than a decade of existence?" After some thought, and speaking as the author of some seemingly inoffensive pedagogical websites of my own, I would advise members of this forum to decline to speculate about his possible motivations.)
KENNETH S. Brown, known as Ken, the distinguished topologist (well known for his textbook on buildings and other work) on the faculty at Cornell, is someone completely different.
This no doubt unintentional illustrates the dangers inherent in "digging" for the identity of "anonymized" authors of material found on the Internet. There are sometimes good reasons (e.g. investigating apparent malfeasance, but probably not mere curiosity) to try to identify a web "handle" with a real-life individual, but feel that this should probably be left to experts who have demonstrated good judgement and who are familiar with the use of the appropriate tools.
Someone suggested that I avoid cluttering up the board by resurrecting very old threads, but perhaps a moderator can "quietly" insert a link to this correction?
Chris Hillman
Back in May 2006, pervect cited a page he found at the well known mathpages.com website, which often has some quite good stuff (although I certainly wouldn't agree with everything the author writes in http://www.mathpages.com/rr/rrtoc.htm, he is a thoughtful writer), and commented
Then clj4 wrote:
clj4 said:
Not true; the author of mathpages.com is called KEVIN S. Brown, and in happier days his contact information (now very outdated) appeared in his website. Verification of the author's name can be found at websites like http://home.att.net/~numericana/fame/ .
(I can just hear some freshfaced InterNet newbie asking, "why would the author of a seemingly inoffensive pedagogical website remove his name from it after more than a decade of existence?" After some thought, and speaking as the author of some seemingly inoffensive pedagogical websites of my own, I would advise members of this forum to decline to speculate about his possible motivations.)
KENNETH S. Brown, known as Ken, the distinguished topologist (well known for his textbook on buildings and other work) on the faculty at Cornell, is someone completely different.
This no doubt unintentional illustrates the dangers inherent in "digging" for the identity of "anonymized" authors of material found on the Internet. There are sometimes good reasons (e.g. investigating apparent malfeasance, but probably not mere curiosity) to try to identify a web "handle" with a real-life individual, but feel that this should probably be left to experts who have demonstrated good judgement and who are familiar with the use of the appropriate tools.
Someone suggested that I avoid cluttering up the board by resurrecting very old threads, but perhaps a moderator can "quietly" insert a link to this correction?
Chris Hillman
Last edited by a moderator:
