ORIGINAL: Stickbuilder
I merely stated that I understood the reasons for his requirement.
Perhaps you could explain them to me?
Second, Your AMA number cannot be used to steal your identity, since the AMA does not have your Social Security Account Number, what harm does the requirement pose?
Must there be a specific harm? Must it be more than surrendering the anonymity that this medium - the medium within which Horrace has chosen to communicate with people - purposely provides us with? When in Rome, eh?
Third, you may require me to make certain information available to you for you to have a conversation with me, or give me information pertaining to the issue at hand. If Horrace initially states that he will require your name and AMA number to have correspendence with you, and you choose not to provide that information, then don't become upset when he chooses to ignore you. You are going to him, and are asking questions, he is not approaching you requiring the same.
I'm saying that the requirement is ridiculous and unsupportable. Perhaps ridiculous bureaucracy is seen as a necessity by some, but in this case it appears completely unjustified. I don't like red tape. I don't like people who attempt to use it as a petty way of exercising control. I'd like some assurances that my AMA won't devolve into a secret handshake club if Horrace has his way.
In other words, he is at present a private citizen, and a member in good standing of the AMA.
At just which point do you think he ceases to be a private citizen?
If you wish to check his bona-fides, and you are a member, you can go to the AMA site, log in with your personal information, and look him up. You will be required to know his first and last names, and his AMA number. The AMA will tell you whether or not he is a member and what type of membership he holds.
I am not a club officer. I do not believe I have access to this. I've just checked. Perhaps you can guide me to it? I can understand that club officers may need to verify the AMA membership status of club members, and that CDs may need to do this to verify membership for entrants. It would seem to me that
any use beyond this is inappropriate. Using such database access for purposes of verifying identities on a web-forum seems clearly inappropriate. This is the sort of thing that gets people fired from their jobs, not elected to an office.
The idea of this equating to the time-worn movie scene of a Wehrmacht officer demanding, "Your papers please", is beyond the point of silliness.
You may think it's silly, but you also seem to think that simple questions can't be posed on a public forum without verifying someone's identity.