But maybe not a belief shared by most everyone else.

Basically, it all boils down to fairness, if you ask me (and no one has, just to state for the record). Is it fair that I have a band of homey's I hop on AOL and coordinate #### with?

I mean, I'm all for knowing who plays who. IMHO that's neither here nor there. I think it's #### that characters have been denied because their player accidentally (or on purpose) outted themselves. FFS we're a fairly closed community, it's nigh impossible not to know who is playing who, even without OOC communication. But when that knowledge turns into 'DUDE, LOGON, I JUST GOT SWORDMASTER'S AND I NEED TO RANK TO FLURRY', that's when people are stepping over the line.

PS I love knowing who plays who. It's one of my character flaws, trying to figure out who played who (and conversely, trying to figure out Nep's chars...I think I've figured out 4 he never admitted to!!!) Especially when it's something like Balrahd playing Ktaar (and I actually had no idea it was Balrahd until he posted) or Graatch playing that non-agression HERALD. Mostly because you see the depth of the roleplay in playing something they should have no business succeeding with. Of course, by the same token, knowing certain players continuously play DouchebagOfTheMonth#'s 1-10 kinda ruins it when you realized that arrogant prick dark-elf you were RP'ing with wasn't RP'ing.

Kind of a double-edged sword, so to speak.