Every single writeup above is typical of the
negativity and
persecution surrounding this often misunderstood phrase. While its use today is widely condemned to the bastions of
cybersex, the expression itself is not without merit.
Although I wasnt around at the birth of IRC, I'm sure that back then, the emphasis was more on having fun and trying out this new system, than on social reliance on it. And while it's probably true that relying on IRC socially is bad, it's a fact that many people today do, at least to a certain extent.
In real life, of course, these three questions would not normally need to be asked. Age and sex are generally distinguishable from a distance, and once you start talking to someone, even blindness is no barrier to getting this information. As for location - one of the most socially acceptable questions is "Where are you from?" - it absolutely no connotations at all. Yet in cyberspace, these questions are frowned upon - at least in their abbreviated form. Everyone who's used IRC for any length of time becomes victim to this way of thinking, and becomes forced to deduce these 3 essential characteristics from ever-more-obscure questions... "What's your name?"..."Are you in school?" etc. And of course, heaven forbid that these obscure questions occur closer than 10 lines apart, and people guess the true meaning of what you're trying to find out.
The asl taboo exists because there are still many people on IRC who view it as something special, a place where age, sex and location do not exist - and they don't exist - at least not to that group of people. But, increasingly, IRC is being usurped by a new type of chatter - one who treats it as much as possible like real life. And although asl is mostly cybersex-orientated on places like Dalnet's #teens, it does have its place as a valid question on smaller servers or less sexually-minded channels.
In the end, we need to ask ourselves what we want IRC to become. On the one hand we have a place where all boundaries are crossed, bodily characteristics don't matter, and 8 year-old boys can have everyday frank discussions with 80-year old grannies. On the other, we have the possibility of a place imitating reality, where people approach one another based on external appearances, social ranking, etc. This is what many anti-asl people are afraid of.
However, neither system is wrong - both have their place within IRC. A/s/l, for the moment, sits awkwardly in the middle, its true fate yet to be decided.