So much for building consensus.

Or, to put it another way, if I were the foreman of a jury, we would be hopelessly deadlocked.

That pretty much describes my efforts these past few weeks to develop a better way to handle same-name letter writers.

Two weeks ago, as you may recall, I related a telephone conversation I had with a reader who was upset about a letter we published from someone in his community with the exact same name.

As a result, he had to deal with a handful of phone calls from people who mistook him for the actual letter writer, among some other inconveniences.

During our conversation, he wanted to know what I intended to do to ensure that it didn’t happen again. In turn, I reached out to you for help in devising a policy that might mitigate against these circumstances should – or more likely when – they occur again.

All told, I heard back from about two dozen of you, either through “The Editor’s Blog” on our Web site or through personal e-mails to me directly.

And while there was no consensus on what we should do, there was some general agreement on what we shouldn’t do.

No e-mail addresses was at the top of the list.

“Listing individuals’ e-mail addresses would be a horrible idea,” wrote Micah Haber, of Nashua. “The last thing anyone needs is being flamed for their letters to the editor, or having it tossed into the ether, where it can be snatched up by a Web spider harvesting e-mail addresses for spammers and the like.”

Publishing the letter writer’s telephone number wasn’t too popular, either.

Still, that doesn’t mean some readers didn’t have more positive things to suggest.

One person thought we should include the writer’s street address. Another felt we should ask writers to make some reference to what they do for a living or include some other identifying piece of information. Still another suggested we publish their ages next to their names at the bottom of the letter. (Sure. You ask them.)

Several people suggested we take more responsibility in determining up front whether there is more than one person in a particular community with the same name. If so, it was suggested we ask the letter writer to include some type of background information that might  distinguish one person from the other.

“Before posting a letter, the research team might just check to see if this name is used by more that one person in that town,” “Tesha” posted on my blog. “If it is, ask the sender to use some identifier to make them stand out as THAT person and not another. Their choice, age or address or e-mail. No more confusion!”

Now, that isn’t necessarily a bad idea, but there is one slight obstacle to implementing such a policy: There is no “research team.” Other than me, of course.

One approach I hadn’t anticipated was flipping the issue on its head; in other words, publish less identifying information.

One reader suggested just publishing the letter writer’s name with no town, while another said we should only publish first initial and last name, i.e, “N. Pappas.”

“Perhaps instead of trying to include more and more descriptive information about the writer – and thus bumping up against privacy issues – you could opt for less information,” wrote Bob Cutter, of Hollis.

“From a reader’s perspective, do I really care? It doesn’t make an iota of difference to me whether someone, who wrote to The Telegraph about an issue and whose opinion you now choose to include in your column, is from Nashua, Hollis, Amherst or North Conway.”

While that’s an intriguing thought, I’m not sure how that addresses the initial caller’s complaint. In fact, it seems to broaden the pool of individuals who might take offense to people thinking they were the ones who authored that controversial letter.

To be honest, other than the consensus of no phone or e-mail address, there were two suggestions that came up more than any others:

• Ask letter writers to include their middle initial for publication.
• Don’t change a darn thing.

“(I) don’t think it’s worth fixing such a rare occurrence,” wrote Dan W. O’Brien, of Hudson. “Most people would be understanding. Just put a notice in ‘letters’ when someone is offended that letter ‘was not written by J. Smith at X street.’ Middle initials would reduce occurrences.”

So at the risk of disappointing anyone who was waiting for that “eureka” moment, there you have it.

Until something more viable comes along, I will publish the middle initial of any letter writer who includes it with his or her letter. As I said last time, that certainly isn’t a solution, but it might prove helpful in some specific circumstances.

Otherwise, if you feel that strongly about distinguishing yourself from another letter writer of the same name and community, you just might have to write your own letter to make that point yourself.

If you do, rest assured I will be happy to accommodate you.

Nick Pappas is editorial page editor of The Telegraph. He can be reached at 594-6505 or npappas@nashuatelegraph.com.