What has been said in real life vanishes in air. Listeners may not remember what you've said, or remember it wrong. What is said on internet, however, can stay there forever in the exact factual form that you've said it. Your real name is your identity everywhere. It's more than just IP address of your computer.
If there is stain on your name in Internet, it can have consequences in real life. You can choose your nickname, you can't choose your real name. I'm extremely concerned of this Facebook fad. What is the price you pay for knowing if your "friends" are using same platform as you?
Analogy:
You throw something valuable to you - say your car keys - to street for public vision. You hope that whoever finds your car keys won't know which car those keys belong to. It's completely feasible to assume that people in general are good-willed. The thing is, who would care about the interconnected information that you share, except for those who abuse it for their own self-interest?
pseudonyms, anonymity, and protecting your personal identity
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gaius
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Re: pseudonyms, anonymity, and protecting your personal iden
RobertJasiek wrote:- Post reasonably so that he can live with what he has posted also many years later.
I don't think that I have ever posted something so outrageous that I cannot live with it. But why would I want people googling my name 10 years from now to read forum posts that I wrote long ago, in some grumpy mood? I come here for entertainment, and I do enjoy writing posts of (ostensibly) some quality. I do not, however, intend my posts to be representative for many years to follow. If I'd want to do that, I would write a book and have it reviewed many times before publishing - something I will not do for posts here.
My name is Gijs, from Utrecht, NL.
When in doubt, play the most aggressive move
When in doubt, play the most aggressive move
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RobertJasiek
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Re: pseudonyms, anonymity, and protecting your personal iden
Usually one does not write in discussion forums for the purpose of enabling reading many years later. However, since it is possible to read much later, one should take that possibility into account when writing.
Writers are not in a constant mood. Data collection might pick a writer's worst mood contributions only but that says much more about the data collection service than the writer (similarly: the politician). Sensible interpretation of a person's writing moods would consider all moods and each mood in its context.
Like you, I also use discussion forums for my entertainment. It is by far not the only purpose though. Research is an example of other purposes and one where real name is much more relevant than for one's personal entertainment. You might assume to get the most entertainment by hiding your name and might be wrong because some real name writers write more and better text replies for real name question posers.
There are purposes for writings books and there are purposes for writing in discussion forums. E.g., research can be accelerated greatly (factor up to over 10) by means of discussion and external input. Even when the researcher does 99.9% of the work, the remaining 0.1% might be the missing links that others discover within minutes (although in some cases after years of conditioning their thinking) while oneself would have needed to think another 10 years to find also them. Some have wondered why I "waste" so much time in discussion forums by posting dozens of thousands of messages. Actually I save a lot of time because I get the missing salt I am looking for. In general, I think that science progress profits greatly from the internet and its exchange of ideas acceleration. Journals or even books are much slower; they are best for publishing final results but not for research speed.
Writers are not in a constant mood. Data collection might pick a writer's worst mood contributions only but that says much more about the data collection service than the writer (similarly: the politician). Sensible interpretation of a person's writing moods would consider all moods and each mood in its context.
Like you, I also use discussion forums for my entertainment. It is by far not the only purpose though. Research is an example of other purposes and one where real name is much more relevant than for one's personal entertainment. You might assume to get the most entertainment by hiding your name and might be wrong because some real name writers write more and better text replies for real name question posers.
There are purposes for writings books and there are purposes for writing in discussion forums. E.g., research can be accelerated greatly (factor up to over 10) by means of discussion and external input. Even when the researcher does 99.9% of the work, the remaining 0.1% might be the missing links that others discover within minutes (although in some cases after years of conditioning their thinking) while oneself would have needed to think another 10 years to find also them. Some have wondered why I "waste" so much time in discussion forums by posting dozens of thousands of messages. Actually I save a lot of time because I get the missing salt I am looking for. In general, I think that science progress profits greatly from the internet and its exchange of ideas acceleration. Journals or even books are much slower; they are best for publishing final results but not for research speed.