pseudonymous - the people who i want to be able to find me online know to look for this name.
Ask HN: Real name vs. anonymous username – which do you use online and why?
31–40 of 77 posts
Re: Ask HN: Real name vs. anonymous username – which do you use online and why?
#32I started BBSing in the 1990s where everyone used an alias. I like the name GWBasic so I use it everywhere I can. You don't need to look to hard to figure out who I am.
One of the things that I like about the internet is that you create your own persona, and that starts with using a name you make up.
That being said, I use a real name on Facebook and LinkedIn; and where it's "generally preferred" to use real names.
Re: Ask HN: Real name vs. anonymous username – which do you use online and why?
#33The Mad family has a long and storied lineage, and I'm proud to have inherited the both my grandfather's and great grandfather's names, Washa and Djeff.
Re: Ask HN: Real name vs. anonymous username – which do you use online and why?
#34I, perhaps unwisely, use the same username absolutely everywhere. Basically the only exceptions are places which don't use usernames, like Linkedin, or which predate inventing the username.
Btw, you can edit your LinkedIn handle which is the closest you'll get a username on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/help/linkedin/answer/a542685/manage...
Re: Ask HN: Real name vs. anonymous username – which do you use online and why?
#35I luckily came up with a unique username in the ‘90s. I use it everywhere online . Nobody has tried to impersonate me, at least not yet. It makes me easy to find. It makes it so people who see me on one site know it’s almost definitely the same person they saw on other sites using the same name. It makes it easy for people to contact me if they want to.
If I were to use my real name, it would actually be more confusing because other people share the same real name. It’s not super common, but by no means is it unique.
Of course it takes hardly any effort at all to link my username to my real identity. I understand fully the risks of not being entirely anonymous online. Thankfully it has yet to be a problem. And if there were to be a danger, I wouldn’t rely on something as fragile as digital anonymity to protect me anyway.
Re: Ask HN: Real name vs. anonymous username – which do you use online and why?
#36My employer’s legal team threatened action after they found my personal site that contained free informational courses about the industry. The site specifically called out where information was sourced from, and linked to those publicly available places (from google/fb/etc - not my employer). I no longer post with the real name anywhere.
Hope you are no longer with that employer. That's aggressive action from them about free information.
No kidding, what an absolutely stupid thing to do as an employer. I (badly) want people who are so interested in the industry that they will research external information and write about it. The correct response for the employer should have been at minimum gratitude and encouragement. Threatening legal action falls under the old adage that "no good deed goes unpunished."
Re: Ask HN: Real name vs. anonymous username – which do you use online and why?
#37Different anonymous name and email on every site, otherwise I would not install uBlock/NoScript as names/email are perma-cookies.
Re: Ask HN: Real name vs. anonymous username – which do you use online and why?
#38"We are nameless, man. No names. We are nameless!" Cereal Killer
That’s right
Re: Ask HN: Real name vs. anonymous username – which do you use online and why?
#39Related to this question, there was a study done a few years ago to assess the effect of "real names" vs. pseudonyms on the online community:
"Online anonymity: study found ‘stable pseudonyms’ created a more civil environment than real user names" - https://theconversation.com/online-anonymity-study-found-sta...
They looked at an online community which moved from "easy anonymity" to "registered pseudonyms" to IDs linked to Facebook names/avatars (which they took as a proxy for "real names"). They found:
"Our results suggest that the quality of comments was highest in the middle phase. There was a great improvement after the shift from easy or disposable anonymity to what we call 'durable pseudonyms'. But instead of improving further after the shift to the real-name phase, the quality of comments actually got worse – not as bad as in the first phase, but still worse by our measure."
"What matters, it seems, is not so much whether you are commenting anonymously, but whether you are invested in your persona and accountable for its behaviour in that particular forum. There seems to be value in enabling people to speak on forums without their comments being connected, via their real names, to other contexts. The online comment management company Disqus, in a similar vein, found that comments made under conditions of durable pseudonymity were rated by other users as having the highest quality."
Re: Ask HN: Real name vs. anonymous username – which do you use online and why?
#40I luckily came up with a unique username in the ‘90s. I use it everywhere online . Nobody has tried to impersonate me, at least not yet. It makes me easy to find. It makes it so people who see me on one site know it’s almost definitely the same person they saw on other sites using the same name. It makes it easy for people to contact me if they want to. If I were to use my real name, it would actually be more confusi…
same. I had someone try to take over my twitter account once. I had fun with that one.