Is it bad practice to use your real name online? • Hacker News Board

Re: Is it bad practice to use your real name online?

#131

Post by mturmon » Mon, Dec 09, 2013, 1:30 AM UTC

gngeal wrote: post #58

aaronbrethorst wrote: post #37

I use my real name everywhere online. The reasons why are pretty straightforward: 1. It reminds me to be civil and think before I post. 2. It makes it easier for other people reach out to me based on things I've posted (I have a fairly unique name). Pseudonyms are relatively easy to 'decode'. If I wrote something particularly dumb, offensive, or stupid, and someone wanted to pin that on me, I'm sure they could given…

1. It reminds me to be civil and think before I post. That sounds very much like "I don't kill people because I'd get caught". Why can't you be civil (whatever that means) and think just because?

Alas, it seems to be the human condition.

Re: Is it bad practice to use your real name online?

#132

Post by dredmorbius » Mon, Dec 09, 2013, 1:32 AM UTC

vezzy-fnord wrote: post #16

mrspeaker wrote: post #2

When I got on the intertubes, oh-so-many years ago - the rules were simple: the ONLY piece of information you could freely give on public forums, or IRC, was your nick. Now, the only piece of information you are supposed to withhold is your credit card number. I'll say this about the new ways: I'm extremely glad that I didn't have my teenage years documented and archived. Dodged that bullet!

Interesting. If you go further back into the days of the intertubes, using your real name was standard practice.

It was less "your real name" than "your well known userid". Hence: rms, dmr, ken. Often but not always your initials, first name, or first initial + last name.

Enough for your friends (and early on everyone knew everyone) to know who you were. But comprehensive archives weren't generally available (there's a reason kibo was so notable).

Re: Is it bad practice to use your real name online?

#133

Post by lelandbatey » Mon, Dec 09, 2013, 1:39 AM UTC

aaronbrethorst wrote: post #125

lelandbatey wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd put it down to where I grew up and who I grew up around. This was 2000-2002, and I grew up in Redmond, Washington. My first real Internet experience was getting a school email account, and they gave us a long series of talks about how we were supposed to use them appropriately.

Are you at UW now? edit: ah, WSU I see.

Yeah, I wanted to study CS, but there was pretty much no chance of me getting into the very competitive CS major at UW. So I decided to go to a smaller WSU campus in the Tri-Cities. It's way, way smaller, and with much smaller staff, but for CS it's totally perfect. It's pretty much all taught by people who've been doing research at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory for the past 30+ years.

It's a great mix of professors who have tremendous experience in academia and industry, as well as a small enough campus to allow random undergrads to spend tons of time working with and learning from them. I feel like it's a serious hidden gem for those looking to learn CS.

Re: Is it bad practice to use your real name online?

#134

Post by aaronbrethorst » Mon, Dec 09, 2013, 1:44 AM UTC

lelandbatey wrote: post #133

aaronbrethorst wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you at UW now? edit: ah, WSU I see.

Yeah, I wanted to study CS, but there was pretty much no chance of me getting into the very competitive CS major at UW. So I decided to go to a smaller WSU campus in the Tri-Cities. It's way, way smaller, and with much smaller staff, but for CS it's totally perfect. It's pretty much all taught by people who've been doing research at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory for the past 30+ years. It's a great mix of pro…

Let me know if you're ever looking for an internship in the mobile space in Seattle. My email is in my profile.

Re: Is it bad practice to use your real name online?

#135

Post by dredmorbius » Mon, Dec 09, 2013, 1:47 AM UTC

Information has value.

Posting everything under my username doesn't create sufficient value for me. Managing my real-name profile is of some interest, and I do this to an extent, though largely it involves keeping my real name (or well-established) userIDs limited, while conducting most of my online interactions under various pseudonyms. These give me freedom of movement and expression and some freedom from tracking (though I'm under no illusions a dedicated national actor would have trouble finding me should it choose to do so, nor, quite likely, others).

What I've observed having been online for several decades is that most people seem to go through a lifecycle of online activity: early exploration, a wide-open persona, and often, starting once "life gets real" (usually somewhere in their 30s or 40s), either a withdrawal or a far-more-managed persona. I can point to numerous "public figures" of the 1990s whose online profiles are vastly more constrained: Jenny of Jennycam, Eve "pi girl" Astrid Andersson, Philip Greenspun (actually fairly active), Xeni Jardin, and many others. Even those who are still active are much more ... controlled in their presence.

If you're in your 40s or older and have a significant online presence, odds good are you're in marketing.

Even the principles in social networking have ... limited exposure. Sergey Brin's most recent public G+ post was February 20, 2013. Larry Page posts something banal and/or product-related once or twice a month. Page's wife and girlfriend (may they never meet) have been conspicuously absent of G+ since news of status changes (not posted to G+) broke in August. Curious in the case of the girlfriend who's in Google marketing ... but has been posting of late to Twitter.

Yeah, life has a way of getting real.

Re: Is it bad practice to use your real name online?

#136

Post by aaronbrethorst » Mon, Dec 09, 2013, 1:55 AM UTC

prodigal_erik wrote: post #129

aaronbrethorst wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "I use my real name, because I have nothing to hide" Of course I do, everyone does. I'm just very thoughtful about never posting it online ;) Also, pet peeve: it's "lose", not "loose".

Really, a smiley face? Dissent is how civilization fixes bad ideas, and suppression of it is not to be taken lightly.

Yes, really, a smiley face. Relax. It isn't my dissent that's suppressed.

Re: Is it bad practice to use your real name online?

#137

Post by dredmorbius » Mon, Dec 09, 2013, 1:57 AM UTC

tw8888 wrote: post #53

aaronbrethorst wrote: post #37

I use my real name everywhere online. The reasons why are pretty straightforward: 1. It reminds me to be civil and think before I post. 2. It makes it easier for other people reach out to me based on things I've posted (I have a fairly unique name). Pseudonyms are relatively easy to 'decode'. If I wrote something particularly dumb, offensive, or stupid, and someone wanted to pin that on me, I'm sure they could given…

Use of real name isn't problematic as long as you don't have unpopular opinions. I'm not foolish enough into thinking that the work world is like college when it comes to free expression. My employer wants to be popular in the market place, therefore they don't want to be associated with unpopular opinions. If Gawker writes a hit piece on me because I held down an unpopular opinion in a discussion on feminism in tech…

"Unpopular opinions" can change. There was a time when sexist, racist, and homophobic ribbing were de rigeur in society, entertainment, and business. They still are in some political circles. You might have friends, neighbors, or associates who turn out to be murderers, inside traders, political rebels, questioned for terrorism, whistleblowers, accused of partner battering, or of immigration irregularities (all drawn from my direct personal experience). It wasn't so long ago that a prominent political figure was accused of "palling around with terrorists".

Moreover, with profiling tactics, implicit signals can be leaked of your preferences and habits (isn't that precisely what all the heavy marketing support of all these "social" sites is about?). Subject of a current HN item:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6871033

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/08/opinion/sunday/shameful-pr...

Re: Is it bad practice to use your real name online?

#138

Post by ElongatedTowel » Mon, Dec 09, 2013, 2:18 AM UTC

I always used a pseudonym and even change it from time to time. But if I want to have a job in software development, what choice is there? If you can't rely on past experience you have to build something from the ground up.

I feel forced to have something on the net that screams "me".

I'm unimportant. But who knows what the future brings? I don't want to feel like _why. And to be honest, the whole archiving is beyond annoying. Barely anything we write is relevant in 10 years. Archive.org saves 99.999999% stuff that will not be looked at or even be of relevance, but might be enough to discredit you or even find you. Why does the internet even need to be this way? For me the internet was always about the present and the future.

Re: Is it bad practice to use your real name online?

#139

Post by jebblue » Mon, Dec 09, 2013, 3:04 AM UTC

It's a psychological thing, a perception, on the part of the users of your nick. I know people who publicize their nick and real name, still post under their nick and their nick gets more attention by far. There's something about human nature, I prefer to read stories about Notch more than Markus Perrson. I don't know why, it's just that way with the human brain.

I may have just had an epiphany, political figures use their real names (well mostly), maybe this is why their lives seem a bit characiatured to us. Perhaps this helps insulate them to a degree.

Re: Is it bad practice to use your real name online?

#140

Post by sliverstorm » Mon, Dec 09, 2013, 3:28 AM UTC

lelandbatey wrote: post #55

mrspeaker wrote: post #2

When I got on the intertubes, oh-so-many years ago - the rules were simple: the ONLY piece of information you could freely give on public forums, or IRC, was your nick. Now, the only piece of information you are supposed to withhold is your credit card number. I'll say this about the new ways: I'm extremely glad that I didn't have my teenage years documented and archived. Dodged that bullet!

I felt the same way about nicknames, but at some point I realized that I had a digital trail attached to my online-name that was a mile wide. I figured I might as well just start using my real name (which is rather unique already). Also, I find your story of rules interesting. When I was first introduced to the internet (when I was about 7 years old, in school), the one "rule" I remember being told to us over and ove…

I feel like there's still value in hiding real names, if only to block the low-hanging fruit. A 1337 hacker can surely trace me no matter what name I use, but using an alias is practically effort-free and can slow down Joe Sixpack.

It also depends where I am posting, and whether I want to "own" what I say on that particular site. It's nice when my real-life compatriots don't necessarily know every darn thing I say or do online. They could find out if they really wanted to, of course.