yes
Poll: Do you use your real identity on HN?
61–70 of 307 posts
Re: Poll: Do you use your real identity on HN?
#62No. I try to be bias free and open about where I come from, but I've worked for large employers who can be quite emphatic about managing their corporate image. I feel that by not using my real name I'm able to talk more freely- whether it be criticisms of my current employer (career limiting move), or non-public but not trade-secret information.
I feel that I can be less biased and more honest by using a pseudonym.
Re: Poll: Do you use your real identity on HN?
#63For some reason I'm extremely hesitant to post things under my real name. I don't really care if people know my name on an individual basis (and it's not like I'm a high profile poster anyway), but I am squeamish about it generally, and feel too self-conscious to post anything if my name is associated directly with it. I've tried blogging under my real name and always went back and deleted everything, it caused me to…
There's a funny cartoon (from 1996, no less) about the downside of posting on the internet.
Re: Poll: Do you use your real identity on HN?
#64For some reason I'm extremely hesitant to post things under my real name. I don't really care if people know my name on an individual basis (and it's not like I'm a high profile poster anyway), but I am squeamish about it generally, and feel too self-conscious to post anything if my name is associated directly with it. I've tried blogging under my real name and always went back and deleted everything, it caused me to…
That's me - only I'm like that in person too.
Re: Poll: Do you use your real identity on HN?
#65Yes. Github, Twitter, IRC.
It will make sure that I only say things that I would say in real life. No matter how vile or vicious it sounds.
And then I will have to deal with the consequences. Also, my name is actually very unique.
Re: Poll: Do you use your real identity on HN?
#66For some reason I'm extremely hesitant to post things under my real name. I don't really care if people know my name on an individual basis (and it's not like I'm a high profile poster anyway), but I am squeamish about it generally, and feel too self-conscious to post anything if my name is associated directly with it. I've tried blogging under my real name and always went back and deleted everything, it caused me to…
I think the future will be one where we're split on this - not as a society, but individually. You will have your public persona and your private persona. I have to be public because I'm in news, but not everything I do has to be associated with my real name, and I take advantage of that when I feel like it. That ability and that habit will only become safer and more accepted over time.
I wish various sites were more supportive of this. Back in the day, Yahoo! groups supported multiple identities very comfortably, so you could be "yourself" in professional forums and "be" yourself elsewhere. I don't know about anymore since I haven't used them in years. But most other sites that support pseudonyms mostly still work hard to make sure you only have one, which does little to curtail the possible abuses thereof while making it painful to do so for good reasons.
Re: Poll: Do you use your real identity on HN?
#67Yes. And likewise on other fora.
It's interesting to take a 'time trip' and review my opinions on, say, the invasion of Iraq: against, for, against. Personally that doesn't bother me so much.
Sure, I think that some of my past opinions were wrong. However, they're timestamped: a thinking critic would know that I might not still hold them, and an unthinking critic is unreachable regardless of the effort I put in.
Re: Poll: Do you use your real identity on HN?
#68Yes, and it's unique. I have done that since the beginning on the internet and it has helped to build my personal branding (in Sweden).
Re: Poll: Do you use your real identity on HN?
#69Yes. Tarential is me, and I am Tarential. I've used it for virtually every site/forum/game/system I've ever created an account on. I registered the domain for my personal site.
I completely understand and respect the need for anonymity in some people and some circumstances. For my own part, though, I think having everything publicly associated with me helps temper my somewhat extreme personality.
Re: Poll: Do you use your real identity on HN?
#70Yes, and for almost[1] all other things on the internet for that matter.
"We should try to be happy, if only to set an example." -Jacques Prévert
I try to be as open and plainly honest as possible, and I think using my real name keeps me from being inflammatory, and I think it also keeps other from doing the same to me (at least a little). Put another way, I think using real names makes an atmosphere of more empathy than otherwise.
So we should try to be sincere, if only to set an example. I think real names help with that.
Further, I try to make all my interactions on the web as public as possible. I set my Facebook privacy settings to 100% public, zero private stuff, because I don't like the state of what seems to be a selective illusion of privacy. I'd rather just be honest with myself: If I put something on the internet, it's there to stay.
[1] For posterity I use a different name for some games, because long ago someone bought a Warcraft 3 account name (Saint) as a gift, and I want to honor him, or find him again if I could, on the dim hopes he'd mention the name if he ever saw it.