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Is it bad practice to use your real name online?

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

#81

Post by gtz59 »

robbrown451 wrote: post #73

The advantages of using your name can often outweigh the disadvantages. Reputation is a valuable thing. You don't gain a good reputation by hiding away. You build a good reputation by making a positive impression on lots of people over a long period of time. You can't do that if you are always anonymous. If I was hiring someone, I'd google them. And if nothing turned up, that would give a somewhat negative impression…

by "somewhat negative", do you just mean that less information makes you less confident about a decision? Or do you mean that being quiet is bad?

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

#82

Post by VLM »

stfu wrote: post #71
tw8888 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Absolutely! OP comment sounds a lot like the "I use my real name, because I have nothing to hide" argument. As long as your viewpoints are completely aligned with the mainstream opinions held in your extended peer group, you have nothing to loose using your real name. But in all other cases you never know when some HR minion thinks he became a data mining genius because he dug up some comment you made 10 years ago on…

Minor correction, aligned to mainstream opinions for all time. Imagine how weird it must be for some old people to have to go from public hatred of minority group X to public idolization of the same group. And vice versa of course.

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

#84

Post by VLM »

gtz59 wrote: post #81
robbrown451 wrote: post #73

The advantages of using your name can often outweigh the disadvantages. Reputation is a valuable thing. You don't gain a good reputation by hiding away. You build a good reputation by making a positive impression on lots of people over a long period of time. You can't do that if you are always anonymous. If I was hiring someone, I'd google them. And if nothing turned up, that would give a somewhat negative impression…

by "somewhat negative", do you just mean that less information makes you less confident about a decision? Or do you mean that being quiet is bad?

Anybody can write that they're a genius with "insert buzzword" but google for their name and the topic and a result of nothing is confusing.

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

#85

Post by jc4p »

anaphor wrote: post #77
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't use your real name then. You use a nick here and your first name only, as far as I can tell, on SO. Whilst the information there makes you traceable it's still not 'using your real name'; unless your full legal name is only 3 letters?

Any idea whether I can make SE show the "real name" field to anyone? I didn't realize that wasn't visible, and I don't see a setting anywhere to change that.

We consider that field PII (personally identifiable information) and don't share it. You'd have to set your display name to your real name to show it: http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/67331/why-does-the-r...

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

#87

Post by nairteashop »

return0 wrote: post #19

I am prejudiced against people who use their real names when the website allows them to use a nickname: I automatically assume they will be uninteresting, their opinions sheepish and will always avoid confrontation or controversial ideas. I feel like they are always talking in the presence of their mother.

On the surface, yes, I suppose if you use your real name you may be tempted to tone down your opinion a bit (presumably the reason why youtube switched to G+ commenting with real names, etc).

But on HN, I've actually seen the exact opposite - people with handles derived from their real names seem to make more serious, well thought-out comments. I don't know about "most controversial", but certainly the most useful, which to me is more important. (I have a made-up handle, so I'm not one of these people :)

You'll see this reflected on the HN leader board as well; I assume that - like any online discussion board - made-up handles are the majority on HN, but real-name based handles figure quite prominently there. Not sure why.

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

#88

Post by VLM »

What about the worlds most pitiful one way hash function, like the nickname I'm using here which is "obviously" my initials?

Another classic in this genre is for decades I've watched the comedy of people advertising their ham radio callsign, then not realizing people can look them up, then realizing that almost no one knows how to look it up or cares, then figuring out it doesn't really matter at all. So ham radio callsigns are yet another pitiful wanna be one way hash function.

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

#89

Post by saber_taylor »

jonnathanson wrote: post #60

I use my real name here and in a few other online communities. The choice wasn't intentional. I'm just really self-critical about the dorkiness and unoriginality of any usernames I'm able to come up with. (Pop culture, video game, and sci-fi references tend not to age gracefully beyond a certain period in one's life.) HN has been my first major experiment with RealName™. It's gone fairly well so far. People who want…

I first tried using my real name back when blogging started (around the same time as Journaling file system buzz on Linux). It was difficult to switch gears from attention seeking.

I "lurk more" when using my real name since I try to use communities where other people are more insightful than me.

Also I noticed a common pattern of "20 questions" when I was using aliases about innocuous Questions Answered Frequently that over time eroded my confidence in my anonymity. e.g. vim versus emacs is one of the 20.

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

#90

Post by lelandbatey »

danso wrote: post #74
lelandbatey wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Wow, you must be very young, i.e. 10-12, or have very perceptive teachers. I feel that teachers and other authority figures still don't get it , especially those above 40 who aren't in a Internet/computer-heavy field. And even young folks in the tech field still don't realize it (basically everyone who uses something like SnapChat too enthusiastically)

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.
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