Would you post on WF if required to register under your real name?

If all your posts were attached to your actual name would you post on WF still? Alter your style? Run away?

People often say they are the same in real life as they are online. I seriously doubt that, save for some.

Discuss.

um...

John...who?

I'm talking about Dayton-esque like transparency.

What do you think?

What do you think I think?

I meant "What do you think my answer would be to your question?"

Since your scenario is exactly how I've registered on every board I've joined.

No Daytonesque details but I've never found it necessary to hide my identity.

OK OK fair enough. Clearly this won't apply to everyone.

Were you planning to reveal your Secret Identity? Or are you just trolling Dayton for the bazillionth time?

While I'm not Dayton-esque in my transparency, it's rather easy to find out my first and last name. Still, would I tie my real name (age, location, all that it entails) to my posts here? Certainly not. That would be foolish.

It's one thing for people to know who you are, and what you do, and it's another to just openly give away every bit of information like Dayton does. So the answer, for me, is 'no'.

No. Might as well ask if Bruce Wayne would fight crime if he didn't get to dress up in S&M gear.

I don't say anything here that I wouldn't say on FB. This board is more mellow than most boards I am on. It's not really me, it's you- I don't trust these fuckers! Why would I give them real identifiers? On the other hand I have met several TK'ers probably 7 and at least1 or 2 WF'ers. So some places feel more intimate.

I could post here- but why- when there is FB?

Sure.

Anyone who really wanted to find out surely could without too much effort anyway. I wouldn't freely give out so much detail that it was a golden gift to some lazy fucker who wanted to invest almost no effort but still fuck with me in real life, so not to the Dayton level. But if you give out anything at all you give the diligent investigator enough to find you but I'm not going to get invested in trying to be so anonymous that can't happen.

Hell, no one here - even Dayton - is more high profile than garamet and i don't recall any incident of some hater trying to yank her chain off-net.

And if the question is "is there anything you've posted at Wordforge that you'd be ashamed to be connected to?" i can only say - there's nothing NOVA has posted. There's some shit that "Shep" put out there, at various sites, that i'd be happy to see go down the memory hole.

I don't think I'd be any different. Many of you already know my real name anyway. The handles are basically a relic. Though I don't think it's bad to continue using them here, I generally use a variant of my real name on other BBSes.

I've had one or two bad experiences elsewhere, so anonymity is important. It's very easy for people to fuck with you, as Dayton has found out.

What Gul said... mostly.

After a decade, most of you seem pretty harmless. Plenty know my real name, and a few of you even could find me if you asked around the neighbourhood. Ironically, I travel by a nick name more often in real life.

There's a difference between signing up with your real name, and feeling comfortable enough with the members to reveal your identity.

Would I sign up to a BBS under my real name? No, you're a blithering idiot to do so as it opens up and invites all kinds of possible troubles. Hell, if I'd been smarter when signing up at TBBS I'd have picked a different username than an old nickname, and not ported it across to here.

Am I happy to let a large number of WF members know my real name? Yes, I've revealed it a couple of times and met some members in RL.

And there I times I reveal info that could get me into trouble in future roles as I have few issues whistleblowing things I see, although employers (especially in the public sector) deeply dislike the rock being lifted and allowing light in, so a level of anonymity is welcome.

Only if it registration were required to even read a post.

I wouldn't put it past a few of the worst cowardly shitsmears to lurk anonymously, take down what personal information they could, and then do something evil to fuck with someone in real life. Call the cops on your house, call your employer and accuse you of pedophilia, call in your licence plate number and accuse you of drunk driving or a hit-and-run. If you're going to pull some sad chickenshit attack like that, I insist I know hot to find you, too. Which requires some means of verifying your identity.

Henceforth, all avatars must be an image of a driver's license or a state-issued ID.

If anyone cared enough, my identity is not really secret. I don't put the information on my posts, but certainly anyone who was motivated would easily find out anything and everything (maybe more) that they wanted to know. I'm not saying I lead a totally spotless life (with friends like Frontline why kid myself?) but I don't have all that much baggage and not nearly enough money to make blackmail worthwhile so

That's funny, since every time your real name is used, you throw a hissy.

I might not - not from fear of WFers, but from employers or potential employers who do extensive background checks.

I do notice that there aren't any pro-rightwing bumper stickers on the cars at work, despite plenty of left wing slogans, and the one guy with a neat libertarian sticker and license plate doesn't work there any more . . .

I only use the Forbin pseudonym here and on TrekBBS (and I can't eve remember why any more). On the hobby boards I frequent, I'm "John P" - and since everybody knows my website is "InPayne", well...

Is it a new board (old stuff wiped)?

If yes then probably, I use my name on most social media now.

My actual name is so common, a search on FB turns up about 1000 results. I wouldn't be worried, especially since most of us are FB buddies with each other anyway.

Facebook? Is that named after me?

I'm not hiding my identity all that well, and I originally had no intention to do so at all. I say nothing here I wouldn't also say elsewhere; however, there have been some instances with posters ganging up on other posters in private on the past that have convinced me that this is not an ideal group with which to share RL identities.

Ironically, I think the culture of anonymity on WF itself contributes to that; it tends to turn RL identifiability into a big signal for assholes to bother us, where otherwise they might never had gotten the idea to bug people whose real name they have always known.

This is somewhat different from Facebook. My setup is 95% people I know and that afre personal friends. So we know each other.

As to this place...I don't know 95% of you mutha fuckas!! Going by posting style, many here are wierd ass mofo's.

At this point I have no worries. But if real names had to be used here, the posting style would change 95%!!

Unless 95% of you mutha fuckas are nasty to your real life friends?!

Exactly. Ever notice how those most likely to be assholes toward others are also most paranoid about their own Secret Identity?

(Hi, Jamey!)

If RL identities were required, this place would empty out in a New York minute. The biggest cowards wouldn't even hang around to stealth-rep the way they do now.

(Right, Jamey?)

Heh, Face hasn't answered his own question.