kalmn | "real" names versus names

The Chinese online community has come up with an interesting way to delineate "identity" without divulging a name. They have a well-known one way hashing algorithm that is used on popular forums, etc. You enter your credentials privately when logging in, and each post is signed with the hash instead of the login ID. Thus, you know that someone is the same person from forum to forum, however you can't trace that back to an individual's meatspace identity unless you already know what it is.

I have used my real first name for "hiding" for years. Even before identity theft became more common, there was the concern that I don't want just anyone finding me in a phone book or showing up on my doorstep. Some people have much more to worry about than I do and some people simply do not feel that their name is the one on their birth certificate.

That is not the same as trolling.

(OK to unscreen)

Edited 2009-03-03 21:29 (UTC)

I'm generally in furious agreement with you.

But I think there are cases where it's useful to know the relationships. For instance, consider "Squigglespider" and "Monkeypaws", both upstanding members of a community with long histories under those names. Knowing their real names isn't important but knowing that they are exes who broke up badly can cast a different light on their remarks to and about each other. I've been in situations like that where I've seen other people reacting to "Monkeypaws" attacking "Squigglespider"'s remarks in a way that I think is different from what their reaction would be if they knew that Monkeypaws might have personal reasons for doing this. Now sometimes Monkeypaws really is attacking for pure motives despite the personal thing and would do this whoever it was, but I still think knowing that sort of thing is a general benefit to the community and Monkeypaws shouldn't rely on his "pseudonymity with longstanding name" as actually protecting him from the consequence of his real-life connection with Squigglespider.

I don't think Squigglespider would necessarily be entitled to out him as John Smith, but outing him as an ex would seem to me to be utterly reasonable.

Am I making sense here?

totally. i mean, i think it's important to be identifiable, and to be known. but i don't think it's important to be identifiable by and known by your legal name. i started out online on local bulletin boards, and if someone yells one of the handles i used to go by there, i still turn around to see who's talking to me. and my handle here is a transmogrification of one of my handles there, from literally half my life ago. someone already had kallisti here, and i shortened it to kal a lot, and i live in minnesota, so, there i was.

Oh, absolutely.

A piece of that is that we could easily see the names and not know that Monkeypaws is Squigglespider's ex, especially if they were never legally married but quite often even if they were.

(On the other hand, I was Vastly Amused on rassef, some time ago, when Alison Scott replied to a joke of Mike Scott's with "I knew there was a reason I married you," probably leading at least a few newcomers to completely misinterpret their relationship and jump from thinking nothing of the )fairly common) shared surname to assuming that they were still married.)

In many contexts, it is much more relevant that

roadnotes is my sister (by choice) than what either of our real names are.

[fine to unscreen this]

Fine to unscreen mine.

I am perfectly happy with having a nickname associated with a live person in a social group, as long as everyone knows who nickname is. I've forgotten - was Blue Petal before your time? He was an active Minn-StF'er in the 70's & 80's. There were a handful of people who knew Blue's real name - I was one, I could find it again if I wanted to. But he responded to Blue, everyone knew him as Blue, everywhere in fandom he was Blue Petal. The only time you ever saw his birth name was when he handed over a check.

An on-line example might be

womzilla.

There's a 'your badge name must be your real name' philosophy - the exception is 'if you have a fannish identity not associated with your real name, we'll put that on the badge'. My complaint is that it makes it nearly impossible to develop a fannish identity.

It's an interesting problem - what we really care about is identity, and the related responsibility to accept consequences. When someone is a troll, or flaming lunatic, or a really neat person, we want to know. If some causes chaos and then drops the identity, and starts over again using a new identity, we want to associate them.

Linking a fannish identity to a mundane identity when the owner does not do it themselves is at the very least rude - at most it may be a nuclear bomb equivalent. If you do that to someone, then at the very least you have to allow it to be done to you. I think the same thing applies to on-line/off-line identities.

This all ties in to 'what information do I consider public and what do I consider private, and who knows which?' And keeping the information separated can get very exciting - at some point, if you've let enough people in a group know a piece of information, it becomes public for the group. At what point does it become irrevocably public?

Back in the days of minicon-l, there was a ... heated discussion about whether or not the Minicon Operations Logs should be put on-line raw or edited. One of the advocates of raw is now a well-know Handgun Carry Activist, and had a carry permit at the time. Practically everyone who'd been in Ops (with the possible exception of Keypers & Gofers), Treasury and the Exec for several years knew this. To the best of my recollection, there was a note in the Ops Log for the year in question saying 'if you see so-and-so with a gun, don't worry about it - it's legal'. When I mentioned this on minicon-l, asking if that should be edited out, he metaphorically tore me a new one for mentioning it. (He never did respond to "Well, do you still think the raw logs should go up?") So - this was an open secret in Minn-StF and the people running Minicon. The members of minicon-l were - to the best of my knowledge - all members of that community. I asked, in front of a community that all knew the secret, whether or not the owner of said secret really wanted it shared with the whole world. Did I do anything wrong?

You may unscreen this - I believe I've been sufficiently vague that no one who doesn't already know any of the principals will recognize them.

Yes. There's a big difference between pseudonymity, with a consistent identity, and anonymity, where every comment may as well be your first. The possibility of damaging one's reputation -- or developing a great reputation and getting people to like you -- in whatever community the pseudonym's being used in makes it just as useful as a real name in terms of allowing the social controls within that community to function.

Changing from internal-to-the-community social controls (shunning or warning newcomers or whatever) to external social controls (calling someone's boss and repeating things they may not want the boss to know) is major badness no matter how much trouble you had to go to to get the boss's name.

It's not the people who are using consistent pseudonymous identifiers who are in the wrong here.

(by all means, unscreen if you like)

Given that I was once telephone-called at my home by a man whose only connection to me was a UseNET discussion, so that he could yell at me about how stupid I was being online, I understand people's desire to keep their legal identities separate from a use name in any particular community. (I mean, I've also been stalked by two different ex-boyfriends, so any reason at all for wanting to be someone else is okay with me.) Nevertheless, except for LJ and an early, short period on AOL I've always used my legal name online.

I also understand the concerns of people who are trying to evaluate a person's arguments and consistency, but this would be an example of the ad hominem fallacy. Either their arguments are supported by facts or they are not, regardless of their legal name or use name.

(Okay to unscreen).

When I create new accounts anywhere I end up using my real name (nickname) most of the time, and I realize my name is distinctive enough that anyone knows me will figure out who I am. That disturbs me a little bit. However, I've also realized that I've been online as "danae" for over 15 years now and well... I think many people associate me with that name as well and I can't very anonymous with it.

However, I don't think there's anything I'm doing that's wrong on the internet that'll come back and bite me in the ass, so I'm not too worried.

(unscreen at will)

I've been a part of many communities in which anonymity is completely acceptable, even de rigeur. People who don't see other people's rights to anonymity aren't trying hard enough to see things from others' points of view, I think.

(Okay to unscreen.)

(OK to unscreen)

Remember that there's a distinction between "anonymity as a tool for privacy" and "anonymity as a tool for doing Bad Things™". I *think* that's what you're trying to point out, but it's worth making that distinction explicit.

I am completely comfortable with people being as anonymous or not-legal-name-identifiable as they want to be online. That said, I interact more usefully with people when I know who they are (regardless of what handles they use).

For myself, I've chosen to use my legal name in order to remind myself that I am not the least bit anonymous out here, and even if I was using a pseudonym, the moment that anyone wanted to find out who I really was they could do it. If I wanted to take more-or-less extensive measures I could become anonymous, but I don't feel like pouring the energy into that pursuit right now.

(Feel free to unscreen.)

I agree with you completely; I've always used my real name, but then my real name is actually quite common in real life, so I'm not terribly worried about people finding me.

(You can unscreen if you like.)

I never had the name Hellziggy until I set up this LJ in August 2002. Now it is as much a real name for me as my real name.
People who know me as Hellziggy should be able to find/figure out my real name, because I don't hide it. On the flip side though, people who know only my real name probably wouldn't find my Hellziggy identity. Partly because Snyder is a relatively common last name.
I love the fact that if you Google Hellziggy every single hit you get is me.

(yeah, you can unscreen) :)

You may unscreen.

I have said this before, but the fact that I'm fine with my real name being flung far and wide, and in poly/queer/sexual/nudity contexts, does NOT mean I think other people's boundaries should be where mine are, or that I don't support their right to draw their own. After all, I didn't ask their permission when I decided on my boundaries, so they shouldn't have to get my permission when drawing theirs.

When I started using BBSes in the early '80's I was definitely very taken with the idea of anonymity being a powerful force for good, that let people who had been abused or harassed or silenced or what have you speak freely, learn to stand up for themselves and what they believe in, or talk about their problems, without worrying about people coming after them, and so on. Later they might get more and more out as they found their voice, learned from others, made friends, etc., but yeah, there's a lot of power in having a safe space to take that first step in in the first place.

Which doesn't mean I would think that bad behavior from anonymous posters should be tolerated, or that all forums should be open to anonymous posters.

Unscreen if you like ...

I was on a bb for a while (linked to my then-ISP, and we also had in-person meetups) where we had to have our 'real'/legal/billing names visible to other users to be able to use the ISP or bb.

We all knew this in advance, and when we posted we knew anyone on the bb/ISP could identify us as US. A subset of us also saw each other in person regularly though, and two of my closest local friends are people I've met through there (plus a lot of other good acquaintances).

I feel like that was a special case though, where things were spelled out in advance and we'd all agreed to them, and we knew it was in part a conscious effort to make sure we all took responsibility for the things we said and the safety of others.

I feel like, my identity is context-dependent - just b/c one person knows who I am doesn't mean I want them to post my full name, and I'll ask people not to if they do. How and where I identify myself is in general up to me, and I appreciate it if others can respect my boundaries. I don't always get other people's boundaries right, and I do make my best effort to listen to feedback.

PS OK to unscreen my last post, and OK to delete this one since it adds nothing new.

Facebook created an interesting not-quite-problem for me along this line. I've used several handles over the years, though I tend to stick with one at a time. I do, however, have my personal website (which has my real name and phone number listed) in my LJ profile, so I've never really thought I could consider myself anonymous.

When I joined FB, I started with a variant of my handle, figuring that people who knew me well would recognize it easily. A bit later I realized that some of the point of FB was to connect with people I hadn't talked to in a long time, who would have no earthly idea what my current handle was, or that I even used handles. Funnily enough, I prefer my handle to my actual name (aesthetically,) but the use of my real name on FB means that most people use that instead of the handle, even if the handle is the name under which they met me. (This is not upsetting, just interesting.)

(ok to unscreen)

Very few people are actually capable of being anonymous on the net. What they have some little control over is the amount of effort necessary to learn their identity. Someone who really wants to know who they are, and has some resources, can find out.

One spammer found out the hard way: he thought that using a freemail service that didn't include the sender's IP address in the header would protect him. He'd have done better to pick one where I didn't know the head of Security.

(OK to unscreen)

seth, if we were talking about anonymity, you'd have a point. but we're not.

I'm so shamelessly "out there" that the issue has never been high on my radar. (One result is that multiple copies of a 'zine called Hatezine or Haterzine with an article attacking me for my work as an admin on Wikipedia, were dropped off at one of my real-life employers' shops last year.)

(Welcome to unscreen this; previous high-bile-content version deleted with shameful hanging of head.)

i think that people's names, of whatever form, should be able to be traced back to them, by people in the community where they use that name.

i don't think i agree.

i don't use actual anonymity, but pseudonymity, as in, i maintain the same handle (or rather, set of handles), and take responsibility for my words just as much as i take for those i speak under my legal name in certain official contexts. heck, i am more honest under my handles; i don't tell the government much, nor am i on intimate terms with my bank teller. but i don't think there should be a requirement that "piranha" be traceable to my legal name anywhere i post.

i consider actual anonymity fine too, for certain contexts in which people might not even want to be identified again and again by the same handle. i judge a whole lot more by how somebody behaves than by what name is attached to that behaviour. and anonymous handles can be used for good (protecting somebody who's in serious danger if outed) or for bad (creating trollish havoc). oh, and guess what? trollish havoc can also be caused by people proudly brandishing their legal names (i'm looking at people in the recent big fail; 'tweren't the pseudonymous ones who were seriously out of line). and what's the difference? i guess some people can stop buying certain books. woopdeedoo; i'm sure that's a significant number (not). actually come to think of it, the worst trolls and kooks in my long usenet tenure were not pseudonymous.

i think it's probably ok to out somebody as having held a certain position in a context where that might be relevant (eg. in a heated discussion where one person attacks another with unusual vitriol, it's probably ok to say "well, i had to fire this person, so they might be harbouring a grudge"). establishing context is one thing, blasting somebody's name all over the internet is quite another, and IMO unethical. one can't know exactly why a person prefers to stay anon-/psyeudonymous; they might easily hide from an abusive ex-spouse.

the whole "real names" argument just strikes me as yet another of those things where people against it harbour some illusions of safety about what they get if they see a real-looking name. if i sign all my posts with "george anderson", how does that make the name real? how does anybody on the net know which of the thousands of george andersons i am, and moreover, that i actually am one of them at all? y'all don't. real con men don't hide under pseudonyms like "piranha", for heavens' sakes.

[edited to add that unscreening is fine.]

Edited 2009-03-07 18:57 (UTC)

i don't think it should be traceable back to legal name, either. but piranha, however spelled, is you, and if you post, then we know that it's you.

i am not sure if i am explaining this well-- it's not can i find you in the phone book that i am worried about, it's is this you, do you claim the things done under your name, that name being piranha, or are you trying to hide from them?

"real" names versus names

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"real" names versus names

Re: "real" names versus names