identities

[Bonearzt]

Hi All, one last thought for tonight.

I, for one, would really like to know who I am conversing with by name rather than a forum name.

I mentioned this early on in the chat's life, and the consensus was FOR anonymity.

Funny that I have had discussions with a lot of you, but unfortunately, cannot remember names from some Chatters!


Just a thought.

Eric

[BGuttman]

Aliases can often be the refuge of trolls.

Sometimes, though, an alias is used to protect the identity of a minor.

You will notice I don't hide behind anything.

[Doug Elliott]

When it comes to having conversations or especially business transactions by PM, it would definitely be nice if people would write their real name. There are a few members here who contact me regularly by PM and don't put their name... I have to keep a list and look them up each time because I don't always remember.

[Neo Bri]

I'm for anonymity. I don't use my real name even though I'm always polite (hopefully) and I try to be helpful. I understand the argument, though. I'm in favor of it being elective. I rarely advertise my real credentials online if I don't have to.

[Doubler]

If the ideas posted are valid, what does it matter what the name of the member is? Also, a forum name often says more about the member than their name ever could.

[greenbean]

And how do you know Greenbean is not my actual name, huh?...

[SimmonsTrombone]

I have a fairly common name. On most forums, there is already someone with my name. Here, I was at least able to come up with something that includes my real last name. If you require real names everyone won’t be able to comply.

[hyperbolica]

I use a pseudonym for professional reasons. I've had people cross over between my personal and professional lives who make things either awkward or embarrassing You'd be surprised how disruptive people armed with a search engine can be.

As a trombone player my real name doesn't carry any more weight than my pseudonym, but professionally that's not true for me. I have a separate web presence for personal and professional activities. I don't use Facebook because they want to control that. I learned early on not to mix the two.

When I pm people here and enter into a business arrangement, I always use my real name. If you want to know my name, pm me. I'll tell you. But I guarantee it won't mean anything to you as a trombone player. I'm really just trying to maintain a barrier between my personal and professional contacts.

[Gary]

Trying to regulate pseudonyms on an open forum is a waste of your time. You can't. Period.

When I came on my first forum decades ago, relatively safe and credible BTW, one of the first threads I came upon was a heated argument that ended with one of the parties asking the other for his address so he could pay him a visit and finish the argument, physically. I actually got physically ill. It was unsettling and spooky.

From then until the present, I decided I would not advertise my full name, and certainly not information leading to my address, on a forum that is has a world-wide readership and over which you have no control of its readership.

[Bach5G]

I’m comfortable enough using my real name on the Internet: Bruce Wayne.





I’m not.

[ArbanRubank]

In the interests of national security, my handler insists I use a false name and pic he grabbed off some Facebook somewhere! Any similarities between my pseudonym and anyone else past or present is a doggone shame.

[Kingfan]

Just added my witness protection name to my signature.

[brassmedic]

I don't hide my real name. It is in my signature, and I think most people here know who I am in real life anyway. But I can understand how someone might not want to share personal information. I have witnessed some bad behavior on forums. I remember someone lodging false charges of wrongdoing with another person's employer as some sort of twisted retaliation because of a dispute on the trombone forum. I myself have been threatened with physical violence several times on online forums. There are, sadly, a lot of people out there who lack impulse control, and I am not bothered if a member doesn't want to divulge personal information for that reason.

[Vegastokc]

I’m comfortable enough using my real name on the Internet: Bruce Wayne.

Didn't you mean: "I'm Bach Man"

[afugate]

Didn't you mean: "I'm Bach Man"

--Andy in OKC

[hyperbolica]

I point you to the "Yikes" thread for another reason to separate professional and personal activity.

More than a dozen years ago when Facebook and Twitter were first getting started, I watched as a couple of euphoric colleagues exposed their backsides to the entire world. A drinking problem and domestic abuse were exposed for all to see. A big corporate VP came on my blog and demonstrated a complete lack of understanding of public relations, angry mob style. Watching these careers implode before my eyes, I made sure that I didn't come to the same fate. The first thing was to get off of Facebook. LinkedIn was for careers, but Facebook wanted to control too much information, so I totally backed out of it after about a year.

Plus, I was from the old school of dial-up servers and USENET for news groups, later called forums when they made it to the internet proper, where people were pretty vicious. They would track you down, and make all sorts of accusations to get your phone company (or later your ISP) to drop your service.They'd even harass your employer if they thought they could score points there. I guess that's what people did before they became hackers.

Don't trust your reputation to people on the internet, whether they give a name or not. All it takes is a misspelled word, a missing comma, or someone who purposely misconstrues what you are saying. Get a beer at lunch and your judgment slips for an hour, and you can find yourself sunk. It's not fair, but a mob, drunk on the power of anger can destroy a lot more than just storefronts. Don't kid yourselves, that's exactly what has happened to the trombonist in Austin. Yesterday she was a perfectly acceptable member of society. Today she's a social pariah. Same person. The angry mob has no compassion or reason. It only sees vengeance. Which is strange since that is what they are demonstrating about in the first place - a lack of compassion.

[Burgerbob]

She was racist before, not a "perfectly acceptable member of society."

Does mob justice go too far sometimes? Absolutely. Does that invalidate this instance? I don't think so.

[harrisonreed]

I think it is important to use your real name so that people can still not take you seriously.

[imsevimse]

It is not difficult to find who I am.

You just follow the link to my Facebook profile and you will know a lot about me Only problem is you need to translate from Swedish. If you scroll my facebook page you will find concerts and videos filmed by audience. Some have become my Facebook-friends. and put up movies of performances we do with the Johan Stengård Jazz Big Band. Not much since March because of corona of course.

I don't care much of the real name of people here but I would appreciate to know more about who I'm talking to. At the previous forum people wrote something about themselves. To me the stable is not very interesting. I think I own too many trombones. I list a few I use more often. What I miss is I would like more information of who you are and where you are coming from. It sometimes helps when to read posts.

/Tom

[Trav1s]

Mine is pretty much self explanatory and yet intentionally veiled due to my old day job. With of detective work you could find me but it would require some thought. Adding in the last name and it is an instant web search hit. This thread has made me reconsider info on the forum in light of my move from congregational ministry to hospice. Sometimes a person who lives in the spotlight needs some space to be without the baggage of the job.

[DakoJack]

Ya I'm fine with not revealing real names because it doesn't change much and honestly I enjoy everyone's alias. People create fake accounts on social media constantly, you can't regulate that. I think the moderators here do a good job of policing as well as the group does a good job of stopping ridiculousness.

[Bonearzt]

Didn't you mean: "I'm Bach Man"

--Andy in OKC

Good one Andy!!!!

[Bonearzt]

OK, so maybe not real names in posts & threads, but definitely in private messages!!

[hyperbolica]

OK, so maybe not real names in posts & threads, but definitely in private messages!!

I agree to that. I always intend to put my real name and contact info in private messages. And if someone doesn't do that, I think its certainly reasonable to ask them for it before you proceed.

[Thrawn22]

I think of it like the matrix. Our user names are our handles in reality.

[brassmedic]

Don't trust your reputation to people on the internet, whether they give a name or not. All it takes is a misspelled word, a missing comma, or someone who purposely misconstrues what you are saying. Get a beer at lunch and your judgment slips for an hour, and you can find yourself sunk. It's not fair, but a mob, drunk on the power of anger can destroy a lot more than just storefronts. Don't kid yourselves, that's exactly what has happened to the trombonist in Austin. Yesterday she was a perfectly acceptable member of society. Today she's a social pariah. Same person. The angry mob has no compassion or reason. It only sees vengeance. Which is strange since that is what they are demonstrating about in the first place - a lack of compassion.

I guess that's one way to approach it. Another way would be to not be a racist.

I believe people are protesting because a man was murdered by a police officer. I don't think anyone believes George Floyd shouldn't have been arrested, just that he shouldn't have been murdered. If this trombone player were killed for being a racist, then that would be wrong, and I would be outraged. She wasn't killed; she was fired. I don't see it as analogous at all. The protests have nothing to do with the right to be a racist with impunity, and I'm not convinced we owe "compassion" to racists.

[hyperbolica]

Do some reading to see the situation in historical context. We are repeating the mistakes of McCarthyism. Trading one kind of oppression for another is not progress.

[BGuttman]

*** Moderator hat ON***

Can we please move discussion of racists and punishment to the Yikes or Is This America thread? This thread is about self identification.

*** Moderator Hat OFF ***

[Bonearzt]

*** Moderator hat ON***

Can we please move discussion of racists and punishment to the Yikes or Is This America thread? This thread is about self identification.

*** Moderator Hat OFF ***

Agreed, and I think it has run it's course and I will now lock it from further discussion.

Thanks All & be well!!!

Eric