[Foundation-l] Stalking Article

Thu Jun 12 22:03:22 UTC 2008

On Thu, Jun 12, 2008 at 10:02 AM, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> 2008/6/12 Charlotte Webb <charlottethewebb at gmail.com>:
>> Focus on prevention rather than perpetually ineffective treatment. By
>> more actively discouraging (perhaps outright prohibiting) the use of
>> real-life identity or any information traceable to it. Ask Florence to
>> buy some paper-shredders for the Office. Be creative.
>
> Contrariwise, there are those who move from a wacky net handle to
> their real name. I created my account in my real name because I
> started editing Wikipedia to do a serious job of work and didn't
> consider a wacky handle appropriate. Also, should copyright ever
> become an issue, I suspect having my real name being used will help.
> That is: I'm entirely unsure blanket discouragement of real names is
> actually a good idea.

I'd go so far as to say such blanket discouragement would be a bad
idea.  Pseudonymity is incredibly difficult to maintain.  And where's
the fun in contributing to a website if you've gotta worry constantly
about whether or not you're revealing your identity?

I wouldn't recommend using your full real name as your username,
mainly because the search engines overrank the talk and meta
namespaces (I wouldn't go so far as discouraging it either, though).
But I would recommend not trying to hide your identity, not making
edits that you wouldn't be willing to attribute to your identity, not
editing during work hours if you wouldn't be willing to have your
employer find out about it, etc.  At least, I'd make this
recommendation to people who don't live in or plan on visiting places
with highly oppressive governments.