pixelgeek ? I had no idea you were pixelgeek as well haha :) (tough I cant remember the forum Im referring to.)
recently I usually sign up just as melvin, but usually my nickname is illustrange (or an added r when I forgot my login details :)) however its not hard to find out my real name, my site is usually in my sig.

Id say it depends, it may add to a feeling of knowing the other people, but its just a small part of a total that makes a community form, of wich 50% would be the attitude of the people posting there and yourself, so I dont see it as a necessity to built a community feeling.
tough nicknames are more likely to touch on all our inner-prejudice feelings.
you look different at someone who is called timothy than someone who is called supercoolkhadorfan_tim_89 or something :) with the latter nickname the chances are highly likely that in the beginning people would just assume to see such a person as a kid who probably wont be saying much serious.

pixelgeek ? I had no idea you were pixelgeek as well haha :) (tough I cant remember the forum Im referring to.)

Could be any number. I am on a ton of message boards. :-)

The pixelgeek account here is a non-admin account I set up to test the site as a registered user without admin privileges. It isn’t used to post comments.

Ah yes, the anonymity of the internet and the rise of “geek rage” - it really is entertaining how aggressive and belligerent people can get.

I will be adding my name next to my screen name but I’ll keep the handle as I have used it for all my online and gaming activities for about 10 years or so. Ive done my best to make sure that when it says Evernevermore its been something Ive said/typed/done

I can also see the reasoning behind screen names as they give anonymity and sometimes people need that.

Though I cant seem to get it to change the handle this posted under

I personally think it’s a good idea. Anonymity provided by nicknames tends to lead to crowd behavior. If your name is attached to a comment, you tend to behave better. I’m on a number of fora and mailing lists and this has generally proven to be the case.

I have, therefore, updated my profile here.

Profile updated… don’t feel any different than I used to… heheh.

I’m not sure I agree with the premise that using an online handle makes one anonymous. I’ve always used this handle online and if you know me online, you know me as Spooktalker. My online reputation (if one assumes I have one, which I’m not doing) is built on that name and the name of my site. I could have chosen to go by Ryder, my real name, but I can’t see how that would have changed how I relate to people, or how they relate to me.

Handles aren’t truly anonymous. They’re personas, but they aren’t any more anonymous than David Bowie was anonymous when he donned the Ziggy Stardust persona. Anonymity is logging in as a guest or a making a new account to do some trolling and then forgetting about it.

I won’t beat around the bush. Handles are inherently cool. They’re cool for soldiers. They’re cool for gangsters. They’re especially cool for the early hackers like Phiber Optik and Captain Crunch. I actually see the use of handles online as a artifact of those early cyberspace pioneering days. They give a glamour to the online experience. It’s a little bit of fantasy, and you could go as far as to say it lets a person be a little more of who they want to be than they are irl. If your name is Matt or Brian or Jim, a handle gives you “brand recognition” and people might even remember who you are. And perhaps most of all, they let you tell everyone a little about yourself before you even meet. It’s a means of personal expression, like the kind of jeans one wears.

For instance, I’ve always loved the shaman archetype ever since the sixth grade. To me, “Spooktalker” is a kind of jokey play on “Soothsayer.” It’s a reference from the 1988 Warhammer Armies book. There’s a showcase of Kev “Goblin Master” Adams’s personal orc and goblin army, and one of the goblin shamans is titled “Spooktalker.” So my handle can mean something to people. It might even tell you that I’ve been in it for a long time and have a place in my heart for old school Kev Adams gobbos. Maybe all it does is seem a little jokey-sinister. It might seem dumb. Whatever. The point is I chose it and one way or another it’s evocative.

Oops, I wrote a novel. ;) At the end of the day, though, I don’t want to disparage your experiment, Zac! Just so you’ll understand if some of us opt out. I look forward to seeing how it goes. Cheers!

I’ve been toymaker since I’ve been online. I’m comfortable that way

Actually…

I do use my real name.

On most boards I use “Ray (alias Lava).” Lava being the actual nickname I was given while I was in the Navy (you don’t get to pick), and have used ever since as my gaming name… close on to 30 years now.

Ray (alias Lava) Rivers

It’s like suddenly being naked or something.

Lord Abaddon of Wormwood is who I am whilst I’m surfing or gaming. Abaddon is almost a person in his own right. He is different to who I am in real life. In the everyday world nothing marks me as a gamer (computer/Tabletop/RPG) so that is why I do not mix the two together.

Lord Abaddon of Wormwood

I’ll give it a try as well.

I’m impressed!

I’ve tried to make this point explicitly on other forums only to have it ignored or argued against. Apparently the spirit of TGN is different!

I respect the decision to use a pseudonym, whether for “coolness” factor, or a true desire to mask one’s online identity. But I deeply appreciate the community-building that happens when gamers meet in-real-life and can draw on a long history of conversations that they’ve had online together.

My real name is already out there in numerous profiles, as is my business site. “Dentatus” is the tag I started with long ago, so I might as well keep it.

In terms of building community, familiarity & trust - doesn’t that happen via the responses in discussion threads? It’s a hoot to go the shows or cons and meet someone and find out, “Great, you’re so & so!” It never occurrred to me such a thing would be an issue.

Although I agree with Brant’s post above about employers combing the web for info, since I already post reviews in my real name, here goes. I think the world is slowly adapting past the ‘anonymous internet’ thing. Nevertheless, the fact that everything one says remains permanently online makes one think before typing. At least, it should. Tertius out.

hmmm… this is an interesting topic. I’m not sure which side of the anonymity vs real name fence I’ll ultimately fall on. I can see the value of arguments from both sides.

I’ll give the real name a go here though, TGN is one of the more sensible places on the web.

Well, most of the time anyway :-)

a_thousand_hats

I’ve read enough things about employers googling you etc. etc. that I’m worried about using my real name. And I’m certain that at some point I’ve said not-nice things about people on the internet, despite my best efforts.

I should think it’s obvious what my first name is from my user handle, but I prefer to keep my last name away from gaming unless necessary.

I’m all for it, I’ve been GS_Topcow for the past 12 years (GS stands for Ghost Squad, my first online community in the IGZ, whilst playing XvT…), Still, I think its good to see game designers and gamers alike just showing up on the boards and giving an oppinion (you can see this happening all the time in http://www.Boardgamegeek.com).

Changing right away

I don’t have many illusions about internet annonimity, but yeah, what altfritz said.

Plus, I’m known as nanite, I don’t want to start over.

This whole concept can be put in a different perspective. Imagine trying to live in the real world without giving your real name. Imagine you go to an interview and tell a prospective employer, “I’ll give you my nickname, but I want to protect my personal information to prevent fraud.” Or you go to get a bank account and tell the bank, “You can’t have my real name, because you might leak my information by accident.” In both cases they would think you’re crazy.

The reason that our modern societies work so well is because they’re built on accountability and trust surrounding identity. It’s not easy to change your name on a whim, as it is on the internet. People can be trusted because they’ll be identified and held accountable by the rules (the laws) of society.

We could try to live out our lives strictly under nicknames, but it would be damn hard to live without a bank account and to receive income in cash only.

Unfortunately, because much of the early internet culture was developed by hackers (where fear of prosecution was very real), the pseudonym convention stuck.

Certainly there are merits to concealing one’s real identity from prospective employers and fraudsters. I think the former is largely a non-issue as most employers will be simply bored by looking at employee’s hobbies. And the latter concern is overblown. Identity theft happens primarily through good old-fashioned mail fraud. I know, I work in banking. Besides, the massive community benefits gained by using real names outweigh the minuscule additional fraud risk. Go back to the previous example….you could eliminate the risk of fraud be never giving your name, but would you want to life that way?

Do you actually think that you might not get a job because of postings you make here?

Would you want to work at any place that wouldn’t hire you because if it?

Zac: I’m thinking more of things I may have said on other sites where I use the same username (*cough* Frothers *cough*) I think I’ve watched my mouth, but you never know.

My girlfriend attended a seminar with some experts who said this kind of thing is very, very common research for employers in her field of work (education) and seeing as I want to get into something like that, I want to be very careful.

I’ve used “Osbad” on pretty much every gaming forum I have ever got involved with. So it is probably the case that more gamers know me by my nickname, rather than my real name “Paul Mullis”.

For this reason alone, I will stick with my nickname here and elsewhere. However if I had my time over I’d have probably used my full name from the start, as I am a lot less paranoid about identity theft than I was all those years ago.

There are certainly many people within various wargaming companies who know who the real Osbad is, and will (and have) hold me to account for anything controversial I may say.

I’m a closeted gamer, so I can’t imagine using my full name on any gaming site. My real name is public on a number of non-gaming sites, and I don’t think it affects my demeanor or posting style in any way.

I have always used at least part of my real name in any screen name I have used. It’s easier for me to remember and easier for everyone else.

However more than once I have walked over to a crowd of gamers and gotten your that Thom? It was rather amusing.

I am known as Bungle by my friends both online and in real life. It took my wife 6 weeks to find out my real name when we first met.

It separates work and official stuff from friends.

If we are talking about this, I personally like differentiating between gaming boards and professional boards. Goofy name and all the jokes for the gaming boards, the professional boards I use my professional name and make … the same jokes. :).

That is the opposite, I would say. This is assuming the Internet is an extension of one’s resume.

But a colleague should understand anything under the call sign counts under, “noone cares what you do on the weekend”.