Secretive profiles.

[mangeorge]

Why do so many Dopers omit or disguise information in their profiles? Most often is seems to be "occupation" and "location.
Noboby, generally, knows who you are anyway.
I like to read the profiles. They add color and substance to the people I'm interacting with, and they help me to understand where that person is coming from. I personally wouldn't mind if "gender" and "age" were added.
Of course I think that all the catagories should remain optional. I simply wonder why people are reluctant to give this info.
Just curious.
Peace,
mangeorge

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I only know two things;
I know what I need to know
And
I know what I want to know
Mangeorge, 2000

[aha]

I don't mind giving most of the information out to the public. I think age is kinda misleading on these message boards because sometimes it automatically puts you sight unseen into a catagory that you may not belong in.
Shees I am really tired I hope that made sense..::yawn::

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Yours truly,
aha

[Arnold Winkelried]

Originally posted by mangeorge:
I simply wonder why people are reluctant to give this info.

Maybe some of us want to keep the all-powerful state from spying on us, you commie pinko.

[Arnold Winkelried]

No, actually, I don't (for example) put a link to my home page, because that has my address and phone number, and if I post to MPSIMS "I'm going on vacation for three weeks" there might be someone who would decide to take advantage of my absence. As far as not putting what your real career/interests are, I think that's pretty harmless and could be put there.

[mangeorge]

No no, Arnold, I wouldn't put a link to my address or anything like that. Just the general geographic location.
I'm not that dumb, you fascist.
Peace,
mangeorge (Leftist pinko rabble rouser)

[Bricker]

Because if it were ever generally known that I'm a really a sixth grade student from Marquette, Michigan, I feel it would hurt my credibility.



- Rick

[Kat]

Well, some of them are not so much disguised as smart-ass. Not that I would ever do something like that in my profile.

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Your Official Cat Goddess since 10/20/99.

SD chat:
<Jophiel> Kat's here! the board must be down!

[tomndebb]

Because if it were ever generally known that I'm a really a sixth grade student from Marquette, Michigan, I feel it would hurt my credibility.

I dunno. I think we could probably deal with a sixth grade student poster. (Your other problem would be harder to overcome, of course.)

[seriousart]

Personally I wonder about usernames. Seems kinda silly, huh? I understand the whole honesty through by being anonymous thing, but sometimes it just seems a bit much. Like we're all a bunch of superheroes with secret identities. Superheroes who are neglecting they're duties of protecting their fellow man by spending all their time on the net. Although I suppose we could all be super-villans... that would make sense...

Its a bird...
It's a plane...
It's seriousartman!
whooosh.

[neutron star]

Why do so many Dopers omit or disguise information in their profiles?

I'd say it's a mixture of semi-unreasonable paranoia and sheer laziness.

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I am the user formerly known as puffington.

[manhattan]

This one seems to have run its course, but it belongs in ATMB anyway. Perhaps someone there will have something to add.

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Change Your Password, Please and don't use HTML, as it has been disabled

[Missy2U]

Neutron star said:

I'd say it's a mixture of semi-unreasonable paranoia and sheer laziness.

Nope. It isn't semi-unreasonable. It's good old common sense.

[The Ryan]

I don't understand why sex isn't a category on the profiles. It's rather annoying to have to either not use pronouns or to use them very carefully when responding to a poster with unknown sex.

[mangeorge]

Originally posted by The Ryan:
I don't understand why sex isn't a category on the profiles. It's rather annoying to have to either not use pronouns or to use them very carefully when responding to a poster with unknown sex.

I agree. That way the poster could opt to leave it blank. And then if a reply guessed wrong, well, he/she wouldn't have reason to fuss.
That is, if someone were to respond with unknown sex.
Thanks, The ryan, for the chuckle.
Peace,
mangeorge

[mangeorge]

Originally posted by manhattan:
This one seems to have run its course, but it belongs in ATMB anyway. Perhaps someone there will have something to add.

You know something, manhattan, I've looked at a lot of the other posts in this ATMB thingie and they're mostly about this message board. This thread seems to be mostly about the people who post on the SDMB.
A fine distinction, I know.
Far be it from me to question the wisdom of a moderator.
Peace,
mangeorge

[Kat]

But it also has suggestions about adding categories to the profiles, so it could still be considered about the message board.

[mangeorge]

Originally posted by Kat:
But it also has suggestions about adding categories to the profiles, so it could still be considered about the message board.

Ok, fine. So I shall remain forever banished to the nether regions of the SDMB.
Peace,
mangeorge

[neutron star]

Nope. It isn't semi-unreasonable. It's good old common sense.

Not really. Say I put my location as Lafayette, Lousiana in my profile, which I did. There are 130,000 people in this city! You aren't going to find me unless you're some kind of master hacker, and if you are, you wouldn't need the profile anyway. Now I can see if you lived in some place like Weed, CA (pop 3,000) that would narrow it down a bit, but you could just put Northern CA in your profile instead of the name of your small town.

Occupation is the other variable. If I put "food service worker" as my occupation (which I'm not), I'd be pretty tough to narrow me down in a medium-sized city like this. However, if I put "Lafayette Parish Coroner," you wouldn't have a very tough time finding out who I am.

I guess it all just depends on where you are and what you do. In my case, I don't really care if people know who I am or where I am, but I guess it's all just personal preference. People who willingly tell you who they are and what they do in public seem paranoid about divulging any part of their lives online. That guy you just met at the laundromat could just as easily hunt you down and kill you as could someone online - easier, in fact, because he's in your hometown.

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I am the user formerly known as puffington.

[RTFirefly]

People who willingly tell you who they are and what they do in public seem paranoid about divulging any part of their lives online. That guy you just met at the laundromat could just as easily hunt you down and kill you as could someone online - easier, in fact, because he's in your hometown.

Even IRL, I'd only give out vague details of where I live, and so forth, to a total stranger. And I figure that my profile is accessible to essentially the entire online world; that includes a lot of strangers. I'm going to preserve a certain lack of specificity there. I figure I can share more details with people I become more comfortable with online, in individual threads and by email.

[SuperNerd]

Okay. The location and occupation in my profile are correct, I agree that this is minimal risk. Having said that, I recently removed my email and home page info. Why? Because there have been some fairly odd things happening on this message board over the last few months, because my web server has become strangely unstable over the last few months, and because I honestly feel that some anonymity is not neccesarily a bad thing.

Arnold: it's my considered opinion that putting an address or phone number on a web page is an extrememly bad idea. Mangeorge: Yes, a general geographic location is okay, but a specific address is asking for trouble.

Neutron star: I'm in a city of about 900,000 but as soon as I post my web address any sixth grader (say, Bricker?) could get my address in about fifteen seconds (I'm registered with Internic, they'll give it to you for free).

Let's put this into a different perspective: couple months ago I happened to be at my web server when it was doing a routine backup. I noticed a few really large files going out to tape that I didn't remember seeing before. Did some digging and discovered that someone was using my FTP service to trade bootleg games. I shut down FTP and got rid of all the junk but ... it reminded me that this is a very public game. Once I publish an URL to the world, there are a few hundred million people that can see it. Even if a small percentage of people actually know about the URL and even if a tiny percentage of these people are unscrupulous that could add up to a significant number of people.

Relate that back to this site - if I publish either an email address or URL, there are a large number of people who could abuse that information (over 4000 registered members, who knows how many anonymous lurkers?). One, several people here have complained about abusive emails. Two, the site has been hacked at least once, God knows what kind of information they got before everything was locked down properly. I have to disagree with Neutron star's "semi-unreasonable paranoia and sheer laziness" comment - it seems like perfectly justified paranoia to me.

This is just a message board and I don't think that it's worth the risk. Kind of like standing up in a crowded place and calling attention to yourself - in this electronic frontier, someone in the crowd is going to start throwing rocks. I'd prefer not to be hit.

[neutron star]

Well, what you're talking about, SuperNerd, is different. The vast majority of people on this board do not have a domain registered with internic. Most people that have pages usually have them on some free service.

if I publish either an email address or URL

Then just get a hotmail account. There's not much they can do to you then.

[AuntiePam]

My daughter had listed her home town on her Yahoo home page, but I talked her into taking it off when we realized how easy it would be for someone to find her.

She had an e-mail from a guy in Michigan who wanted to drive down and meet her. She thought "how could he find me?" Ha! He could simply ask at the grocery store, or two of the convenience stores she's worked at, or any of the bars.

Heck, the phone book's always a possibility too.

So she took it off, now she's "somewhere in the midwest." I'm relieved.

[AuntiePam]

Ooops, forgot the OP. I haven't disguised anything -- but if I were well-known for something, I'd probably assume an identity.

[Ringo]

I don't have e-mail up, but I do have location and occupation listed. And I've now had six meeting with people or groups of people I've met on this board. No problem. I don't list a website or e-mail because, as in other life, I choose to limit somewhat how much access to myself I have to deal with and I don't want to offer the odd internet nut another easy access toy.

It has occurred to me that I've let slip enough personal info over the last year (G-d, has it been that long already?) that anyone devoted to the cause could probably easily ascertain my identity.

[neutron star]

Ha! He could simply ask at the grocery store, or two of the convenience stores she's worked at, or any of the bars.
Heck, the phone book's always a possibility too.

Well if she gave out her real name, yeah. Did she? You can't look up an online handle in a phone book or go to the grocery store and ask if anyone knows neutron star.

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"Honey we're recovering Christians."
--Tori Amos - In the Springtime of his Voodoo