I tend to be particularly surprised every once in a while when people on this board make comments that lead me to believe that they actually read poster’s screen names. For example you will see the common “Hey, great screen name to fit your post” or " Hey, bikerdude, you say X now but last week you said Y."
This is shocking to me because despite the fact that I read the SDMB about 30-40 minutes a day, I probably notice any particular poster’s screen name about once a month if it is not a specific topic of discussion or noted.
For me, 99.9% of the posts on here come from “the cloud” that makes up the SDMB membership. You might as well all be the same person (sorry…).
Aside:
Want to know who made it to super elite status? Off the top of my head I can name only three screen names on this board:
QED - Because he used to be so prolific in GQ and because those big capital letters tended to catch my eye
Samclem - Because he runs a coin shop and I am a coin collector.
In general skimming of threads, I don’t usually read the user names. If something intrigues me, upsets me, amuses me, I’ll check out the user name. Sometimes in my skimming there are a few names I remember. There are probably about a dozen or so I look for; most of them are people who also write in the poetry workshops, like melodyharmonius, Le Ministre de l’au-delà, Maserschmidt, etc. Also, for some crazy reason, I always seem to notice WOOKINPANAUB. And then I end up saying “wookin pa naub” in my head for a day or two after noticing a post by Wookin.
I usually don’t look at the names. I’m often surprised when I see a name I’ve never seen before only to find out they’ve been around for many years and thousands of posts.
I see them, but they only register enough for me to know what post goes with what name. It takes me ages to realize when someone’s done something cute with their username, or when a username adn a post’s content mix in a humorous way, etc.
I always notice. Some of the time it doesn’t mean anything because the poster is unknown or not well known to me. Other times I know the poster and can “hear” them saying the post. Still others are from friends who I enjoy interacting with. Then there are those whose posts I actively seek out, because they are always interesting, or they are good friends.
I always read the screen names, because I associate people’s words with their personalities here just as I do in the real world.
I have come to actually have some assumptions about individuals’ points of view here and the nuances of their particular writing styles.
It make all of you more ‘real’ to me.
The folks I’m most familiar with, I hardly even notice the screen names at all any more, since the posts themselves have such distinctive style (seriously, does Skald the Rhymer even need a username?). But sometimes I’ll read a post and say “Wait, who was that?”, or “I’ll bet that’s so-and-so”, and scroll back up to look, and sometimes the name will just happen to catch my eye.
I pretty much always read the names. Sometimes before, and sometimes after reading the post itself. I’ve been here long enough to recognize some people by their words without the need for a nametag, and I also know a few Dopers IRL. I recognize dozens and dozens of screen names, even if I can’t always pin a personality to each. I know a little about a lot of Dopers, you could say.
I notice them about half the time. I’m a visual person, and if we had avatars here, I’d be like, “Oh yeah, the guy with the Prof. Farnsworth avatar, or the girl with the lolcat w/ attitude,” but I wouldn’t necessarily notice the names. Several times a week tho, I’ll bother to read someone’s handle, see that he/she has like 3,000 posts and has been here since 2001, but I’ll have no conscious memory of noticing them before. For example, just from this thread (no offense intended, mind :)), I don’t remember seeing Joey P here before, even tho I know I must have.
Me too. I guess I’m used to having visual avatars to help distinguish usernames, but for some reason the names just don’t jump out at me here, so I often forget who said what when.
Yeah, all the time. It’s one of the things I enjoy most around here, the strange sense of community and getting to know people. It’s especially interesting when you find someone with whom you couldn’t disagree more on one topic, and with whom you agree completely on a different one.
Like finding out your right-wing arch nemesis grew up a couple of miles away from your Mum in some village that no one else has heard of…
Or that user who is a left-wing pestilence but thinks your cat’s name is brilliant…
And herein is the rub. Communication is so much more than words and on a message board, if we do not know them IRL, we only have their history and style as we know it from here. If I am a new little duck each day, then I am not going to be able to understand or know which of 42 different ways a statement can be intended and so usually take the one which suits MY mode at the moment and not the one of the poster.
I rarely read the names. Usually only when something is patently ridiculous or preaching, then I’ll check and go ‘Ah, of course, it’s so-and-so.’ I definitely confuse people, though, especially when their screen names start with the first letter, so seeing who wrote each post before reading it wouldn’t really add anything, for me.
