Guilty as charged, as I’m sure the participants in my most recent GQ thread would confirm. I’m actually very unguarded with the personal information I share online, but for Dopers who want to know without sounding too inquisitive, that requires the extra step of following the homepage URL in my profile.
He’s not joking, and his name isn’t Shirley. 
As for me, I have a job where I talk to 80-100 people from around the country per day. They don’t get my last name or what city I live in, and neither do you. Call me paranoid, but damn, I talk to a lot of crazies. Crazies that have historically not been to shy about contacting people from my company in rather upsetting ways. Doesn’t happen often, but I’m never really in the mood for it.
However, if you’ve ever read any of my posts and you have some deductive reasoning powers, you could probably figure it out. If you don’t care to do that, then I don’t care to make it clear. You could always ask someone if you were curious, although I am pretty good about saying where I’m from if it’s a location specific post.
I’m from Maryland. Hope this relieves you of some of the irritation.
So up until a year ago my location showed my exact longitude and latitude. “that’s good”, I thought “any doper who wants to know where i’m posting from has the exact location.”
But noooo - a year ago, there was a thread, complaining about boring, mundane, accurate locations. “Get some humour in them there locations” was the gist of it: Your location … up there by your name.
So bowing to the will of the masses, I took down my accurate and information descriptor and came up with a vaguely naughty one which I’m still using.
And now this thread! “get rid of all those attempts at wit - we want accurate locations, dammit!”
I can’t keep up with all these fads. I’m sticking with vaguely naughty. Gotta take a stand somewhere.
My location is accurate, if you know what I’m talking about. It used to say “~ the Center of the Universe”, which is also accurate (the “~” stands for approximately. I only bring it up because I’ve had several people ask me what it’s like to live in the Center of the Universe - I don’t. I live beside it.) The closest it’s ever been was when I briefly had “'Round the corner of Archie McPhee’s”.
Accurate though it may be, it’s not where I’m originally from, and I still feel like a foreigner here, sometimes. So it doesn’t really say much about me. Well, except that I really like living here, and still act a little tourist-y from time to time. 
I know what you are talking about.
I’m about 10 miles east of you, in a city that also starts with a “B” and has an “LL”. You know, across the water (northeast corner of that lake). Although I’m not at 7-Eleven, that’s really an inside joke between myself and some friends.
Somehow, I don’t associate “Uff Da!” with Boeing, overpriced coffee, and Microsoft. It has much more of a Yooper/Cheesehead/Prairie Home Companion feel to it.
You would if you saw all of the dang bumber stickers with it. I finally looked it up on google, after all these years, all because of this thread. Ignorance has been reduced.
I don’t like living where I live, so I don’t advertise it.
However, I have mentioned my location in various posts. It’s not a paranoia thing for me. Because of those exchanges mentioned previously, a few handfuls here have had my home address at one time or another.
I feel stupid trying to be clever and witty with it, so I leave the space blank. When I move back to my other home, I’ll adjust my location space.
As RaftPeople mentions, “Uff da!” is a very common bumper sticker around these parts. So is “Free Ballard”. Ballard is quite well known for the large Norwegian population.
Since I’m not from a city, all these little “subsections” of the main city amaze me, and each has it’s own unique feel to it. “Free Ballard” jokes aside, Ballard really does feel like a seperate city. Fremont has it’s own feel. Magnolia, Capitol Hill, U District… all different. I moved from south Seattle to north a little over a year ago, and it’s a totally different world. There were no Norse in Boulevard Park!
So maybe it’s just the bumpkin in me, overwhelmed by such a “big” city (my husband teases me for thinking it’s so big). But like I said, my location is accurate if someone knows what I’m talking about. I don’t think less of anyone for not knowing, for sure. Two years ago, I wouldn’t have gotten it. I’m trying to be slightly ambiguous, after all. I’m just not very good at it. 
To the OP; what should I use as my location? I was born in Seattle, WA, USA. I was six months old when we moved. I spent my formative years in Texas, Arkansas, and Kansas. I consider myself a Californian (I spent from age 13 to 27 in various places in SoCal.) When I joined the board, I lived outside of Las Vegas. Since then, I’ve lived in Nevada, SoCal, and (currently) Georgia. My mum is English and my (pretty much) absentee father was/is Pennsylvanian Dutch.
My current location says nothing about my attitudes and upbringing. Unless I’m complaining about traffic on the 85/285/75, my location means nothing to anybody. Will putting “North of Atlanta, GA. USA,” change the meaning of my posts at all?
My location is an unabashed sexual reference to my wife, who was a board member under the name Boondock Saint. I’m proud to be associated with her, and that says more then what location I’m physically at.
If my location makes a difference in what my post says, I’ll mention it. Otherwise, it’s nobody’s business, simply because it doesn’t matter. You’re curious? Well, I’m curious about your real name, bank, and account number. Feel free to post said info. Really, I won’t do anything with it and it’ll make no difference in your posts. Please provide ASAP.
- DESK