In threads that are related to the issue of user names and possibility of having avatars (which everyone seems to hate) I have happily fessed up that after more than two years on the dope I can barely recognise more than a handful of names, least of all make any kind of association between the name and characteristics of the person. A good portion of those I can remember are because I’ve met them in person. The thread to lavish praise on other posters really brought that home to me as lots of people had so much to say about others, and I didn’t really have anything to contribute.
It’s not that I’m incapable of learning usernames (even the more esoteric ones), or doing so without the aid of avatars (although on another forum I use I have in only a few months come to recognise pretty much the whole regular community there because they use avatars and the picture/name combination is much easier to remember) but on the dope I seem pretty crap at it. My theory is that there are so many people here spread over so many subjects that it’s hard to get a handle on everyone.
So, I’m wondering, how did you get to know the names/dispositions/personalities of other dopers when they are, in short, only text on a screen?
Generally I remember the names of the posters who are highly entertaining. Other than that, it all tends to be a bit of a blur unless I’ve identified something they have in common with me.
So mostly, I don’t recognise user names. But this is okay, 'cos very few people remember me, either.
I have terrible trouble with remembering people’s names (and faces) in real life, and it continues to be a problem online as well. Names I see a lot of (super-high post count members) unfortunately tend to blur together a bit, so while I recognise that I’ve seen the name before, I quite often can’t recall the specifics of that poster.
By indulging in conversations with them, and by reading other conversations in which they participated. Personalities, and a certain number of personal details come through loud and clear, and after a certain period of time (if you’re spending a certain amount of time on the boards), you find you’ve gotten to know the most vocal (so to speak) of the Doper population.
I hang on other MBs that do allow avatars, and on a couple of them in particular people change their avatars literally with the season, so there’s no point in focusing on avatars for identification. Again, what identifies them for you is a history of interacting with them, and of reading where they interacted with other people.
The same way you recognize people in your class or people from TV. Learning by association. Most posters have a certain flavour, a feel to their post, and I assocaite it with them. If it is a feel that attracts my attention (either through like, dislike or … any noticable trait) I tend to remember the name.
I hate it when a poster I know changes her/his name, though.
I’d disagree with this, on the other board I use people change their avatars as well but because it’s another piece of information about them it’s easier to gain some kind of handle on who they are and how they represent themselves in the forum.
Saying that it probably helps that the other board has a much smaller base of core users, but there are some people who post there very infrequently but I instantly recognise and remember due to their avatars.
I don’t feel I’m good at it. Ones I do learn fall into one or more of a few catagories:
Geography. I suppose it’s because there’s an obvious tendency for British and other European members to be drawn to particular threads. And I’m more likely to remember somebody when I realise they’re relatively nearby. *Edit: yes, the OP is included here **
Common interests. But then again, it’s pretty obvious that the same regular posters are going to be drawn to threads about classical music or about football. I keep an eye on the Blackpool score each Saturday as a result, for example.
Helpful usernames. Especially if they overlap with common interests, such as percussion, K364, Musicat, One And Only Wanderers.
Regular players of Mornington Crescent. TheLoadedDog, for instance.
People who regularly annoy me with their opinions, their style of writing, or whatever. I’m saying no more on that one!
How do I learn them? Just try to become more personal with them. If there is something I would like to say to them I’d PM them and personal correspondence usually does the trick.
Still, there are plenty of dopers who I confuse due to silly little differences in their name. Me? I used to have a long and annoying name, which was probably more annoying and therefore recognizable, but to heck with that. Now I’m content with being unrecognized as a jumbled set of letters and a number.
It’s easier for me to remember Dopers by name than it would be if I met them face to face. I have no visual memory whatsoever, so avatars are useless to me, but words I can remember.
I do get names mixed up if they have a similar “shape” to them, though, like Whynot and What Exit? That usually passes after I’ve read more of their respective posts.
Some Dopers have some special area of expertise or personal characteristics that help in remembering them (e.g. twickster’s the puzzle expert, Rick’s the car expert, Qadgop the Mercotan’s the prison doc & Tolkien fan, Hal Briston likes to have sex with sheep , Bricker knows the legal stuff, there are several Dopers I recognize for their mathematical expertise, etc.)—not to imply that any of these are one-trick ponies!
As, a lot of Dopers I just don’t have anything I strongly associate with them. But that’s okay; it just means I don’t come to their posts with any preconceived expectations.
What makes things a little tricky is Dopers with similar names (like all the sams: samclem, Sampiro, Siam Sam, etc.).
(Purgatory Creek, I used to get those two mixed up too.)
I too keep an eye out for Rick whenever a car-related question has arisen. I tend to know that there is a puzzle expert, a nurse (well, many nurses, no doubt!), and so on, but can’t recall some of their names at all until I see them posting on a relevant topic.
Gee, hate to tell you this, bbs2k, but for some reason I find your username really stands out. I always notice it.
I hope nobody thinks this is weird, but when somebody says something thought-provoking or especially nice or really cool, I will sometimes go look at their public profile to see what else they have to say. That helps me sort of triangulate who they are.
I think it’s odd that I have so much trouble with names in life, but when somebody says something really funny on the board, I’ll remember them forever. For instance, there’s a thread currently about terrorist robots attacking, and when I saw the title I immediately thought of a thread from 2006 started by Eve titled “Giant killer snails are coming! Walk! Walk for the Hills!” hee hee hee!
Another one is the Mr. Happy Valentine Balloon thread, which of course put me in mind of Scylla’s radio-controlled blimp. In both cases, I remembered exactly who had written the thread, even though I didn’t join the board until two years later!
Well, there’s always my mortal enemies, ****** **** and *******, upon whom I wish a terrible fate. HazelNutCoffeemay have the smartest mouth in the world. Plus, she’s cute. Siam Samis the wise old man who brings me back to Earth when I get too energetic/pissed off.
Other than those, I couldn’t recognize anyone by style. But I’m a newbie.
I’ve been here long enough to be able to associate some usernames with some subjects, like the Dopers who are in the medical field, veterinary field, like to garden, love cats, live near me, etc…I do like avatars, though, as long as they aren’t animated. (Hypocritical of me, having had some animated avatars on other boards.)
After awhile, it just seems to gel. Kinda like it does in the classroom. The class is just a mass of strangers until one day you realize that you know all about most of them. When you interact with a regular group, it just…happens. I’d hate to try it cold, but if I had a list of 100 Dopers, I could probably put a “face” to most of them (providing they had interacted with me somehow.) Their “voice” comes through in just about every post.
Picture threads help me. I remember silenus, in particular, as the wearer of the Hawaiian shirts, and I’ve added “professor” to the picture because I imagine him in those Hawaiian shirts behind a podium. (I don’t know why, in my brain, he always lectures from a podium in a medium sized lecture hall with brown seats, since my own college classes have always taken place in classrooms with desks. Oh, and he’s always on the left of center side of my vision, facing the mostly unseen class over my right shoulder - I don’t think I’ve ever “seen” his left side as a result. I wonder if that was the angle in his linked picture. Brain details are weird.)
Sometimes a poster will write something so shockingly horrible to me that it sticks with me, and it does color my discourse with them in later, unrelated threads. Those are sad ones - I don’t want to remember a poster because of bad things, but it’s happened now with three posters (who I won’t name here) - two very recently and one a few months ago.
Those who PM or email me and have one on one conversations are well-remembered, as are those who I engage with a “teaparty” in a thread.
, Bricker knows the legal stuff, there are several Dopers I recognize for their mathematical expertise, etc.)—not to imply that any of these are one-trick ponies!