Not surprised. I suspect I know what technique you used. Note that I said (emphasis added) “I had it changed to Canadjun so that I could post personal things with a reasonable assurance of not being identified at a glance”
That said, people that know it or look it up - please don’t mention my old username. Thank you.
I wonder what kind of connections to real identity could have “disastrous consequences.” Could you mention a couple?
“Inappropriate” comments about your job spring immediately to mind.
Specific details about a pending court case or law suit is another obvious one (I have seen a few cases where people reply that the OP really should not be discussing what they brought up so publically).
As Canadjun says. Any and all comments about jobs, bosses, co-workers, employers; many comments about college faculty, programs, etc., especially for grad students; many many many comments about family, past loves, indiscretions, personal problems etc. if a spouse or family member makes the connection.
And just plain embarrassment to have one overall personality connected to any other, and have that connection follow you around pretty much for life.
I guess if you’ve followed Mauve Decade etiquette rules and never put anything in writing that you wouldn’t want read in public, you’re fine. I think most of us who have been hanging out online a long time would like to have user identities stay… separate.
Although I am probably about to go public in a way that will clearly identify me here. About the only way it couldn’t happen would be for me to close this account and never post again on the SDMB. So it’s been a matter of… interest to me lately.
For several years I was owner/moderator of a very active dog-related yahoogroup. A regular poster was having a health-related issue with a potential show dog she’d bought from a well-known breeder and openly trashed her on a pretty personal level on the group before we could calm her down. She ended up embroiled in a messy lawsuit as a result.
OK, that is perhaps not “disastrous” but it was certainly a very negative consequence.
Although many people online know me IRL as well, I try to keep my involvement on forums as anonymous as possible, including using “anonymous” email addresses for registration. I have a very faint digital footprint - no blogs, no FB, no twitter, etc. I’ve never felt compelled to share anything deeply personal on open forums anyway.
I once proposed a method by which some threads would support anonymous posting, with the real identities of posters being visible to mods to avoid abuse. It went over like a uranium balloon. Technology is not the issue.
It’s these considerations that have kept me from asking the board’s advice about my hemorrhoids.
About the only ones I can think of where people or law enforcement or government agents would bother to sift through thousands of posts for clues.
1.Claim in deep detail how you’re a mass child molester.
2.Head of a drug cartel, brain behind some new “Silkroad”.
3.Claim involvement in some serious terrorist attack.
4.Leave comments in detail about your serial killer hobby.
And that is ASSUMING anyone would take it seriously instead of just assuming you’re a troll, or if they could even connect the name to you. Someone would have to be in lu lu delusion land to assume the CIA is going to track down AnoNymous because he admitted to shooting heroin and downloading mp3s.
Unless you really are a very prestigious and public figure, in which case you probably should not even be posting anything online of a personal nature period. Joe Blow? Come on!
Your definition of “disastrous” seems to mean just one thing: going to jail. For the rest of us, “disastrous” is ,well, a little closer to home. You know, things like getting fired, getting divorced, getting caught insulting family members, losing friends, losing money, or just being deeply embarrassed.
Most Joe Blows are not worried about going to jail.
But most of us here on this board have posted something that somebody else in our life disagrees with, or would feel insulted if they read it.
And sometimes , ya know,…things change, and the person whom we didn’t pay so much attention to sudddenly becomes your boss, or becomes a part of your extended family, etc, etc, etc.
Better to be over-cautious, than to regret it later.
And yes (mods…are you listening?)–We need an option on this site for long-time users to occasionally post under a disposable username.
But how would that happen? How would say your new brother in law, who you used to complain about here when he was your sister’s loser boyfriend, realize your username=your legal name?
I wondering how the username ever gets tied to your real name? I mean I’m not saying it is impossible, but it would take so much effort and for what?
I would also like a anonymous posting option, but more to avoid the inevitable snarkfest and years long cross thread pollution.
“Wait aren’t you the poster who claimed years ago you fought over and got arrested “unjustly” because your brother stole your suntan lotion?! harhar!”
Some posters use the same username for multiple internet fora. Your new brother-in-law may notice you posting on someone’s Facebook with your handle and decide to google you, just to find out if you have other haunts.
Sometimes I’ll do google searches for the most obscure thing and a Straight Dope thread comes up. If there you and your brother-in-law are world renown experts in Obscure Thing, well, it wouldn’t take him too long to figure out that the guy gabbing about it is you. And he’ll try to confirm it by going into the archive.
I don’t know how often these two scenarios happen. But I think they are plausible.
Suppose there was a funny thread in MPSIMS about funny things that happened on formal occasions.(Wedding bloopers, etc.)
You post in that thread, telling your funny story— about a guy you knew in the army, and once puked on the shoes of a high ranking general–because he was a druggie/alcoholic/asshole/loser…
Five years later, that guy is in a bar, and re-tells his story to his friends, with a “minor” change–he says he was sick with a virus and puked on the shoes of a general. They all start joking ,and they bet with each other that nobody has ever done that before. To see who wins the bet, they google “puking on a general”, and your thread comes up.
He knows that there were only, say, 100 people who were there to witness the time he puked… He does a quick google of your Doper name, and sees 5 other threads of yours, where you talk about your grandfather’s farm in Alabama, your Harley motorcycle, your St Bernard dog, and your army transfer to a base in Alaska.
Now he knows who you are.
And he’s dating your sister…
And he’s pissed…
Is it about your spelling, HoneyBadger? It’s OK; we know.
I thought Honey Badger don’t care?
Remember, Google is both your friend and your enemy.
The naked doper picture thread I thought was a prime example of something you could do as a lark or for a bit of a thrill and have it totally and completely screw you over down the line.