Much as I hate to deprive the Dope of good potential Dopers, I go far out of my way sometimes NOT to forward threads to Non-Dopers I know who would get a kick out of them, and maybe even become Dopers, because I don’t want to allow them access to my Doper personality and all the details I feel free to discuss with anonymous strangers.
There’s only a little chance, for example, that the co-worker who’s a fanatical soccer fan (hasn’t discussed much at work other than head-butting for the past week or so) would ever learn my pseudotritonnym if I were to forward her a link to the soccer threads, but the chance still isn’t worth taking. I often discuss SD threads with my classes (“I have some friends on-line who were just talking about that…”) but no way am I going to link them to the Dope because I would then feel less free to discuss academic issues as freely as I sometimes do. Which is too bad because I’m sure some of them would become Dopers if they were made aware of this community.
Anyone else protective of their relative privacy by NOT telling people about the Dope?