Propriety about the SDMB much?

In My Humble Opinion (IMHO)
#1

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?

#2

I used to say the only person I wouldn’t want to read the Dope and realise it was me was my mother, but the more I post… the longer that little list gets. My in-laws… eh… I might be a little embarrassed, but they’d tease me about it and I’d grow out of the embarrassment in time. My husband, he knows, knows my name, can look if he wants, but he’s not interested in joining. He figures anything I deem interesting enough to tell him to be plenty enough for him.

However, now that I am working… heh. I don’t really know my co-workers well enough to know how they’d react to some of this stuff I post. They seem like really nice, laid back, easy going people, and they probably wouldn’t care, but… well. Let’s leave it at “not yet” for now. But I’ll probably never tell them. IF they stumble upon it sometime, then tell me they found this really cool site I might like, I’ll probably just say, “Oh, really? Hmmm. Maybe I’ll check it out sometime.”

#3

In my journal, I link to threads from time to time.

One such time elicited a response from an acquaintance of mine asking what my handle here was.

Ain’t no way in hell he’s getting that information. No way in hell. He’s a ::checks forum:: person with whom I’ve had many an energetic disagreement, and while he might like GD and The Pit, it wouldn’t be nice to the folks here to subject them to him.

There are folks I know who would enjoy this place and make it richer, but Og damn, dude. My brother reads this place, and that’s more’n enough realtime intrusion for my comfort.

#4

I have occasionally thought about not wanting people I know have access to what I post here, but when I’m reluctant to show someone to the Dope, it’s usually because I would rather not subject all of you to them. “Would he really give cites or would he just pull things out of his ass?” I’m usually thinking.

I’m not usually a snob, I promise. Just about this place.

#5

Well, there certainly are enough people here who do that anyway, at least for a time. Some people learn eventually to back up their statements and the rest usually end up leaving.

And iampunha I would say GD and the Pit especially are big enough and tough enough to take care of themselves. Anyway since your friend has seen the forums he can join if he wants to whether he knows your username or not.

There are plenty of reasons not to introduce people you know to the SDMB (I have made a few such rationalizations myself) but I think being afraid of degrading the quality of the board is not one of the better ones. We must have a couple thousand regularly posting users, and good moderators. Each new poster is just a drop in the bucket.

#6

I have a bunch of people I’ve tried to interest in the Dope – with no success. They’re all friends, of course.

For coworkers – I’ve mentioned “my online community” or whatever more than once, without identifying it specifically. At this point I’m high enough in the food chain that I don’t want people I supervise reading here, though I’m usually extremely careful about not posting anything I’d be embarrassed to have read by someone I know (including, e.g., the Dopers I’ve met and become friends with IRL).

#7

Just my closest family members know, and they also know my user name, so they could be out there lurking and reading every word. However, none of them have really shown much interest except (briefly) my 14-year-old daughter, and I discouraged her, because I think I may need the board’s help with her in the next few years and I’d like to be able to speak freely!

#8

That’s a shame, Twix, and that’s the shame I’d like to avoid. Is it truly a virtue to have a place where you can inquire about the sebacious pus you’ve discovered forming under your foreskin, if you’d be too embarrassed to have your personal friends knowing about the pus? Me, I’d rather have the helpful community advising me to haul that foreskin to the ER pronto, than the friends with whom I’ll be discreet,delicate and decorous.

I mean, I’ve GOT friends, and I can replace them, if need be, with other friends. I’ve only got one SDMB, though.

#9

Luckily, I lead a pretty pus-free existence.

Nah, I meant more the “what’s the kinkiest thing you’ve ever done” type threads – I don’t post in those. Of course, I’m not sure I’d post in them even if it were a message board where I was truly, completely anonymous – not my style.

I’m just not a TMI kind of gal.

#10

I’ve had a few friends interested in the Dope, I think I’m responsible for two people’s memberships over the years. I’m not a particularly private person, so there’s not much I’d want to keep from these friends. As for the “Who on the Dope has had sex with a kitten” threads, well, my friends hear me talk about the Dope often enough that they should have the sense to avoid such threads.

#11

SO - he knows my handle. I’ve also made him sit down one day and taught him how to run a search for my name. I told him there was no way I wanted to hide it. All the same, he has little to no interest, and I’m glad for that, too, as it’s a sort of private place away from him.

Parents/family - BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Work - My work life and home life has strong dividers. Hell no. They’re rather prudish and old-fashioned anyway, and non computer savvy at all.

I tried to get my best friend to join, but she’s not very computer-interested.

Other than that, no, I don’t share it with my friends. I share the front page, ,the columns, all the time, but not the message board itself. This is MY place.

#12

I tell people about some of the things I read here, but they never ask what the place is called, or what the URL is. They don’t know my username. Mostly, they seem unfamiliar with the concept of message boards. Heck, I can’t even get my wife to get interested in reading the boards. She’s well-read and highly educated and writes well, and has hobbies that would make her fit right in here… but no such luck.

#13

Right after “The Sheep Incindent”, the co-worker responsible (and several other members of his group, to whom had blabbed about the whole thing) asked me what the response from the community was. I told him the truth* – the thread was quickly locked and the whole thing went nowhere.

Up until the time he left the company, I often had a nagging feeling that he would take a look on his own and see what he had wrought.

I’d also prefer it if certain SDMB in-jokes didn’t spill over to family reunions and such, so yeah, I try to keep real life away from here if possible.

*Well, it was the truth…at least for a little while.

#14

Yeah, but the name I use here is the same name I use various other places, so I’m thinking it wouldn’t be hard for him to make the connection and say we’re friends or whatever, and then go learning various things about me that I have no desire to ever let him know.

There’s also the possibility that he’d intimate that I was the reason he was here, which … urgle.

He can join whenever he wants, based on what he has. I don’t know that he hasn’t. I just hope he hasn’t:)

#15

I have scads of friends who would love to at least lurk on these boards, if they knew about them. But I like having the anonymous outlet. Which is funny, because I don’t think I’ve ever said anything on these boards that my friends don’t know about–I just don’t want to remove the possibility.

I actually sat next to another Doper in class in law school. I knew who she was, but I did not say so, because I didn’t want to have to tell her who I was.

#16

Knowing that this stuff goers out into the Great Uncontrollable Ether, I have been circumspect about what I post (believe it or not), so no posts about Pepper Mill’s religious beliefs, or details of our sex lives, or personal information I’d rather didn’t get spread around.

I’ve been amazed at what stuff I’ve written over the past 30+ years has somehow made its way onto the internet – even stuff I wrote on my old electric typewriter and never published anywhere. If someone else has a copy of it, they can post it. So the reviews that I wrote as an undergraduate, my undergrad thesis, and a portion of my memoirs of my undergraduate life that I gave someone all got posted without my knowledge or consent. Fortunately, nothing has gone up that seriously embarrasses me. Not much, anyway.

Just remember that this stuff goes out there and gets archived, and can be dredged up in the future. Do what I do, and follow will Rogers’ advice, applying it to your on-line existence:
“Just live your life so you won’t be ashamed to sell the Family Parrot to the Town Gossip.”

#17

I was thinking about putting this in ATMB, but maybe a slight survey here would be good. Who would like an anonymous posting option? I did a quick search to see if anyone has proposed this before, but came up dry.

Mods - if anyone is interested, I’ll start a thread in ATMB about this. If everyone thinks it is a bad idea, I won’t bother.

It would work like this: a thread starter could allow anonymous posts. Thread repliers would then have the option of making their posts anonymous. There would not be any distinction, so responses would have to be quoted or refer to post numbers.

Mods would have access to the real identity of a poster, so this would not be an excuse to abuse the boards. We might not want to give guests this capability for obvious reasons. We might not allow it in certain fora either.

The benefit is to allow people to post stuff they may not want to have identified with themselves - either for their SDMB persona, or for their IRL persona.

I have no idea if this is technically possible.

Thoughts?

#18

Don’t waste your time. It ain’t happening.

#19

Not usually - I’m pretty open in real life and on the internet. “What you see is what you get,” so to speak.

Then again, I often show my friends and family the board and point out my responses anyway. None of them WANT to post here, because of th $15 a year thing, and none of them would be interested in what I have to say here because they’ve heard it all before, haha.

I’m not the kind of person that has a reason for privacy so to speak. I keep blogs but they’re open, and I’ve never kept a journal. If something pisses me off, I vent, I do something to get rid of the anger, and then I’m done. If I have a problem, I’ll ask a lot of people - and I wouldn’t have a problem asking the Dopers, either. shrugs But I am indeed very unusual.

~Tasha

#20

Sort of along the lines of several other posts herein, when I started work at my first newspaper job back in the 1980s, I had the pro forma meeting with the publisher, who had just one piece of advice: “Do everything in life as if it were going to end up on the front page, because if you ever embarrass us, it will.”

I try to do that here – write as if everything I write will end up on the front page of the local newspaper under my byline. I’ve only been a member since March, but I’ve already had to make some hard apologies (all caused by failing to meticulously follow every link and read every post of a thread before responding.)

Having said all that – I’m nobody’s recruiter. I live in a small town, pardner, and I’m pretty sure there ain’t room in this here town for two 'Dopers.