I like the use of monikers because of the reduced preconceptions.
Your great-aunt, the one that pinches cheeks, isn’t named Tastes of Chocolate. Neither is the kid in 4th grade that bullied you. Unless I mention it someplace, you don’t know where I’m from. You can’t guess what ethnic background I’m from based on my name. You can’t even make an assumption of my age.
All you have to judge me by is my posts. To me, that’s what this place is really about.
I’m afraid that if I post my full name (and I’m no Jane Doe… my name’s pretty unique) someone I know in Real Life may be able to find me on the forums I frequent and then read all my posts. That kind of bothers me.
It seems to me that the anonymity is somewhat of an illusion for most people once they’ve posted here a few thousand times. Besides the fact that those of us who’ve attended Dopefests have revealed our true names and appearances to many other Dopers, even those who don’t attend 'fests tend to reveal enough personal information, over time, that would likely allow a dedicated researcher to piece together a pretty tight profile.
Once your occupation, age, city of residence, gender, first name, make and model of automobile, political affiliations, hobbies, school(s) you’ve attended, etc., have graced these pages (and those are all items that people here seem to be fairly at ease about revealing) an adept investigator could probably get pretty close.
Swap a bit of email, and it’s likely your real name went out to somebody (I know you can spoof that, but my experience with email from Dopers is that most people don’t bother with it). If you’ve ever received email from me, you have known my name (and, probably, forgotten it).
And if you’ve been to a Dopefest, even if you’ve kept your real name to yourself, there’s a decent chance your picture is posted in some findable place on the Internet.
Oh, and you’ve got a link to your website? Done a Secret Santa exchange?
Some people are tight lipped, but most eventually let slip enough pieces of the mosiac that they really should consider the perceived anonymity to be blown. While I’ve never just announced who I am IRL, I’m easily identifiable through my posts here. So, I treat this as the public message board that it is, and avoid posting anything that I couldn’t stand having my boss, or anybody else, come to know about me.
That’s not, of course, to say that there’s anything about my life that I couldn’t stand becoming public. 
But Ringo , that is only one side of the coin. I am not really all that worried with people here knowing things that I post (otherwise, I don’t post them). I am worried about people in the real world finding what I write here. Let’s say that someone related to this board decided to stalk me. Well, then I would just figure out who it is and decide to stalk them right back. Who is the cat and who is the mouse now?
Even if I ever went to a Dopefest, none of that would concern me. The possibility of only a very small fraction of what I have posted getting out to people that I know in the real world would.
Shag, that’s my message - treat this board as a place that you may in fact be called upon to answer for. The anonymity is paper thin at best.
Eh. I feel anonymous even when I’m chatting with someone face-to-face. I’ll never be able to express myself to someone else with the clarity that I can imagine things in my head, so I’m not terribly concerned about trying. Everything and anything that’s important or interesting about me is sealed away, and if someone happens to be nearby to witness the emergence of one of these facets, good for them.
However, I imagine most people just view me as a stupid, all-capitalized, right-wing name. I really don’t see how that’s any different from being “anonymous”.
True, as an average person I have nowt to hide. I’m not working for secret agencies or high government offices, just a paper shuffling pleb.
I used the name of my old cat half out of tribute to the wee fella and half because I couldn’t think of anything suitable witty or zany. Since then I’ve used my own name (or a corruption of it) on other websites such as EBay 
I always regarded fictional names and locations as a conscious acknowledgement of the fact that while we are on the boards we can be whomever we want to be.
Maybe I overestimated you guys and you are just a bunch of paranoid freaks* 
Also, just because someone is using a ‘normal’ name and location doesn’t necessarily make that name and location any less fictional.
*and I in no way mean any disrespect to anyone suffering from and mental disorders
OK, then, for those who were wondering, Ringo isn’t my real name. 
Well for me it’s pretty simple. I’m not so concerned about people tracking back from my anonymous ID to my real ID (although that does have some bearing). But I’m much more concerned about people being able to go the other direction. I don’t want anybody I meet in the future to be able to do a simple search of my name and come up with every thing I’ve ever said or done online. That could definitely be a problem.
You can say if I don’t want people to know about it I shouldn’t post online, but let’s face it if every post here had to be prospective employer-safe this would be a pretty dull board. I realize that SDMB doesn’t come up through google now, but who knows in the future - and basically once you put it on the internet you don’t have a lot of control.You have to be honest with yourself when you post online, though. It’s a calculated risk. If someone’s very motivated to get you they could find out who you are and post it all over the internet.
My personal feeling though is that instead of telling people not to post anything personal for fear they might be tracked down, I’d like to see a more general cultural ethic/understanding develop that what goes on on the internet should stay there. Like Vegas. By the way I totally understand why some people don’t give away their location. If they’ve revealed a few key details about themselves, their location could easily be the clincher that narrows down who they are to a single person. And I have met a number of people online who I’ve liked at first but have ended up being very very glad they don’t know my name.
I’m happy with my name and I don’t have much to hide. My nick for my first year or two here was my full name including middle initial (billehunt), but everyone assumed my name was “billie” (heck, Ed Zotti said “eat shit and die, billie” or such to me once) so I condensed it to the current.
Personally, I’m not crazy about anything being done anonymously (except charitable things of course).
I’m not sure why I want to be anonymous on this message board, I only know that I do. That said, while I’m not sure I’ve ever revealed my present location, I have revealed information that would allow a really determined person from my past to identify my real name. On the other hand, I’ve changed people’s first names in occassional anecdotes- and laughed at myself in the process. There are certain first names (like David) which are so common that even if someone recognized the event, and the name, they might assume it was some other David who had had the same things happen to them.
I do think one of the reasons why I want to be anonymous is the permanence of this message board. I tell my supervisor something embarassing, she may forget the story or forget that I told it to her. I tell something embarassing on the board, someone can do a search and be reminded that O was the one who told the event.
The other reason I think I want to be anonymous is the fact that I don’t know who might be reading. If I talk to my supervisor, or someone at church, I know that person’s gender, approximate age, present location and various other details about them, just by looking, or from the context in which we met. I only know those things about posters some of the time. (Even if they reveal them, I may not remember) and there is nothing to stop someone from reading the board and never posting, which really means I know nothing about them.
My real name (Karen) isn’t clever. It isn’t funny. It has no odd, extraneous puctuation. It doesn’t involve ninjas at all. So I don’t use it. To me, that’s the fun of the internet. I love all of the weird, silly names, like InvisibleWombat. They make me smile. Hence, I have a silly name of my own.
I used my real name and have been sorry ever since. There are times when I don’t say exactly what I want to say because someone I know may see it. I wouldn’t know because they were probably smart enough to use a catchy little screen name, unlike me. And also, if someone says something mean or rude to me, it feels like they’re really saying it to me, the person, not me the poster. So, please remember to be gentle if we happen to run into eachother in other areas of the board.
I don’t particularly like my legal name, and funnily enough my first and last name are the usernames of two different posters. So even if I were to use my full name as my username, I think it would be confusing for people. Besides, I’ve been “Lamia” online for…gosh, must be nine or ten years now. If I really wanted to be anonymous, I’d have to pick a new pseudonym!
I also like to use a nom de net not merely to protect my own privacy, but that of people I know IRL that I might mention here. I never use their real names either, but even so someone might be able to figure it out if they had my real name. I mean, I could only have so many bosses, coworkers, or roommates at a time.
I’ve posted enough info that if some dedicated person wanted to track me down and find me, they could. When I started here, I used my name ‘Ava,’ but I decided to change my user name since just my name didn’t tell you anything about my personality. Also, it’s boring to just use one’s name. I’ve done that since I’ve been on the internet and now I want to use other things for handles.
Why do we want to be anonymous? Christ, have you read the pathetic geek stories thread?
Personally, I’m anonymous because of the preconceptions thing. I don’t have to act my age/gender/sexual orientation/whatever, and people won’t expect me to. I don’t even have to act like myself–I could even flirt on here! Conversely, I can also share personal information that I wouldn’t share IRL. That make sense?
A couple of points here.
As mentioned by others, it’s nice to have your argument taken for the words being used, the point being made and not based on who it’s coming from.
I think people tend to forget that putting anything out on the internet, whether it’s on a Message Board, Blog or website it all stays out there. You can’t take it back. even if you quit this board tomorrow, everything you submitted can still be found.
My final point has been made by several other people with really good examples. You just don’t know who’s reading what you wrote or the information you’ve given. The example was given that we don’t know all the people around us in a city or at a crowded event. But in that example you would know if they were using your personal info (they’d have to go through your wallet) or were asking around about you (someone would come up and mention this I’d hope).
Unfortunately, I don’t think being anonymous is really a choice but a necessity.
My Blog
Don’t laugh so hard, it may be funny but it’s also my life
Lucky
I can’t speak for the others who do this, but I do it because there is a stigma attached to where I live - the general location - and I don’t want to be pre-judged that way. It’s not a security issue.
But there are plenty of crazy, angry people out there, so I don’t give out my personal information readily. It’s just not worth it.