No.
I like this message board, I enjoy posting here, and I have posted things that someone determined could probably track me down if they put enough effort into it. But some posters are like Birthers - after a point, it isn’t worth the bother whether they believe me or not, and it isn’t really about the evidence in the first place.
I don’t post things I know to be untruthful. Whether or not anyone wants to believe me is up to them.
Regards,
Shodan
Public? No
To a trusted member or moderator? Possibly - but only if I were being disbelieved about something (I can’t think what that would be as I am not going to disclose too much about myself here) AND I managed to get someone else to back up their opinion that I was lying with cash.
And I bet almost everyone else saying no feels the same way. If you were offered a million dollars to identify yourself, would you? Then we’re just quibbling about price.
Sure. I don’t think it would be too difficult for people to figure out who I am right now, if they were so inclined. So I wouldn’t have a problem ‘verifying’ my identity…
No. Not so much because I would be worried about anyone on this board. But I prefer to have the freedom of posting stuff related to work, family and friends without identifying them to the world at large.
I think this has to do with this one new poster who is supposed to have a significant disability (umkay, not** Ambivalid** or blinkie). Some other person (NotOkay) then started a thread stating that she had died. She then came on and claimed she was not dead. [thread=656188]Then NotOkay was pitted. [/thread] Then people started to claim she, umkay, the original person, was not as she seemed either, and the whole thing went kablooie.
Suggestions were made regarding how she, umkay, could demonstrate that she was who she was. **Giraffe **had a whole thing where she could be being videotaped posting, if she wanted to do that.
Next up: Loyalty oaths.
I have “come out” to a few posters on this board, in the sense that they know my real name and what I look like. But those were through private exchanges with no accusations thrown.
Now if I were asking for help from other posters, then yeah, I would consider proving myself (which, please note, is different from giving an unequivocal yes … I would have to weigh the benefits against the consequences of revealing personal information in a public forum that would probably be near the top of the search results when my name is googled).
But if people were insisting that I verify who I am, without feeling any inclination to do the same things themselves, then no, I don’t think I would. But admittedly I won’t know for sure unless I find myself in that situation.
I’ve written e-mails to a dozen or so Dopers (including you, Brynda) and some Mods with my real name and (job) address attached, and because I consider you dozen people to be decent and honorable, I trust that you can verify who I am, if I ever need it. If you doubt that the e-mail is accurate, all you have to do is google my last name and the name of my university, and my home page will pop up.
As it happened, I did need it, sorta, when people were claiming that I wasn’t who I said I was (i.e., “anyone who’s disagreeing with me in such a stupid manner couldn’t possibly be a professor of anything,” or “anyone who writes so offensively couldn’t possibly be a professional writer” or other stuff like that.) And you know what?
It didn’t help a bit. When people would back me up (saying, “Whatever disagreements you have with PRR, he is who he says he is, trust me”), the hayters would
respond, “Bullshit! You’re probably a sock for him, or in on the gag, or just plain Fuck you.”
I concluded that when people want to believe you, they will, and when they don’t, no amount of evidence is sufficient.
Good luck with that in my case.
I have three basic emails:
#2 is my Dope email, among other things. Can’t remember whether I gave Facebook the first or third email; at any rate, FB has no reason to connect my Dope email with me.
This. I figure that I’ve built up a certain amount of cred over the years with some posters, and those that think I’m full of it do so for reasons that have nothing to do with who I am IRL or what credentials I may have there.
A goodly number of longtime posters have met me at assorted Dopefests (they’d have to be longtime posters, since I don’t think I’ve been to a Dopefest in five years), and some of those Dopefests were at my house, so those Dopers would have had no trouble discerning my RL identity. But I’d still rather not share my RL identity with the board. I’d have to have a damned good reason to share it even with the SDMB admin.
I’ve posted my real name- first and last(my name is very common,) linked my OkCupid profile, joined the Straight Dope Facebook group, friended a couple of Dopers on Facebook, and posted my pic in Arnold’s gallery. The only things I haven’t done are attend a Dopefest or meet any Dopers IRL. I use this nick everywhere on the Web. I don’t make any extraordinary claims about myself that need proving. I am pretty good about not being too personal. I’m not concerned at all about anonymity.
I guess it wouldnt worry me too much, but Id wonder who I was going to end up doing it for. In general I think the internet has too much information about us, so I dont go out of my way to give it more.
I dont particularly mind if people dont believe my word alone, if anything I’d encourage people to check info from a variety of sources rather than just trusting mine.
Otara
I’m fine with doing so. I’ve asserted some claim to expertise in a few areas from time to time, and with such claims do go the need to back them up.
Personally, I’d be crushed to find out that you aren’t really a slimey, tentacled Tolkien expert.
I’d have no problem with it. I’m not really anonymous now anyway.
So would my wife.
I had you googled in minutes. 
Your last sentence, unfortunately, rings true.
I voted yes. My full name and current address* are posted on another forum and have been since I moved here just over 3 years ago. I have met 3 dopers over the years, 2 have been banned and one doesn’t post very often.
*Send money & chocolate.
No, and here’s why. I have learned in life that if people don’t believe you to begin with, they aren’t going to believe you if you try to provide evidence. They will never be satisfied. And that’s fine, because it’s not like I really need some random person on the internet to believe me anyway. People either take what I say at face value, or they don’t. I owe them nothing.
No, I have no need to. I’m not that committed to this board, while I like it. And you guys really have no need to know who I am.
The only Dopers to whom I’ve not verified my identity, are the ones who didn’t show up to the dozens of Dopefests I’ve been to (dozens, if you count the informal ones in the Bay area back in the day).