Either online or offline. Why or why not?
Inspired by this thread in ATMB about increasing membership, I wondered how many people would consider recommending the forums.
Yes & no. I’d rather nobody know my IRL identity. I’ve always avoided specifics about my life and my business in order to maintain my anonymity.
I’ve had real life meetups with just two people from here. One died last year and I miss him. The other was banned a few years back (IRL he was a cool dude, but you’d prolly never believe it).
That’s my problem too. Over the years, I have posted a few things I’d rather not be known to my friends and family. If I started over again a bit more cautiously, then sure.
No. Here is where I come to have conversations that I couldn’t have with IRL friends. It’s my private sanctuary of rational (for the most part) and frank discourse, and if I personally knew any posters, I couldn’t be frank anymore.
Wait a minute–you aren’t Kay Aker?
Nope. 'Cause I like belonging to a Secret Society.
But basically what @kayaker @Procrustus and @teelabrown have said.
Tripler
I tried to join the Illuminati via email, but they didn’t meet my exacting standards.
I get like a $50 bonus at work when I refer someone into the interview process.
What you got?
I have occasionally directed people here to specific threads that dealt with issues they were interested in. And in principle I would refer people here because I find it worthwhile and entertaining.
However, the people I know actually have lives. They live with other people, have family, see friends on a regular basis, sit down in the evening to dinner and conversation with people they care about and who care about them. They go places, travel, spend weekends with family, have interests and activities, etc. I know they do these things because they tell me. They don’t need the SDMB for basic social contact with other human beings.
Plus, I don’t know anybody who has the patience or the time to spare to sit all alone in front of the computer and write words, words, and more words. I don’t have much else to do, and the board gives me the feeling of being part of a community. Sort of.
animated gif SHOCKED
I honestly thought I was expressing an unusual opinion.
I’ve forwarded some posts from these forums to my wife, but she lost interest after a couple of days 
There have been a couple of other occasions where I mentioned to my real-life friends that I browse these forums, when they ask me how I spend my days during the lockdowns. However, I probably wouldn’t recommend the SDMB to them, not unless I was sure they were someone that would make high quality posts that enrich this site.
A post was merged into an existing topic: Grundig Posts
Lol, not only do I promote it, I actively use it to promote myself. I’ll even use this place for dating purposes and have had more than one person I dated register here. (Hi!) My family gets regular updates to my more interesting or relevant posts, though to be honest I now prefer to promote my Substack.
I calculated a month or two ago that I have brought at least 6,000 people here to at least view the site.
Same planet, different worlds.
Of course not. This is a board where people post pseudonymously. That is a more freeing way to be able to talk. I would never recommend such a place to anyone who knows me in real life unless it was so huge that I was sure we’d never run into each other.
Facebook uses real names, and is like real life. My main email uses my real name, and thus is like real life. Everything else online is separate.
Now, I might recommend the site to someone I only know online. But, even then, I’d just link a thread, and not give any indication I actually post here. I wouldn’t “recommend it” in the sense of it being a community to join.
I guess I might could pull that off in real life, where I link a thread as if I just happened to find it while searching Google. But it’s not likely.
I don’t even let people know my real first name here, or anywhere else publicly online, because it’s somewhat rare. It’s freaky when a website knows my first name (usually because I had to share it due to being required to do so for payment) and calls me by it.
Facebook knows my real name, and I have a real name email address I use in situations where the person or site needs to know my real name. Those are the places where online and offline cross. Otherwise, they are separate.
It is a running joke at work. I will be talking about some interaction on “a message board.” One of the guys will interject with, “Which message board?”
I instantly reply, “It doesn’t matter,” and continue my story amid the laughs.
So, no.
I suspect anyone who knows you online would be able to work out who you are, even if you don’t tell them your username. 
But at least you already know you’d need to remove your username from the share link.
I had a feeling there would be a lot of answers like this, but you don’t know until you ask.
What about recommending the SDMB to people who might be interested in other forums, or on Reddit, or other social media where you are equally anonymous?
Many years ago, on a different message board, I asked for some minor assistance with something. One of the replies said something like, “I have one, I can loan it to you if you need it (I’m pretty sure we work in the same building)”.
I was mortified.
mmm
I’d recommend it to some, but not to others - specifically others who I may mention here in a less-than-positive phrase or two. (thinking of a couple of my brothers-in-law and some former coworkers) My husband joined eons ago, but he just couldn’t get into it. My IRL friends don’t do a lot on line. So, yes and no pretty much sums it up.
Sometimes I regret having my username be (more or less) my actual name. Anyone that knows me IRL will know this is me if I were to direct them here. Some of the personal stories I’ve told here might come off as hurtful if they were to find them. I do try to at least anonymize them in cases where I know the person would be upset should they find them. For example, I’ve I’m asking for opinions about something that happened at work, I’ll often (not always, just often) change the genders and usually ask for your thoughts about a situation that happened ‘a few years ago’, even if it was last week.
That’s one nice thing about reddit, it’s so huge, unless someone knows your username, they’re not likely to find you, at least not by accident. If the dope is like telling someone about this new gym you found (even though you don’t want them to join), reddit is like telling someone what state you’re moving to. Without more details, they aren’t going to find you just because they moved their too.
Also, my username on reddit isn’t my name, so there’s that.
I avoid specifics about myself too for the most part, but I’ve probably dropped enough hints over the years that someone who knew me IRL and knew I was on SD could ID me if they really cared to.
Not that I say much of anything I wouldn’t want anyone who knew me to read, but I have talked about issues with my older son on this board, and he knows I’m on here-- he’ll look over my shoulder when I’m on my iPad and say “I see you’re on that message board for old people again. Someday I’m going to figure out who you are”. For that reason I keep my screen view enlarged enough that he can’t see my user avatar in the top right corner.