I Post with My Real Name

[Moonlight Butterfly]

I a woman and I don't really feel safe doing that tbh. Has nothing to do with taking responsibility.
Although you could probably figure how who I am if you really tried.

I chose this username because I couldn't think of anything :/

 

[A Free Man]

I honestly don't see how it makes a difference. Think of it this way unless you know a lot of people from here personally using your real name when talking to people you don't know is exactly the same as using a made up one. I could say my name is Evan Mott and use it as a fake name because both the name I'm using now and that name are the same and neither will lead me to be accountable for what I do or say. If I used my real name there would be no way of confirming or disproving that so unless people knew me in real life it wouldn't make a difference.

 

[sidramalik100]

no problem you could do that keep it up

 

[Abengoshis]

This is my real name, at least I'm such a recluse more people call me this than my birth name. xD

 

[Kragg]

Hey Robin is this you and a friend dancing http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otHPfrYKMME

it's not

 

[holy_secret]

More Clarification I was answering a friends question in why i use my own name and im not ashamed and because the Escapist gave me a megaphone I told everyone and I sincerely apologize.

You have nothing to apologize for.

 

[holy_secret]

I may not use it, but go click on my profile. It links to my Facebook, which has my real name. And I have a picture of myself on my user profile here. Also, my name sucks. I have good reason to not use it.

My god...you live in Gaylord. gleeeeeeeeee *giggling like a maniac*

 

[AstylahAthrys]

I may not use it, but go click on my profile. It links to my Facebook, which has my real name. And I have a picture of myself on my user profile here. Also, my name sucks. I have good reason to not use it.

My god...you live in Gaylord. gleeeeeeeeee *giggling like a maniac*

You are not the first person to have that reaction. And, yes, I will forever hate my parents for making me graduate from Gaylord High School. I'm not allowed to put that as my location on XBL because it has the word "gay" in it.

 

[holy_secret]

I may not use it, but go click on my profile. It links to my Facebook, which has my real name. And I have a picture of myself on my user profile here. Also, my name sucks. I have good reason to not use it.

My god...you live in Gaylord. gleeeeeeeeee *giggling like a maniac*

You are not the first person to have that reaction. And, yes, I will forever hate my parents for making me graduate from Gaylord High School. I'm not allowed to put that as my location on XBL because it has the word "gay" in it.

I thought this name was just another hilarious joke on Meet the Parents but to see it's actually really...this is too much :-D HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA omg this is the funniest thing happening in a long time!

You made my day, lady. You made my week. My month. My damn year!
And a thumbs up to Microsoft for not allowing you to write your location. Makes me think of that episode in Spin City when the black dude censored the word Black and replaced it with African-American on the computers. Was hilarious when they started writing about black ties and suits.

 

[bobmus]

Try just telling your username to people whose opinions of you you value the most. Then they can see anything stupid or embarrassing you do online and know it was you, and the only people who know your private information is the people you know. Now that's what I call accountability.

 

[Jaime_Wolf]

Completely pointless. I've never understood the significance people attach to using real names on the internet. For one, there's no way to verify that it's authentic in most cases. But more importantly, barring exceedingly uncommon names, most are far, far from a unique identifier.

If you accomplished anything by using your real name, it was making identity theft a tiny bit easier. Lack of any sort of unique and authenticated identifier prevents your "bravery" from really meaning anything.

This is not about Bravery it is about Transparency

But it's no more transparent. Nothing prevents me from changing all of my account names to Evan Mott (aside from namespace issues in places you or others have already registered it).

I can't even know whether it's the same Evan Mott when I see them in other places, so it remains pretty much completely meaningless. To achieve what you seem to want, you'd need to either have a unique name that others were somehow prevented from registering themselves, or you'd need something like an Internet Social Security Number that was unique and authenticatable.

You could achieve exactly the same thing, with the same transparency and the same drawbacks, by just using the same username everywhere without it being your real name. In fact, you would probably be much more likely to come up with a unique username given how short and common your real name ostensibly is.

 

[Ambi]

Yeah, now people can track you down and beat you up if you say something they don't like and they're too stupid to defend their positions with words. Because if you're not willing to take a punch or even get into a highly irritating verbal argument/insult exchange/battle of wits over something, you're not responsible enough to speak your mind?

Who would actually do that?
Reminds me of this video by the guys from Doraleous:

I dunno. No-one here, probably. The Chinese Government? Muslim extremists? Some douchebag?

Bandwidth is choked, I can't watch the video.

Yeah, now people can track you down and beat you up if you say something they don't like and they're too stupid to defend their positions with words. Because if you're not willing to take a punch or even get into a highly irritating verbal argument/insult exchange/battle of wits over something, you're not responsible enough to speak your mind?

Not sure if (you were) serious.

Lots of people don't get very far here doing the whole insult exchange. We here at the Escapist (As you should know) don't deal well with people trolling one another.

OT : My real name can be accessed through my Facebook profile provided on my account. Not to mention my "Avatar" is me in the picture. Pretty sure that counts for something.

Sorry, I lack clarity sometimes, and the following rant might also lack clarity as I am quite tired.

Implying that it's desirable to have your real identity out there and that if you don't you must be a coward, have something to be ashamed of, and are hiding your 'real self' just seems silly. It reinforces the perceived validity of the attitude shown in that picture. We shouldn't be out to prove we're not afraid of idiots by showing our names. If it personally helps someone not to be a jerk online because of fear keeping them in check and they choose to do it, then okay, but I don't believe you shouldn't be able to say anything online you wouldn't be prepared to let people you know in person know, or risk threats against yourself.

I just read the OP's edit and he says he's not trying to imply he's better, but it's sort of what I read it as. My original response was kind of a knee-jerk reaction because I've probably been watching too much of thunderf00t's channel where he talks about receiving death threats for the things he says, and reading about people who need to be anonymous, and thinking how I wouldn't want some people to read my posts here (well, just my parents, I'm afraid they'll search my email address and find this).

Also, I wish I could debate some people online without having to "take responsibility" for my words by enabling them to confront me in person so they can weasel out of having to admit they can't counter points I made in a written debate.

For example, I posted various counter-arguments to my dad's BS anti-gay-marriage propaganda and then he merely wrote a pathetic circular response without addressing any of my arguments, and then he just brought it up one morning like "ABOUT GAY MARRIAGE HERPA DERPA DERP". Or that guy I dated who refused to discuss anything we disagreed about unless it was in person, although he was fine to talk online about anything else, and said "90 percent of what we communicate is in non-verbal expression". It doesn't matter when we're trying to talk about facts.

They want to use their disarming gaze and emotive speech to coerce me into giving up a debate, and they avoid having to address points I make through branching out the discussion/debate with skillful distractions so that the majority of the points I make get confused or lost in our short term memory. Then we achieve absolutely nothing, as they've managed to dodge my bullets of logic with shallow circular rhetoric and dodgy studies and the like which I can't pick apart because I don't have an internal audio recording device that enables me to have accurate retrievable quotes of everything they said.

...I think a large portion of that rant might have been only vaguely relevant to the topic, but anyway, it's what I was thinking of when I made my original response. I hope the connection I made makes sense somehow. I don't know, maybe people should take it with a pinch of salt.

 

[CarlMin]

Interesting fact, my name isn't really Pat.

[sub] It's Patrick ;3 [/sub]

OMG!

 

[PatSilverFox]

Interesting fact, my name isn't really Pat.

[sub] It's Patrick ;3 [/sub]

OMG!

Hey Carl :3
If that is your real name >.>
xP

 

[Baradiel]

I don't really see the point of using my real name as a username. Its not a show of courage. You can find out alot about someone just by what they put on the internet. If someone was determined to access your email, for example, they could work out your security questions from your Facebook. That sort of thing. Anyway, I've gone way off track.

Surprisingly enough, my name isn't Baradiel. I made it up on the spot when I made this account. Its one of the few things I haven't used my normal username for.

Seriously, if the username I've used for as long as I can remember was google'd, it'd tell someone exactly who I was. I've used it that much. I've no problem giving out my MSN or Skype, or telling people my real name. I've bandied it around enough already. It's no big deal.

 

[CarlMin]

Interesting fact, my name isn't really Pat.

[sub] It's Patrick ;3 [/sub]

OMG!

Hey Carl :3
If that is your real name >.>
xP

Nah, that would be kinda foolish considering my tendency to tell people about my strange sexual preferences. ^^

I don't really see the point of using my real name as a username. Its not a show of courage. You can find out alot about someone just by what they put on the internet. If someone was determined to access your email, for example, they could work out your security questions from your Facebook. That sort of thing. Anyway, I've gone way off track.

Surprisingly enough, my name isn't Baradiel. I made it up on the spot when I made this account. Its one of the few things I haven't used my normal username for.

Seriously, if the username I've used for as long as I can remember was google'd, it'd tell someone exactly who I was. I've used it that much. I've no problem giving out my MSN or Skype, or telling people my real name. I've bandied it around enough already. It's no big deal.

Exactly. Besides, responsibility is something you should display regardless of whether you represent yourself with your real name or not.

 

[PatSilverFox]

Interesting fact, my name isn't really Pat.

[sub] It's Patrick ;3 [/sub]

OMG!

Hey Carl :3
If that is your real name >.>
xP

Nah, that would be kinda foolish considering my tendency to tell people about my strange sexual preferences. ^^

Your name isn't Carl? And sowwie why wouldn't you tell anyone?

 

[Baradiel]

I don't really see the point of using my real name as a username. Its not a show of courage. You can find out alot about someone just by what they put on the internet. If someone was determined to access your email, for example, they could work out your security questions from your Facebook. That sort of thing. Anyway, I've gone way off track.

Surprisingly enough, my name isn't Baradiel. I made it up on the spot when I made this account. Its one of the few things I haven't used my normal username for.

Seriously, if the username I've used for as long as I can remember was google'd, it'd tell someone exactly who I was. I've used it that much. I've no problem giving out my MSN or Skype, or telling people my real name. I've bandied it around enough already. It's no big deal.

Exactly. Besides, responsibility is something you should display regardless of whether you represent yourself with your real name or not.

Precisely. If someone is a dick when they're anonymous, they'll be a dick when they're not. If they're polite and reasonable, chances are they'll be the same in real life.

Th internet. Presenting realistic portrayals of personalities since 1762.

And I'm going to call you Carl anyway, whether its your name or not ;D

 

[CarlMin]

I don't really see the point of using my real name as a username. Its not a show of courage. You can find out alot about someone just by what they put on the internet. If someone was determined to access your email, for example, they could work out your security questions from your Facebook. That sort of thing. Anyway, I've gone way off track.

Surprisingly enough, my name isn't Baradiel. I made it up on the spot when I made this account. Its one of the few things I haven't used my normal username for.

Seriously, if the username I've used for as long as I can remember was google'd, it'd tell someone exactly who I was. I've used it that much. I've no problem giving out my MSN or Skype, or telling people my real name. I've bandied it around enough already. It's no big deal.

Exactly. Besides, responsibility is something you should display regardless of whether you represent yourself with your real name or not.

Precisely. If someone is a dick when they're anonymous, they'll be a dick when they're not. If they're polite and reasonable, chances are they'll be the same in real life.

Th internet. Presenting realistic portrayals of personalities since 1762.

And I'm going to call you Carl anyway, whether its your name or not ;D

Hehe thats great. I still identify myself as Carl just as much as my real name seeing as I've been using it since I first discovered the joyful world of the interwebz.

Interesting fact, my name isn't really Pat.

[sub] It's Patrick ;3 [/sub]

OMG!

Hey Carl :3
If that is your real name >.>
xP

Nah, that would be kinda foolish considering my tendency to tell people about my strange sexual preferences. ^^

Your name isn't Carl? And sowwie why wouldn't you tell anyone?

Well because I've been using this pseudonym to expose my most inmost secrets. Like that I have a crush on a fictional dog. But then again, most of my friends have probably figured that out since they saw a picture of him in my wallet...