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So this discussion came up in another forum and was unrelated to the topic at hand, so I thought I would open up a separate discussion here.

What are your thoughts on using real names on forums? Would it help curb the vitriol we so often see online? Would it stifle your expression? Would giving the option to use "real names"TM help you or hurt you or the discussion/debate? Would it allow you to make decisions quickly on who you should be paying attention to? Would it help to turn the tide of the reality dissonance (fake news, lack of trust in experts, explosion of conspiracy theories, etc.)?

Depending on how the discussion goes here, I might raise the issue in the Nuts and Bolts forum (maybe it should go there in the first place--if any mod thinks so, feel free to move it and delete this aside).

I personally don't give my name online, except when necessary. I have no interest in people being able to find out where I live and what I look like any more easily than is already possible.

As for the option to show your real name on forums? It already exists, just put it in your sig, or make it your username. However, you can't ever enforce people using their real names, because that requires checking every single user's real name, which is both a serious invasion of privacy and a gargantuan task. If I tell you my name is Nils Lövstedt, you have no way of knowing whether I'm telling the truth. Which in turn means we're not using our real names across the board, but a mixture of real and fake names. Which is already the case.

As for combatting fake news and conspiracy theories - Alex Jones is using his real name, right? So obviously spreading fake news and conspiracy theories works just fine without anonymity.

 Gordon Shumway wrote:
So this discussion came up in another forum and was unrelated to the topic at hand, so I thought I would open up a separate discussion here.

What are your thoughts on using real names on forums? Would it help curb the vitriol we so often see online? Would it stifle your expression? Would giving the option to use "real names"TM help you or hurt you or the discussion/debate? Would it allow you to make decisions quickly on who you should be paying attention to? Would it help to turn the tide of the reality dissonance (fake news, lack of trust in experts, explosion of conspiracy theories, etc.)?

Depending on how the discussion goes here, I might raise the issue in the Nuts and Bolts forum (maybe it should go there in the first place--if any mod thinks so, feel free to move it and delete this aside).

I generally would not give my real name or address or any kind of information to a stranger, but thats just me.

If it were only on option I think it'd be an option almost no one uses

As I mentioned in the other thread I don't think forcing people to use their real names is beneficial. Some of the most obnoxious internet commentators out there do so under their real name, it doesn't stop them at all. It only makes people who are smart enough to care about their name more cautious.

I like that people on forums can be free to discuss what they want without fear of real life repercussions. The forums still have rules so it's not like people can say ANYTHING else or else they'll get blocked and banned.

That and you don't want people to stop chatting because they don't want to leave a footprint on certain forums.

If Dakka became a forum that required real names, I'd either use a fake name or simply stop posting here (which maybe wouldn't be such a bad thing ).

Is "Alex Jones" really his name? Dun..dun..dunnnn. To pour fuel on the fire, once upon a time there were phone books that everybody in the city got. Yeah, one can look at yellow pages. Dot com or whatever, but it isn't really the same. In other words, people didn't go to any length to hide who they were. They had to be who they were, good or bad and live with the consequences the next day. I'm not sure it's different today, but it sort of feels different. Maybe I'm just being old and paranoid here.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 thekingofkings wrote:

 Gordon Shumway wrote:
So this discussion came up in another forum and was unrelated to the topic at hand, so I thought I would open up a separate discussion here.

What are your thoughts on using real names on forums? Would it help curb the vitriol we so often see online? Would it stifle your expression? Would giving the option to use "real names"TM help you or hurt you or the discussion/debate? Would it allow you to make decisions quickly on who you should be paying attention to? Would it help to turn the tide of the reality dissonance (fake news, lack of trust in experts, explosion of conspiracy theories, etc.)?

Depending on how the discussion goes here, I might raise the issue in the Nuts and Bolts forum (maybe it should go there in the first place--if any mod thinks so, feel free to move it and delete this aside).

I generally would not give my real name or address or any kind of information to a stranger, but thats just me.

Why not? We aren't children who are going to get taken by the ice cream man. Point being, if someone really wants to harass someone, they will be able to find you. I'm not exactly an unknown quantity on google. It knows me. I have a webpage with my very own name in real life. I have a "rate your professor" score. I have been regularly interviewed on nationally broadcast channels. It hasn't impacted my life at all in a negative way, only in positive. I'm proud of what I have done, what I have published, who I am in my real life. I would think that would carry over to this online world. I'm not sure it really does when I have an avatar to hide behind. Sometimes I'm an outright bastard with that protecting me. That might be just me and my own personal hang ups, but I'm not so sure I'm alone in that.

Nah, it doesn't curb it at all.

For the most rabid out there, it only encourages it. I've never been shy about sharing my real name on the internet. Hell, it's largely in my username on here.

In the past though, people have tried to use that against me. I used to serve as a moderator on Military.com when it had a web forum system. I had banned a poster who was using the Military.com website to try to gather information on people, which he was then taking back to his own web forum, so that others could cyber stalk people they didn't like. He took exception to my actions, and sicked his followers on me.

Us conversing through this screen, never coming face to face, gives people a sense of protection. Names do nothing to lessen that. They'll feel you can't get back at them, what they say on here. Hell, look at all those driven to suicide through social media. Knowing peoples names does nothing to slow that down, does it?

Real names are all same. Most will be some John/Bob Smith here.

As a teacher I don’t want my pupils being able to find me online. My personal life is just that. I’ve already had some admit they sent tweets to someone else with my real name.

 Gordon Shumway wrote:
What are your thoughts on using real names on forums?

It's a terrible idea that 1) removes the fun of internet handles, and 2) achieves none of the goals people claim it will. Blizzard's forums certainly got less bad after they forced people to start using real names. Sure. But it's still a place loaded with flame wars and vitriol because knowing people's real names really only curbed extreme fringe behaviors, not general internet assholery and the extreme fringe behaviors still needed increased admin and moderator work to really stop.

Would it help curb the vitriol we so often see online?

No. Lots of places on the net force the use of real names and people are still donkey-caves on them. It has nothing to do with actual anonymity as much as figurative anonymity. Even if you here on Dakka know my name is John Smith that means nothing to me in a practical sense. There are hordes of people with that name and you still don't know me. Knowing my real name doesn't change that. I'm still completely anonymous in a practical sense. Unless the system verifies my name is my name there's also nothing stopping me from faking my name and for the system to verify my name it would need to reference all kinds of personal information which is already too out there as it is.

Would it stifle your expression?

I can say that I hate spam mail, and I already often just say "feth it" and close the window when places ask for my name and address when they just plain don't need it. So in a functional sense yes, but only because someone as stickler about it as me is likely to stop using services if forced to use my actual name and personal info to use the service when the service doesn't need any of that information to function.

Would it help to turn the tide of the reality dissonance (fake news, lack of trust in experts, explosion of conspiracy theories, etc.)?

No. It might reduce the willingness of people to join discussions just to rile things or stoke the flames, but the flames would still be there and the reality dissonant would still keep being dissonant because they already don't care.

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
As a teacher I don’t want my pupils being able to find me online. My personal life is just that. I’ve already had some admit they sent tweets to someone else with my real name.

I like to keep a pretty low profile on the interwebs, even on social media I shorten my name to the point it's so common that I'm hard to find and don't give locations for myself. But some of my students managed to find me via my sisters unfortunately, they share the same surname, still live in the same city as me and are linked to me on social media.

As far as I'm concerned the less people can figure out about me without, ya know, actually asking me, the better.

 Gordon Shumway wrote:
What are your thoughts on using real names on forums? Would it help curb the vitriol we so often see online?

It probably would result in marginally less rape and death threats for fear of prosecution, but definitely no measurable decrease in vitriol.

 Ouze wrote:

 Gordon Shumway wrote:
What are your thoughts on using real names on forums? Would it help curb the vitriol we so often see online?

It probably would result in marginally less rape and death threats for fear of prosecution, but definitely no measurable decrease in vitriol.

Personally I'm not even sure it would do that much in isolation. To even have a chance of having an impact it would have to be near-global, legislated, and enforced at the ISP level, and you'd also have to ban VPNs, Onion routing, and every other privacy tool that someone could potentially use to obfuscate their real name. That's an awful lot of freedoms to give away to marginally decrease the level of casual vitriol online, especially since that superficially very slightly more pleasant browsing experience has a cost all of its own - so the level of gak your average female twitter user has to wade through is an inch or two lower, is that worth taking away the chance for women who're being actively victimised by an abuser to find a safe place online to discuss their situation and maybe get some help and support without risking said abuser finding out?

Those looking at this kind of thing as a way to protect marginalised people - women, gay folk, trans folk, people with physical or mental disorders, ethnic minorities etc - should remember that often anonymity is far more of a defence for such folk than it is for those who would have a go at them.

Well, I was assuming a perfect world, totally insurmountable and undefeatable system for using a real name on any online service, since this is kind of a thought exercise - obviously Dakka is never going to do this regardless of how this discussion goes (spoilers, OP! )

All you have to do is look at the news comments for any controversial story on any major news vendor's Facebook page. There are no shortage of absolutely awful people saying absolutely awful things under their real names.

I agree with Yohdrin that on the whole, anonymity is probably a net positive in terms of safety.

I find this a bit of an interesting discussion.
Personally I choose to use a username and I've used the same one for almost everything online for the past 15+ years.

I do it at this stage as I feel some sort of attachment to my internet handle and in portions of the internet its what I'm known by, theirs a reputation associated with it, it lets people who know my username know whether to trust it or assume I'm talking Gak. (which is more frequent I'll leave to you)

However, I'm also a very active player on the competitive scene of 40k. Particularly the ITC rankings where I use my real name. Now since I talk about my tournament results its a very easy search to put two and two together and figure out my real name.

Does it bother me a bunch of folks on the internet can work out my name? In this situation, absolutely not. I don't feel particularly threatened or exposed by people having that information.
However, I think thats down to the content and context of what it is they associate my name with. Wargaming fans whilst often harsh with their words do not, in my experience at least, pose much of a threat in real life. I do not expect I will be stalked, have my privacy invaded or any actual harm come to me or my family because of people knowing my name.

Thats down to the context though. Whilst I don't care on Dakka, I can completely see why people would care on a huge variety of other sites. Not even going as dark as others have mentioned with the issues with rape, support groups etc.

I came into this post unsure on my stance on this but as I type I think it should be a matter of choice. I choose to not be concerned that people can find my real name on here. I think others should have that right too.

I don't think it would cut back on the flames and vitriol we find here, people are can be horrible, their name doesn't change that.
Allowing people anonymity allows those who need to to feel safe.
Those using it to hide will be found if they ever do anything bad enough to warrant it anyway.

How would the foum determine I've used my real name (which I have, because I was too lazy, as a callow 17-year-old, to think up an interesting nickname)? I mean, I could just pick anything (Muhammad Lee - statistically the most common name in the world, for example ) and how would they tell? Ask for a copy of my birth certificate? Ten minutes with Photoshop should be able to whip one up.

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
How would the foum determine I've used my real name (which I have, because I was too lazy, as a callow 17-year-old, to think up an interesting nickname)? I mean, I could just pick anything (Muhammad Lee - statistically the most common name in the world, for example ) and how would they tell? Ask for a copy of my birth certificate? Ten minutes with Photoshop should be able to whip one up.

Clearly the name we should all use in such circumstances is Sir Cornelius Reginald Pumpernickle III, esquire

 Gordon Shumway wrote:
So this discussion came up in another forum and was unrelated to the topic at hand, so I thought I would open up a separate discussion here.

What are your thoughts on using real names on forums? Would it help curb the vitriol we so often see online? Would it stifle your expression? Would giving the option to use "real names"TM help you or hurt you or the discussion/debate? Would it allow you to make decisions quickly on who you should be paying attention to? Would it help to turn the tide of the reality dissonance (fake news, lack of trust in experts, explosion of conspiracy theories, etc.)?

Depending on how the discussion goes here, I might raise the issue in the Nuts and Bolts forum (maybe it should go there in the first place--if any mod thinks so, feel free to move it and delete this aside).

Given what occurs on Facebook, where people are known by all their intimate details, and all the ridiculousness that we see there, I don't think it would help anything. It just makes you more vulnerable to attack/harrassment through other means that may not be related to platform or issue you were otherwise engaging in.

I've been part of forums that require real names and there's still plenty of arguing, back biting and general annoyance,

it's not really a deterrent to people who think behaving in that way is ok

Real names can help to an extent in online discussions I reckon - normally you're just talking to a username of no relevance to you and an avatar, and that could encourage you to be more hostile than you may be normally because you don't have a connection to the people you're talking to other than what they're saying.

Would using real names make a significant difference, and would I be happy in doing it? I'm not too sure on that, but it'd be an interesting proposition for the site.

Oh yes, Facebook is a thing, I'd almost forgotten that.

People still use fake names on Facebook, people still get harassed there, fake news spread like wildfires. So clearly, encouraging people to use their real names doesn't prevent these things.

I've never understood though why people seem to get so nasty online, I don't think I'm any more or less rude and mean to people online than I am in real life. I always try to be nice, and only stop when someone makes it very clear they don't deserve it.

 Gordon Shumway wrote:
Is "Alex Jones" really his name? Dun..dun..dunnnn. To pour fuel on the fire, once upon a time there were phone books that everybody in the city got. Yeah, one can look at yellow pages. Dot com or whatever, but it isn't really the same. In other words, people didn't go to any length to hide who they were. They had to be who they were, good or bad and live with the consequences the next day. I'm not sure it's different today, but it sort of feels different. Maybe I'm just being old and paranoid here.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 thekingofkings wrote:

 Gordon Shumway wrote:
So this discussion came up in another forum and was unrelated to the topic at hand, so I thought I would open up a separate discussion here.

What are your thoughts on using real names on forums? Would it help curb the vitriol we so often see online? Would it stifle your expression? Would giving the option to use "real names"TM help you or hurt you or the discussion/debate? Would it allow you to make decisions quickly on who you should be paying attention to? Would it help to turn the tide of the reality dissonance (fake news, lack of trust in experts, explosion of conspiracy theories, etc.)?

Depending on how the discussion goes here, I might raise the issue in the Nuts and Bolts forum (maybe it should go there in the first place--if any mod thinks so, feel free to move it and delete this aside).

I generally would not give my real name or address or any kind of information to a stranger, but thats just me.

Why not? We aren't children who are going to get taken by the ice cream man. Point being, if someone really wants to harass someone, they will be able to find you. I'm not exactly an unknown quantity on google. It knows me. I have a webpage with my very own name in real life. I have a "rate your professor" score. I have been regularly interviewed on nationally broadcast channels. It hasn't impacted my life at all in a negative way, only in positive. I'm proud of what I have done, what I have published, who I am in my real life. I would think that would carry over to this online world. I'm not sure it really does when I have an avatar to hide behind. Sometimes I'm an outright bastard with that protecting me. That might be just me and my own personal hang ups, but I'm not so sure I'm alone in that.

Some folks here actually are children (under 18 or legal age) so that comment is just off. The point is you are not my friend or even an acquaintance, I dont want to be your friend and I wouldnt want to spend even a second talking to you in real life. I dont want to know your name and I dont care where you live or really anything about you, so I will not share any of that about myself either. I come here to trade/buy/ and ocassionally sell but sometimes to see what folks are thinking and if inclined to pipe in. I feel no obligation to anyone here that I am not actively doing business with.

For me it depends where I am on the Internet. The only reason I'm using my name here is because I used my name over on the DP9 Forum, and I used my name there because I have authored for DP9 products in the past. I also use my name on my Flickr page, so there's really no point in hiding it.

OTOH, I don't post images of my person or exact where-abouts on social media or forums, so I have a pretty low internet profile. Someone dedicated could probably find me, but by the same token, they could probably do that if I was hiding behind a handle as well. People leak personal information pretty badly at times.

I would not have a problem giving people my full name, but there are some people who'd get angry at me for doing that. So yeah, I stick to just using my first name and nothing more. I don't think that using real names would change a thing though. It still leaves you pretty anonymous. Because even if people know your name is John Doe, they still have no idea who John Doe is. Just look at Facebook or Twitter, that is way more personal than just using names and it is still full of trolling, name-calling and heated discussions.

I would not give out anything beyond names though. Certainly no pictures. I got some bad experiences with that (and I know I am hardly the only one). I used to be very active on social media when I was younger, I have deleted all of that stuff. Still, there should be plenty of pictures and other stuff of me floating around. That is a big drawback of sharing those sort of things on the internet. What is online stays online, even if you'd rather have it not be anymore. Oftentimes, you simply can't remove something from the internet, and sometimes that really sucks.

I don't think it would be a good idea for homosexuals looking for a safe space to discuss their lifestyle while living in an extremely homophobic community, If they have to use their real name. That's an example I can think of where anonymity would be preferred.

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Gordon Shumway wrote:
So this discussion came up in another forum and was unrelated to the topic at hand, so I thought I would open up a separate discussion here.

What are your thoughts on using real names on forums? Would it help curb the vitriol we so often see online? Would it stifle your expression? Would giving the option to use "real names"TM help you or hurt you or the discussion/debate? Would it allow you to make decisions quickly on who you should be paying attention to? Would it help to turn the tide of the reality dissonance (fake news, lack of trust in experts, explosion of conspiracy theories, etc.)?

Depending on how the discussion goes here, I might raise the issue in the Nuts and Bolts forum (maybe it should go there in the first place--if any mod thinks so, feel free to move it and delete this aside).

Given what occurs on Facebook, where people are known by all their intimate details, and all the ridiculousness that we see there, I don't think it would help anything. It just makes you more vulnerable to attack/harrassment through other means that may not be related to platform or issue you were otherwise engaging in.

Very much this. It wouldn't help solve 'vitriol' issues, and would make users more vulnerable, even if only in ease of access.

I can also think of several professions where it could be problematic, and used as 'evidence' to deny promotions and generally damage professional reputations.

I use my real name online and my picture but I do not post any other information than that. I keep my address, place of employment, and other pertinent information confidential. I have no problem using my name.

I came across a cyberstalking website a number of years ago called http://www.therantpage.com and encountered a user named wonderhampster (AKA Larry Naumann) who's website cyberstalked me across the internet. Now he goes by the name of Hamp. I use my name because when someone finds out your alter ego they blow your cover so I may as well use my name. If anyone does a search online on my name in Google.com lots of stuff comes up under my name Nick Garai. I have learned to just live with it.

 Nick Garai wrote:
I use my real name online and my picture but I do not post any other information than that. I keep my address, place of employment, and other pertinent information confidential. I have no problem using my name.

One of the reasons I don't like using my real name is that it stops me giving location specific information on forums. My name alone isn't going to help anyone find me, but if you go through my post history and are a bit investigative you can probably figure out where I live to within a few suburbs, and at that point the number of people with the same name drops. Likewise you might be able to figure out where I work (not because I've said it, but I think I've said what I do in previous posts which combined with the location info would narrow the options about where I work). I think somewhere I've even mentioned details about my car, which is a classic car with not many of them on the road.

All that information does mean if I gave my real name, you could probably track me down if you REALLY wanted to do so.

If I were using my real name I'd also be more careful about not giving out that sort of info.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Gordon Shumway wrote:
Why not? We aren't children who are going to get taken by the ice cream man. Point being, if someone really wants to harass someone, they will be able to find you. I'm not exactly an unknown quantity on google. It knows me. I have a webpage with my very own name in real life. I have a "rate your professor" score. I have been regularly interviewed on nationally broadcast channels. It hasn't impacted my life at all in a negative way, only in positive. I'm proud of what I have done, what I have published, who I am in my real life. I would think that would carry over to this online world. I'm not sure it really does when I have an avatar to hide behind. Sometimes I'm an outright bastard with that protecting me. That might be just me and my own personal hang ups, but I'm not so sure I'm alone in that.

Two things I wanted to mention in regards to this...

1. Not everyone likes being in the spotlight.

2. Even if people are happy with being on TV and whatnot, that doesn't mean they want to be known for regularly posting on whatever forum.

Regarding 1, where I work occasionally gets featured on TV, it's interesting to see when cameras turn up how many people disappear because they have no desire to have their face out there.

Regarding 2, if you knew my real name and googled it, you'd find some journal publications and a couple of research articles and also links to the laboratories that I've worked in, projects I've worked on, probably some subjects I've taught and a few links to PhD theses of students who mentioned my helping them. That doesn't bother me, I'm quite happy for people to find that sort of information about me. Anything that's published with my name on it is of good quality (at least IMO).

I do not particularly want someone to google my name and find (*quickly checks*) over 10,000 posts on a wargaming forum, maybe a few thousand posts on a PC hardware forum, a few thousand posts on car forums, etc etc. Not that I'm ashamed or anything, it's just not what I want people to find if they ever look me up. If I start worrying about what posts people are going to find if they look me up the internet, it won't just change the nature of what I post, it'll completely eliminate most of what I post. One forum where I do post under my real name is a race car forum and whenever I post there I always have my engineer's hat on and that's fine for that particular forum, but 95% of the time I prefer to post more casually.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Nick Garai wrote:
I use my real name online and my picture but I do not post any other information than that. I keep my address, place of employment, and other pertinent information confidential. I have no problem using my name.

One of the reasons I don't like using my real name is that it stops me giving location specific information on forums. My name alone isn't going to help anyone find me, but if you go through my post history and are a bit investigative you can probably figure out where I live to within a few suburbs, and at that point the number of people with the same name drops. Likewise you might be able to figure out where I work (not because I've said it, but I think I've said what I do in previous posts which combined with the location info would narrow the options about where I work). I think somewhere I've even mentioned details about my car, which is a classic car with not many of them on the road.

All that information does mean if I gave my real name, you could probably track me down if you REALLY wanted to do so.

If I were using my real name I'd also be more careful about not giving out that sort of info.

Agreed.
And that's for someone with a relatively common name. As far as I'm aware, I'm the only person alive with my first/last name combination.

Also, if names were public, people could start harassing others outside of the forums. Right now, if you can't stand someone's posts on a forum, you can just stop reading them, or putting that person on ignore. However, if they know who you are in real life and are pretty crazy people, they can really start messing with your life in a way you can't easily shut down.
When you hear stories of kids suffering from online bullies, it's always about the bullies having a hold on their victim's real life. Like if they can post on facebook or something read by many people in the kid's school, or if they have compromising stuff they threaten to release to the kid's family/friends, etc. If they only knew the kid by its username on a forum, they couldn't do as much harm.

I use my real name on BoardGameGeek, where I've been active for almost 15 years. When I joined BGG it was customary to use your real name, and most members still do. Game designers, developers and publishers are often members as well, so it makes sense for them to use their real names.

Given the current climate in the Dakka forums, I would have no objections to using my real name here.

 Nick Garai wrote:
I use my real name online and my picture but I do not post any other information than that. I keep my address, place of employment, and other pertinent information confidential. I have no problem using my name.

That works if you don't use Linkedin or any other professional social network.

I have absolutely no interest in my business partners or employees knowing about what I'm doing on my free time or my family unless they cross the friendship threshold.