My Wikinews user page is fourth on a Google search for my name. I suspect had I used my full name for my username it would be a position or two higher.
Know what? This doesn't bother me. I check it from time to time to see where I've moved to, I'm not going to knock the folk musician Brian McNeill off the top spot, and I'm always going to have competition with the college football player who shares the same spelling.
However, this should be a sobering warning for anyone who has an estranged partner or a dodgy ex. Or, as Birgitte suggests, odd relatives who might decide to bother you on-wiki. If you're using a derivative of your real name (I use "brianmc") and not keeping your full name a secret, it takes the "thrill out of the chase" for the Wikipedia Review trolls. What needs to be considered is it can bring in a whole new set of potential sources of problems or issues.
I spent years remaining under a pseudonym on Usenet, something I would strongly recommend for that medium. I even went as far as using the MIT nym.alias.net service to ensure nobody could trace where my messages came from. My posts ranged from helpful to caustic flames, and I felt I could do so with impunity. This has a strangely liberating effect, you perhaps learn more about yourself than the other pseudonyms you spar with.
So, I would be opposed to either requiring real names, or to advising use of pseudonyms. Guidelines for use in either case may be a good call, but there should be no pressure one way or the other for Wikimedia contributors.
Brian McNeil
-----Original Message----- From: foundation-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:foundation-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Birgitte SB Sent: 13 June 2008 20:53 To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Stalking Article
--- On Fri, 6/13/08, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
Anyway, I'd be wary about what contributions I make under these circumstances. If I'm embarrassed by an edit, I should be resolving that inner conflict before editing on a public wiki. If an edit would get me in trouble with a friend or relative (or boss or enemy), I should be resolving that external conflict before editing on a public wiki. I can't think of any good reasons to edit Wikipedia anonymously, and thus I've stopped doing it.
The main good reason to edit anonynously is because Wikipedia is an open wiki and is incapable of preventing harrasment or any less seious sort of contact. I have no problem owning up to my pseudononymous edits, however I do not want an estranged relative who could easliy google my name to contact me on the wiki or by email (or any way at all). This someone who already knows my identity and a more about me than anyone online could ever dig up. And I do not wish to have contact with or be bothered by them, and unfortuantely they are not sane enough or sober enough to understand this. I am not threatened by this person, but I can be distressed by them. The internet can make 3,000 miles meaningless, so I do not use my real name online.
Not all people are targeted for harrassment because of their editing on Wikipedia. And if you are worried about being a recieving harrasment under your real identity prior to editing a wiki; I don't think using that name and making it highly googled is a good idea.
Birgitte SB
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