[WikiEN-l] Self-censorship, how far should it go?

[Todd Allen]

David Gerard wrote:
> On 29/07/07, Sheldon Rampton <sheldon at prwatch.org> wrote:
>
>   
>> Rather than discuss the merits of this particular "outing," I think
>> it would be more productive to discuss ways of encouraging people to
>> edit under their own names rather than anonymously.
>>     
>
>
> I started editing under my name rather than a net nickname because it
> felt like I was working on a serious project. I notice a few editors
> have switched from using nicknames to using their real names. That is,
> there's a force we could harness towards this.
>
>
> - d.
>
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>   
I've considered it at various points. I've already quite deliberately
stuck my picture on my userpage and used my real name on this list; and
so now that Brandt has me on Hivemind, I couldn't care less. He's
"outing" information that's already long-since "out".

I don't think there's an inherent lack of seriousness to contributing
with a nickname, though. A lot of people I've worked with have had
nicknames (either ones developed at the job or ones they just used in
general), and it never made them worse or less serious workers. But the
attack-site thing in general does strike me as a bit silly. Google's
pretty unforgiving, whatever we do. I don't know or care who SlimVirgin
is, but someone determined enough might have found out. Or this may be a
total load from a paranoid lunatic. By totally ignoring it, or by as
many of us as can do it safely just using our real names, we reduce, not
increase, the power it has over anyone. By making a huge deal over it,
we do exactly what the trolls were hoping-create drama and alienate people.

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