asbestosman wrote:asbestosman wrote:I find it odd, Simon, that I'm apparently more paranoid about my identity than you are. I have indeed told some posters here what my identity is. I suspect that a few others may know. Yet I refuse to friend people on Facebook. Putting your real name out there puts your family at risk. You never know what some nutjob here could do. Most people here are probably safe, but there are some nutters who may do harm to your family. Putting your in real life information out there for everyone on this board is foolish. I hope, for their sake, that you did lie about your identity.
I take back what I said. I may be overly cautious about Facebook. Daniel Peterson is one of the most disliked LDS posters yet so far as I know his family has not been the target of attacks. There are other apologists who are disliked and yet have well-known identities.
Sorry for projecting.
Still, I don't intend to reveal my identity very widely.
I understand your caution, asbestos. I am sorry I don't have another venue to interact with you on, though, because I like you very much and would love to get to know you better. After all, you are one of the few people who've ever managed to break through my math-phobia and teach me a few things! That's very nearly a miracle!
I use Facebook as a kind of clearinghouse of communication. I have a lot friends and acquaintances across the globe, most of them academics, writers, and artists. I also have a handful of old friends from earlier times in my life that the internet has made possible to reconnect with. And I have a few outstanding former students who have also become real friends. I could not manage to separately email this amount of people. So Facebook provides a one-stop-shopping approach to keeping in touch and a venue for me to pass on information to people whose tastes overlap mine. I use it to post links to cool websites, archives, information about concerts, museum exhibits, and things like that. I also use it to talk about teaching with my friends at other universities. I have a few family members on my Facebook, but not many simply because not many of them are on Facebook in the first place.
I've never worried much about identity problems with it. Anything that I would not want widely available I communicate in personal email. I am a bit cautious in this respect because of an earlier experience.
One of the first message boards I participated in, way back in the late 90's, was a message board connected to a very prestigious online fashion magazine. This board grew into a community much like MDB: although we originally came to talk design, soon we were talking about all kind of other topics and making solid friendships. (Of the twenty or so people who participated regularly on that board, I have met 18 in real life, including people from Finland, Mexico City, Hong Kong, England and Canada.) One of our regular topics was ideas for magazine layouts. We came up with some very cool and unique spreads which, surprise, surprise, started to appear in Vogue, Dutch, Marie Claire and other magazines. Obviously, our ideas were being ripped off by lurkers. And that's why I stopped discussing anything I am working on in public.
So, that's the only concern I've ever had with real life information on public message boards. Of course, this board has given me some new food for thought. I'd really rather put as much cyber distance between myself and some of the creepier posters on this board (and MDD) because their antics squick me out. I don't have anything "Mormon" to hide; none of my LDS friends would give a fig about some internet goober calling me an anti-mormon bigot. I just don't like the icky feeling that some self-proclaimed defender of the faith is sliming around my little bit of the internet.
From the Ernest L. Wilkinson Diaries: "ELW dreams he's spattered w/ grease. Hundreds steal his greasy pants."