How much information is there really in a name such as “Michael” or “Peter” or “Neil”?
Of course. Registrations could perhaps say something. Then again, if I posted as (say) XR497 …
Hmm. My forum name is a “French” form of my last name. I accidentally came to this forum googling for UL96, and I thought EuroGA sounded very French 
Only later did I understand it’s all Brits and Germans here. Cool forum, easy to post. People posting under pseudonyms or not? I just don’t care one single bit in either direction. To me its all just “names” anyway. I try to focus on what people actually write instead.
it’s all Brits and Germans here
You haven’t understood very much, then.
Not just Brits and Germans, it’s open to all impolite nationalities as Peter said. The polite ones go to Beechtalk.
it’s all Brits and Germans here
I am * but I live in * and I don’t want to be mistaken for a **** and even less for a ******! 
Art (decided to leave out one ‘a’ to become more anonymous)
.
Actually this one and the one I came from to here are the only ones I do use a forum nick, reflecting my (then and present) favorite aircraft. I use my full name in several German/Swiss forums, mainly because I think it is the right thing to do but also because I am of the “Compuserve” generation as several others here.
I have fond memories of Compuserve, Avsig, FSFORUM, CivilWar forum and others I used to frequent, actually was sysop for a while too. There were quite a lot of people with nicks there too, some of whom I still recall but can’t for the life of me not remember their real names.
Nowadays it can be difficult. For many years I have been a proponent of real names and I have no problem showing mine here, after all I have never made an effort to hide who I am. However, in recent years I have had to notice that sometimes google is your enemy when it comes to forum posts and nosy co-workers or others if you get my drift. If you get confronted at work for stuff you wrote in your spare time, in forums as on places like Facebook you can (in theory at least) choose who can read it, and it gets into the wrong guys hands at the wrong time, there can be awkward consequences up to real make/break ones. So far, I always managed to defuse situations where my posts were brought into ex-internet discussions or conflicts, but I am aware that it might cost me at times, be if I would need to find a new job or in other ways.
Yet, I still think it is nice to know at least the proper calling name of whom you talk to and to have a possibility to properly contact people whom you’ve come to like or with whom you wish to clarify one bit or the other.
In that sense, hello Patrick!
Best regards
Urs
Mooney Driver, the more critical situation is not when somebody uses what you explicitly post against you in some fashion. That’s no problem, especially if you post only what you’d say in person, and obviously that would be expected if you use your full name. The issue comes when the reader is unstable and malicious, as a small fraction of the population is. And probably a slightly larger fraction of the on-line population Then they may do unexpected and irrational things, for instance combing through and combining your posts to guess where you live, where you work, who you do business with, who your relatives might be etc. None of which you posted. Then they make phone calls to confirm, under false pretenses, which may in itself be a problem. Then they start making up stories and writing letters which if carefully enough written, and to the right people who may not require proof, may be a problem. The world does not always operate on the basis of proof. People like this can have very rich imaginations, and with enough imagination there is no limit on what they can create, especially if they’ve deduced a few things about you from good guesses. Presumably this gives a sense of empowerment to the disturbed.
Writing from experience here, not a theoretical explanation. I was able over the course of about a month to unwind what had been done, and make sure everything from then on was ignored, but the attack continued for about a year afterward. A very persistent nutcase, indeed. I was lucky that the people concerned came to me for more info.
My practice since that time has been to go out of my way to make personal contact with people I find interesting, including those I’ve ‘met’ on the web, and otherwise to be careful with info that would make a recurrence easy… like my full name.
My real name is Spartacus. :)
Seriously, I don’t personally mind whether people use real names or pseudonyms. The only bit that frustrates me is when you bump into someone at an event and he introduces himself as Gooseman.
