Poll: Do you use your real identity on Hacker News?

Yes, absolutely. I think that unless you have something to say that can immediately hurt you when it is linked to your identity the general mode of conversation on the internet should be tied to your real world identity.

There are two reasons for that:

The first is that you will be aware that you're saying stuff on your personal title and that if you decide to go postal on someone that it will reflect bad on you in the longer term. Anonymity seems to bring out the worst in people.

The second is more subtle. When you say stuff attached to your name you're putting a calling card out there, people will remember the overall tone of your content and they'll build up a mental image of the person that goes with that content. Over time this will translate in to more concrete (for instance real-life or collaborative) relationships to grow out of the more casual online ones.

So reserve the anonymous stuff for the 'leaks' and the 'revelations', don't bother with the anonymous attacks and the trolling. And do the rest as you.

As widely as possible. My real name is accessible from my profile. My handle is my most widely used internet handle in non-gaming contexts; using it is a means to recognition, not anonymity.

My reasons:

(A) When I was 14, I embraced anonymity online out of a (perhaps justifiable) fear of internet stalkers. Now that I am an adult, sound of body and mind, I'm not so worried about that. I use my real name almost everywhere online.

(B) This particular community is about real life things like jobs and businesses. There's a strong possibility I'll someday get a job / start a business / join some serious real-world undertaking based discussion and contacts here. If that's the case, I'd rather be "Catherine Darrow from Seattle" than "Dove from the internet".

(C) I think it is wrong to judge people in one context based on controversial opinions held in another. I don't vote for politicians based on religion; I don't ignore the technical opinions of programmers with wacky political views; I don't disrespect the high level manager who likes to live it up on weekends. Not everyone holds this view, and aliases are a way to defend yourself against people who don't. But I would rather that tolerance became common courtesy, and "don't judge people in a professional context based on random forum comments" became simple common sense. By establishing a gentle tie between some of my more controversial views and my real identity, I take a small risk to make a small point.

I'm just not comfortable with having a large amount of easily accessible forum comments indexed and linked to my (fairly distinct) name. I don't say anything particularly controversial, but the anonymity gives me a bit of freedom to write whatever I feel.

When emailing people from HN I give my handle and real name though, no problems there.

I registered with my nickname (Maro), my real name is reachable from the profile page.

Today I'd register with my real name though, and, if there'd be an option to change the user name I'd change it to mtrencseni, because ever since I'm doing a startup I got used to posting non-anonymously, in my own name, and not saying nonsense =)

This is probably my 6th or 7th account here. I switch accounts frequently. I prefer anonymity but also have an account with my real name.

I visit HN every day (since the very early days) and don't like the idea of every one of my comments from my entire history here being linked and available to anybody.

"raganwald" IS my real identity, in the sense that it's a nickname I've used from before I was on the Internet and is quite easily associated with my "real name." I've even considered getting moocards made up with "raganwald" on them instead of my "real name" to give away.

Everything I do on the internet is under the name "epochwolf". I've grown quite attached to it. It's who I am online. So in one way it's my "real" identity, I need to think about what I say here because anyone online can find me. I have another life I live off-line with a few close friends and at work but I try not to connect them too much.

I do have a linked in profile under my real name so I'm not anonymous in google. If I want employers to know who I am online, I give out my github account.

Not in my userid (which I've had since I was 8...weird) but it's present in my profile. The poll is ambiguous if you meant "Is your user ID your name" or if you meant "Is your name associated with your account?"

I used to participate using a recognizable name for networking reasons. But I was self-censoring myself too much, since I don't agree with lots of HN's groupthink. So I switched to an anon handle.

I always use my Alias, but my real name is not far (or hard to find) behind it.

The reason is pragmatic though; there is a "famous" Tom Morton here in the UK plus a historical figure called Thomas Morton. So rather than make googling me hard I like to think this makes it easier (using my alias)

This is an alt. account for the reason of posting anonymised comments. That way I can present my view point without someone being able to find out who I am and how I have gained said knowledge. Does that make me less credible? Most likely yes, but it also protects me and my company when posting stuff that was just plain stupid.

I also have an account that is tied to a username I have used online for years, that is what I use for more on-the-record type comments.

Part of the value of HN is networking, and I'd rather people recognize my name. That said, I tend to use my real name everywhere for similar reasons.

Yes, and it should be encouraged. In general, people tend to behave and put more thought into what they are saying when they are identifiable.

Yes, but I wear glasses when I'm on here, so nobody can recognize me.

Yes, enough so that a certain HN personality could with a moment's googling find a picture of me in my underwear to link to in an attempt to discredit me in an argument.

People routinely try to tell me that I'd never say what I do on the internet to their faces, and they're dead wrong — I'd be more profane in person.

I voted yes but I guess it depends on what you mean. On the internet I've used this nick for 14 years now and I haven't tried at all to keep it separate from my real name.

So do I use something like first name/last initial, first initial/last name, etc? No. Is this my real identity? I'd say yes.

I was originally registered under my 'real' name (amohr) but, due to a mixup with the password reset, I wasn't able to access it for a while, so I took the opportunity to make this account. However, if you're someone looking to google me for whatever purposes, searching for "alexophile" will yield more accurate results than "Alex Mohr" as I'm competing for pagerank with a cg researcher from Pixar and a multimedia networks researcher (the jerk that took alexmohr.com)

Basically, using a unique nick is nice, not for anonymity, but for more convenient aggregation of my online identity.

No. I would if HN threads were not indexed by search engines.

I'm uncomfortable with the fact that anyone can find out my activities/interests/opinions/biases just by searching for my universal handle in a search engine.

I don't make a distinction between a real identity and an internet one, and I assume that anything I put on the internet, no matter how ostensibly "private" the space, is part of my public persona.

My initials are somewhat unique, so most accounts with a nic of "zdw" out there are also mine.

Not to compare myself to them, but the precedence for using initials in this manner is that most people know who "rms" or "jwz" are.

I tend to register for new services I think might become big even if I'm not going to use the account immediately, just to reserve "my" name.

This also leads to a pet peeve: services that have a minimum nic length requirement >3 characters...

I'm not in the habit of using my real name online, but I did give HN an email address containing my real name and a few people here know who I am. So I'm not exactly hiding, either.

The reasons for not using my real name go back to when I first went online, where I met too many weirdos. Maybe other people feel its only a small chance, but I have met enough of them to switch to using handles right away and never seriously consider switching back.

Also, I've helped out as a moderator or admin at a number of places, so I have dealt with griefers and trolls of all types. I wouldn't want a work email address to get spammed with a pornographic mailbomb, nor would I want that guy whose tirade taught me several dozen racial ephitets to be able to do that IRL, and both of those are examples of things that actually happened to me. Those two are just the tip of the iceburg. You ban enough people for being cheaters or jerks and they go around harassing any admin they can find.

Incidentally, the guy who sent the mailbomb got disconnected after I talked with his ISP. Another good reason why I wouldn't want him to know who I am.

I use an alias as a username, but I don't go out of my way to hide my actual identity.

The main reason for the alias, is to avoid having HN pop up when someone searches for my name in Google. Tech people may know that Hacker News is for startups, but the rest of the world would think of much more negative things.

Yes. I'm proud of who I am, and I don't feel the need to hide anything I do.

Incidentally, I remember a few college lit classes that focused on "identity". We never figured out what it was. But that's a debate for another forum :)

Indeed I do, the handle I am using is the one I was assigned on the systems of the University of Oslo and I even link to my personal page there from my profile here - and link back to my profile here from there, thereby proving that I am who I say I am.

My reason for doing so, is that I have no reason not to it. Furthermore, I tend to take people a bit more seriously when the info they have provided about themselves can be verified (although thats not to say that I despite anonymous users in any way - they have their reasons).

What is a "real" identity? I mean, I'm using obviously a pseudo, but looking for it on google will give you my real name in about 30 seconds, and there is very little possible confusion.

I use a screen name that I use on other forums ("tokenadult" was a more appropriate screen name on the first forum where I used it than it is here on HN) and that screen name leads to my real-world identity by fairly easy steps. I like to think that that keeps me accountable for the quality of my posts. I have NOT linked my Wikipedia editor screen name (much newer than my HN screen name) to this recurrent screen name, although it is also linked by easy steps to my real-world identity.

Just about anything I might post under a pseudonym, or otherwise shielded, could be connected with my real-world identity if enough people try hard enough. So I’d rather make everything open, and think before I say something I might regret, than rely on the sense of security that a pseudonym would bring.

Every once in a while I suspect this attitude marks me as an old fogey; I feel like people who have grown up with the Internet are more sophisticated about online identity management.

Yes and no actually. I don't hide my real name anywhere but I keep quite a bit of my info restricted to people on Facebook. Basically, I don't make a distinction between the two except that, outside of facebook and gmail contacts, all my interaction/social graph is of a mostly techie nature. My family doesn't use twitter and read HN. Conversely, the people who follow me on twitter don't care about my kid taking his first piss in the frog potty ;)

(Slightly related to the poll topic) I used to follow a technical blog and had also exchanged couple of emails with its author. Though the author of the blog does not use his real identity on HN, I was able to easily recognize the author based on the topics he comments on, his opinions on the topic and "tone" of the comments.

Thus, it should be possible for an "intelligent program" to pick these weak signals across the interweb to identify the person behind it.

In recent times, I have noticed that a comment that tends to diverge from the major trend of comments on a submitted even though article tends to get down voted to oblivion h that diverging opinion makes sense. A community is made up of different people with different mindsets and points of view, not everyone see's things the way others do, so I do not see the reason why HN cant just accept that other people can be different.

I do, because this is one of the few Internet forums on which I really take the conversation seriously. I've met interesting people here, and had conversations which have helped me in "real life". HN would be substantially less valuable to me without that real-world connection.

Elsewhere I use a name which would be trivially identified by close friends (nickname from my fencing club) but which is opaque otherwise. The system works.

I switch between daniel-cussen (real name) and a single, old account that I made to say things anonymously. Then I sometimes use throwaway accounts.

I do, mostly because I believe that if I were ashamed of what I had to say here, it probably wouldn't be worth saying in the first place.

Some here mentioned not wanting to be attached too much to a site that has "hackers" in its name, but I'm thinking I probably don't have any interest in dealing with somebody/a company that thinks it's a bad thing.

And I also try to get 'timothee' as username whenever I can.

I use a handle because my name isn't particularly unique. I'd be far more anonymous if my HN login was "jreeves" instead of "weavejester".

I just joined the site maybe two months ago and wasn't even aware that people did this. Still, it makes sense given the community. Personally I use this username in a lot of different places, I only regret not getting a domain for it when it was available. It's pretty easy to find me through Google among other sources, though-I would hardly say that I'm very anonymous.

I always had used alexitosrv for my whole online presence, and is really easy to associate it with my real identity. Normally, I have no problem with that.

Out of curiosity, today I was looking in the web for that name and the diversity of forums to which it belongs is fairly amusing. I like that, in some sense that is a lot more like my real life: jack of all trades, master of none.

For people who have somewhat common names (I know of at least two fairly famous people named "Matt Morris"), there isn't much concern about any controversial stuff popping up if a future employer or something were to google me.

Of course, I don't think I've ever posted anything on HN that I would consider controversial, so it's not much of a concern in any case.

Well, my birth-name wasn't "mindcrime" but I make no effort to hide my real identity... my profile contains direct links to my real identity. And I've used this handle online so long and in so many places, that there are probably people who actually DO think my name is "mindcrime."

And yes, I do hear a revolution calling... \m/

I use one of my real identities on HN.

;)

I think the question is a little ambiguous: If, by real identity, you mean using a real email address in the profile as opposed to a specially created one, yes I am. If you're asking whether I use my name as my handle, then no, and I think few people actually do that.

I answered yes, but "jaxn" is not my legal name. It is however my twitter handle, and I don't know a better online identity than a public twitter account. (Also, my personal site is pretty much the first result for "jaxn" no matter where you search).

Yes, I guess?

When I signed up, I just used my standard alias, but I've used my full name in comments before, and it's trivially easy to figure out who I am if you're so inclined. I'm not actually anyone of note though, so I doubt anyone actually is so inclined.

No, but my nickname is easily matched to my real name. I tried to stay anonymous for years, but decided at Some point to give up and retroactively allow people to match it all together. I have yet to experience a positive or negative side to that.

Yes! I've made so many connections and friends, gotten job offers, made thousands off of freelance design work, and been offered a ridiculous amount of advice, because of Hacker News. And I only started posting around two months ago.

Definitely, yes.

I use my initials, as I'm trying to do for everything these days. I'd be much happier about it if I could get a decent domain name with them (I have the .me version, but that seems useless) -- obviously the .com, .net, .org are all registered.

No, but I wish I did. Hacker News is closer to the "real me" than to the "jokermatt999" me. Plus, have my old AIM handle on here feels weird, considering it's generally a place of more sophisticated discussion than most places I use it.

It makes the job of prospective employers easier. I want to work at places that hired me eyes-wide-open. If they can handle my real self then I can be my real self.

Not pretending to be someone else leaves more brain processing power for doing work.

Having been a constant reader of HN for about a year, I had been wondering if I should create an account and whether it should be identifiable. Reading the comments here, I feel it should be. Account created!

I voted yes even though this is a pseudonym. I have used the same one for so long across so many sites that anyone looking for information on me would inevitably come across this account and link it to me.

I created my account with an alias. I'd love to change it to my real name--I don't want to lose my comment/posting history.

I don't use my real name on here, but anyone can find it with about five seconds of Googling my username, so I suppose so.

Yes. It helps keep me in check if I use my real name (or rather, an amalgamation of my real name) in online discussions.

Sort of. I'm obviously not using my real name, but I don't go out of my way to keep my real identity a secret either.

No.

Networking with the YC gang isn't my goal so for me the benefits provided by the indirection outweigh the costs.

Yes, while this username obviously isn't my real name it's easily linked to my real identity.

Yes and No.

Yes, I am.

What is a "real identity"?

I don't use my real name here nor anywhere else online. My vision of the internet is that it shouldn't mix with the real world - what happens online, stays online, if you will. Sometimes I feel like I'm free to be myself on the internet and forced to roleplay outside of it because of unwritten rules and my own lack of communication skills. The fear of someone recognizing me does also play a part, but no longer as much as it used to when I was a teen.

I couldn't afford personalized license plates so I changed my name to J3L2404.

It's the easiest way for people to recognize me. I also realize any actions I take online truly aren't private, so why try to anonymize my actions at all?