‘Way back in November of last year when I first started this thing up, I posted a bit about anonymity and the internet. Basically, it had more to do with some reminiscences of when I was on the radio and had to deal with the occasional creepy caller at three in the AM than with cyberstalkers and the like… But I guess it’s worth digging the entry out of the archives, since there seems to be some confusion.
People I know in the real world have found this ‘blog, (Hi mom! Hi dad!) and that’s very cool. This is up and out there in public for pretty much anyone to read and (hopefully) enjoy. But there are some people out there (like this guy…) that I’d rather not meet in person, so in order to discourage them I’m going to stick with the convention of not using real names…
Several people have provided their own pseudonyms already, such as Dirge, Shar, BadMovie, The Man in Japan and others, so I’m going to call my wife “My Wife” or possibly “Boo” instead of using her real name. It’s awkward and artificial sounding sometimes, but then again, the internet is an artificial construct, and a little bit of awkwardness now may prevent great unpleasantness later.
It’s just a bit of standard internet caution, like inserting nonsense words or “NoSpam” into your e-mail address on forms to prevent search programs from adding your address to mailing lists…
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