This seems like an interesting request for a site that explores agent continuity of beliefs and identity. Why is my government name more “real” than my online name? Both are just convenient handles to different (but somewhat overlapping, granted) clusters of behaviors and interactions you might have with aspects of us.
[edit: to clarify, this comment is mostly pointing out an amusing (to me) self-referential topic. I don’t intend to use my “real” name here, but I have no objection to others asking for or providing theirs. ]
It’s just so that if I read a LW/AF post/comment from someone, I can more easily recall oh, this is the same person I met at event X, or this is the same person who wrote paper Y (and vice versa). If someone consistently uses their online name for physical meetings and authoring papers, that would be fine with me. And if someone wants to keep their online and physical identities completely apart, that would be understandable to me too. But I’m not sure if people have good reasons to give themselves an online name that’s different from their “real” name, and make others keep a mapping between the two.
This seems like an interesting request for a site that explores agent continuity of beliefs and identity. Why is my government name more “real” than my online name? Both are just convenient handles to different (but somewhat overlapping, granted) clusters of behaviors and interactions you might have with aspects of us.
[edit: to clarify, this comment is mostly pointing out an amusing (to me) self-referential topic. I don’t intend to use my “real” name here, but I have no objection to others asking for or providing theirs. ]
It’s just so that if I read a LW/AF post/comment from someone, I can more easily recall oh, this is the same person I met at event X, or this is the same person who wrote paper Y (and vice versa). If someone consistently uses their online name for physical meetings and authoring papers, that would be fine with me. And if someone wants to keep their online and physical identities completely apart, that would be understandable to me too. But I’m not sure if people have good reasons to give themselves an online name that’s different from their “real” name, and make others keep a mapping between the two.