Google publicity issues

I suppose this one will get there too, but I just googled moi and lo and behold, my lafcpug threads popped up. I find this a little inapropriate. Should I change my name here? Or is there some other solution?

Thanks,

Mergatroid, AKA Marloo, AKA Mitchy...

why would it bother you? - dont want your clients to know you dont have ALL the answers? ; )

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dont want your clients to know you dont have ALL the answers? ; )

...nice.

Marla,

I would if it bothers you. I (as a personal preference) do not use my real name in any forums. In Edit forums, I am "grafixjoe". In grafix / 3D forums, I'm "silversurfer". There are lots of idiots out there... they steal your identity... threaten your family... stupid $h!t like that just for kicks. I don't mind helping out on forums, but I value as much privacy as I can handle.

- Joey

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

Well, there are several Shane Ross' out there, so I am not too worried.

Google me and you get:

And Irish Senator (in Ireland)
An Actress with a bit part in PRETTY WOMAN
Me
A Physics major on the East Coast

None of these sites have my birthdate, SS# or address, so I feel plenty safe.


www.shanerosseditor.com

Listen to THE EDIT BAY Podcast on iTunes
[itunes.apple.com]

it was a joke joey
- and marla, i hope you took it in that spirit as well

In general, I don't respond to "anyonmous" posters.

If you can't be bothered with telling me your name, why should I help you?

I think people take their privacy too seriously. Anyone can find out anything about you.
Get over it!

Mark

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it was a joke joey

...still ...nice.

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

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In general, I don't respond to "anyonmous" posters.

You've responded to me before, Mark. I don't consider myself "anonymous" just because I have a "handle" (username). When I come across intelligent topics / posters, good conversations are usually carried out in PM's and THAT's where I "get to know someone".

I know anyone can find out anything about you... so why give them free info to start with? Easy for folks to say "get over it", but privacy is serious... it's something people take for granted each day...until you lose it. Ask Shane...he can't go anywhere without signing a baby or having his clothes torn from his body

It's not that easy to get over once your privacy has been violated or you know someone who's privacy has been violated. Call me paranoid... but there are gremlins living in my mailbox and they are taking all my personal info from my bills and giving it to my neighbors

...changing my "handle" to "grafixfrank"

- Joey

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

"If you can't be bothered with telling me your name, why should I help you? "

i don't really get the logic here, mark.
what;s in a name anyway?
does it have to be a first & last name?
first name with an initial (I am NickM in a lot of places on the internet)
Initial + Last Name?
there was a poster a while back doing just this, and i know they were an experienced Hollywood editor.
how about a FALSE first name and a FALSE last name?

it;s the internet, people use handles.
some do want a certain amount of privacy
Experienced editors may just want their question answered with
a) no hassles ("give me a job!" "help me get my foot in the door!"
or b) no dent to their pride (what Wayne was referring to before his post was editoed)

i suppose restricting yourself to the posters name is one way to regulate your responses.
i'd rather stick to whether the question is interesting or not.

but if people found my name coming up in a lafcpug thread as a result of a google search,
it wouldn't bother me at all.
(but then i haven't been lambasting the people i work for!)

Lambasting is a tad STRONG, but still - I know we've had our moments of client kvetches. I don't misrepresent my skills to my clients, and over the years I have had to grow comfortable learning in front of them, it's part of the job: constant teachability, and results in a growing confidence in one's ability to figure out stuff (with and without the help of this fab forum). And I doubt that my busy clients are spending their time combing through my threads!

But all the explanations aside, it's just a feeling I have, that I like a sense of privacy among those in this community, I like feeling free to say whatever is on my mind and hear whatever is on your minds, it seems a reasonable preference to me.

So, to get technical - I guess it's too late to remove the 170 threads that are already up there in google-land but, if I want to halt the proliferation, do I just change my handle? Can I leave my real name where it says "real name" in "My Control Center," without that getting out to the masses? Or do I need to change it in both places...

Thanks,

Mitchy

Joey,

No, I don't consider you anonymous... you do sign every post and I enjoy reading them all.

Nick,

I see you your point. But, I look at it this way. If someone is coming here looking for information or help, the very least they can do is be open about who they are. This board is LUCKY to NOT be plagued by trolls and idiots causing trouble for everyone. That's due in part to Mr. Horton's skillful and diplomatic moderation, but also because everyone must register and there's a tradition of using real identities, not handles or avatars.

As for the "no hassles" or "bruised ego" concerns... there's no free lunch. If you want the help of the community, the trade off should be honesty of ID.

Just my .02 cents.

Mark

I do ask folks to use their real names when they register but few do. I too have this "thing" about talking to handles. However, and how does one say this... in the case of women, it might be a good idea they not use their real names and opt instead for an alias.

Privacy is not really the issue. We have none anymore. I gave up on that along time ago. That's the trade off for using the internet. Google knows where you are and and if we want to find your address and phone number we can do it quite easily now. So the issue is more of safety. I'm not so worried cause I'm a guy and dont worry about much as long as the wine is chilled and the fridge is full. But I might be a bit concerned if I were a woman.

The only real way as far as I know to hide your real name is to delete your current account and you re-register with an alias. I'll look though and see if I can do anything from the admin. I'll let you know if I find anything.

If you want to delete your account just send me an email. Your posts wont be deleted though. They are part of google now I am afraid.

Michael Horton
-------------------

Thanks Mike,

I'll take all of that under consideration! It seems a bit silly to delete my account if all of my past posts are still on google. But I may decide to do so. I have no problem with all you colleagues knowing my ID. And I appreciate your thoughtfulness on the gender/ID issue, Mike, though I chose not to live in that kind of fear myself, without good reason. I doubt a technical forum is a place where a stalker would look for victims, it just wouldn't be practical: how many of us on here are women? Like 3?

This thread has brought up some ethical issues, love that.

Best to all on a cold grey day in the East,

Mitchy

Actually Deb Eschweiler took me up on the offer of deleting her account so she could re-register under an alias. Seems your posts turn into "Anonymous User" thus deleting your name. Kind of sucky but it does remove your name from all posts.

Michael Horton
-------------------

...my first name IS in my handle, btw... so that should count for something to those that require real names. That's honest & open enough for me on an internet forum.

Sincerely,

Joe Doe

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

ive already seen one person convert themselves to "anoymous user" im not a fan of this, as i personally tend to more readilly view replies based on who they are in relation to the thread subject.

So there's no way to use your handle as your "real name," so it doesn't say anonymous user?

Mitchy Marlnick

OK, I want my name removed and want to make a new user ID that is simply, "The Dude."

(just kidding)


www.shanerosseditor.com

Listen to THE EDIT BAY Podcast on iTunes
[itunes.apple.com]

Need to be clear here. If I delete your CURRENT account, your username, in this case Marla Mitchnick, reverts to "Anonymous User" instead of Marla Mitchnick. That is all the posts you ever made. In other words, Marla Mitchnick disappears forever replaced by the username "Anonymous User." This will only happen if I delete your current account. No one can post on these forums as "Anonymous User."

With this software I can't see away to change your name in the admin. I'm going to post over on phorum support and see if they have a workaround.

You can see the result of this by looking on the message list today. All those "Anonymous User" names are Deb Eischweiler who's account was deleted today by her request.

Michael Horton
-------------------

Yes! But I'm still here!!

I thought all my old posts would retain my old name. Unfortunately, we have now found the hard way that this is not the case.

If anyone is offended by my old posts coming up as "Anonymous User", I apologize. It wasn't Mike's and my intention. I just decided it's better for me personally to not be readily identifiable to people who are not regular users here.

I have no problem with sharing my identity with the group. I am concerned with the nefarious interlopers!

debe

...so Marla is debe now? I'm confused.

Sincerely,

Joe Smith

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

Nope!

Debe used to be deb e(schweiler)



deb

jeeez Deb ... do you realise a nefarious interloper might read that

I must admit I haven't quite figured out the privacy concerns that people are expressing yet, perhaps because I live in part of the world less troubled by these problems.

Nevertheless, its good to see that options exist for those who do have a need to adopt a more covert existence!

I'll agree with the others who have posted that they prefer to see who they are "talking" to, and I probably give more credence to threads whose users have real names, although handles that have real names in them are also fine by me.

Its just when I answer a poster with a handle like "w3sxt65" and answer in the form "Hello w3sxt65" then I wonder if I should bother ... but not you specifically, w3sxt65, I'm not singling you out

cheers
Andy

I'm one of those handle haters too. Especially the handles with numbers or ones like "snakeoil" or prisseyface. It really is hard to tell a prisseyface to trash your preferences.

Michael Horton
-------------------

I get what you guys are saying, but I know too many folks who have had their identity stolen, and in one case a woman who was stalked by someone who found her online in a forum. Not like this one, but still. It can happen.

I should have signed up as debe from the beginning. It's the name I use on other forums. I did feel the peer pressure here to use my real name, and I succumbed. Again, I understand your feelings behind it, but I don't feel like using my first name and last initial is on the same level of signing up as "prisseyface". (yes, Andy, I did see the irony of putting my name in parentheses, but I was originally willing to let my name live on in the annals of LAFCPUG before we knew nuking my old account would also nuke my name on all my old posts. I figured doing it that way would reduce the confusion here.)

I'm happy to acknowledge who I am, where I'm from, and what I do when it fits the conversation, but I don't feel the need to advertise it in every post every time. For me, that's too dang scary. Most of you do know me here, and I certainly don't feel anonymous. I'm not trying to hide anything from you all.

There are people out there that do bad things, and they've done them to people I know and care about. I don't feel the need to give them any more information about me than necessary.

deb

I think both sides have legitimate rationales.

While I also like knowing who I'm talking to -- especially since overly cheery internet handles annoy me a little -- I also support people who want to use their real names as little as possible on an open forum.

I use my name because I believe it's really not that hard to look up who I am. And since my LAFCPUG account keeps nothing useful in terms of personal information (except my e-mail -- and that's not exactly hard to get), I don't really think much of it.

But if people feel more comfortable safety-wise to use handles...just that, to me, is reason enough. Some of us may think that there isn't much real safety there, but the comfort itself is a good enough reason.


www.derekmok.com

Thanks, derek!

I appreciate the support.

It's not something most people think about, until it happens to someone they know.

deb

With any luck, the hackers would read only the body of my post and think my name is Sarah Slean. |}


www.derekmok.com

hey debe

my post was meant in all honesty ... apart from the first line which was obviously, i hope, meant light-heartedly

i really do live in a society less plagued with these problems (i've lived in Asia for over 16 years) and whilst obviously I've heard of identity theft its never been an issue for me or anyone i know.
i certainly didn't mean to trivialize the issue and i hope you didn't feel i was doing so. apologies if you felt i did.

and hey ... people with dim-witted handles really do bug me (and if i understand correctly, at least as many people are bugged by the lack of captalization in my posts )

no offence intended
Andy

Thanks for that, Andy.

I wasn't offended in the least. I just wanted to make my point clear. I've chosen to remove my real name for all the above-stated reasons. I feel I've made level-headed comments when explaining my reasons.

I'm a bit surprised by all the ruckus. I didn't think it would be this big of a deal to as many people as it's been.

deb