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Personal Details

Peripart

Peripart

Antediluvian
Joined
Aug 1, 2005
Messages
6,735
Here's a question: is there any purpose of having personal details, such as age and gender, on our profiles?

I used to think there was - if I post something, people's reading of that post can be justifiably coloured by knowing that it was written by a 39-year-old man. Folk may think I'm posting something childish, stupid, irrelevant or just wrong, but just as in real life, they can base any response on what they know about me, if they wish. For that reason, to reduce just a little the chances of me being misconstrued, and also so that people have something resembling a "face" to talk to, I'm happy for people to know these details about me.

But so many people choose now not to share even these basic details, I'm wondering whether it's even worth the bother. We have about 12500 members, at the latest count, active or otherwise, which should mean, on average, about 34 names in the "Happy Birthday" box at the bottom of the Forum index. But what do we have, in fact? Three - on a good day. So over 90% of members are choosing not to share their age with everyone else, and the 10% who do includes those with fictional ages.

Is this important? Personally, I think it is, but I'd love to know others' opinions. If someone posts something I disagree with, any response I formulate is necessarily shaped by my knowledge of that person. There are things that I'd expect a 30-year-old to know, for instance, that I wouldn't want to task a 17-year-old to task for.

I'm certainly not advocating giving out full names and addresses, but clicking on someone's profile and finding nothing is a bit like talking to someone in a burkha.

I'll finish now, before I finally go off on one, but I'll conclude with the observation that, IMHO, there have some arguments on this board in fairly recent times, that would never have gone as far as they did if the protagonists had known a little more about who they were talking to.
 
Ah! But, do we ever really know who we are talking to, unless we've been lucky enough to meet in real life?

And even then, did we really meet, or was it only a doppleganger, hired in especially for the occasion?

:madeyes:
 
I'd rather find something than nothing when I go to a profile, too, but everybody's got a different comfort level with how much they want to be known. I always use my real name and give a real location, but everybody else seems to have fun with newsgroup personae, so that's fine. It's none of my business. I have certain things which I prefer not to discuss, or to talk around, in front of potential millions of strangers, which somebody else might not think twice about saying.

We can't control what other people do, and shouldn't if we could. Do as you would be done by and don't worry about it.

Anyway, I know 45-year-olds who turn 13 on the internet and vice-versa. I even know people who do it in real life.
 
Fair enough, it seems I was in a minority, so as of now, I'm fully anonymous.
 
I tend not to give out my name and location as I get enough junk mail as it is and don't want anyone data harvesting in order to send me more.

Anyway, bunging in a few misleading details helps confound anyone intent on identity theft.
 
Fair enough, Timble, I know what you mean, and I suppose, in a way, my point is not directed at anyone who writes clearly and unambiguously.

I have more of an issue, perhaps, when someone posts something abrupt, which could be taken to mean a couple of different things - in cases like that, I'm looking for a little context.

Incidentally, I've just had a characteristic about-face, and reinstated my (correct) birthdate on my profile. At least, it's correct as far as you lot know...
 
I agree in part with what you are saying Peripart. but speaking as a Physicist (lie) from New Jersey (lie) who has some experience of both Anthropology (lie) and has written several papers (lie) on the cultural dynamics of internet communities (lie), I find that even looking at someones profile you can only see how they wish to describe themselves, and not who they actually are (true).

In my case I am in fact a 77 year old Incubus so there would be no need to look at my profile (possibly).
 
Peripart, I don't see why you feel called on to delete your own information just because we're a minority. What difference does it make to you how other people decide to do their profiles? Why wear a burkha yourself, just because other people do? The reasons to fill it out are just as sound as the reasons not to.
 
As I just said, Peni, I had a very swift change of heart. I found that I didn't like being anonymous very much!

It just seems to me that, just like expressing yourself as clearly as possible, offering others something about who you are is a basic courtesy. However, I appreciate that this is not a view universally held.
 
Peripart said:
As I just said, Peni, I had a very swift change of heart. I found that I didn't like being anonymous very much!

It just seems to me that, just like expressing yourself as clearly as possible, offering others something about who you are is a basic courtesy. However, I appreciate that this is not a view universally held.
Click to expand...

I'm all for a friendly atmosphere, but there's always the worst case scenario. You can't guarantee your innocent remark or forthright opinion won't be taken the wrong way and nobody wants to be the victim of a flame war. Just as sharing personal information can be an encouragement to be amiable it can also be used against you if someone should take a dislike to you.

Yes, anonymity may give a poster the excuse to say whatever they want no matter how insulting, and we don't have much of that round here, touch wood, but it can be protective. It's the opinions that matter more than your age or location or height in your stocking feet or whatever, I think. And the jokes.
 
It's going to vary with personal situation, too. I want my details to be readily available, at least partly, on the chance that somebody'll see my book in a store or on amazon and say: "Wait, that's PeniG. Her posts don't suck. And I haven't got Lil Bookworm her present yet. Maybe I should get this." (Examines book.) "Yeah, I'll get this and I'll read it before I wrap it." And then you're hooked and buy all my books!

Okay, so I'm not going to hold my breath about it, but all chance of this scenario is gone if you only know me as Whatsername254.

If, for example, Angelina Jolie or Hillary Clinton came on here, however, they might reasonably recoil from letting anybody know who they were. A newsgroup could be a good place to find company if you're famous (or infamous, or merely drooled over) and travel a lot.

Once, during the Year from Hell, I came within an ace of signing on a newsgroup with a pseudonym. The name I was thinking of would have put stuff I don't want to talk about right into the newsgroup's face and the temptation was to post recklessly, in the person of someone who didn't have to cope and was ready to bleed all over everybody's carpet. I even had a flicker of a persona in mind, not so much a mask as a role-playing character. However, to register for the newsgroup, you have to put in your e-mail address, which contained my name, and I stared at that for a long time and gave it up. I didn't want to play that person if there was a ghost of any chance, however distant, that someone could track down the real me, and that being the case, I had to ask myself if I really wanted to be on that newsgroup at all.

I'm glad I gave it up, as following through on the impulse would no doubt have led to drama and ructions and, functionally, turned me into a troll, which would have all made me feel worse rather than better. But we all have to do this the right way for ourselves, not for the other guy, and somebody else might need anonymity to blossom.

As long as we don't forget that there's people out there beyond the screen, we should be all right most of the time.

And when we're not, we can take a break.
 
Oh god, it's last year all over again. He's got his tentacles out.
 
(waving plastic cup of lukewarm cava)

Cth-ul-hu hu hu
Push pineapple
Shake the tree...

Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow you die (or maybe earlier if I get peckish.)
 
I find corresponding with totally anonymous, ageless, sexless, locationless Forteans a great deal like interacting with computer-generated "personalities" - cold, sterile, and ultimately not very interesting.

I correspond regularly with a man whom I believe to be one of the world's half-dozen leading Fortean and Paranormal scholars. He has a solid and very legitimate doctorate in history and spent his working life as a big-city reference librarian.

We've come to know a great deal about each other, down to our respective love lives (or lack of them, as the case may be and usually is). I have his home address and he mine.

Would our correspondence be more or less productive if I knew him only as "librefdoc"?

I'm afraid that the anonymous-only crowd will have to pick the first choice.

Sincerely,

Old Time Radio (George Wagner in Cincinnati, Ohio, USA)
 
Quite right, OTR.

One of many reasons why this is likely to be my last visit here.
 
Peripart said:
Quite right, OTR.

One of many reasons why this is likely to be my last visit here.
Click to expand...

Peripart, I hope that is not true, as you have long been one of the most productive members here.
 
Hey, don't leave, Peripart!!

I've an inkling that I've let far too much of my personal info slip on this and other sites; I figure my name, age and location aren't overly closely-guarded secrets.
 
Peripart said:
Quite right, OTR.

One of many reasons why this is likely to be my last visit here.
Click to expand...
Aargh! No mate, don't do it!

I've always valued you contribution, for one. :(
 
Hang on, what's teh beef here - that people know too much about each other, or too little? I'm confused.
 
I think there's a difficulty balancing the amount of information it's safe to make public on the net with the amount of information necessary to make friends and/or evaluate the sources of statements in order to carry on a productive discussion here.

That's going to vary with the individual and we should each find our own comfort level and let others do the same.
 
Considering how easy it is for 'serious' criminals to lift personal information from many different sources - message boards being a minor one - personal responsibility should be considered, caution used but not too much paranoia involved. As said, some feel safe giving their real name, age, sex and general location. Any further information can be given as and when needed - especially in more personal contact and not in widespread 'publication'.

Many people on the FTMB have their own web sites, Facebook pages, MySpace accounts etc. etc. which both act as a 'point of entry' for ne'er do wells as well as further friendly contact. I'd suggest that a blanket "Everyone Be Anonymous" would be just as pointless and rather insipid (in browsing enjoyment) as a "Here are my bank details - just pay in the loot!" My own web site has a short biography which, while accurate, fails to interest computer fraudsters; something for which I'm quite grateful but might be due to lack of precise information. However, privately I've enjoyed contacts with many folk from the FTMB who know more about myself ... and seem to regret it!

As a finale, I'd like to point out the number of members on this board who join with questions concerning their "research" for television production companies who also don't supply further details ... or even further posts. I'm sure they are real people but have their own reasons for lacking certain biographical substance.
 
Let me add that for the decade I've been online I've always used my real name (George Wagner) on Yahoogroups and similar Fortean lists, and here on "ours" I've frequently used my own name and my location as well. Plus, my age is accurate (but it keeps going up every year - drat!)

During all that time I've never had any repercussions. The only "bad" messages have been two flame letters. But I would have received those in any case. (One flamer I ignored entirely but the second has long since tamed down into a civil and valued correspondent.)

Remember, we are dealing with fellow FORTEANS here, not denizens of the Net's sleaziest lonely hearts chatroom. Moreover the FTMBs have safeguards in place which even the Yahoogroups do not have.

Now I have used pseudononymous accounts in the past - for example while monitoring some really iffy "political" groups and again on a couple of genuinely creepy serial killers lists.

But, again, there are FORTEANS here.
 
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