(via @zephoria on Twitter) From: http://infotrope.net/2011/07/25/preliminary-results-of-my-survey-of-suspende... [[ Reasons people gave for their choice of name: • “I am a high school teacher, privacy is of the utmost importance.” • “I publish under my nom de plume, it’s printed on my business cards, and all of the thousands of people I know through my social networks know my by my online name.” • “I have used this name/account in a work context, my entire family know this name and my friends know this name. It enables me to participate online without being subject to harassment that at one point in time lead to my employer having to change their number so that calls could get through.” • “I do not feel safe using my real name online as I have had people track me down from my online presence and had coworkers invade my private life.” • “I’ve been stalked. I’m a rape survivor. I am a government employee that is prohibited from using my IRL.” • “I work for a private club. I have to carry a card around which states I will not share any element of the club with any sort of media. So, If I want to talk about work (and I do) on the net, I have to use an alias.” • “I’ve been using this name for over 10 years in the “hacking” community. There are a nontrivial amount of people who know me *only* by that name.” • “As a former victim of stalking that impacted my family I’ve used [my nickname] online for about 7 years.” • “Under [this name] I am active in a number of areas of sexual difference for which it would not be wise for me to use my flesh legal name.” • “My actual real name is utterly non-identifying, as 1) it is the name of a character in a movie (Girl, Interrupted), and that overwhelms google search results 2) it’s not unique at ALL.” • “[this name] is a pseudonym I use to protect myself. My web site can be rather controversial and it has been used against me once.” • “I started using [this name] to have at least a little layer of anonymity between me and people who act inappropriately/criminally. I think the “real names” policy hurts women in particular. • “I use the pseudonym to maintain my online anonymity because I am polyamorous and have no desire for professional acquaintances to discover this.” • “I enjoy being part of a global and open conversation, but I don’t wish for my opinions to offend conservative and religious people I know or am related to. Also I don’t want my husband’s Govt career impacted by his opinionated wife, or for his staff to feel in any way uncomfortable because of my views.” • “I have privacy concerns for being stalked in the past. I’m not going to change my name for a google+ page. The price I might pay isn’t worth it.” • “We get death threats at the blog, so while I’m not all that concerned with, you know, sane people finding me. I just don’t overly share information and use a pen name.” • “This identity was used to protect my real identity as I am gay and my family live in a small village where if it were openly known that their son was gay they would have problems.” • “I go by pseudonym for safety reasons. Being female, I am wary of internet harassment.” ]] Regards, - John