Where did your online alias come from?

[Accessless]

Where did your online alias come from?

We all have them and very few alias' are derived from real names. So I thought that I would start up a thread where people could explain the birth of their online identity. Or perhaps interestingly do you remember why you gave yourself that name?

For example: My name came from dial-up internet, my parents were slow to embrace the broadband revolution (256kbps seemed so fast at the time), as a result I always had to go to friends houses and mooch their internet. As I began to introduce myself to more and more online communities it seemed only fitting that I give myself a name that reflected the lack of internet access. And so Accessless was born.

Not the most interesting story but maybe some of you have more entertaining stories.

[reddevilggg]

Isn't there already one of...these?

[Accessless]

Is there where?

[Salmon Trout]

LNER A1/A3 Pacific No. 2506 Salmon Trout

[Helpmeh]

On here it was originally because all I only came here for help. On other boards that I've visited I've created a user called "forum_reader", because they don't allow guests to view threads.

[Salmon Trout]

I have got a zillion "online identities".

[Accessless]

LNER A1/A3 Pacific No. 2506 Salmon Trout

Oddly specific any particalar reason for that train?

I have got a zillion "online identities".

Yes... Always best not to sully your name by associating it with... less reputable websites. 

[Salmon Trout]

Oddly specific any particalar reason for that train?

Don't call it a "train"! It's a locomotive. I could have chosen its more famous stablemate, No. 4472 Flying Scotsman, but that was too obvious. I have also used the names of Sansovino, Woolwinder, Book Law, Blink Bonny, Galtee More, and others. (The A1 and A3 classes were named after famous British racehorses).

[patio]

The only thing more impresive than a true locomotive would be a Saturn 5 rocket...
Sheer power on both counts.

[Helpmeh]

Don't call it a "train"! It's a locomotive. I could have chosen its more famous stablemate, No. 4472 Flying Scotsman, but that was too obvious. I have also used the names of Sansovino, Woolwinder, Book Law, Blink Bonny, Galtee More, and others. (The A1 and A3 classes were named after famous British racehorses).

What about your previous name here, where did that come from?

[patio]

What does that matter ? ?

[Allan]

You know, I've been using "Allan" on so many forums for so many years I've forgotten how I came up with it 

[patio]

I'm 23 different people on here any given day...
So which alias are you inquiring about ? ?

[DaveLembke]

I have a bunch, some of them appear as real names that I came up with such as Jim Conner etc, which is not one of my aliases, but can be used as one, and others names from cartoon network characters

This alias I have here even though it looks like a real name is actually made up from my real first name... yes my name IRL is DAVE..lol... but last name is from the weather lady on the weather channel. Decided to use her last name when registering to CH back in 2006 since I was looking at the weather channel at the winter storm and needed a name, so Cheryl Lemke is where I got my partial alias here from...LOL

Also created a bunch of fake facebook accts with aliases for games that I use to play that you became stronger with the more people in your group, so the easiest cheat was to make a bunch of fake yahoo e-mail accts writing the user/pwd down on a sheet of paper, and facebook accts each registered and confirmed to those junk yahoo mail accts, and then link the facebook accts to my primary acct to become a stronger force to fight against. But I got bored with those facebook games that require so much wasted time and group participation that the fake accts will likely expire from inactivity and disappear.
 
Even on facebook etc my information is wrong to protect myself from identity theft. No one needs to know my real birthday. Even here at CH my birthday is something other than my actual and I have one alias birthday that is only used for when registering software etc in case I ever need to prove who I am, which I am what I am not..lol

Having the wrong birthday on Facebook has made for some laughs. I quickly found out who in my friends and family did not know my real birthday. So I'd get a bunch of posts stating HAPPY BIRTHDAY and I'd laugh at the people who should know better and obviously dont know my birthday.

I dont do anything illegal, but its best to be unknown to a certain level, especially when it doesnt matter your age, sex, location, and on and on at the places you are at online.

Also for online games etc, I use to have spy identities, such as in World of Warcraft, I had a fake alias for a character in the guild which I was officer for. Everyone thought my one character belonged to a girl named Melissa who was in the guild. I always had to decline using vent with her since my voice would definately not pass as a female and everyone knew my voice from my role as officer anyways. I used this character to interact with the guild members run in the groups etc and keep an eye on things without anyone knowing I was watching.  My reasoning for having a female toon with a female alias was because there are lots of cyber freaks in that game, so I was using my female alias as bait for these cyber freaks and kick them as soon as they try to get perverted etc. I had her name as Melissa in the guild notes and professions as well to bait anyone with wrongful intent towards our female guild members. So i guess she was sort of a honeypot character to weed out the freaks..lol...Whenever there was something bad going on, I would remain on and logon as my wifes acct on another computer and likely whatever was going on that was wrong was displayed on the 2nd computer so I could appear then as my wife and deal with the situation to defuse it or kick someone out of the guild if its that bad. *With open guild invites all sorts of characters would join and it was high maintenance for a short while. The only problem now with spy identities in World of Warcraft is that if you want to be unknown and you are REAL ID'd with someone else in the guild they can put 2 and 2 together and see your spy toon.

Also use aliases when registering online with my real address for coke rewards, and tech mailings etc. I intentionally misspell my name on ones that state that they do not share my information and then sure enough a short while later you find out that they either have an information leak someone stealing customer info or they are selling it and thinking that they would get away with it without proof linking it back to them. Coke Rewards btw has NOT violated this trust, but others have and I have caught them at it, making note as to the misspell variant in a notebook and where that variant was registered against. Altering the middle initial is the best method of indication to use and not confuse the postal carrier, some names can only be jumbled with misspellings so far before you have a mess and the postal carrier might not deliver it thinking something is wrong when they see your name on a daily basis.

[Salmon Trout]

What about your previous name here, where did that come from?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNwNDeYVvBs

And the one before that

[patio]

I'm 23 different people on here any given day...
So which alias are you inquiring about ? ?

I'm assuming now this humor fell on deaf ears...

[Helpmeh]

I'm assuming now this humor fell on deaf ears...

You're worse than some of the people who post here, patio. You barely waited 5 hours.

[soybean]

How I came up with mine is a simple explanation.  I grew up on a farm in Ohio.  Soybeans were one of the crops produced by my father.  One of my three brothers now farms where my parents lived. 

I've used soybean on a few other online accounts and I have a few other online usernames but I often just use my first initial and last name in all lower case letters. 

Actually, I'd like to see more use of real names like one of the Computer Hope members, Rob Pomeroy, does.  Assuming you're genuinely here to help others or get help, and you're not a troll or someone whose purpose is to play mind games with other forum members, what's the big deal about avoiding using your real name?  Now, if this were a political forum or some other forum focused on issues of a sensitive nature, then the use of an online alias definitely makes sense.

[Salmon Trout]

Assuming you're genuinely here to help others or get help, and you're not a troll or someone whose purpose is to play mind games with other forum members, what's the big deal about avoiding using your real name?

Well, you could delete your membership and rejoin using your real name, if you think that is such a good idea, Jim Bob.

[soybean]

Well, you could delete your membership and rejoin using your real name, if you think that is such a good idea, Jim Bob.

Not at this point; don't want to start over with a new name. 

[DaveLembke]

Per the starting over with real name... is it possible for someone to do that here if they wanted to do so, and not start back at 0 credit and rank for their years of effort?

Its just a database after all, so it seems as though it would be simple to Find & Replace ...

[ soybean ] with [ Jim Bob ]

as an example, as long as the real name is not already in use by another Jim Bob etc, and attention to case of lowercase 's' of soybean vs capital 'S'. 

[Helpmeh]

It used to be a feature, if I remember correctly. Nathan removed it, but I guess you could send him a PM asking for him to change it.

[Salmon Trout]

Per the starting over with real name... is it possible for someone to do that here if they wanted to do so, and not start back at 0 credit and rank for their years of effort?

Its just a database after all, so it seems as though it would be simple to Find & Replace ...

[ soybean ] with [ Jim Bob ]

as an example, as long as the real name is not already in use by another Jim Bob etc, and attention to case of lowercase 's' of soybean vs capital 'S'. 

At least one person has deleted their account, later rejoined, and asked to have their previous post count credited to them. A moderator said they will do this for a member one time only. This was using the same name I think.

As for losing the credit for "years of effort", well, $POSTCOUNT <> $VALUE_CONTRIBUTED imho.

[BC_Programmer]

BC_Programmer and BC_Programming are generally the only two screen names I use, for better or for worse. There are a few circumstances where I have selected a "throwaway" name, or simply chosen a different name, for whatever reason.

The origins are pretty simple. "BC" is supposed to stand for "BASeCamp" which is the 'label' of sorts I've been attaching to my creations. This is because I always thought attaching my name- specifically- to a piece of software was a bit pretentious- and because I couldn't know how it would develop.

The name itself- BASeCamp- (and the capitalization) was simply a reasonable word association- the capitalized parts make it unique and give the top of the word a "mountainous" look, and BAS and C are the standard File Extensions of Visual Basic and C programs respectively, which I worked in for the most part at the time. Now I work primarily in C# but BASeC#amp is just too hard to pronounce. And also looks silly.

Insomuch as Soybean's notes about the use of Real Names, while I don't think it was quite as easy as it was when I first registered here, It is really quite trivial to find my Real name through about a million different methods; The most obvious being the footer on my website; the second being links to other media such as youtube (which I switched to using my Real name for) as well as things like my MVP Profile. This also makes it completely trivial to basically get all my contact information by design (address, phone number, etc).

There is something of a perspective in Soybean's post that essentially says that- if a person isn't going to make trouble, they have nothing to hide. This makes sense- in one sense, you can see it being harder to shirk responsibility for actions and posts if you attribute them to your real name than through a psuedonym. On the other hand, we aren't required or even encouraged to provide our full name to greeter staff at grocery stores either, and I don't think the simple fact that you have no 'physical presence' on an online forum really means there is a moral obligation to attach your real name to your posts.

I think it's very much like, say, grocery stores- If you turn into a regular patron, you may very well get to know the staff- in some cases perhaps even being on a first-name basis. It's a case of familiarity- that information is not what you give out, up-front, when you start your "relationship" with another person- when you first meet somebody they might start out in your mind as "that guy with glasses that sells cars" or "that short girl with the weird laugh". If you interact more, you eventually both receive more information about the person in question and give more information about yourself. In the case of an internet forum, you are basically creating that "nickname" and using it as the established psuedonym; if you get to know or trust the members of said forum, you might reveal more information in PMs, but the fact that- unlike verbal conversations- all the information posted publically is indexed and freely available to most of the public makes it a bit more of a case of moral responsibility, IMO. If somebody was to use their Real Name for something- as an example- or even just a single nickname- like myself, tied to my real name through easily verifiable methods- Then it can be quite easy to find information that most would probably prefer not to be shared.

In some respects with the greater affluence of information available on the internet, and it being a more prominent cornerstone through things like social media, in many respects it's almost as if more and more of our conversations are simply stored for posterity- what used to be an awkward conversation or an argument involving 2 or 3 people that would be forgotten quickly within a week or so becomes stored and available for search indexes to index and retrieve, and immediately involves, say, all the people that you have "friended" on facebook- because it shows up in their feeds.

[Salmon Trout]

"BC" is supposed to stand for "BASeCamp"

Well, that just shows how wrong a person could be because I have always assumed that BC stood for "British Columbia". (You know, the province in which Kamloops is located)

[BC_Programmer]

Well, that just shows how wrong a person could be because I have always assumed that BC stood for "British Columbia". (You know, the province in which Kamloops is located)

It is certainly a fair assumption, since I am in BC, after all, but that wasn't the original reason for it; it's just an interesting — if entirely unintentional — coincidence.

[Helpmeh]

It is certainly a fair assumption, since I am in BC, after all, but that wasn't the original reason for it; it's just an interesting — if entirely unintentional — coincidence.

I remember you went over this a few years ago...

[Salmon Trout]

I remember you went over this a few years ago...

It comes up every once in a while...

One of a number of hits:

Re: Happy birthday BC_Programmer!
« Reply #18 on: March 24, 2009, 04:42:56 AM »

    Quote

I'll just reply now then:

Happy Birthday, BC!

Now I have to ask, is it "Before Christ" or "British Columbia"?