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I’ve posted enough here for folk to get within a mile of my place. But there are a LOT of houses there.
Just need to find the boat house?
Previous life and real name scattered around here too.
Ah, so you have a book deal.
Best of luck trying to find images of me. Lots in print but all pre social media and the rise of the Internet.
You sure about that?
I’d rather not know the real identities of STW users as I have my own humourous mental images of people.
No idea what you mean 🤔
Not very anonymous but only give out very small bits of actual important information. I don't discuss life, wife, problems, money, politics etc. Just bikey stuff.
usermames is a bit of a thowback really
The only thing I would say to that is that certainly within my professional/social circle there's a bit of a revival of a wish for anonymity online. I know a good number of teachers that have changed their Facebook and other social media profiles to something other than their real name, especially if their role has anything pastoral or 'management' in it. Basically because of the abuse they were getting from both children and parents. It appears trolling, and some pretty career ending false accusations (generating fake accounts using just enough detail and images ripped out of people's real accounts for authenticity and then laced with specific supposed posts with enough nuance and local knowledge to be a just a bot doing the faking) is a bit of a mass participation sport for some. Maybe the consequences for the perpetrators are insufficient, maybe people got bored and lost their shit during COVID and the habits stuck but it's very not cool. It doesn't help that people are crap at using the tools built in to FB etc to make sure total randoms can't see pictures of your kids etc (one teacher I know left her details open and had pictures of her daughter from FB printed and stuck about the school with messages about her looking like a whore,; another had photos of his wife posted about under the title "ugliest woman in the UK - who'd want to **** that? All charming stuff).
Unless there are atypical security / safeguarding issues, if your employer wants to read your public Facebook feed they can go find it
It is included as a vetting matter. Post various police WhatsApp and social media outrages, criminal convictions and rapes parts of the civil service have gone full on policing social media activity. One’s private conversations, let alone posting online are all their business apparently.
Do they monitor my SM posting, I suspect not, would they look through them if i was in the poo and they need extra grist; no doubt.
Thanks for reminding me Ernie, luckily that image was deleted from Flickr ages ago.
… if your employer wants to read your public Facebook feed they can go find it
And find it they will. Some levels of security clearance require access to you personal life.
I probably shouldn’t even say that much online, but …well they wouldn’t find this … er, yeah, they could actually, if needed!
It is included as a vetting matter. Post various police WhatsApp and social media outrages, criminal convictions and rapes parts of the civil service have gone full on policing social media activity. One’s private conversations, let alone posting online are all their business apparently.
Do they monitor my SM posting, I suspect not, would they look through them if i was in the poo and they need extra grist; no doubt.
...
And find it they will. Some levels of security clearance require access to you personal life.
Sure. As I said, if there are safeguarding issues &c then it's a different scenario. If you're an electrician then not so much.
It's kinda pointless anyway. It'd be the work of moments to create a second account and say "here you go."
I realised in the 90s that I have an almost unique name and I would always be easy to find in the digital world.
Same, though googling me will hit a lot of false positives. It's like being named Dave Bricklayer.
When I started joining forums having a username was the done thing
Exactly why I chose an alias, there was a requirement for a unique monicker and my first name or my initials no longer cut it. As it turned out, "Cougar" isn't all that unique on the global Internet either but it served me well for a while. I've never encountered another Cougar in the wild but I've had plenty of "that username is taken," I think I have an arch-nemesis somewhere in the US who goes around signing up to things and then never using them.
the use of usermames is a bit of a thowback really – the forum is older than ‘social media’ / Web 2.0 and predates the notion of most people having some sort of public profile online for either work or social purposes.
I'd carbon-date "Cougar" to circa 1990 give or take a year.
Surprisingly, I am not the real Hans Rey. But I did win a signed poster of his from stw.
That's all you're getting from me.
I am not the real Hans Rey
Thanks for shattering the illusion! I wonder what his username is?
Surprisingly, I am not the real Hans Rey
I sense an opportunity for STW to start selling Blue Ticks
I like to think that I've kept a fairly low profile on here. But realistically I've met a number of users, or former users. I've probably revealed more about myself to people in my industry than I have here. I reached an age where I don't much care if people know I'm a ****.
I've never tried to hide anything apart from where my bikes are kept.
I dought very much anyone is interested in me enough to try and find out anything else about me.
It doesn’t help that people are crap at using the tools built in to FB etc to make sure total randoms can’t see pictures of your kids etc
I had to remove one friend who was forever playing those "what vegetable are you?" and "what dog would you be?" and "I bet you can't name 10 places that have a Y in their name!" quizzes and other assorted bollocks on FB and as a result was forever getting hacked which would then generate another raft of friend requests and "will you play whack-a-mole with me?!" invites which was all the same hack/spam.
Disconcertingly, I've been recognised by a poster on here who clearly knew who I am irl. Forget who, it was years ago and hasn't happened since. Conversely, there are folks I know irl who lurk here sometimes and see that I post.
So not particularly anonymous, but luckily I don't post anything very interesting. I also try not to post anything I'd be too embarrassed about saying in front of folks who know me (I may have a high embarrassment threshold, mind). I also avoid specifics of my work.
I also try not to post anything I’d be too embarrassed about saying
I just tell anyone anything, that way no one can ever blackmail me over anything / cause embarrassment as there's pretty much nothing I wouldn't tell someone if they just asked...
PIN and banking passwords excepted...
there’s pretty much nothing I wouldn’t tell someone if they just asked…
Indeed. Not that they necessarily even have to ask...😁
I hire a short, fat, hairy person to represent me in public.
In reality, you may know me as a leading male model, amateur astronaut, world famous musician and international playboy.
Slumming it on here with plebs like you keeps me humble and grounded.
Not.
It doesn’t help that people are crap at using the tools built in to FB etc to make sure total randoms can’t see pictures of your kids etc
Nor does it help that those privacy settings and "I don't want to see this" options seem to get renamed, rearranged, reorganised and re-defaulted by app updates from time to time.
I’m John & for fun I play drums . I don’t use this ID anywhere else so probably tending more towards anonymity than not .
I’m on FB under my real name, almost never use Instagram, and never ever post on LinkedIn.
convert
usermames is a bit of a thowback really
The only thing I would say to that is that certainly within my professional/social circle there’s a bit of a revival of a wish for anonymity online. I know a good number of teachers that have changed their Facebook and other social media profiles to something other than their real name, especially if their role has anything pastoral or ‘management’ in it.
As a teacher (in a pastoral role), it's deffo tricky to navigate social media these days.
At my school and locally, it's less about direct abuse from students and parents. The big thing currently is ripping images, etc. from your accounts and setting up 'bait' TikTok accounts using them. It's basically the 2020s version of RateMyTeacher.com. Kids deffo pick and choose their targets and I think I'm clean currently but unless you go actively hunting them (and for your mental health why would you do that?) it's really tough to know...
I'm careful about not revealing too much info online but not obsessively so. Having said that, from just what I post on here you would know my wife's name and pretty much where I live (in terms of locality). I do have multiple SM accounts on each platform for different 'aspects' of my life. None have my real name obviously used.
TBH if kids at school found my personal accounts, pretty much all they'd have to work with is pictures of me riding my bike and various random photography stuff. They know I'm obsessed by bikes already and I teach Photography to them...
Hmm,
I have 14 email addresses, don’t have the same user ID across any forum or website (but older ones are variations), have only 1 social media account linked to my primary email address and rarely/never upload photos. Strava and here is probably the biggest insight into me and my life as they’re my name and give a rough idea about location and place of work. People on here will have an understanding of where I live and what I do, but little else.
I generally try to keep it quite anonymous just through personal preference. I'm not a big sharer of personal stuff on social media / online generally. I don't have a job that would be useful to share any kind of advice from on here so don't do that. I don't post photos of mine or my familie's faces on here and (I think) I have only shared a loose location of the region I live in. I barely ride a mountain bike any more so chances of meeting any of you in real life are very slim anyway.
Given all that, I'm sure someone with basic skills and nefarious intentions could soon find out a lot more about me if they wanted to.
As others have said, stuff posted on here is forever and is open to the whole internet. But then again, I very rarely post on social media apart from selling stuff on Facebook.
As IRL I am a shy awkward weirdo with zero social skills whatsoever, I find having an anonymous internet username kinda liberating and say stuff I never would be able to normally.
That said, I'm not massively careful about hiding myself here, I have shown pics of my fairly unique bike, have said whereabouts I live and other hints. I daresay if someone had been paying attention they'd recognise me if we met somewhere. Not that that's very likely, as I hardly ever get out on the bike 🙁
Oh and you won't find a picture of me, as I have a severe photo allergy :p
Not very, plenty of people off here have met me or been to my house.
Apparently I'm neither as old or as grumpy as I come across.
I don’t overshare, but I haven’t gone overboard with trying to hide. Never really done facebook, but finding it’s the only game in town for a lot of groups these days as individual and club websites have more and more moved over there. I’m tempted to switch my facebook into my own name after a few years as anonymous account. My real name is shared with a Hollywood actor, a bigshot financier, a lord who was a cabinet minister, a prominent gangster, an ambassador and big cheese at the FCO among others, so you need to be pretty specific or scroll a long way down google results to get a sniff of me. That said, I’ve met and ridden with quite a few on here and you are all lovely.
As a teacher (in a pastoral role), it’s deffo tricky to navigate social media these days.
At my school and locally, it’s less about direct abuse from students and parents. The big thing currently is ripping images, etc. from your accounts and setting up ‘bait’ TikTok accounts using them. It’s basically the 2020s version of RateMyTeacher.com. Kids deffo pick and choose their targets and I think I’m clean currently but unless you go actively hunting them (and for your mental health why would you do that?) it’s really tough to know…
I'm a little bit worried about this. I live in the same town and share the uncommon surname with my brother, a teacher.
My facebook profile pic doesnt show my face, it shows me skiing. I leant my brother my coat for his school ski trip, so at least some of the kids have seen him dressed exactly like I am in my profile pic.
Luckily I think he is well liked at his school, so hopefully I dont have a paedophile alter ego on tiktok