Why not …

no nothing to hide

frightened of nothing

nope

Dave

Edited By Steambuff on 12/10/2012 15:50:34

Well thats assuming your name is not really Ric Clarke

JasonB, who logs into too many forums he can't be bothered to type the rest of his surname.

Hi

Maybe they can't find a pen

Jim

My Nom de plume is Coalburner (CB) nothing to hide, still a CB radio addict, burn coal in engines etc etc.

I often sign my posts with my given name.

It's a forum thing, don't get hung up on this

CB is shorter than…

Graeme

I am very happy to show my engines and my models to other model engineers and other experts even if it is to be criticized, but I do not like to show what I do to people who know me and who know nothing in model engineering and generally laugh at it (poor morons).

so there is nom de plume

It matter not a jot to me if someone wants to use a pseudonym/avatar/N-d-P or whatever, what I would appreciate though is if they would at least use a Christian name as a signature at the end of their post.

There are many times I have wanted to reply to postings but get put off by not being able to 'address' the person properly.

Maybe I'm old fashioned (I like capital letters and full stops in sentences) but find it hard to reply to 'firestoker' or whatever.

Ian P (Phillips actually but there are several Ian's here)

How much of my name do you require? it gets a bit of a mouthfull to have all of a person's name. I have some Indian friends whose first and last names wouldn't fit in whole page let alone the space provided.

On an international forum I had just assumed Skarven was a regular foreign name, and I am used to thinking of Mr Mandrel by his forename presuming it to be a jocular comment on his stature.

No prizes for googling up my ID but you earn a fruit pastel for knowing where I got my nickname without using the internet.

Shirley not.

Mine is the name I went by when I was deep diving…my blood was constantly in this state!!

I think that the correct term is 'given' name – and I'm just as bad, according to my mother, who never calls me Steve, although the rest of the world does. I just prefer the diminutive form. And as for my middle name… we're not going there!

I use mine from my amateur radio call sign.

I got fed up with trying my name and being offered alternatives because it was used, then trying to remember all the different logins that came from the necessity to use the username to log in.

No one uses M0BND except me!!!

I normally respond by signing my name, so I don't consider myself to be hiding behind my user name either.

Andy.

Hi guys,

Interesting topic.

I totally agree about the amount of information available on the world wide web; who needs ID cards when personal details are published for the world and his wife to view at leisure.

Noms de plume (hell, I'm English…Pen names!) serve many purposes which include concealing identity for many reasons. I believe Tom Walshaw was a retiring sort of chap who did not like the publicity that would have surrounded him if he had not used Tubal Cain.

Being a bit old-fashioned, I personally feel that a pen name adds a certain authority to the users writings. Of course, there has been discussion on another forum about the dodgy work practices conducted by another user of the pen name Tubal Cain so that defeats that idea…

I have many friends who go by nicknames, so much so that I can't remember their given names. They, like Wolfie, use those names more by habit, and to identify themselves to those who know them. For many years I used a nickname when driving across Europe and Russia. Nothing to do with CB radio but a nickname that I was given when I started with the first haulage company.

I am really terrible at remembering people's names so I tend to identify people by my own observations of them which become nicknames that tend to stick. For example, a driver had hair that was oiled/greased/moussed (whatever they do to the damn stuff) so he became Spike, another was ex-military so he became Foggy (from Last of the Summer Wine). One was so dim that he became Captain Pugwash (he actually looked a bit like him too, so that helped)

As a rank amateur new starter in model engineering, I don't feel confidant in giving myself a pen name. I am a bit old for the nickname that I used to have, and it is a part of my life and a persona that has passed on. Of course, it is handy having different nicknames at different stages in life as, when meeting someone that I haven't seen for many years, I can identify them more easily from the workplace or situation that the nickname relates to.

Just my tuppence worth.

Andy

PS Hang about…the originator uses one…why doesn't he explain?

Edited By Andy Belcher on 14/10/2012 10:24:32

Edited By Andy Belcher on 14/10/2012 10:26:30