Do you try to keep them separate in the sense of not being connectable? That could be hard, as writing style is a pretty strong give-away (as recently demonstrated just here on HN where somebody wrote a very simple tool to detect alt accounts).
It's ok if you don't. I'm just wondering if it's even worth trying. The persona strategy could be worthwhile for simple tracking purposes, but for somebody actually trying, it shouldn't be hard to link all your personas, given enough data. Or maybe one should avoid posting with real name altogether, anywhere. That includes though carreer-building blog posts or public documentation, even written in a professional setting where it could be hard to avoid.
> Do you try to keep them separate in the sense of not being connectable?
I think part of the persona creates different writing styles - my other account(s) have never been rated close to each other. For Reddit, my other account is just my default. I only switch over to tsumnia for /r/professors, or other coding-related subreddits these days. Reddit Enhancement Suite helps out nicely for that. My other account(s) never really write enough to generate enough substance for comparison I think and never interact with each other (not replying to myself or something silly like that). Sure its possible, its just... not something I've had to worry about. tsumnia writes long winded responses and my other accounts... don't. If anything I'd be impressed and nerd out on the math if someone could connect the accounts.
> it shouldn't be hard to link all your personas, given enough data
I'm not some big name that I'd really need to worry about that. Even if I became one, like I mentioned I'm not trolling, flaming, or being obscene in the other accounts, just writing about my hobbies. Things I openly admit to in real life, just don't write about. It may be harder if an account is some super personal stuff like sexual orientation / gender identity, but I don't do any of that. Even if they did impact me, those fall into things I just don't bring up on the internet. Likewise, I imagine it may be harder for women that are dealing with online stalkers, but again, that hasn't been something I've had to deal with.
Plus, any organization that REALLY wanted to find me can simply reverse lookup the account IP addresses anyway. If I think an account that I want to remain private has gonna a bit too personal, I simply retire the account name. It can be annoying if account karma/points/whatever is "important", but... eh... I made plenty of DnD characters over the years, I can start using another character's name or something with a pun. Internet points only limit what I can and can't do on a site, nothing else.
> maybe one should avoid posting with real name altogether, anywhere.
That's always an option. Since I used tsumnia for so long, I sort of just DECIDED to let it be public. I had more or less doxxed myself (or narrowed down who tsumnia could be) before I openly said it was me. No different than a YouTuber doing a face reveal, except I don't have millions of fans. Instead of retiring tsumnia, I acknowledged it and created a new one that doesn't connect to me. I imagine that's how lots of usernames start - being anonymous but occasionally they drop a nugget of personal information. Those accrue over time and boom, its an alias. I'm a little more cautious to drop personal information on the other accounts, but I think its because I can always use tsumnia for those situations.
Situation 1: Daughter of 5 years was drawing a house and a dog. Looks terrible. Asks me how I find it. It reply "good job! what a nice house and dog!" It's a blatent lie. But obviously she'd been crushed had I replied otherwise and never drawn anything else.
Situation 2: Random acquaintance got a new hair cut. Looks terrible, asks how she looks. I reply "fits your face!" Not true, but any real criticism would have been inappropriate. We are not that close.
Situation 3: Colleague asks me casually in a team lunch setting about my favorite color. It's brown, but I don't want to say since 10 min ago the topic of nazis came up, turns out they are jewish and lost all their grandparents in concentration camps. So I reply "depends on the day". Clear lie about "something as mundane as their favourite color".
Which of these situations was an unacceptable lie and which was a "phrase / exchange with established meaning, both sided knows the protocol."
> If you're really taking the stance that anonymity is never ethically more important than honesty, that's a pretty extreme stance. Are women being stalked by [...]
You are building a strawman argument right in front of our eyes. GP literally writes _in this case_ and you insinuate they argue for _always_ and then you are going on and on why that's extreme. Of course it is, but that's not what they wrote nor what this topic is about.
I'm quite enjoying the good faith portions of this discussion tree as I'm intruiged by the ethical dilemma of what can be considered lying in such cases.
But when strawmen are built then that's arguing in bad faith. Then the goal is not to reach new insights and understanding, but only to be right. That's pretty sad.
Please don't do this, it makes the discussion less interesting for everybody.
> You are building a strawman argument right in front of our eyes. GP literally writes _in this case_ and you insinuate they argue for _always_ and then you are going on and on why that's extreme. Of course it is, but that's not what they wrote nor what this topic is about.
I'm insinuating that they argue for _always_ because they are being extremely vague about what "this case" is. If they aren't arguing for _always_, they can answer the question.
Notably, they responded to my post with an explanation of what they think "this case" is, and it's... a straw man that the original article wasn't talking about.
> I'm quite enjoying the good faith portions of this discussion tree as I'm intruiged by the ethical dilemma of what can be considered lying in such cases.
I'd be happy to have such a discussion with you if you can illuminate what "such cases" are.
To be clear, the original article wasn't discussing lying "just to avoid awkward social interactions". That's a straw man.
> But when strawmen are built then that's arguing in bad faith. Then the goal is not to reach new insights and understanding, but only to be right. That's pretty sad.
And that's why I'm on team Vim. I rather not use a tool that needs/uses cult-like slogans to convince people to keep them hooked. I want the usefulness to be the reason, not some kind of belief system.
Lol "team vim," spoken like someone who doesn't know what Emacs is at all
I use a vim implemented in Emacs Lisp -- evil-mode -- so I can have access to the rest of the usefulness of Emacs while also having everything model editing has to offer
The GP is joking, but I'll happily use a vim in Emacs while the reverse is impossible, and you can figure out what that means for your belief system
