Kids, please grow some real names
by Volker Weber
Look at your drivers license or your passport. Chances are you will find your real name there. Use it, it probably is better than what you come up with as a username. I have a hard time remembering names. But I am not going to start memorizing this crap. Which reminds me: anyone still using Compuserve IDs or ICQ numbers?
Comments
i still remember my compuserve # and I log into ICQ via digsby/aol but haven't heard form anyone on it in a while :-)
I always use my real name, because I lack imagination ;-)
And if someone sports more imagination it might make sense to personalize the invitation message. The one quoted above looks like the beginning of a spam relationship to me.
18430011 I think was my ICQ.
Good post though. As we become more transparent on the web, it is good to establish a proper identity. Hence, I love the OpenID concept.
Ah the old days. 71203,651 was my Compuserve ID - from 1987 to 2004.
OK Vowe, so when are you changing your IDs to @volkerweber etc then? ;-)
Stuart, find me on Skype as volker.weber
Real names are so 90s ... aren't we all numbers these days? Maybe not ICQ numbers, but mobile phone numbers ...
But right, since the great flood of social networks, nobody cares about keeping their names a secret ... a good thing AND a bad thing ...
100064.1651 @compuserve. Ah, those were the times of astonishingly high phone bills...
Sebastian, I would argue that building a personal brand as drunk_toadrunner is so last century.
Sebastian, do you really remember mobile numbers? I don't even know mine ... I always suggest to look into the Email signature ;-)
Vowe, the only problem I see today without real ID management in the net is that anyone can comment with my name - but that's the same with nicknames.
My ICQ number is 11510251 - I'll never forget that because it's so easy to remember.
Basically, I use my nickname "Parcival" whenever possible in the WWW because it's not really a nickname anymore, my friends also call me this way in face-to-face communication settings. It's really just my wife and family who call me Philipp.
I use my real name in XING and Facebook because those platforms' concepts are based on real identities, but I'd post as Parcival on vowe.net if I could.
Martin, names are not unique. XING currently list 24 Volker Webers. And there are certainly a lot more out there. IBM Germany has one, as whois.ibm.com suggests:
And you are right. Anybody could post under your name. The fact that nobody does it, lets me keep the site as open as it is. Let's consider ourselves lucky.
Similar to compuserve - the address you got as a student at the Technical University in Darmstadt in the early 90s: st000655@hrzpub.th-darmstadt.de. Those were the days ;-)
still remember my first E-Mail adress from the late eighties (and the modem that was so slow). Couldn't do much with it. Almost nobody i knew had one. And now, couldn't work without it.
I am still trying to remember my FIDO number....
As I write this, I am logged on to Meebo using (among others) my ICQ# 20313402. But I am glad I don't have to remember it (I never could, even when ICQ was my primary IM).
Parcival (!), similar applies to me, I try to use raschi on the web where possible. But that's usually only when I post in a private context. In a business context I don't think that aliases or nicknames are a good choice. Now, is vowe.net business or private context to me? That's a good question. I am not looking for business opportunities here and I'm largely not discussing anything related to my work either. But then, many others are so...
Sure, I've been using ICQ for over ten years without any problems concerning my number ;) Everything else is covered by Jabber (=GMail).
2:313/21 was my fido number...
I've never been able to use my proper name on anything. Usually the Oracle DB admin has got there before me (do a search - Jonathan Lewis; every flippin time he's there). I want to be consistant across different apps and different mediums (media?) so have ended up with something a little more eclectic. There are days when I yearn to be called somethng like zlobcevk zigniew.
I tend to have "personal personal" and "personal professional" identities these days.
hate having to put my real name to something that might be (ab)used by anybody. The other day some dude from China wanted to connect to my skype, and was just earching for someone who could put him in contact with door manufacturers. WTF... Not even if he were looking for Windows, I would be tempted to help ;-)
I do remember my FIDOnet address - 2:244/1490.10
I also know my ICQ number by heart. Only use it if i need to talk some russians, who are all on ICQ and quite none of them is on skype.
I gave up all these accounts at ICQ or MSN and memberships at different communities with nicknames about one year ago - since then I'm on the net with my real name on the phone (Skype), a real name mail adress and one real name profile at Facebook (meinVZ account ist just a dead body remaining because of the contact data I didn't extract yet).
It's just straight forward. Any friends or contacts see the same person - which is quite ok, because I'm the same person in real life as well.
as if by magic....
