Ne Ks

This page serves the purpose of being the target for my bookmark called 'FixYourWiki'. Here I keep track of edits/amendments I made so I can revisit them later to see if I should leave them, change them or delete them again. In ThreadMode sections and on HomePages, I sign my contributions with my short sign NeKs and look them up later via the ReverseIndex.

Given your "name", your attitude, your language, and the lack of content on this page, care to give us a reason not to replace this page with DeletedButWelcomeToWiki?

One reason would be that if you'd like to give me some tips on how I could improve my language and my attitude, this is the place to do so. I would be most interested.

Since you asked, one of this wiki's social norms is that people use their RealName or remain anonymous (or, rarely, use a DramaticIdentity). Have you considered contributing anonymously and keeping a manual list of your contributions below?

Indeeed, I have given this some thought since I created this page and came to the conclusion that I will contribute anonymously to pages with factual information and keep a manual list below. On such pages I tend to make only minor additions anyway. However, I think it's okay to sign ThreadMode contributions to "*Discussion" pages with my short sign. On one hand, signatures are convenient there, because they make it easy to see who said what and to leave feedback at an author's HomePage. I don't see any benefit of using my real name for this. Without going so far as to use PGP signatures and expect people to actually verify them, this site provides no means to ensure that something signed with my name was really writte by me. I don't want that anyone who enters my name into a search engine to be able to trace every sentence I posted at some web site. Nowadays, with data miners who prevent you from entering a country based on the choice of books you bought at Amazon, I find that thought a bit scary.

That's all cool and reasonable. Would you be open to the idea of choosing a less UgLy pseudonym?

I don't agree. Isn't the norm really RealNamesOnlyOrAnonymous? The reason you give for choosing pseudonymity over RealNames is that you fear retribution outside the community (see BasisForPseudonymity). However, by doing so you also avoid responsibility to the community. That's the UseRealNames gauntlet (see WhyUseRealNames):

  1. Give up your privacy by using your real name (and thus submitting to the community and becoming responsible to the community)
  2. Give up your individualism by becoming anonymous (and thus not gaining anything for your reputation)
  3. Lie (and thus put your online reputation at risk)

-- JohannesGijsbers

Not quite. I probably haven't made this clear enough: the actual reason I give for choosing pseudonymity over a RealName is that a) the RealName wouldn't gain anyone a significant benefit and b) it's a good rule of thumb to never state private/personal information when there's no good reason to do so.

Ad a): I do submit to the community and I do become responsible to the community by tagging my edits, either explicitly by leaving a signature or implicitly with my UserName cookie. I always use the same pseudonym; I never change it or post anonymously. Thus, it makes no difference whether it is a WikiName form of the name in my passport or of the name all my friends use.

Ad b): Giving away personal information is a security risk. When you order a book from Amazon, they need your name, address and credit card number. It's rather safe to assume that no one at Amazon will want to do anything illicit with that information, but a malicious cracker could compromise their server. You haven't got a choice anyway, they need this information if you want your book. However, you can minimize the inconvenience that would arise out of an information leak: They don't need to know whether you're a smoker, they don't need to know your yearly income, they don't need to know your favourite colour, so you just shouldn't tell them.

I'm always happy about constructive criticism and willing to change my mind, but at the moment I can't imagine anything beneficial people could do with my RealName. I can only imagine extremely unlikely scenarios like being called on my private phone in the middle of the night by someone saying "My writeups are perfect, stop editing them. I know where you live."

There are benefits to using RealNames:

Like you say, it's extremely unlikely anyone would abuse your RealName. I'm unaware of such a thing happening in the (long) history of this wiki. As such, these benefits far outweigh this minimal security risk to me. -- JohannesGijsbers

Right, we agree that the risk of abuse on this wiki is minimal and when it occurs, the damage is usually quickly undone. Furthermore, if someone vandalises pages or posts trolls using my handle, it probably wouldn't matter much, to the community, whether this handle is my real name or not. My security concerns are about something completely different: We don't know yet how powerful Google and other tools will become. If I allow anyone to mine all kinds of data about me, it might become possible to correlate that data and deduce my physical location at a given time and what I'm doing at which time of the day, from which in turn someone could deduce how much time I spend working on which project. If this data is mostly incorrect, but someone believes it to be correct, that can be as dangerous as if totally correct data was available. This all is probably nothing but science fiction at the moment, but the time to be concerned about it is now. Google already skims newsgroup postings that were made 10 years ago ...

See also RealLookingNamesPlease.

The most important reason to avoid using a tag like NeKs is that it sends the message that tags are acceptable. NeKs can use a RealLookingName? and nobody will give a damn, so long as he behaves as if it were his RealName. Exactly. That would mean if I deliberately lied about my identity and claimed e.g. that my name was Arnold Topfenstrudel, this would make many people trust me more. Istn't that paradoxical? I wouldn't feel comfortable doing this; I'm not a liar. But few people will tolerate the use of the tag NeKs because that would be condoning use of such tags. And we can't do that for eminently practical reasons. Quite simply, it's much easier to say "use your RealName" and be understood than "use a significant textual identifier to signify a unique persistent identity".

By the way, people on this wiki sometimes do meet each other in RealLife. It's easier to keep everything consistent if you use the same name. -- rk By the way, all my friends and colleagues consistently call me NeKs.

Another reason to use your RealName: the creator and maintainer of this wiki, WardCunningham, has stated his preference on this subject:

This site prefers no name whatsoever. But if you must sign, please sign with your own real name. Thank you. -- WardCunningham
Considering that he's run the site for almost a decade, and has likely financed the whole thing out of his own pocket, it's a nice way to show a little respect for the person who was generous enough to give you the opportunity to contribute here.

As an alternative, would you mind if I chose a RealLookingName? for you and started changed all occurrences of "NeKs" to it? How does BethMilberg? sound to you?

"[...] We don't know yet how powerful Google and other tools will become. If I allow anyone to mine all kinds of data about me, it might become possible to correlate that data and deduce my physical location at a given time and what I'm doing at which time of the day [...]"

There's a hole in your argument: by signing your contributions, you're giving BlackHats an ever-growing amount of text upon which they can do word choice analysis. Once they've got enough, they'll be able to nail you by your authorial style anywhere you contribute. Have you considered running your contributions through BabelFish a few times first? And using a random-delay, batched store-and-forward system to defeat TrafficAnalysis?

[doffs TinFoilHat]

Contributing to Wiki is a risk. Revealing your identity is a risk. But doing anything is a risk. In this community, we choose to take risks to encourage trust. If you're not comfortable taking the same risks, by all means continue to contribute, but please do so anonymously.

Here I keep track of pages I contributed to:

(After I'm sure I'm satisfied with my contribution and don't want to make further changes, I mostly take the respective title off the list again.)

Personal stuff, don't click ;-)

Tools ... http://c2.com/cgi/wantedWikiPages?n=6 http://c2.com/cgi/orphanWikiPages

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