Just curious why so few people use their real names.

[politicat]

160. I've had multiple dear friends driven off-line due to anti-feminist activism.

There are literally organized anti-feminist groups that do nothing but try to destroy the lives of women who have the temerity to speak out. I honestly have many better things to do than deal with MRA stalker jerks, though funny enough, I don't deal with them often because I believe in public shaming of jerks.

My personal philosophy is this: any abusive comment I receive will be republished entirely intact, including whatever contact information and IP info I receive. I will also grade it, on content, originality, spelling and grammar. On my personal site, I have that prominently posted. Here, I am not allowed to do that. My personal site has some of my contact information, but not my location, and I keep my physical info tightly held there because I have seen friends whose houses have been watched, whose pets' vets have been called to report abuse, who have been SWATted or accused of drug offenses, who have received hundreds of late night phone calls. Thanks, no thanks.

My Disqus profile connects to my personal site, so I use a variation of my name on Disqus (though I use my far more common last name than my uncommon first name).

My DU handle dates from an earlier phase of my online presence, when I was still trying to keep my physical information from persons with whom I share DNA, and when others at my university were getting serious blowback for unpopular opinions.

Since I believe all politics are local, here, I want to be able to talk about local issues. Thus, I try not to associate my IRL or website/blog/Disqus with my DU ID.