My answer to the second question is... uh, I dunno.  I think maybe online-me is a little smarter than offline-me.  She's also probably a bit funnier.  But otherwise, I think we're pretty much the same.

My username comes from my looks ; sometimes people think, or thought 10 years ago when I first came on the internet and took the nick for IRC (Feeling older again. Not helped by my birthday being tomorrow), that I look south american or american indian. Thus Inca, or l'Inca which became linca. I think of it in French (and thus unpronounceable in nasal-vowel-less English).

One of the advantages of a forum such as ET is that its format slows down discussion, and thus prevent me from arguing too much, too fast...

Un roi sans divertissement est un homme plein de misères

The story of my user's name goes back many years ago, when I was reading Giacomo Casanova's "Histoire de ma vie". There is one chapter where he mentions people having a ridiculous name and he takes the example of Philipp Schwartzerd (Schwartzerd means "Black earth"in German). Casanova then says that Philipp Schwartzerd was right to hellenize his name (in ancient Greek, "Black earth" translates into "Melanchthon"). As my name means "Black earth" in French, it amused me and, when I had to chose a username on DKos, I chosed Melanchthon...

"Dieu se rit des hommes qui se plaignent des conséquences alors qu'ils en chérissent les causes" Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet

Well, the origin of this is pretty simple: it seemed like a pretty frequent format on DailyKos (matt in nyc, Bill in Portland Maine, etc) so I just used it like this with my name and city.

As to internet personalities, my experience from meetups and YearlyKos is that poster's real personalities cannot be hidden from the forum - I was struck time and again by the profound identity between people's posts and their real life personalities. The real surprise was the physical world - looks, age, gender have all been unexpected for various persons.

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

Two sources for my username: One, lychees are one of my favorite fruits, and two, when creating my username I had just looked at a website for a Cantonese hardcore/metal band from Hong Kong, King Lychee. I thought maybe Queen Lychee at first but didn't really feel like pointing out my gender. Plus it would have made me look like a fan of the band, and I'm just not into their music, though I wish them the best of luck.

Personality differences? Who knows.

My screen name is very boring; my initials. I came to the internet in the late nineties to trade stocks during the technology boom. At that time I used my real first and last names on the yahoo stock message boards. My son kept saying take a screen name but I never followed his advice. When I first started commenting on the political boards, (bilmon and kos) I took my initials. Of course, now anyone can see my real name by clicking on one of my photos and going to my picassa web album.
I think I'm freer on the internet than I am in person. Relationships are less risky on the internet and you can step away for a few minutes if you need some reflection. But I now know so many people on ET that I can't say there's a difference; life is very interesting in these times.

Hey, Grandma Moses started late!

My screen name is my first name: what else would I call myself?

My meat-world avatar doesn't have the charm even temper of my on-line one.

Came up with mine by stashing "Nordic" (me being from a Nordic country) and "Storm" (the first half of my last name) together.
As for offline and online - I have as much of an affinity for making silly jokes and one-liners in both "realms", much to the chagrin of...well, everyone.

"The basis of optimism is sheer terror" - Oscar Wilde

My username comes from my initials, and dates back to a time when there were a group of us with the same first name in a house, so we all ended up with nicknames to differentiate. When I moved to Wales, I reverted to my original name for about three weeks, before someone else with my first name moved into my house, at the same time as a load of mates of mine turned up. so nearly twenty years later, everyone knows me by my username in and out of the world.

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

I think mine is fairly obvious.  I initially set up an account using my initials and realised that didn't serve the purpose very well if I wanted to get more involved so I set up an account as In Wales.  

I suppose I see my perspective on European and political issues being largely shaped by my experience of living in Wales so it was the key aspect of my identity that tells people who I am in this context.

I think online I am on a far more equal footing than offline.  This method of communication is the easiest for me and people judge you by what you write (and how you write perhaps).  Online, my contribution is as valid and worthwhile as the next person, which is far from the case irl.  I'm the same person online but with fewer obstacles in my way.

My nick is my first name in lowercase. Since I adopted my old usenet nick as the name for my personal blog, I've been blogging using this name. It's not a common name even in the Netherlands, and some people online end up thinking that I'm a woman because it's similar to Anne (a name both men and women can have in Dutch, by the way).

Personality-wise, I think I'm mostly similar?

My user name is the Romaji transliteration of the Katakana transcription of my Spanish name, which apparently is not an uncommon name in Japan.

No, I am not the (also Spanish) guy behind http://www.MiGeRu.com

We have met the enemy, and he is us — Pogo

My nick was originally a nom de plume as producer for an experimental single in the 80s that I made with a very well-known band in Finland who also wanted to hide behind the name ArtPop Kombo. I have used several aliases in the music business - Roland Butter was another favourite. And I'm known to the general public by another alias, rather than my real name. It is the Reg Dwight syndrome.

Then in the early 90s I used the Triloqvist nick again as a main character in the Bonk Business Inc. saga - as Senior Vice President of the ADS (Advanced Disinformation Systems) division of BBI. Gradually the character became my alter ego and much of what I wrote as his words were really an excuse to write concepts for which I had no other outlet. I then began to appear in seminars and conferences under that name (and still do). It allowed me to say things that my more sober clients might feel were dangerously subversive ;-)

You can't be me, I'm taken

Well, my screen-name is obviouly a slightly shorter version of my dull name-name.  Offline Drew tends to be inadvertently very bad with people, stumbling through his sentences and getting himself into trouble with "If you (do or don't) x, the terrorists win" and "Why do you hate freedom?" jokes (which don't fly with the in-crowd in Washington).  Online Drew comes off slightly smarter than Offline Drew.

Beyond that, I'd say I'm roughly the same, but, as I spend such a huge chunk of my day on a computer, it's difficult to separate the two, especially since the offline version of me generally just wants to have a beer, watch Hardball and Countdown, and fall asleep.

Be nice to America. Or we'll bring democracy to your country.

Not very clever play on the term innocent bystander.  None of us can claim innocence, anymore, of the things done in our name. I freely confess my ignorance, and I've been a bystander for far too long.

Entirely apt and maybe a little more candid than I really like.  Sometimes I wish I'd chosen something shorter and snappier.

The real me is a lot more closed and guarded than my online persona.  I've never really grown much past the college sophomore who cut classes to hang around the Student Union and pontificate about deep concepts he barely understood.  I find myself surrounded by sober grownups who don't know and don't care who Thomas Merton was or what solipsism means.  Consequently I keep my real thoughts mostly to myself.  I blend in by reverting to an earlier self who was an Okie and a hick.

We all bleed the same color.

I joined a blog, Daily Kos.  It was a beautiful day and I had my bag lunch underneath the statue of Thomas Jefferson at the University of Virginia; the founder of UVA.  I always thought it best to keep the same user name on different blogs since there is an overlap of members and for consistency in my on-line activities and opinions.

It seemed appropriate at the time but I have found that I've grown more left, actually.

I have also noticed that I have taken on different personalities, or rather voices in posts, depending on the subject and how my experience relates to it.  For instance here, in my worker diary, I spoke in the voice of a partner to a worker.  In my humanities diary, I have more of an academic voice from what I have learned in literary criticism.  I also have another voice when it concerns military topics as I have quite a few years in that profession as well.  Often that leads to an angry voice when the topic evolves into veteran's issues and the US Department of Veterans Affairs.  Lastly, I have my ignorant, naive and doe-eyed voice when I ask all of you simple questions about the EU and economics.

Heh, I guess that's me.

"Schiller sprach zu Goethe, Steck in dem Arsch die Flöte! Goethe sagte zu Schiller, Mein Arsch ist kein Triller!"

To be honest, I don't exactly remember how I came at my present username...

"DoDo" definitely comes from "DoD", the abbreviation for the US Department of Defense, which I found splashed all across news articles when the Iraq War started. But I don't remember what I originally meant with the added o -- DoD off, DoD zero, DoD should go the way of the dodo?...

I grew fond of it for added potential meanings.

There are obviously all the connotations to the dodo, the extinct flightless bird with the fatal lack of fear from predators. And then to one of my favourite childhood authors, self-made zoologist Gerald Durrell (who used the bird as symbol for his zoo, and wrote a fiction novel about the re-discovery of a thought-to-be-extinct dodo-like bird).

DoDo (or more correctly: Do'Do') would also denote the wheel arrangement of a locomotive with two bogies of four individually-driven axles each. There were very few such beasts, let me veer off-topic by showing two:

Russian Railways test loco EP200:

Well, with two-level bogies, maybe (Bo'Bo')'(Bo'Bo')' would be better. But no such uncertainty with the Union Pacific type DDA40X "Centennial" (series 6900):

How my on-line persona relates to my real self? Well, that's a thorny question. Some things I consider not for worldwide publicity, so there is difference I obviously won't write about.

I also agree with Jérôme above that one's personality will come across inadvertedly if posting in the same web forum for a sustained time -- one can't even keep up a troll long enough without the troll beginning to look like the real self.

I think the main difference between the meat and internet version I am willing to talk about comes from the latter having time to assemble sentences and text. I'm not sure what's the correct English word here -- maybe eruditeness?

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

My nom de guerre should be pronounced [Nyo-mayde] in real-life, followed by a curtsy.

I insist on it.

I can't seem to find my original post where I explained my pseudonym's origins, but in brief:

I refrain from using my real name, as it is so rare and hence more easily traceable.

Although already travel geek, I was writing up my MSc thesis in 2005 and was running around through the department like a headless chicken, logging in at several computers per day. When queried for a user name at ET I opted for something simple and because "Computer Nomad" sounded too nerdy, I dropped the "Computer" and voila. This was immediately spoiled when I discovered that this pseudonym of course had already been taken at the Big Orange where I will spent the rest of my non-participation with "European Nomad" which now strikes me as funny as I'm now living in South Africa...

Sadly it seems ever since I chose that pseudonym, my life has taken its very semblance. Though it's not always a bad thing.

I'm sure I'm even more clumsier in my conversations in real life than I'm online.

Also, my online me looks way more handsome.

My current username came when I found on Comment is Free blog that my preferred nickname was used by someone else. After that I started to use FarEasterner everywhere, but in some sites it's already in use, and not by me.

1. Name is a nickname from my college days in upstate NY back in the early 70's; inherited it from my older brother who also went to the same school but I elevated TWANKING to a whole new level.

2. I'm an asshole on the net, I'm an asshole in person.  Nice to know you can depend on SOMETHING in this unpredictable world.  Also think of myself as a cracker-jack problem solver.  Will have to demonstrate sometime.  Have an engineer's mentality; accurate info is good but solving a problem with it is even better.

Oh yeah, KEEP IT SHORT.  People don't have a ton of time to read a pile of crap, no matter how "literary" it is.  Prose should take a "scientific paper" format unless you are telling a story. (That ought to get a rise.)

They tried to assimilate me. They failed.

1.  It's too long and boring a story to explain my username, but I've had it since the Dean for America days and maintain it for consistency.

2.  I don't think I'm much different IRL.  But for some reason people are much nicer to me IRL.  Either people are just nicer in general IRL, or I'm just less charming online... :)

"Pretending that you already know the answer when you don't is not actually very helpful." ~Migeru.

I'm relatively new to blogging - a persistent illness having given me some time on my hands and a lack of energy which was only not a handicap when at a computer.

In my innocence I started by using my real name, which often led to ad hominem attacks when the topic got contentious - e.g. Israel/Palestine - when the comments and threats could become blood curdling.  Having a family to consider I started using a pseudonym.

After a while I just said "oh hell" I've never apologised for my views in real life so why should I run scared on the net.  There have been mildly embarrassing moments when tongue-in-cheek or provocative comments have been published in the MSM with my name and address (without my permission) but there haven't been any serious repercussions.

I take the view that there is so much stuff on the net now why should anyone be bothered with my take on things.  I do wonder though whether I should risk traveling to the US.  Some uber-zealous security official might google my name and take some pro-Palestinian comments out of context.  The last guy who volunteered to interpret for an accused terrorist in custody got 5 years for aiding and abetting...

Index of Frank's Diaries

Obviously helen is just my first name irl. Although since I chose that name for myself just a few years ago, how that happened is probably a story in itself.

My email addy is a sort of cross between "queenie" and (motorbike) rider.

Plus, I really wanted to underline my gender status, especially as I'm aware I have a very male persona so I wanted no confusions. Such things matter to me more than they should.

Am I the sarcastic dystopian misanthrope I appear on this site ? Sadly yes, mostly I am...and worse. Some people have felt that rough edge on here too, but generally I need a lot more provocation here than I do in reality, mostly I keep that part of me back.

It's funny how several people have said they feel more considered and intelligent here. I wish. Compared to some people here I feel ignorant and stupid: Worse, a lot of the time they have the opportunity to prove it.

keep to the Fen Causeway

my username is my initials.  I think my real life persona is more or less like my online one--but how would I know?  I suppose I mean that I don't have a specific set of behaviours for online that I wouldn't practice off.

My experience of other people's real life personas compared to online is that the people I like online are even more enjoyable in person--with all the added physical interaction aspects.  I imagine a party with the people at ET I feel most in tune with--would ideally last three or four days, would involve walking and talking and drinking and music--a bit of everything and I would remember it forever: but when do we all have four days free at the same time and the money (people are on different continents!) and the ideal place--

So I meet them at ET instead!

Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.

Well, it's my name, from someone too lazy to write out a full, multi-syllabic name.

Indeed, I was startled (and pleased) that "bruce" was available as a username in several online forums - including, Monty Python notwithstanding, the Australian Railpage.

However, not in the Edwards site when I started blogging toward the end of my stay in Oz (possibly I was "bruce" in the previous incarnation of that site, but if so, I had forgotten the password to the freemail account that its "forgot your password" function was tied to, so ce'st la vie). So I added my final initials.

And kept the username because it was easier when I signed up for blogs after that.

Pronunciated "Bruce" "Mick" "Eff".


I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.

Well, I go away for a few hours and look what happens!  Thanks to everyone for the stories!  I am really enjoying all of your comments.  I've just smiled and smiled and smiled while reading through them.  What a good way to end the year.

OK, I am going to engage in an uncharacteristic moment of sappiness, but trust me, it's very genuine:  Thanks, everyone, for being here at ET.  This place means a lot to me, and so do all of you.

Happy New Year!

Many of us know of the spiritual Lakota warrior, but probably not his being.  The invasion (harmonization) of my psyche by this being began as a child always playing in the woods.  Still grows within me.  My role model as it were.  Plus it has something to do with fighting for freedom, against the despoilers of the US.

Many of my Lakota friends are righteously pissed that i use the name, since he's considered holy.  i understand, but believe that even indian spirit must grow, and besides, it was only his english name.  i should have taken a Mohawk name (Ayonwatha) but after childhood in the woods one mistakes realities sometimes.

Plus it's better than the name i used since my first online presence in 1985 at the WELL, where i was alpha 10.

my real personality seems similar to my online personality, though in person i'm never as drunk.  i can get animated in public however.

and i really like having found this clan.

"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." - Anaïs Nin

My nick loosely means 'wanderer' in Latin. Though it has some autobiographic value, I chose it because I have a weak spot for Latin names à la Harry Potter. This one was inspired by a well-known poem by Hadrian that begins thus:

Animula, vagula, blandula
Hospes comesque corporis!

O fleeting soul of mine,
my body's friend and guest

You're clearly a dangerous pinko commie pragmatist.

My user name comes from the red star on my son's gravestone, and not my political views, contrary to popular belief...

The Hun is always either at your throat or at your feet. Winston Churchill

AT are two of the first letters in my RW name and "in NM" comes from the fact I live in New Mexico.

Boring, isn't it?

She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist. -- Jean-Paul Sartre

I add my story simply because I chose a screen name that has meaning for me but which comes across as about as dreary an identity as can be. Actually, the lack-luster was intentional, as I was curious to see how long I could go without revealing my sex, for one, and, for another, razzle-dazzle identities can be liablities.

My surname has a confused history / origin. Some sources have claimed that it was a Hungarian count 'Living' who left Magyar-land to settle in some god-forsaken village in Scotland, in the 12th-something century. Somehow, I've never found that very convincing. I suspect Hungarian counts of the time were smarter than that : )

Not long ago, I found a much more plausible story, beginning with 'Loefing', "son of Leaf", which eventually became 'Lyfing'. From there, 'tonn', or farm, was added, to identify the Lyfing's farm = Lyfingstonn. The spelling has changed, over time, but, all things said, I'm happier with the idea of being the offspring of farmers than of counts. So, Loefing I became.

As for online / offline persona aspect, working freelance I find myself with little spare time to create an online personality, limiting my contributions  to occasional [hopefully substantive] ideas or images.

Meanwhile, it's time to celebrate, again.

Very good new year to all. Happy celebrations!

It was a Kos thing. None of my usual nicks seemed to fit there.

It's slightly ironic, because although I was born here, my parents weren't.

Well I use my initials which comes from a long time ago when logging on to early unix machines using a teletype. The fewer keystrokes the better.

Since then I've been a bit inconsistent, sometimes I continue to use my initials so as to make it easier for others to cite me in the thread, but more recently I've started to use my whole name which matches the name of my web site.

I've become a "brand".

I added the middle initial when I discovered another person with the same name as mine living a few doors down on the same street. He's since moved further away so I no longer get his mail (and vice versa).

I have a philosophical issue with screen names, especially on political sites. I think one should be willing to stand behind one's opinions openly. I'm willing to grant the need for some to remain anonymous when there are privacy issues, especially for whistle blowers.

Policies not Politics
---- Daily Landscape

My username is Zaphod Beeblebrox's personal brain care specialist. I thought of him when I was registering on a forum and the name I wanted to use was taken.

Lasthorseman is the completion of my business school years plus the real late in life learning about all things equestrian.

The assignment in business ethics was to create a marketing scheme based upon the delivery of wireless television.  I was the engineer in my group and I suggested a breakthrough in technolgy that allowed a two-way cable TV delivery into the home via the current cell phone network.  I argued that the marketing value of having the information of who was watching what and when based upon relevant demographics via their credit card payments was profitable even though we would have to hide this capability aspect of our system.  Well my group members never fully grasped the concept.  They were American.  Trusting of their systems, their history as they were told and the current state of affairs as told by MSM media.  Well I did get an A and I also got another A on a paper on business ethics that stated "when I die Lord save some time as you are going to get an earful from me.

Since then,US and world situation exponentially accellerating towards the Satanic I asked the Lord if I might have the final horse ride before the Biblical Apopcalypse.  Well He actually said yes, even though I'm certainly not a religious fanatic and lean more towards the individual spirituality realm.  A Google search also showed the name to be realativly unused.

I attempt to use the name in pointing out the Satanic nature of contemporary society and politics.  I am as good at that as I am staying atop a greenbroke five year old gelding who still trips over his own feet.  He does like me and knows which of my jacket pockets to tag for his treats.  My aim is to inject the unconventional into the conventional and educate the unshaven masses.  

Mine came from a day when I was reading Dean For America blog and became so angry that I signed up just to post an angry comment. "asdf" was the easiest thing to type.

I use Wife of Bath because she was my first literary heroine, one who had the ring of truth and courage about her and a blue-bloodless background.  I happened to read the prologue and tale again about 21 years ago and have been writing an adapted screenplay for it since then, completing other projects in-between in order to try to build up to writing the one that means the most to me.  I just do it for fun, with no expectations of marketing.

But I sign off "Karen in Austin" because I don't want to seem to be claiming to be British; it was a tribute thing rather than an expression of who I am.  I have no idea if I'm the same online and off, but I do sound a little sweeter on the phone with strangers than I sound normally in person.  ??

I hope 2008 is kind to us all, and if it can't be kind then it at least should be interesting (duck and cover, y'all.)

Karen in Austin

'tis strange I should be old and neither wise nor valiant. From "The Maid's Tragedy" by Beaumont & Fletcher

I am someone primarily to make trouble for those writing comments in which it is used in its generic meaning of an unspecified person. I also like that it makes me an 'unspecified person', except of course it does not as it is unique in the ET namespace.

I don't really have a story. The first time I registered on a blog, Billmon's - I wanted to register with my first name and to my amazment it was already taken, by an American. So I registered with a short version of it, and kept it also on other threads.

I don't think I am any, or at least not much, different in real life.