[secondaryditto]

Recently worked with someone who... gotta say, it was a bit strange after a while. We're all remote, but he had no picture of himself, ever. Now... granted - there may actually be some visual reason - some disfigurement, for example - that the person is self-conscious of (hadn't originally thought of it).

However - we had no social media profile at all for this person. No pics of the person, alone or with friends.

We had no programming profile - no bitbucket/github/etc. I did find, later, a couple of public bug fixes from 2014 (this was in 2020) attached to this person, but no pic or any other work to tie it to.

The person was no more than a voice on a phone/webex.

It was just a strange experience, because the rest of the team - probably another 6 people or so - all had some degree of personal whatever - picture, blog, repo, camera during Webex for facial expressions.

Over time, it was just... odd. Then ... off. The person was recently let got from the project, but had communicated some weird stuff to me in private, which was troubling (moreso to have been told in the first place, because then I have to make a decision how to act on it).

I completely agree that we don't have to live online 24/7, people should have separation between work/life, we shouldn't judge people just based on a GitHub profile, and private life can (and should) be private. But taken to an extreme, where you end up just working with a faceless voice... had its drawbacks.

[DanBC]

> but he had no picture of himself, ever. Now... granted - there may actually be some visual reason - some disfigurement, for example - that the person is self-conscious of (hadn't originally thought of it).

> However - we had no social media profile at all for this person. No pics of the person, alone or with friends.

People who are fleeing domestic abuse or controlling parents may have very locked down social media profiles, and may even be using different names for different parts of their life.

[Clubber]

Honestly with what we know now, people who have a heavy social media profile and claim to know about computers would be concerning to me.

[mrkwse]

Did that person have any sort of avatar (cartoon etc.)? I've known a couple of people who have been reluctant to use photographs of themselves as avatars and I've later on found out that they've come out as trans. For those who are closeted (or perhaps haven't processed their dysphoria) it can be problematic (and I realise that in physical offices nobody can avoid being seen, but save the bathroom or perhaps lifts, one isn't usually confronted with the sight of oneself (and online profiles tend to be visible for the user))

[mixmastamyk]

I won't discount your experience, but this made me think of radio personalities I've known but not seen for years. Never thought of them as less than normal folks. Just a thought that, perhaps not seeing the person wasn't the primary problem.

Personally I don't link social media accounts with coworkers until I've known them for years. Github doesn't have my picture either.