[mesaframe]

I experience similar anxiety. For too long I kept my profiles (GitHub/Twitter/..) pseudo-anonymous. So that If I mess up somewhere I don't have to face the consequences after I shut that account down. This is primarily due to social anxiety rather than having any malicious intent.

Even my HN account is anonymous.

(That I think is holding me back too.)

I cannot imagine myself working like Evan.

[agumonkey]

I think it's a side effect of internet. By working too much in isolation we fear approval or rejection ?

It frees us from following others opinions or a group direction but we also lose track of something (I'm blurry I have no precise word for this)

[sethetter]

Accountability! It can be scary, but it's also important and a driver for positive change.

I deal with all of these things as well, but have pretty much decided to not go the anonymous route, because I would rather try to build that confidence in myself and embrace the accountability that comes along with it.

That said, I still don't comment or publish much online out of this same anxiety. /shrug. It's a work in progress :)

[mesaframe]

Thank you. Today I realised, I should take responsibility of my words, and behaviour.

[agumonkey]

personally I dropped the whole thing, it's useless.

I'm going back to good old life.

[mesaframe]

> It frees us from following others opinions or a group direction

This! The biggest pro is the freedom to say politically incorrect things.

[lowdose]

I had that too until I ramped up my own noise signal. With twitter I hooked up a couple of RSS feeds via IFTTT. I do tweet more but send out 20 RSS tweets also. Perfectionist is a creativity killer. Nobody fact checks and remembers what you tweeted a month ago.

I do keep my hn profile low profile because it is also nice to have an outlet for fresh idea's and opinions that need refinement. I actually change my mind the most about things I comment in on HN. On my work everything is within the Overton window.