[anaphor]

I use my real name, and I quite frankly do not care if I get passed up for a job or something like that because of something I said online. I'm pretty sure any employer I would actually want to work for wouldn't care about me ranting about the NSA or something (might even get me a job, who knows). That being said, I do not say anything online that I wouldn't in real life (except perhaps on IRC channels where I use a nick) and it's seemed to work out ok so far.

[tokenadult]

I use my real name

[Accessing anaphor's HN user profile, which is basically blank]

Your real name is anaphor? I have disclosed on my HN user profile what my birth-certificate name is, and I have put up links to a bare-bones explanation of where my screen name (which did not originate on this forum) came from. Eventually, I think, all roads from my various screen names, some of which were mandatory, and others customary, in the online forums where they originated will lead to my real name. I have always used my real name on every page of my personal website, since 1995.

[anaphor]

I haven't gotten around to writing much here, but this is my SO profile which has my real name and the school I attend: http://stackoverflow.com/users/903589/wes

[pbhjpbhj]

You don't use your real name then. You use a nick here and your first name only, as far as I can tell, on SO. Whilst the information there makes you traceable it's still not 'using your real name'; unless your full legal name is only 3 letters?

[anaphor]

Any idea whether I can make SE show the "real name" field to anyone? I didn't realize that wasn't visible, and I don't see a setting anywhere to change that.

[jc4p]

We consider that field PII (personally identifiable information) and don't share it. You'd have to set your display name to your real name to show it: http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/67331/why-does-the-r...

[clarkm]

> I do not say anything online that I wouldn't in real life

But do you say things in real life that you wouldn't online?

[twobits]

"quite frankly do not care if I get passed up for a job or something like that because of something I said online"

That's because you can still find other jobs. That may not be true for ever.

[mason240]

We lucky that we currently live in a time where there are less programmers then there are job for them, but that situation could be reversed in a decade from now.