Have you read a thread and knew the person in real life?

[sheknowsitstoolate]

Have you ever clicked on a post and realised you knew who the person was? Did you say anything to them about it? I have read some and thought I could know the person but there was never been anything definitive to say it was 🫣

I always think if that poor child decides he no longer wants to pretend to be a girl and be a boy again he's going to feel unable to because so much of a big deal has been made of him changing to a girl for all the world to see. he'll feel he's letting everyone down and will have to keep up with being a girl to keep everyone happy, especially his parents. terrible parents for making money from their kids in this way. social services should get involved.

No but someone has recognised me!
I posted about a close friend repeatedly pronouncing my child’s name wrong then the next time I saw her she brought it up so she must have seen the thread. I was mortified but I didn’t ask if she’d been on MN as I’d have to admit I was moaning about her! 😂

Not mumsnet, another chat group, but years ago someone I knew asked me a very specific question and it was clear that she’d identified me although she didn’t say so. I’d actually said something about her on the chat group but it was something positive thank goodness.

What a fascinating thread. It doesn’t really occur to me to wonder! I suppose in my inner heart I must not think of MN as part of the actual world, and instead I think of us as all living in separate parallel universes that just look really, really alike.

Even then I did have the opposite experience once! I turned off Oxford Street once and bumped into someone I recognised from a (completely ordinary) photo on here. And then from a post later that day I 100% know it was her. I didn’t say anything of course – can you imagine how weird that would be, to suddenly find yourself a microcelebrity in that way?! Not to mention me looking like a stalker.

Someone I knew in RL told me she had posted a question about a certain university here on MN and was really disappointed with her replies. I found the thread and then read everything she'd ever written under that user name (I'm not sure you an do this now). It was in 2019. It was quite revealing. She definitely said things here that she'd have held back in RL And she had without naming me, completely slagged me off in one section that isn't used very often but was about a specific course I had taken. 😯

Yes, teachers who were slated at a school, then quickly a series of complimentary ones where it was obvious it was them. Felt bad for the teacher.

Yes, it was one of my oldest friends and she wrote about her childhood, something I already knew about. Very specific circumstances and language style. I never told her

I haven’t…but I’ve just name changed as a result of this thread!

@simsbustinoutmimi would love a AMA thread on them, they are an odd family

An ex neighbour, it was a post about another resident in the block that made me twig.

I've often found myself mid-anecdote with a group of friends and thought 'shit. I've already told this story virtually word for word on MN. I've probably just outed myself.'

That's why I name change often and always keep personal details vague and woolly, occasionally throwing in the odd, deliberate red herring in case someone thinks they've spotted me.

I thought having two user names was verboten? (have had a snarky email from MNHQ in the past over this - it was entirely accidental that I had 2 names ...)

You can have dozens of user names if you like. Were you posting from two different accounts? That might raise eyebrows because of sock puppeting.

Now they've changed it so that if you post under one thread using nameA then even if you change to NameB it will only appear on subsequent threads you post on. It's much better, it means you don't accidentally forget you name changed for a sensitive topic and then go back to reply to someone on the same thread under your usual name. I've done that many times. 😬

And it stops almost all sock puppeting which used to be rife.

When I was first on MN nobody name changed for years on end and you felt like you knew everyone and remembered their back story in detail. We all spilt the most private details of our lives. It felt like we were among friends at a secret party, or a giant counselling session and it rarely occurred to us that some uninvited gatecrasher might wander in, click on our profile and say 'Good god, that's the snooty woman from my kid's school. She's just told me she hasn't had sex for six years or that she's got a secret shoplifting habit or she's got genital herpes and huge mortgage arrears.'

We even had photos of ourselves, our children, our dogs, husbands, houses etc on our profiles. I find it hard to comprehend that we did that now, it was a bit like having a public instagram account that no-one else knew was there but the other secret members. It makes me shudder with horror when I think about it. I can't pinpoint exactly when that all changed but I go to extreme lengths to make sure I am not recognised on here now. Red herrings all over the place.

I think more of us probably know each other in real life than we realise. A few times on separate WhatsApp groups now someone has posted something and it's been information from a trending MN thread so I've immediately known they're a Mumsnetter. But I keep quiet because I can't be bothered name changing and I do think we inadvertently put more details than we realise out there. I know I've mentioned DDs' ages and the county where we live so that combined with other info could start to narrow it down!

You can no longer change name mid thread but can change as often as you like other than that. I have a name reserved for posting on threads about my local area because I have spotted three people I know over the years. All acquaintances not friends.

First was a mum from my DCs primary. Mentioned that the school librarian had just been recognised in New Years honours. That her DS was in y4 (small school, everyone knew everyone), that her other DS was in y3. That narrowed it down to one. Quick search confirmed her job.

Second one was people asking about our town. Mentioned ages of DCs, then that they had just relocated away to Lincoln for the DH's work but would have loved to have stayed. Another primary school mum.

Third one was someone I knew a bit from yoga class. I had asked her advice IRL about an issue my DC was having with a sport club as I knew she coached that sport. I also posted on MN and got exactly the same advice, then the very next day spotted her post about something specific that had happened at our yoga class. She usually pops up on threads about our local area.

This is one of my biggest fears. One of my colleagues regularly mentions things that are trending on MN so I know she uses it. She knows I use it because I’ve mentioned it before, but said “No I’ve never used it” in response. I guess she doesn’t want me clocking her on here, which is understandable because I’d hate it too! I really regret mentioning that I use it.

Do you think the internet, back in the old days, lulled people into a false sense of security (and privacy)? I remember I used to think it felt as if there was an invisibility cloak, which is stupid really.

I once recognised a colleague who was pregnant at the same time as me and mentioned it to her. We’re still in touch from time to time and she has never changed username so I do see life updates from her on here, including her lovely new house.

There are also various people I know who I knew from RL who are open about being on MN and I can easily spot their posts from the content. But they aren’t usually try to hide themselves and wouldn’t blink to know I had read it. Because of that, I use a lot of usernames on here for various things if I want to be sure of being unrecognised and I’m sure they do the same.

I think I’d drop in that you’ve got tired of mn and prefer to use Reddit now.

Yes, a friend posted about her family issues. She'd told me a bit IRL otherwise I wouldn't have identified her, but the issues are far greater than I knew. I started reading and thought 'X is going through something like this,' before the penny dropped on her third post. I feel that some issues are so specific especially when they involve specific incidents and multiple relatives, it's inevitable that people will be identified as the explain more detail, even if the first post is quite vague. I haven't told my friend.

No, I don’t know anyone who is on MN, or they don’t admit it. I didn’t know it was something to feel guilty about.

Yes, on a handbag 👜 thread 😃

No but I've seen several threads where the OP could have been me but isn’t.

It absolutely did. If you were an early-ish adopter of chat rooms and forums the idea that someone you knew would spot you was about as likely as a needle in a haystack. It was 99.999% likely to stay anonymous unless you were very unlucky. It happened on occasion and caused a few furores to much over-excitement on the boards, but in general it was rare. Saying something on MN or any chat forum felt a bit like shooting it into outer space. It felt pretty safe. Obvously the bigger MN on got, the less that was the case.

No-one I knew ever mentioned MN in passing and it was rarely quoted in the press back then. Then as smart phones became a thing and social media became a thing, everything changed. Posts started being linked to Facebook etc. At one point I was quite well known on MN for something very specific, and I remember asking for some very identifying posts to be deleted when I got spooked. I name changed and took a long break but for years afterwards as a lurker I would sometime see my old user name being referenced in relation to 'that thing' and I thought 'Oh great. You can have certain posts removed but other people will still out you anyway.' The only way to be completely safe is to ask MN to remove your entire posting history. Some people did go through a phase of doing that. I didn't, but I wish I had. Although I sometimes spend a bored afternoon happily Advance Searching my old self and smiling at the absolute laughs we used to have on here.