To wonder why it’s necessary to NC on MN

[Ilovemypantry]

I’ve always wondered why posters say that they’ve NC for a particular post. Surely nobody would know who they were anyway, the beauty of MN is that everyone is anonymous and can’t be identified by their username?

I'm the friendly MN cyberstalker.

Yep, wot they all said.

I worked out the real-life identities of victims volunteers from their MN posts. Fortunately none had posted anything too embarrassing... But yeah, definitely namechange for anything sensitive – or just as a regular thing.

I have NC-ed when I wanted to write a post about something that might have outed me.

30 days only is also a solution for stuff you don’t want to have forever linked to your username.

NCing is a good idea - from a quick glance at your posting history for example, and this is just for a second and not even looking at any of your posts, purely by the top line which appears in the search function, I can tell you where you live, how old you are, how old your DH is, and your DC, what you all do/did for a living, your pet’s names (which are statistically the most common passwords, usually combined with child’s date of birth, which I now also know). That’s quite a lot of information to give to strangers!

If you think MN is anonymous and don't name change then do an advanced search on yourself and write down all the facts you know about yourself as if you were a random on the internet.

Some people post photos in the Style section and for personal safety may name change on certain other posts.

I’ve recognised someone on here - it was an interesting eye opener to get their side of a relationship and how it deferred from the other party!

Same reason everyone has a separate mn email address. Data breaches are a thing and Jeffrey posted my real name, email address, username and password online for anyone to read.
And frankly, in times when not believing in girl penis can get you arrested, I’d rather keep changing it up.
It does remind me of my first ever mn post about 14 years ago though. I hadn’t quite grasped the username etiquette and chose after dd1. In my first ever chat, someone said ‘oh are you from xxxxxx? I know a girl with that name’
I de-reg and re-reg too. I do miss some of my usernames but have zero interest in givingJeffrey or his lippied mates stalking rights.

I don't understand why so many posters are against NC. Someone may want to talk about a very personal topic they desperately need help for, for example domestic violence, and not want this to be linked to their previous posts. I think NC allows posters to be much more open, of course it also means some posters will use it to be nasty, but most things have a good and a bad side.

It is also very easy to identify people from just a handful of details. A poster who you know is the mum of 3 girls aged 3,6 and 9,who works as a teacher in Scotland and had a terrible row with her MIL at Christmas over who was going to carve the turkey, will be enough for you to recognise as someone you know.

I don’t understand either best

sooty, you’re right in a way that my post sounded quite adversarial and rude, and I apologise for this.

Just the same, it’s hard because in a way I wish I had the luxury of being able to be casual about privacy. Some posters (and I’m not insinuating whether you are or not, I don’t know) do see not name-changing as superior to those who do. Then you get the troll hunters who attack.

Thanks Ivorycream - that's a nice post and a very reasonable one.

It certainly would be very easy to identify me on here and I really don't care. I may have posted facts about myself over the years but there is a lot that I choose not to share. I simply wouldn't want it picked over on an Internet forum so I keep anything really important to myself. If I felt I'd have to name change it doesn't get posted.
However I appreciate others are different and need privacy in a way I don't and certainly don't see not name changing as superior.
However as I said I do have a problem with posters who name change to start really unpleasant and malicious threads and posters who start targeting other posters using a name change to do it. That's cowardly and spiteful and very different to name changing for privacy. If someone uses name changes to be contentious, malicious or unpleasant I'd like them to have the facility removed so that they don't abuse it.

I agree with that, it’s just hard when you want to pour your heart out and are worried people might know who you are, as that could be really embarrassing!

There are people with nothing else better to do than travel through old posts trying to find out who someone is or bring in comments on completely different threads into the argument on a new one. Tedious but true.

Agree with this! There are a lot of overinvested people on MN with way too much time on their hands.

Yes, agree there. It's why I don't do it - certain things I don't want anyone to know on here but I understand that others may be very isolated and vulnerable and really want to share stuff without people knowing who they are by being linked to another user name. I just don't trust really emotional stuff to stay private - name changing or not. And anything can be picked up by journalists of course.

Because people recognise an anecdote/situation/writing style/turn of phrase and then do an AS out of nosiness/to see if you've dropped anymore ID-able nuggets of gold to confirm their suspicions. Lo and behold, they've found you, found out about your birth injury, your diet, that you once revenge pissed in your MILs prize rose bush, your summer holiday, that you think someone your stalker can easily ID as Nicole from the school gates since you've mentioned her yellow raincoat and ginger son who lisps is an annoying stuck up cow & a PTA bully. Since your cyber-stalker is actually Nicole, you're now fucked. Since you have Nicole and your DHs entire family on social media, in another 10 min your MiL will know about the rose bush.

Busted @user1473878824!

While I am here, I need to tell you that you make terrible scones. Too moist. And I know all about you and Leopold.

@SylvanianFrenemies Let’s not go in for tit for tat or I’d have to mention that lemon drizzle. Never mind what you did in the village hall that Christmas...

I was an idiot, and didn't namechange for a v sensitive post - was spectacularly outed and it changed my life. (For the better as it eventually turns out, but it didn't feel so at the time.)

But mostly, I felt hugely violated that he followed my posts. It was like reading someone's diary

I can understand why that would make you feel violated but honestly, nobody should be posting stuff on a public forum that they'd write in their diary.

I’ve probably NC’d about 50 times.
I don’t want anyone connecting all my posts together.

I think if you've given away snippets about yourself on various threads, there's the slim chance of someone recognizing you in real life and if you're posting about something personal or sensitive, you won't want to be identified.
Or if a poster is well known or respected on here an unpopular opinion may affect that.

Amusingly, there was once a poster on a thread like this, who pooh-poohed the possibility of being identified and was very snide to me about it.

So I spent all of 10 mins advance-searching her. Privately PM'd her a very short selection of what she'd posted on MN, along with some publicly available data about a matching group of people. I didn't bother narrowing it down to her individually, but it was clear she would be in the group.

She lost her shit!

Messaged MNHQ threatening to sue... them or me I can't remember which.

My nasty XH knew my user name on here and when he was being particularly unpleasant looked up my posts and used what I'd posted to abuse me (verbally) further. I thought about name changing, but I've been on here for years under the same name and thought why the hell should I change because of him. I never write anything that isn't true.
We're long divorced now and have nothing to do with each other at all, thank God. No idea if he still stalks me online, don't much care if he does .

But I can understand why people in a similar situation to me would name change - sometimes people you once trusted enough to let them know your info. can turn very nasty and unpredictable almost overnight.

I dont get this either. People make a big thing about a NC then post something not remotely identifiable, eg. "I dont like doing the school run because people park on the yellow zig zag lines"
Um, yes, this applies to every school in the UK. I dont know, it seems sort of vaguely paranoid to assume everyone will instantly know who you are from a generic post. Why would they?

Tianc that's interesting. It demonstrates the difference between not believing you can be identified, which was utterly naive from that poster and not really caring if you are, which is where I stand.