If you are "discovered" what would you do?

[Wills]

I absolutely adore using Mumsnet and it has become a major part of my life. Given all the support and advice I get from mumsnet I naturally want to pass this on to my friends, but at the same time I don't really want to loose the anonimty that allows me to discuss things that I might not want to discuss with friends.

If you thought that someone you didn't want to know your inner secrets had "discovered" you what would you do? Would you change your name? (problem with that is that I feel that people know me through this name). Would you ignore their attempts to contact you?

yes you are right pph. Dont believe a word I say.

I wonder why I cared then, dont care now. think I was posting about post natal thinlgs - piles boobs etc.

I have been recommended mumsnet by a post natal friend who I felt was at times trying to tell me something. I have since discovered an extremely sad thread on mumsnet which I know is her - yet I have never let on that I know.
It is a dilemma as I feel that she has tried to tell me about this very personal & emotional part of her life and hasn't been able to. My gut reaction is that it would be rude to tell her I already know as I read it on mumsnet so I pretend that everything is normal. Any suggestions?

if she wanted to tell you she would.

yes that's my gut reaction - just difficult when she has hinted at it.

you could say.."blimey(or whatever!) dont people post such tragic/personal/touching things?" and see what that does.

dippy - if you felt you really needed to talk to her about it you could act like it hasn't even crossed your mind that it could be her. You could tell her briefly what it said and say that it sounds sort of similar to her situation. Then you could say it's a pity that so many people feel that way and steer the conversation round to giving her your advice. Tricky, but it's a way to talk to her without revealing you know her nickname.

Personally, I'd hate anyone I know to be reading my posts. The only person I can think of who might is my sister because she's good on the net and looks up baby sites for me. But most importantly if anyone did suspect they knew me (OR ALREADY DOES) I would really REALLY want them to tell me. I hate the idea of someone I know going around knowing exactly what I talk about when I only talk about it because I can have anonimity.

Dippy, next time that you feel she's hinting about it, can you gently steer her towards talking about it? She may want to talk about it but isn't sure if you're the sort of person who wants to listen. V difficult.

Thanks for the advice - just to say would never have entered my head it was her had it not been accompanied by comments, steering towards mumsnet and certain discussions. Otherwise an impossibility to tell who is who - & I'm glad.

Just a thought, but she's presumably just as likely to be reading this as you were to have read her posts, so she may already know that you know IYSWIM!

Cam, am I right thinking this woman is still harrassing you even after you changed schools?

I may change my name after Tuesday. See Brainteaster thread for the reason.

Rhubarb and batters, cheers girls. The person who did this is not someone who writes much on mumsnet and hasn't written for many months so no good revealing her name now. She had several of them anyway. I don't know if she ever reads my things now at all. It's a shame because I have to assume she does and go on believing that she might write a nasty, personal message at any time. I can't write on some threads because of this, unless I change my name. I daren't get into an argument with her or call the police because if she wrote things on here it would not just be about me, it would be about my husband and child.

sigh, how dreadful? What an awful person. I've never recognised anyone on here and my favourite 'nickname' on mumsnet is SofiaAmes, cos it does exactly what it says on the tin

Sigh, if she were to write things on here about your family, would you not be able to print them off and go to the police with them? Slander is a crime. You could also contact the Mumsnet team and see what they could do. Many of us on here don't know you personally so we wouldn't have a clue who she was writing about.
I really wouldn't let it stop you from posting. Don't let her get her own way!

I would be mortified if someone recognised me; I have written about a family issue that I would hate someone from my family to read about. I never recommend Mumsnet purely because I love the anonymity - one friend who does know I use it did look at it once and said 'I recognise you, you're' X' (not my nickname) I just laughed it off.

Hmmm, lots of food for thought here. I'm shocked by some of the stories! For myself, I don't think I've ever posted anything that I would really mind my friends and family knowing - don't think any of it would be a great surprise - though I admit I would feel a little embarrassed and inhibited if I thought people I knew were reading. I don't recommend mumsnet mainly for that reason! I've only ever recognised one person who doesn't disguise her identity anyway, but I would never dream of discussing it with her - my view is that an anonymous posting should remain just that.

I was 'discovered' and my discoverer cleverly posted a post that told me that she thought she knew who I was, in such a way that only if I was who she thought I was, would I know who she was(IYSWIM). Of course it then meant that she had to change her name to maintain her privacy. But I thought it a very nice thing of her to do. Now I post under at least two names, a public one and a private one, but I daresay they're both equally recognisable!

I wish I'd thought of a more original nickname as mine's a bit of a giveaway.
I guess I've always been very restrained in my posts because so many of my friends are well connected internet-wise. I keep hoping that out of all the parenting sites around they've not stumbled across mumsnet, but as it's the best then they're probably all here right now with clever disguises unlike my glaringly obvious moniker.

I've not been very clever about keeping my identity a secret (see my recent wedding thread with pics for evidence !). The trouble is that I used to see mumsnet as a place to be 'anonymous' and say what I felt, but the more time I've spent here the more involved I've become. I find that I want to share special bits of info and photo's etc, despite the fact that I will then become known.

I don't think that I've ever posted any information that is not already known to my friends and family but if I was to post on a private matter then I would probably change my name.

I stand out like a sore thumb since I am probably one of a very few Americans who are addicted to Mumsnet. I end up restraining myself sometimes, and sometimes going under a different name.
Wickedstepmother, I thought it was great that you felt comfortable enough sharing your beautiful wedding pictures with us. I have put some extremely personal concerns here, so could not be so open. I did email Mumsnet once to have some messages I had put in deleted, but they refused. Can't remember why now. . . Somehow some members do seem able to delete their messages, if it does become a huge concern.

I was recommended this site by a friend who uses it. We are not that close particularly and only see each other every few months and she said she was ok with me using it as there were nicknames and I would never spot her....Very embarassed to say that it was instantly obvious despite the clever nickname but coudn?t bring myself to tell her so and we haven?t mentioned mumsnet again. For all I know she knows who I am too as I don?t believe in changing details etc. to disguise yourself - would just get too confusing remembering all the changes!! I also make sure that nothing I write is anything that I would be ashamed of if anyone who knew me well would find out. The problem is that now I absolutely know who she is, I find myself avoiding any thread with her name on it as I feel like a peeping Tom. She has gone into some really personal stuff that I had no idea about and feel so awkward reading it. Especially when i am not convinced that all of it is exactly truthful....

A while back when I read a post by her that was crying out for loads of sympathy and she got reams and reams of supportive, lengthy posts when I knew she had made it all up - how on earth do you deal with that one? I was initially so angry that she was conning all these people and wasting their time writing their answers etc. but then I felt quite sorry for her. Maybe i am just as bad not coming clean to her that I know - just hate to embarrass both of us unneccesarily and too addicted to mumsnet to stop.

Stripey, that sounds complicated. Are you sure your friend hasn't spotted you too? I guess you must be.

Ooh Stripymouse! I have posted lots of personal things, and recommended people to this site. Now I am all paranoid! However, all my postings are 100% truthful, so I hope you are not one of the people that I recommended this site to. I would hate to think that the people I see think I'm a liar

Stripey,

How awkward. If you think she's just out for attention then perhaps you could "innocently" reply regarding a friend who has slightly different details but who you worry may be in a similar predicament. If you only know her slightly it might be enough to check her.

I probably know more participants on here than I am aware of, as there seems to be a cluster around where I used ot live, but would trust them not to reveal those (few) intimacies to all and sundry and hope they would do so in return. Fortunately I'm sufficiently geographically distant to most to be of little interest anyway. Don't see harm in assuming a pseudonym for the more difficult situations - how would someone go about it(just in case !)- hate trolls though.