Bit of a noobie question...

[Apfelbunny]

I'd be interested to know what the big deal is with people on mumsnet wanting to be anonymous to the point they almost fear being outed as a person and often go to great lengths and name change etc .

I'm not having a go, I'm just curious

Hi There Apfelbunny,

We think you're likely to get more traffic elsewhere, would you like us to move your post for you?
We'll wait to hear back from you

I think there are a number of reasons - one is the fact the Daily Mail and other highly reputable news organisations trawl MN for stories, and so you run the risk of being outed in that hate rag, which would be bad enough even if it were for something good. But horrific if it's you slagging off your neighbours for their parking or worse.

The other issue is that there are a lot of MNers, so you never know who might turn out to be one. You can do some somewhat misleading things like change the ages/number/gender of your children but then you've got to be able to stick to the story pretty well or you will be accused of being a troll when you mess up and change the details.

Some posters also quote from texts or emails they've been sent, which means they can be definitively 'outed' by the sender if they happen to google for the phrases.

In short, there are a number of reasons why a poster may become quite identifiable, and why that might be a problem for them.

Another noobie mistake - oops. If it's the right place to reply to the voice in blue, would 'chat' get more answers? I just stuck it where it seemed to fit.

Though tribpot did go to the effort of a pretty substantial reply! Thanks!

Apfel This thread from the other day explains some of the reasons:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/2862391-Name-changing?pg=1&order=