First Names and Privacy, Doxxing, Etc.

[iacas]

1 hour ago, Wally Fairway said:

I post on a small number of message boards, and it is incredibly weak to ban someone (or otherwise penalize them) for using the first name of a poster; especially if that poster has made the information available in other places on that board. Once you post it, it is there forever.
And while I'm in agreement that message boards and social media would be a better place if people used their real names (yes, I get the irony) - but I also remember a board years ago, Bitter Rivals, which someone figured out a way to hack IP information or user registration and went about doxxing a large number of people. At the time I mainly just read the board and didn't post, but it was eye opening and scary to see how vindictive people could be and started contacting peoples employers, family and causing havoc in others lives. 

Again, I think there's a big difference between posting people's full names, email addresses, street addresses, SSNs, etc. and even IPs than a common first name.

[colin007]

LOL at errybody thinking my name is Colin....

[saevel25]

53 minutes ago, iacas said:

Again, I think there's a big difference between posting people's full names, email addresses, street addresses, SSNs, etc. and even IPs than a common first name.

Agreed. 

[ChetlovesMer]

14 hours ago, iacas said:

If you're worried about your boss finding out that you're spending all day posting online instead of doing work, that's your problem.

Luckily, I don't quite spend all day....

It's probably pretty obvious that my first name is Chet considering my screen name is ChetlovesMer. I wouldn't mind in the least if somebody addressed me on this forum as Chet. And it has actually happened a few times and I didn't think twice.

Having said that I do try to call everyone by their screen names even when I know their first names. I've been scolded on other forums for doing basically the same thing @iacas did. While I don't think its any big deal. I understand some folks are more sensitive to it then others. 

[Wally Fairway]

1 hour ago, iacas said:

Again, I think there's a big difference between posting people's full names, email addresses, street addresses, SSNs, etc. and even IPs than a common first name.

I was agreeing with you - if he posted his name, then it is 100% on him if someone repeats it; and a first name isn't doxxing anyone - unless that first name is extremely unusual, say like A Æ A-Xii

[Zippo]

10 hours ago, iacas said:

@Zippo, two quick notes:

• I don't know who you are.
• I am not an admin on the other forum. I said "Randall" the same way I might say "Hey, Matt" in someone named "Matt"'s Member Swing topic.

Thanks for the corrections. I would revise my post if I were able.

[TourSpoon]

As long as you don't call me Mr. Spoon I'm good. I think some people like the idea of polite anonymity. I am a pretty public person in real life and even though I recently put my picture up, I wouldn't want some non-golf obsessed co-worker adding up all my time spent on this forum. But I also realize that when you do post online in any capacity, its pretty much "caveat emptor." Maybe he was just having a bad day. 

Non-golf obsessed, lol. That doesn't even make sense but you all know exactly what I mean! 🤣

[David in FL]

1 hour ago, colin007 said:

LOL at errybody thinking my name is Colin....

And we all know that it’s Eldridge!  

10 hours ago, Big C said:

When you meet someone for the first time, shake their hand and have a conversation, the scope of that conversation is pretty tightly bounded. The contents will be known to the two parties, maybe a few third parties, and perhaps a bystander or two.

When you engage in a conversation with that same person over the internet, the contents of your conversation are available to just about anyone with a computer and access to the internet.

Now on a golf forum, that's a fairly low risk proposition. Even if someone knows who I am, where I live and what I do for a living, they aren't going to find much on here that could get me into trouble. On a political message board, that's an entirely different story. 

I don't know the type of forum that Erik is referring to above, but I do think it is valid in some cases for people to want to remain completely anonymous online.

It’s a first name.  

For reference, in the U.S. alone, 9,710 Babies were named David In 2018.  Carry that out, and you likely have more than 400,000 Davids in the country.  

[Big C]

2 hours ago, David in FL said:

It’s a first name.  

For reference, in the U.S. alone, 9,710 Babies were named David In 2018.  Carry that out, and you likely have more than 400,000 Davids in the country.  

You might be surprised how much people can dig up on you. If they start with your name and your general location, and then have an inclination to dig back through details of your posting history, your identity can be narrowed down in a hurry.

And again, I'm not saying that really matters on TST, or any golf related forums. But to the extent that people want to have outlet to discuss more sensitive topics in the world in good faith and relative anonymity, I think they should be able to do that.

 

[billchao]

1 hour ago, Big C said:

And again, I'm not saying that really matters on TST, or any golf related forums. But to the extent that people want to have outlet to discuss more sensitive topics in the world in good faith and relative anonymity, I think they should be able to do that.

I totally agree with you. The issue with the situation in the OP from what I understand is that “Randall” himself gave out his first name at one point or another in that forum. He willingly gave up that level of anonymity. For him to complain about @iacas using “Randall” when addressing him now is asinine.

[Wally Fairway]

5 hours ago, David in FL said:

And we all know that it’s Eldridge!  

It’s a first name.  

For reference, in the U.S. alone, 9,710 Babies were named David In 2018.  Carry that out, and you likely have more than 400,000 Davids in the country.  

Yes - but how many of those Davids are in FL?
See, we've started to narrowed it down pretty quickly 

[iacas]

5 hours ago, billchao said:

I totally agree with you. The issue with the situation in the OP from what I understand is that “Randall” himself gave out his first name at one point or another in that forum. He willingly gave up that level of anonymity. For him to complain about @iacas using “Randall” when addressing him now is asinine.

I'll be honest in saying that I don't know where he gave that info out. It may have been in person, it may have been in a Google Doc to sign up for something… I don't know. It was made public, at some point though, because I knew it and didn't have to dig for it. I just knew it.

It's not like he gave it out 100 posts up-thread himself and I called him by that name later down the discussion.