how would anybody know..

Ricahrd Drake, Barry Woods could be 2 teenage girls from Slough, just because there is a real name, doesn't mean real! ;-)

LOTS of very good reasons to be anonymous, as I was advised to be a while back, from somedody that got outed in The Times (smear job, contacting work colleagues, family, ex-wife, etc) , and someone who got a mention in the climategate emails. The BBC wanting to know about him, asking CRU for a list of known sceptics..

And I can see their point now , I don't really want the Leo HIckman's of this world going through my bins, especially if I was a working scientist..

When Jonathan Jones (Prof Oxford Uni) was posting anonomously as 'Jonathan' at Climate Audit over three years back.. Would you have complained about that?

presumably someone has already pointed this out but the McAlpine "mob" includes a number of named individuals - although I am not entirely sure whether Sally Bercow is real or a tabloid construct. Just because you give your right name does not give you an automatic passport to credibiity

my point is - if you are an UK academic, I can totally understand why wanting to be anonymous.... posting on blogs..

look what happened when 2, FOI'd CRU.. the climategate gang were going to have words with their Uni's to try and get them fired/shut them up..

ONLY recently did these 2 stop being anonymous on blogs.

I saw on collide a scape, another academic out himslef, after a long while posting anonymously. And very easy to see why!!

and as I said, consequences, Tallbloke had people writing to his empoyers trying to get him sacked. I know someone, who had journalists sniffing through his private life, and BBC wondering who he was (asking CRU) and then he got outed in the Times..

Unless people actually meet and show ID ;-) how does anybody know if say 'Barry Woods' is any more real from Zaphod, Peaches, or Zowie (all real names! ;-)

Of course, I met Barry Woods on the same occasion. Perhaps the three of us ought to do a song from the Mikado?

Testing.

Sorry about the lack of feedback but one of the internet connections I use wasn't allowing me to post to any Bishop Hill Discussion for some reason. I've no problem with pseudonymity used with integrity, as everyone here understands already - and I thank them for that acknowledgment. But I now have a new, narrower discussion, that I think could clarify helpfully exactly where we differ in this area: Unpalatable feedback.

On broader issues raised above, I think Barry's point about Jonathan Jones is easily the most important. The story of Jonathan's emergence as a real name has already been mentioned by Paul Matthews on this thread. I have solidly supported the use of pseudonyms here, on CA and the other climate blogs, not least because people like this can take part without blowing their cover when that's not something they are sure they want to do. But when JJ came out with that tremendous statement about the hockey stick and hide the decline, on 23rd February 2011, it was of course far more powerful because of the person he announced himself to be. The whole story is a great example of what Paul and I have wanted to get people to think about more deeply on this thread. I gave an example on Tuesday, from outside of climate science but that strangely shared the same release date with Climategate: the official publication of Solzhenitsyn's groundbreaking One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich on 17th November 1962. Before that massive turning point in Soviet history the work had circulated anonymously. Many great stories have had that trajectory - from anonymous to known to famous to world-changing. But what about Jiminy Cricket's suggestion earlierthat Bishop Hill may for a while have been moving in the opposite direction, towards more 'nymity, not less? That I think is a very worthwhile thing to mull over around here.

Dung, I don't doubt the truth of what you say. I have had real contempt in my heart for something in this area and it has sometimes showed. But it hasn't been either nyms or their nymity per se. It has been (I think, from as much introspection as I can muster) the refusal to face up to, or the casual belittling of, bad behaviour in this area when it does occur. There are very big personal reasons for me to feel like this. I've already mentioned that in this thread, if you look carefully. And I also stressed then that my personal history doesn't make me right, to put it mildly. But there is some - just as there was for TheBigYinJames, as it turned out. In fact, as I speak to people from many, varied backgrounds and interests I find surprising numbers that have been deeply hurt and indeed damaged by things unnamed people have done to them on the internet. But none of that makes me right about Bishop Hill. This place is already a cut above many on the Net, to be sure. But it is here that (I hope and pray) some real blows can be landed against something very deceptive indeed in the real world we also inhabit, just as our host has done again today in his main posts. This isn't finally about intellect, it's about passion - passion both for truth and for justice. But in that new thread let's try and put the passion to one's side and analyse the living daylights out of our differences, as Dr Frasier might say.

gooogle richard drake ..... he died in 1603 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Drake

I leave a thread for just a year or so, and look what happens.

Well, you know my position on pseudonyms, so no point re-hashing that, my company is no longer contractually bound to the power company, and I am working in an academic institution at the moment, so I could easily post under my name. But this stuff hangs around the internet forever.

Yes, bad people use anonymity to do bad things, but that doesn't mean anonymity is bad, any more than blaming kitchen knives for murders makes sense.

If it is becoming more of a problem here, then registration is an answer. Perhaps only have real names available if you are logged in, then we would be immune from our comments being archived by robot for future judgements being made against us.

I use a psudonym in the Guardian, overwise like when commenting at BBC's Earthwatch have people hassling me, looking me up, chasing me around blogs.

As I have said before, someone i know posted pseudnomously, and git outed by an expose in the times, and got a mention in the climategate emails, bbc trying to find out from tyndall who he was.

DrAdam Corner actually outed me in the Guardian comments of his own article, which i thought was contemptible, as i had actually told him and leo, the usr name i posted under.
He eventually got deleted by his own moderators for that.. Utter activist

Anyone with a career in the media, science, poltics, etc needs the protection, until they feel comfortable enough to out themselves.