I take the opposite approach. I accept that everything I post online is public, and a chance to control my own narrative.
I would much rather fill the Internet with my own content about myself, than leave it empty for someone else to impersonate or disparage me. Additionally, I am proud of what I post publicly — otherwise I wouldn’t post it.
Public personas are a professional necessity, especially in our industry. For example, what if you want to show your contributions to open source? Or your stackoverflow answers?
If you do everything online under a separate identity, then all your positive contributions are unlinkable to yourself. Yes, you can hide any “bad things” you may post from your employers. But are you really posting anything bad? Is it worth sacrificing credit for your positive contributions?
Granted there is always the “nothing to hide” counterargument. That is, it’s not up for me to decide what’s “bad.” A potential employer could misinterpret my words, or otherwise negatively judge me based on my online profiles. But in that case it’s probably better to avoid the relationship anyway.
> Public personas are a professional necessity, especially in our industry
If I wasn't on hacker news, I would assume you were an actor or a radio talk show host. Maybe you're right, and developers need to have a public persona today. But why does it need to be that way? You aren't performers. You aren't politicians.
Aren’t we though? How is a developer on a software project different than an actor on a set? How is a product requirements doc different than a movie script?
An actor can make or break a film just as a developer can make or break a software project.
I actually think there are far more parallels than differences.
Which performers are in a movie is a major factor in who chooses to view the movie. Which developers created the software is not a major factor in who uses the software for most software. The only exceptions I can think of are software that is used mainly by other software developers.
Personas and reputations are beneficial in any human pursuit. People who are respected and acknowledged more by others have an advantage. We now have the internet and social media and other ways to market one's self. With less networked electric metal things involved, it has been that way since groups of primates started gathering together, and probably well before that with other species. Welcome to being a living being on Earth.
Then why use "chatmasta" as your handle instead of your real name, which you have provided in your profile?
The problem with you view is that there are times when your message gets caught up with your identity. Especially, when your message may be against the consensus flow and stills needs to be made, without affecting you in any material way.
Too often today, the messenger is "killed" because of the unpleasantness of the message being delivered.
If you actually want to know, it’s because when I registered on my first forum in 2004 (runevillage anybody?), I signed up with my AIM username but mistyped the password. So I had to come up with a new name, and 12 year old me thought “chatmasta” sounded pretty damn cool.
I use my real name (milesrichardson) on services where my name is featured prominently and/or I would like people to find when googling me, eg GitHub LinkedIn etc
I would much rather fill the Internet with my own content about myself, than leave it empty for someone else to impersonate or disparage me. Additionally, I am proud of what I post publicly — otherwise I wouldn’t post it.
Public personas are a professional necessity, especially in our industry. For example, what if you want to show your contributions to open source? Or your stackoverflow answers?
If you do everything online under a separate identity, then all your positive contributions are unlinkable to yourself. Yes, you can hide any “bad things” you may post from your employers. But are you really posting anything bad? Is it worth sacrificing credit for your positive contributions?
Granted there is always the “nothing to hide” counterargument. That is, it’s not up for me to decide what’s “bad.” A potential employer could misinterpret my words, or otherwise negatively judge me based on my online profiles. But in that case it’s probably better to avoid the relationship anyway.