When it comes to forums or message boards, even other areas of the Internet where one can communicate with others, using a nick-name or “handle” is accepted practice. Many times these nick-names reflect your hobby or interests. In these venues that is just fine.
E-mail is not the place to use a nick-name or handle or to hide your true identity.
The From: field of every e-mail you send should clearly reflect your proper name: John A. Doe or John Doe. Just using your first name, in the case of John can make those you communicate with have to determine “which” John you may be. J. Doe — you could use that, but it is a bit formal. j doe, john doe or j a doe — all lower case; not acceptable either (unless you are a gradeschooler). The From: field should reflect your full name in proper case.
Using a pseudonym, nick-name or handle in e-mail makes one wonder why you don’t want to be identified; what is it that you are trying to hide? To assume that everyone knows who you are by your nickname is not a good idea either. Not to mention that you could very easily be mistaken as a spammer and deleted. There simply is no good reason to hide your identity in e-mails.
But wait, I was just told otherwise the other day…
The excuse that was recently provided for this practice was that using their real name in the From: field “caused me much grief as my computer was sending viruses to my numerous contacts.” What!?
You deserved the grief if you were not properly protecting your computer and those you communicate with by using a virus program and keeping it updated. So now you hide your identity so that when you make mistakes people don’t know who you are? If you make a mistake be “man enough” to take your comeuppance.
I’ve yet to receive an valid excuse as to why one should not want to use their full and proper name in the From: field. That is unless you do have something to hide — and that’s exactly what everyone will presume!
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What if you have a personal site where your full name is not known and you receive comments on this site and want to reply without divulging your full name? Surely an email address with your nickname would be appropriate in this case? ;-)
I find a fair number of personal bloggers do not share their full name on their blogs.
Thanks for asking Jummy! I am specifically talking about e-mail. Blogs are an entirely different venue and animal!
That’s why I mention “forums or message boards, even other areas of the Internet where one can communicate with others, using a nick-name or “handle” is accepted practice…” E-mail is simply not the venue to be anonymous.
HTH! ;-)
Judith
I think this depends on the context and who you’re writing to. If you have a relationship that works on full names then you should use that in your From: field; if you know each other only by nickname then it makes sense to use a nickname.
And if you’re using you’re email account to send a message on behalf of someone else, then you should really use their name and email address.
I think it’s a shame that it’s generally difficult to change the from line as you compose each email message. In theory you should even be able to put multiple names & email addresses in there if you want to share the claim to authorship of the message.
Hey, Barney:
On this one we will have to agree to disagree. The From: field should be your actual name — no matter what. Now, if you are communicating off-forums with those who know you by your nickname — I can understand that and all you would have to do is create a new personality or account reflecting as much. The key is to not try and be tricky or hide your true identity.
As far as shared authorship, all one has to do is state in the e-mail who was involved in the creation and Cc: them so everyone is aware if was a joint effort. Easy!
Thanks for your comments!
At your service,
Judith
I see where you’re coming from, I just trying to shed a few alternate insights on the practice.
I can’t help but point out some of this comes from the same logic as “if you refuse to be searched, then you probably have something to hide and shouldn’t be complain when handled as a deviant; Give them permission to search XYZ to prove you have nothing to worry about to not be handled as a deviant (whether it’s passive or not)”.
I’m all about using full names in the professional realm, and that’s where it stays (in most cases, it’d be using the company’s domain anyway). I love exchanging email with friends, family, as well as cautiously-select ‘familiar strangers’ I’ve met along the way (whether it’s from forums or other social places on the net).
I realize you covered the base for using handles/alternate addresses for the ‘familiar strangers’ category (forums). That would turn into three email addresses, while not outrageous, I don’t see the need. Not using a first/last name for personal mail can have absolutely nothing to do with whether someone has something to hide or not, or not trusting the people one communicates with personal contact info. I have no control over who is forwarded my email address once I send something out, which is fine.. I’m not about to be overbearing by reminding my contacts to exclude me from forwards and lock down their personal Facebooks to my personal standards.
The digital-footprint-effect can snowball much further than one would expect, which you can write off on paranoia, which is fine..I work in the IT-sec field, and to anyone we’ve come across; When they data-mine us, a lead is a lead – no matter how trivial an average home user would see it. Yes, this is probably a unique position, but another factor is the average user is far too vulnerable when it comes to having their own email accounts compromised. While it is true that most of these occurrences are random targets of opportunity, it is too easy to ignore that sometimes it is very specific. Determined attackers always utilize contacts for their breadcrumbs,
Even for posting my two cent comment here, I would’ve used a disposable email address had the service not been down. Why? Just because (I’m not fearful of being sold off to spamlists thanks to netmanners.com or anything), if for anything else, it’s just one less confirmation mail in my inbox to tick ‘delete’ on.
Hello, William:
Thank you for your e-mail note — without it I would not have discovered your post in the trash. While I get your point, using your first name on this site is of no risk nor is providing an e-mail address as I’ve never sold out visitors to any of my sites in the 16 years I’ve been running business Web sites.
The concerns you note have nothing to do with configuring your e-mail program to reflect your name or in the case of commenting using your name as you did here. There are times when using your name lends credibility to your comments because you are not hiding behind a goofy nick-name — which was the point of my post.
“As far as being fearful of being sold off to spamlists thanks to netmanners.com” that fear is unjustified and to be frank a bit insulting. Not everyone in tech is looking for a lead to “data-mine”. While you complain about being sold you also don’t like the confirmation e-mails that help to prevent forums like this from being used by spammers.
Knowing how to differentiate credible and legit sites from those that will do all the things you are so concerned about is something every onliner should take the time to determine. This way you can enjoy the sites that you can trust and not exposure yourself to those that are questionable.