So when the Forumosa members have their social evening, they don’t divulge their identities?
I am curious too?
Do you stick to your online identity or RL identity exclusivly when you meet? -Like: Hi, I am X3M —or— Hi, I am Real Name
-Please do not ask about my online/realname…
Sounds a bit paranoia for me.
Some do, some don’t. Some sit in the corner glumly and anonymously and try to figure out who is who because they’re so shy, while others congregate and exchange business cards and back slaps. And you should see the sort of behaviour from Blueface and Wolf! 
[quote=“tigerman”][quote=“HakkaSonic”][quote=“tigerman”]HS,
I don’t want my true identy posted on this forum… but I have no problem with other posters knowing me in the real world (well, at least in Taiwan 
)…[/quote]
Tigerman, do you mean other posters who you meet at a Forumosa social event or get to know via posts / e-mail or those like the guy I described above (you’re never seen him before, he just asks you his identity)?[/quote]
I’m not certain it would make any difference to me, to be honest. Certainly the posters I meet at social events I haven’t any problem with. And I think I met Toe Save at a non-social event… well, I guess all events involving more than a single person are “social” events… but you know what I mean. If the guy identified himself as a fellow poster, I guess I would tell him my posting nom de plume, provided, that is, he also told me his.[/quote]
He/She made me tell him/her my name first…
And given that the T-man/woman wants to remain anonymous, I had better get back to the thread where I nearly outed him/her and edit it in such a way that he/she will continue to provide me with cheesy favours…
One of the joys of online discourse for me is the anonymity. I can freely exchange ideas and make arguments in a forum in which rank, race, gender, world-life reputation, educational achievements, marital status, sexual preference, wealth, etc. are unimportant or negligible. I don’t try to find out too much about my interlocuters and I don’t divulge too much about myself to them.
Here, as far as I’m concerned, the only qualities that really matter are the strength of your writing and the power of your arguments. People can’t see you and you can’t see them; all we see is the writing. We may guess things, of course, but we really don’t know.
An example of this is what happened to me in the Gay Marriage thread. After I made arguments against the legalization of gay marriages, several posters assumed I was a Christian and starting making fun of Jesus; other posters assumed I was an embittered, self-hating gay man. I was delighted by all the misconceptions because they were a tacit admission by the people who made them that they couldn’t handle my arguments and were instead reduced to taking blind stabs at what kind of person they thought I was.
Some people – usually those with inflated reputations that are blown up past the quality of their minds – are bothered by this. They prefer to know who you are and how to fit you into their scheme of things before they deal with you. Are you black or white? American or not? Male or female? Christian or not? Old or young? Been here in Taiwan a long time or are you a newbie? Etc. Etc. Etc.
But unfortunately this sort of knowledge takes away from the edge of many arguments because you begin to think you can anticipate how the person will respond even before they do. (Oh, you are against affirmative action? Well, of course, you are against it; you’re white. Response? Well of course, you’d say that – you’re black.) Once this knowledge is gained, it’s difficult to deal directly with the argument instead of the person, and I find this true even for myself. You stop listening to what the other person says.
I realize that for some people online friendships are important. But I neither want nor need them. 95% of the people out there in the world, including 100% of those below the age of thirty, I find dull as ditchwater. The other 5% can be interesting enough to want to spend time with, but finding out who that 5% is takes time. Plus, interesting doesn’t necessarily mean compatible. Some interesting people are just god-awfully hard to deal with in real life. The drink too much or they smoke or they don’t flush your toilet after a sit-down.
I would expect Blueface and Wolfie to be models of perfect civility and attentiveness … to all the attractive xiaojies present. 
And they probably barge everyone else out of the way in making a beeline for them.
At least I am not trying to re-populate the earth… 
Don’t sweat it Toe Save… You’re OK in my book, and lots of people know who I am already…
New posters should think about a name that would be embarrassing to say like " Hey! Are you scratchingmycr*tch from Forumosa! ehh I mean uuhhh nevermind".
I’ve been toying around with the idea of showing up at one of the Forumosa social events, but being that I’m EXTREMELY shy in person and have never met anyone from Forumosa who could help me do the introductions, I just can’t see myself walking into a room full of strangers and being like, “Hey, I’m LittleBuddhaTW, wanna chat?” But if someone wants to hold my hand through the whole traumatic experience, I might be up for it … and of course there’s always the possibility of people just wanting to pounce on me 'cuz I’m so damn handsome and then not knowing how to let them down politely, hehe …
I would expect Blueface and Wolfie to be models of perfect civility and attentiveness … to all the attractive xiaojies present. And they probably barge everyone else out of the way in making a beeline for them.[/quote]
I think I need to work on my charm. 
[quote=“Cold Front”]
Here, as far as I’m concerned, the only qualities that really matter are the strength of your writing and the power of your arguments.[/quote]
What about the ability to pun? The pun is mightier than the sword, afterall…
[quote=“blueface666”]
I think I need to work on my charm. 
[/quote]
It doesn’t look like you’ll be making any babies with that one, Blueface.
[quote=“Omniloquacious”]
It doesn’t look like you’ll be making any babies with that one, Blueface.[/quote]
I love the chase.
Yes, I feel this way, too. Who is going to hold our hands?
I would hate to have someone figure out my real name.
Isn’t your name Richard M-something?
Hold each other’s hands. Meet first and practise. Get used to holding hands in public. Be prepared to defend your behaviour. Save your first kiss until there is a big audience of friendly forumosans.
Alternatively, make ‘special friends’ with the people you most admire or identify with. Meet them socially, or under some pretext, (just keep away from BlueU, or I’ll chop your bits off!) so that when you go to the gathering you can casually say something cool and ‘in’ to them. This will mark you out as a desirable person to know and before you know it you’ll be surrounded by middle-aged perverts seeking your opinion on a myriad of topics.
Seriously though, online communities are places where you can meet, argue, and be safely misunderstood anonymously. Otherwise we would all have to enter passport numbers, use real names and publish verified photos instead of avatars.
With anonymity poor shy fuckers like me can safely upset big hairy guys. (Not you, QM) There’s no danger of the response one forumosan recently described as being standard for anyone that insults him in real life.
Breaching someone’s anonymity is a bad thing to do, but who the hell talks about how witty they were at Forumosa with their friends? This is online, everything else is real life, and never the twain should meet.
Here’s another question:
If some psycho lurker took it into their head to track down a particular forumosan how much info could they glean? How much stuff have you said about yourself that could be used against you by someone looking for a fight, or a shag?
So it’s not Mr Spock? I’m shocked!
PUT YOUR HAND IN THE HAND
Put your hand in the hand of the man
who stilled the waters.
Put your hand in the hand of the man
who calmed the seas.
Take a look at yourself
and you can look at others differently
by putting your hand in the hand of
the man from Galilee.