What are y'all hiding from?
Ed
My Ex! "cudaboy340"
I just did what seemed to be the norm when I joined and went with a screen name. But I do sign my first name to every post I make. I will sign this post with my full name so you can see what I just go by "Ed B" (BTW, I'm pretty sure EdB was taken when I joined Moparts or I'm pretty sure I would've chosen that as a screen name).
Ed Buczeskie
I don’t want people knowing my identity because I have an expensive hobby. I’ve had parts stolen, been trailed places(including home), hunted down by a guy who isn’t such a good fellow because he traced my car at a body shop(owner told me to steer clear of the guy when I asked who in the world was he), etc. This all without plastering my details on the internet. I really don’t see how it would benefit me to put myself on front street. The handle names allow you to determine if you trust the persons information when you read their posts. That’s enough for anyone to navigate a site about cars.
You can also be more candid about a given thing when direct retribution isn’t as huge of a threat. I’m sure some hacker coding whiz can still track me down, but this weeds out at least more than a few possibilities. People are absolutely nuts out there and it’s simple not worth gifting them info because they disagree about a car topic.
I’ve made friends off line with people over PM here and elsewhere and that works well.
That's a more than fair answer. I was sort of joking in my reply, but I do get it. Anyone who has ever been to Carlisle knows it's a sleepy little town. Pretty much all of the car people know each other or there's only one degree of separation and being followed isn't really an issue - but even around here I watch for that kind of stuff. Also, I don't think I have anything worth going to that much effort to steal but who knows??
I do like the actual names on Facebook and in my job, it's really helpful.
Until recently, I thought most of the Mopar groups on Facebook were great. You quickly learned who really knew their stuff and almost everyone in all of the groups was at least RELATIVELY knowledgeable on Mopars. In the last couple of months, it seems like almost every Mopar group has really gone downhill. I'm NOT criticizing people for not being Mopar experts - I'm NO expert and am always learning. But it seemed like for the longest time, those who didn't know a lot were fairly quiet when it came to answering questions and/or commenting. Lately, however, I see so many people who clearly know very little about Mopars arguing over things that are pretty basic. I've also been seeing for sale ads with pretty solid '70-'71 E-Bodies for $12-$15,000 and people are commenting calling the seller crazy and saying they have one too many zeros in the price. But again, you quickly learn who knows their stuff and who doesn't.
Ed
