I suppose no one is going to suspect me just because of my first name. It is not uncommon in my country. I am more concerned about what happens when people search for “firstName surname”.
Okay, I suppose if you knew me in real life, and you found my first name online, with me mentioning something about my life, or just my hobbies and my country, it might ring a bell. (The combination of country + first name + LW is already unique, as far as I know.)
But my main concern is about people who don’t know me privately, but they happen to be in a position to make a decision impacting my life. An archetypal example would be a rabid SJW working in HR or management in a corporation where I want to work, who would search for my full name, and for example find LW, then read something about LW written by David Gerard, and conclude “this guy is a Nazi and needs to go”. I wouldn’t even know what hit me.
I don’t really know how likely this is. I suppose it will become more likely in the future, because people write a lot of stuff online, so sooner or later there will be specialized agencies providing a service to HR like “give us $$$, and we will compile for you a short comprehensive report about this (potential) employee”, and it may soon become a standard part of hiring process, to the degree that not using this basic background check would be seen as gross incompetence.
Thus, not using my surname online anymore seemed like an urgent and simple step. Removing the existing mentions of my surname would be nice, but it would be much work to do. Maybe later. Making up a pseudonym is a less urgent thing that I don’t want to rush. (Having to change it again would be extra work.)
it was nice to meet someone and say “Hi, I am Viliam”, and the other person was like: “No way, that Viliam, the blogger? That’s awesome!”.
Note: to avoid confusion, this only worked in combination with the surname. (I didn’t want to use it here, but I should have used a placeholder, I guess.)
No, and I will be too lazy to edit them, too.
I suppose no one is going to suspect me just because of my first name. It is not uncommon in my country. I am more concerned about what happens when people search for “firstName surname”.
Okay, I suppose if you knew me in real life, and you found my first name online, with me mentioning something about my life, or just my hobbies and my country, it might ring a bell. (The combination of country + first name + LW is already unique, as far as I know.)
But my main concern is about people who don’t know me privately, but they happen to be in a position to make a decision impacting my life. An archetypal example would be a rabid SJW working in HR or management in a corporation where I want to work, who would search for my full name, and for example find LW, then read something about LW written by David Gerard, and conclude “this guy is a Nazi and needs to go”. I wouldn’t even know what hit me.
I don’t really know how likely this is. I suppose it will become more likely in the future, because people write a lot of stuff online, so sooner or later there will be specialized agencies providing a service to HR like “give us $$$, and we will compile for you a short comprehensive report about this (potential) employee”, and it may soon become a standard part of hiring process, to the degree that not using this basic background check would be seen as gross incompetence.
Thus, not using my surname online anymore seemed like an urgent and simple step. Removing the existing mentions of my surname would be nice, but it would be much work to do. Maybe later. Making up a pseudonym is a less urgent thing that I don’t want to rush. (Having to change it again would be extra work.)
Note: to avoid confusion, this only worked in combination with the surname. (I didn’t want to use it here, but I should have used a placeholder, I guess.)