Blog post: swansont: My Voice is My Passport. Verify Me.

As I wrote on Friday, there's a potential danger in thinking that your experience is typical or widespread. I ran across a topic where this applies — online pseudonyms. I obviously don't; I work in a small slice of applied science, so I think it would be hard to put up repeated posts about timekeeping and not be found out, but more importantly, I'm not in a situation where need to hide who I am. But that isn't true of all bloggers.

Tell me again how pseudonyms are lame

Pseudonyms are essential online

I think it's important to draw the distinction between an anonymous online presence and a pseudonym. A pseudonym at least presents a consistent persona. Even though you don't know the person's name, there is an identity associated with the ideas. Criticism aimed at anonymous writing doesn't necessarily apply to someone using a pseudonym.
Read and comment on the full post