This poor subforum has sat unloved for almost four years. How much can you say about members who are all secret identities anyway? Does anyone wonder how many of your fellow members are not who they purport to be? A couple of caveats: Just for fun. It is everybody's right to maintain whatever facade they wish, and not ours to judge. So if you're gonna speculate, it behooves you to be respectful. Also, I'd suggest that, for anyone who wishes to not be speculated about - and says so - their wishes should be respected. Gender is the most obviously pliable trait. Sometimes nationality is *assumed* and tends to be corrected. (Not sure why anyone would deliberately misdirect about their nationality.) Age is often implied, though few really care. Expertise is often misrepresented though usually by implication, rather than by explicit claim. Can you think of any more traits that are often a source of misdirection? Actually, misdirection is the wrong word. Anonymity would be a better word. No one has to defend their right to an online identity. Some members are explicit about what they wish their identity to be (though that says nothing about whether it's accurate). Some may simply be assumed by others to be of a certain identity, and the member has no need to disabuse anyone of that notion. Some go to great lengths to misdirect, yet, oddly, make no effort to hide the fact that they are misdirecting. Thoughts? (P.S. Alerting mods, in case thread is way inappropriate.)
How would one know when someone is misdirecting since you imply that it's obvious with some? I think there are a lot of "characters" on here but I mainly take them at face value. There may be (as you say) a few where it's unclear whether they are male or female but other than that I don't think I get your point about misdirecting. First, who would go to that much trouble for this forum (or care) and why? Can you give some examples? I assume that people who always act like a jerk, are jerks. Those who post crazy theories are probably a little "crazy" and those who appear to be quirky are probably actually quirky. Is it your thinking that those who are rude are actually the life of the party in real life and those with the crazy theories are actually the bastion of stability in real life? Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Russian trolls would misdirect about their nationality. We may have one of those. But sex and age would be the commonest. Several serial sockpuppeteers regularly pretend to be young women, in the hope of getting an easier reception. I don't believe in "Sarah Ellard", for example.
A good exemplar would be Clueless. He goes to great lengths to craft his posts in a particular style. The persona is that of someone that might be described as a hick, rube, yokel or whatever who is atrocious at spelling, but he doesn't try very hard to hide the fact that it's a persona (or he'd be less ham-fisted about it). I do too. This post is just a musing. The internet is rife with men who deliberately promulgate a female identity to garner attention, and women who wear a guise of a man to avoid attention. The only motive for Clueless that makes sense to me is that he has an alter ego to which he doesn't want to tip his hand. It might be elsewhere on the web, but it might be someone right here on SciFo.
Full disclaimer disclosure:I am not from Newcastle but my dog was Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
He is buried under a big sod beneath a beech tree beside the lawn. We have a replacement.A very different (canine) kettle of fish.
Once upon a time in another forum far, far away... Him: Do you live in Canada? Me: Yes. Him: Do you live in a province that's easy to draw? Me: Yes Him: Do you live in the biggest city? Me: No, the second-biggest. Him: Do you live on the south side of the creek? Me: No, the north side. Him: Then you're not my next-door neighbour.(I assume that he was a he. I also use the Canadian spelling of "neighbour" deliberately.) On that same forum, I once deduced that one of the members lived in Medicine Hat. And on yet another forum, I know a member who used to be stationed in Moose Jaw. I too have been to Moose Jaw and now I can die. https://genius.com/John-wing-ive-been-to-moose-jaw-annotated
I once had a next window neighbor. There were no doors on that side of the house.....Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
I strongly believe that nationality and expertise are the most lied about characteristics on this forum. Purpose on the forum is another one. For example, "Saint" and "scorpius" probably are shirtless men in their underwear working in paid Russian or Chinese propaganda mills which are infested with bed bugs. They are tolerated by the moderators because they provide the forum with much needed engagement, and that is fine. They're basically harmless. "Steve Klinko," who thankfully appears to be gone for now, is also a worthless fraud. See here for more information.
I hadn't even thought about the nationality aspect. I guess it is not cool to be from Russia or China on a US-centric forum these days. I suspect Saint is a puppet of a team of AI developers who are using SciFo to hydrate their speech database. I also wonder if some of the erstwhile females here are actually male.
On another forum, I was gender-ambiguous for years and a lot of people were fooled - though it might have been mostly because of my avatar. On the other hand, one poster was convinced that I was from Russia because I listed my location as Soviet Canuckistan.
YES... but whoever posts here i first give 'em the benifit of dout... an if they go on to meet my highest of high standards i will continue to reply to 'em.!!! A-Man.TTT
I wonder if he has populated his dictionary with "vernacularly correct" misspellings to automate the process. You could do the same (or similar?) to sound German or zTrumpish.
