At the Digital Genres conference, one of the refrains, in discussions by Jackson and Moore, as well as surely during the prior day during AKMA and Trevor discussions (though I missed that) about online identity.
If I understood Moore's case, as part of his discussion about branding and identity, that the name is the identifier in online world's.
This rubbed me a bit wrong, and in a pre-waking state this morning I remembered a phrase that I started using sometime in my teens. My name is not my person, it's only the way I am known by those who do not know me.
By which I mean to say, a name is only an introduction, identity - and how 'informed entities' online identify other informed entities is through everything that comes behind the name. So we have a name and a key - a small, almost insignificant bit of data that informs the name - providing just enough identity for a computer to authenticate or authorise us. Or we have a more significant bit of information, a physical key and a PIN to identify us in more important realms.
And when I see someone's writing or actions online, that provides yet more information for me - an aggregating and informed entity - to actually identify them by much more than their name.
That's what identity is, not just the name.
Posted by esinclai at June 03, 2003 06:42 AM |
Well, gosh. If I'd known you felt this way then you could have changed YOUR last name after the wedding and saved us a whole lot of confusion.
Posted by: Anne on June 3, 2003 01:37 PMHeh. Good point there, Anne. Thought about that one once in another wifetime.
I just wanted to say that when one encounters another's writings on line, it only represents that part of the online persona which the writer has chosen to share. Of course, that SHOULD raise a question of "trust"...
Posted by: anonymous coward on June 3, 2003 02:45 PMEric: your index.html template provides trackback auto discovery, but your individual archive template does not. Is this on purpose?
Posted by: Chris on June 5, 2003 01:29 AM