[Rod_Cloutier]

It occurred to me that I've been visiting and participating on this website forum for a decade now, since 2004. (Even if I'm considered the resident troll)

I sat and wondered where I came up with my username handle 'Repent' ? Since I started using that handle here, I've used it pretty much everywhere else online, except where it's been taken by someone else. In thinking about it, I've actually come to like being referred to as 'Repent' vs. my real name. (Rod) I never liked my name, people are always getting it wrong, calling me Rob, or Ron, or changing it and calling me Rodrigo, the Rod mistro, the Rodfather. I've never understood why people pick and use slang names, they're teasing, or they also simply don't like the name either? I think I'll stick with Repent.

Beyond the religious actual meaning of 'Repent', it occurred to me that I haven't repented much. In fact, I don't think I actually even originally got that handle title from a feeling of the need to Repent to God; but from the song lyrics of the classic song 'The Future' by Leonard Cohen:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hD4NV4 ... ilpage#t=1

I was sitting and wondering about all the handles used by other people on this board. Of all the people that I 'sort of' know online by reading their posts, but whom I've never met? That I wouldn't know them if I was in the same room as them, or ever even know their real names. People come and gone like Montequest, or more current members like Dissident or Agent R? Heck, I don't even know if people are male or female, young or old, not that it would matter. But really- who are you people?

What it the meaning of the specific handles used, if anything at all. Obviously, privacy is always a concern. No one wants to loose their job, or have their colleagues hate them because of something said online. Still it must reach a limit.

I was recently banned from a 9/11 truth site for refusing to use my real name, called a 'shrill', and government stooge, and other insults, none of them true. I've noticed a trend away from using online handles and towards using real names to establish credibility. However I'm not quite ready for that yet. Ultimately, what your real name is, your gender, your age, your whatever; it doesn't really matter. It's the contents of your thoughts, the level of your conscientiousness, your storytelling ability, and the validity of your ideas that count.

On an online scrabble game site, I couldn't use the title 'Repent' as it was taken. I made up a new handle 'Workdove', something random to serve as a game handle. My teenage daughter thinks that I made a mistake in using it, because it is feminine and I'm a middle aged old fat guy. The online messages on the scrabble game attest to this error, as other old fat guys are seeing the handle 'Workdove', and constantly giving me lines it an attempt to pick me up? What idea does Workdove convey to people that they think that I'm a 20 something single horny female? If they were to see the 40 something fat blob, with greying hair that I actually am, I think the sexually suggestive abusive comments would stop.

Funny how handles work!

[dorlomin]

In computing, an avatar (usually translated from Sanskrit as incarnation) is the graphical representation of the user or the user's alter ego or character. It may take either a three-dimensional form,[1] as in games or virtual worlds, or a two-dimensional form as an icon in Internet forums and other online communities.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avatar_(computing)

The avatar is the image.



From Foxbase Alpha

[Pops]

Wolf in puppy guise.

LOL

[evilgenius]

I use evilgenius because I sometimes want to talk about things that are quite serious. In digging at the truth, though, I've noticed people have a hard time dealing with serious issues. They often don't want to admit they exist or could involve them. When it is like this for them they usually want to laugh the issues off. Humor is in many ways the human device for dealing with anything that presses too much. My handle actually allows them to do this, derived as it is from a comic tradition of false world issue bungling and failed manipulation.

[Subjectivist]

Mine is self explanatory, I am Subject to Christ my King.

[Ibon]

Ibon means bird in Tagalog, my wife's language. For me it symbolizes trying to see things from a birds eye view. I have been an avid bird watcher since my teens. My photo icon is a solar hot water boiler that I took a pic of while hiking the Anapurna trail in Nepal way back in 2005, shortly after I became a member here.

[vtsnowedin]

Vtsnowedin seems pretty self explanatory and I was engaged in poking holes in climate alarmists posts when I chose it. On an English peak oil site where I also use it some Brits were reading it to say Vermont is no Eden. How they got by the W, I don't know. I think it serves to identify me accurately as someone who endures long winters and heats with wood. Also the dyed in the wool Vermont Yankee tradition of making do with what you have in hand because there is no money to buy any more is a real family tradition.

[Newfie]

I choose Newfie kinda by accident. When registering I hadn't given my avatar any thought. I'd used something too close to my real name elsewhere and didn't want to repeat that here. My Mom came from Newfoundland, I have ties there, we have a cabin there, I have my boat there, it's out bug out spot. Newfie is kinda a derogatory, as in redneck. I'm kinda a red neck guy, even if I live in a city center, it's in my blood. So it all seemed to come together.

The pic is of the old unofficial Newfoundland flag, before confederacy.

[Keith_McClary]

Mine is self explanatory, I am Subject to Christ my King.

It has a dictionary meaning:

sub·jec·tiv·ism
noun PHILOSOPHY
the doctrine that knowledge is merely subjective and that there is no external or objective truth.

[Keith_McClary]

I just used my name because I was only planning to make one post.

[AgentR11]

There once was a user, an advocate of tin foil perhaps, who went by the handle of Neo... I couldn't suppress my chase instincts, and so changed my handle to AgentR, (like the Agents in the Matrix trilogy). In retrospect, it seemed like a pretty apt handle so I kept it. Then the board had a brief episode of causing me to forget my password (I would never forget such a thing myself, after all), and it wouldn't send me a reset email, and it was 2011...so AgentR11 was born.

[vtsnowedin]

I just used my name because I was only planning to make one post.

4639 posts later/ What happened?

[Quinny]

Because I'm mighty?

[Timo]

I chose my handle, obviously, in honor of my personal hero, Timothy Leary. Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds!!!

[Timo]

I chose my handle, obviously, in honor of my personal hero, Timothy Leary. Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds!!!

I had no idea. I kind of thought your handle was a reference to a South Pacific paradise island? Timo-Something. With a volcano.

OK. I'll take that, too!

Although, on second thought, that island isn't likely to poke up from the Pacific much longer.

[careinke]

First two initials and last name. People sometimes mistake it for... a female name, Care INK, and Cranky. I use the handle on all my discussion sites.

[dolanbaker]

Just a simple combination of mine and my wife's names. As for the Avatar, well you'll eventually find him.

[Tanada]

About 19 years ago I was writing a novel that never got finished about a Japanese corporation doing not so nice things so I randomly selected a name. Later I learned that the Tanada Effect fit right in with the technology/capability/philosophy of the fictional corporation in the book. I have been using Tanada as my online avatar since about 1995.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanada_effect