Ask Grumpy

[BobAin'tStoppin']

I thought we should have a thread where we can ask Grumpy (owner and moderator) questions about the site. So here's a start.

On other forums, we are asked to provide our real name in the profile. This can help coordinate identity between here in the make believe and in meat space. So I have stuck my real name in the comments section of my profile. Is this a good idea? Or a bad thing?

[Grumpy Goat]

Good idea for this thread … could come in useful as we all contribute to the usefulness of the Forum Community, so thanks Bob.

Yes some forums may ask for real names and in my case I prefer to leave it up to the member since the world is what is it and also some people don't want to necessarily share this information publicly. And I am fine with that. The vetting process is not that thorough so there is no guarantee that all members would be on the up and up.

That said, BMW sites tend to not attract the undesirables of society so any gleaning of the real names would probably not come from membership. It may come from spiders / [ro]bots that trawl sites on the Internet, though, so if one wants to reduce your digital footprints (and every bit counts) then maybe not using the real names would be a consideration.

But - unless you do not put in your name anywhere on the web, there is a chance that the bad guys can get it anyway.