On Saturday, 14 May 2016 at 15:57:43 UTC, Jonathan M Davis wrote:
There's always a risk of someone seeing what you post, not
liking it, and reacting badly too it, and if that's your
employer, you could be in trouble. But in general, when we're
talking about stuff that relates to your profession and not
general social networking, then I don't think that that's it's
often an issue. If you're talking in this newsgroup about D and
programming topics, and you're discussing technical stuff in
the reviews on github, then I don't think that you're really at
much risk of having a problem with your employer due to a
remark that you make. Where that's far more likely to get you
bitten is places like facebook where you're chatting about
random stuff.
Personally, I post under my real name (or something obviously
related to it like jmdavis) in all of the programming-related
places I post in. And I think that that's very valuable from
the perspective of showing potential employers that I'm
actually competent and that others think that I'm competent.
However, when I post on sites talking about stray stuff that
has nothing to do with my profession, I post under pseudonyms
and don't provide anything that would give any obvious hints as
to who I am. There's no benefit to linking that stuff to my
real name, whereas there is with programming stuff. Places like
facebook or google+ are where you end up generally posting
under your own name and talking about random junk that might
get you in trouble if the wrong person sees it. But I don't
have a facebook account, and I don't do much on g+, so
personally, I'm at a low risk of problems with that. Still, any
time you post under your real name, you should be mindful that
pretty much anyone could end up seeing it whether you intend
for that to happen or not, and dumb remarks _could_ come back
to bite you. It helps though if you make few dumb remarks. ;)
But in the case of places like this, if you mostly stick to
professional topics and are generally civil, then I really
don't think that you're at much risk of getting in trouble over
it. And if you've built a good professional brand online, then
in the rare case that you _do_ get in trouble over it, then
you'll have an easier time getting a new job.
- Jonathan M Davis
Qu'on me donne six lignes écrites de la main du plus honnête
homme, j'y trouverai de quoi le faire pendre.
If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest
of men, I will find something in them which will hang him.
(attributed to Cardinal Richelieu)
If they're out to get you, they'll get you anyway. Now you can do
one of two things: you can say, "Why take the risk?" and stay
anonymous or you can say "Life is full of risks anyway", and show
your real name.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Cardinal_Richelieu
