Eclectic Views

    
"Fate tried to conceal him by naming him Smith."                         
        -- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Tips, tricks, stories, and solutions for choosing a <userid>
  

    
 I got the idea for this topic when I introduced myself.

My user id came about because when I was in clown college, I came up with 
 a bunch of adult clown routines. (In fact, Frosty Little, master clown, 
told me that if Mr. Feld (owner of Ringling) ever saw any of these clown 
routines performed, that he and I would be clowning out in Siberia 
someplace.")

I'm a bit of a rebel, so when people asked me what my clown name  was 
going to be, I said "Kafka."  A  year later, I was still taken by the 
idea, and it became kind of a mantra of the kind of clowning I wanted 
to do.  

In 1990, you could only have an 8 letter id, so I thought quick and 
came up with kafclown.
 
I sometimes think about changing, but overall, I like it...
  

    
Clown college?
  

    
Ringling Bros. Clown College. It was (no longer exists) kind of a trade 
school for Ringling Bros.  They closed it down in 1997.

<http://www.e-orderhere.com/COAIConvention/cfrosty.htm>

For a little bit about Frosty Little
  

    

Clown college, as in Ringling Brothers.   VERY prestigious, in its day.

My user id came about some 38 plus years ago in a miserable little city on
the south coast of Massachusetts, about 40 minutes west of Cape Cod.  It was
actually pretty easy, and I didn't have to do any work at all.  I was born,
my parents named me, and that was really all there was to it.  First letter
from my first name, first letter from my middle name, first letter from my
last name.  If I used someone else's initials I'd get confused.
  

    

slippage from the great kafclown his own bad self.
  

    
Since this is a conference (at least partly)for people thinking of
joining da Well, lemme just say that you should be more imaginative
than to choose your initials as a login, at least if you want to
develop relationships here.  I find that, as an intial guy, people are
much slower to recognize my postings as coming from a particular
sentient identity (put them all together as - "oh - good old jbk!").

Also, initials are pretty easy to confuse.  And sadly, someone came
along last year with initials very similar to mine, and pissed a great
many people off.
  

    
Mine was a happy, slightly embarrasing accident.  It was actually the
centaur that I'd had in mind, but I got the names mixed up.  Didn't take
me long to decide that my fumbling had served me well in this instance,
since I really do have more in common with your average satyr than with
any centaur that ever walked the earth.

And it does help keep others expectations in check, when their image of
you is a half-man, half-goat, forest-dwelling drunkard.  ;-)
  

    
I originally joined as murphytune, a play on my middle name (a fantasy
of my youth of starting a record label called Murphytunes).

When I upgraded my account last August, I had to change to a shorter
login. The login "murphy" was taken so I chose "murffy." This was kind
of a play on a post I made in the science conference where I divided
the participants into "fluffies" and "crusties." I referred to myself
as a fluffy.
  

    
Mine's even more boring than initials.   It's my name -- Hal.

No references to HAL 9000 or anything esoteric.   I've been here
for nearly 15 years and had a different ID (my initials) for the 
first 11 years because someone else had "hal" tied up.   It became
available in 1999, so I took it.
  

    

I originally joined back when Engaged accounts had to use your email
address as your username.  Sounds okay in theory, but in practice you might
as well have had ALIEN INVADER, BEWARE attached to all your posts.  <jacob>
was taken at the time, so I took <cromis>, which is part of the name of the
main character in the book "The Pastel City", by M. John Harrison, which
I've loved for a long time.  So for a long time I was <cromis> and people
used to call me that in person, even after the <jacob> account opened up
and I took it as an extra email address.  Then, after a year or two of
tending to give out jacob@well.com as my address, I decided to switch over
to <jacob> being my conferencing account too.  I still keep cromis around
as a maildrop though, and in case I decide I need to selectively scribble
things I posted under that account.
  

    
You were cromis?!? I never knew that!!
  

    
And do you know what *my* first userid was?
  

    
ummmmm .. no. Hint?

I came aboard as <angie-aaron>.  I just figured there'd be about 30
Angies here, and I grabbed my man's name as a way to differentiate
myself.  (Interesting, now that I think about it - for a woman who is
staunchly against a woman taking a man's surname.) 

So then, I find out that, in some corners of the Well, shared accounts
are looked at a bit askance. And although mine wasn't, it looked like
it.

When I moved to a Pico account, I figured, hell, how many <coiro>s can
there be? 

So that's what I am.
  

    
When I joined the Well, I was using a convention where all my online
IDs were the name of the site followed by my initials. So there was a
salonelp and an amazonelp, etc. I was very surprised to find out that
no one else did the same thing. For a while, I gave serious thought to
changing it to something less "Wellish" because it looked really odd
among the usernames here, but I was assured it was OK. I pronounce it
well-elp, not well-ee-el-pe. 
  

    
I can't look at your id without thinking "whelp"!  Which does provoke
pictures of puppies.
  

    
The most amusing take on my ID was when someone referred to me as
wellelf. I am many things, but elfin ain't one of them.
  

    
I used to say 'WELL-ee-el-pe,' but I like wellelf better.

I changed my legal name to match my WELL name! I took "autumn" as a login
because fall is my favorite season.  As I met WELL people at parties
and people began calling me "Autumn," the WELL name came to feel more
comfortable than my real name, "Judith." In 1999, when I filed an
application in court to change my surname, I decided to change my first name
too.
  

    
I remember <chuck> as the former <fluster>

In terms of failed ideas, the old email address as Engaged login thang was
probably my dumbest idea in my time here.  It didn't last long - maybe 3
weeks - but we still have one such account.

I started life as <phanson>, until I learned people were pronouncing it as
<fanson>.  Then I had the bright idea of reviving a childhood nickname, and
so <wolfy> was reborn.  (I originally wanted to be <wolfie>, but it was in
use at the time.)
  

    
Indeed, I am the former <fluster>.  One of my earliest posts was

> words.204: BUMPER SNICKERS
>
> words.204.1: Hopefully problematic (fluster)  Thu 2 Mar 89  21:26
>
>  Oldie but goodie:
>
> IMPEACH THE COX-SACKER

I guess my pseud (pseudonym) in the words conference is now
almost fourteen years old.  It meant something at the time.
  

    
I did sort of the same thing as <wellelp> for a while with Web sites,
but the other way around, e.g., mcbtimes, mcbguru, mcbdice, and so
forth.  

As for me, I'm sorry that Mary Catherine Bateson left the Well, but I'm
really happy that she abandoned her userid, since I can't imagine being
anything other than <mcb> on the Well or anywhere else online.  My
first UNIX account, on a PDP-11/45, was "michael" (bestowed by Ken
Thompson himself; if it had been Dennis Ritchie, it would have been
"mcb" right then, I guess[*]).  My first UUCP email address was
its!michael, which became its!mcb in about 1981, and through a zillion
accounts and jobs and Usenet and APRANET and MILNET and all that I've
been mcb ever since.

Places where I have to register as something else annoy me, and I
usually quickly forget what I've chosen and thus I write it down.  

[*] Some early UNIX lore: the fathers of UNIX at Bell Labs, Ken
Thompson and Dennis Ritchie, had the logins of "ken" and "dmr"
respectively.  Most early users chose their first name or initials
largely due to that, symbolically "followers of Ken" and "followers of
Dennis".  I've never met Dennis Ritchie, but I did know Ken Thompson
when he was visiting faculty at Berkeley in 1975 or so, but I ended up
with initials anyway.  Go figure.
  

    
I've been "betsys" since I had to fill out a library card in first
grade as Betsy S. When I moved to computers, I stayed with it. When I
got my first modem in the 80's , on FidoNET and other systems, I found
it awkward to use a female name. Many BBS's did not want fake names,
so I became "George Dorn" (after the character in the Illuminatus
Trilogy. I returned to "betsys" when I got my first Unix
account. What's funny is that I became a sysadmin and everyone at work
thought the handle was "bet-sys". My boss told me I *had* to take the
job because I already had the title.

There are a few other betsys's floating around the net. I'm "betsys99"
on quite a few systems and "betsys9999" on one or two. I think I'm
most of the "betsys99's" out there. But, most of the George Dorns are
not me.
  

    
I joined The Well as dexteriously, later shortened to dextly 
when I upgraded my membership.  I borrowed from Act I, scene v 
of Twelfth Night.

---

CLOWN: Wit, and 't be thy will, put me into good fooling! Those wits
that think they have thee do very oft prove fools; and I, that am  
sure I lack thee, may pass for a wise man: for what says Quinapalus?
'Better a witty fool than a foolish wit.'  
 
[Enter LADY OLIVIA with MALVOLIO.]   
 
God bless thee, lady!  
 
OLIVIA: Take the fool away.  
 
CLOWN: Do you not hear, fellows? Take away the lady.  
 
OLIVIA: Go to, you're a dry fool; I'll no more of you: besides, you
grow dishonest.  
 
CLOWN: Two faults, madonna, that drink and good counsel will amend;
for, give the dry fool drink, then is the fool not dry: bid the  
dishonest man mend himself; if he mend, he is no longer  
dishonest; if he cannot, let the botcher mend him. Any thing   
that's mended is but patch'd; virtue that transgresses is but  
patch'd with sin; and sin that amends is but patch'd with virtue.  
If that this simple syllogism will serve, so; if it will not,  
what remedy? As there is no true cuckold but calamity, so  
beauty's a flower. The lady bade take away the fool; therefore, I 
say again, take her away.  
 
OLIVIA: Sir, I bade them take away you.  
 
CLOWN: Misprision in the highest degree! Lady, cucullus non facit  
monachum; that's as much to say as I wear not motley in my brain.  
Good madonna, give me leave to prove you a fool.  
 
OLIVIA: Can you do it?  
  
CLOWN: Dexteriously, good madonna. 
 
  

    

I always wondered where Wally's login came from specifically.  Thanks for
the explanation!
  

    

When I joined the Well, "Sherry" was already taken and using my initials,
SET, well...  as a pagan, I thought that'd be *asking* for trouble!  I'd
been part of a medievalist organization as a young adult, and my name there
was Isadora, shortened to Izzie.  Lots of people knew me as Izzie, and so I
tried it as a userid.  I wasn't suprised at the time that it wasn't taken,
but seeing the permutations of the name on various other internet things
over the years, I'm surprised by it now!

I did, however, take the extra email account <sherry@well.com> as soon as I
saw the name become available.

Izzie went from being a nickname as a medievalist to being a full fledged
userID, and now I think most perns just think of me as Izzie.  which is
fine.

About using intials...  a long time ago now, I tried emailing <jbk> and it
went to someone with similar-enough-to-be-typo'd initials.  I was *very*
embarrassed!  And I've seen/heard/read people confusing poor <jbk> with
other perns with similar initials.
  

    
I'm still getting jonj and jonl confused after all this time.

And I have wondered for sometime why there was a "well" in "wellelp." 

Me, well, I kinda rush into things sometimes. Plus pellmell@well scans.