Github names & avatars

[Jonathan M Davis via Digitalmars-d]

On Friday, May 13, 2016 22:34:08 H. S. Teoh via Digitalmars-d wrote:
> On Sat, May 14, 2016 at 08:09:51AM +0300, Andrei Alexandrescu via 
Digitalmars-d wrote:
> > On 5/14/16 12:01 AM, Meta wrote:
> > >So many careers have been lost over some flippant tweet or Github
> > >comment that complete anonymity is the only sane option, whenever
> > >possible.
> >
> > Could you bring some evidence or list a few anecdotes over the careers
> > lost over a tweet or github comment? Thx! -- Andrei
>
> Not sure how reliable this is, but a realtor friend of mine had a
> colleague who got fired from the realtor company because of a remark
> made IIRC on Facebook (or one of those social media things) about his
> personal values that somebody in power in the company didn't agree with.
>
> Not every employer cuts you slack the way we net-savvy people expect
> reasonable people would. Personally, I think this kind of occurrence is
> relatively rare, but still, it's very real.

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