You can see a distinct division between people who evaluate others in terms of their “authority”, their official position in society, as opposed to those who evaluate others in terms of their actions and statements. This split is the primary distinction between conservative, authority and position oriented morality, and liberal , harm and fairness oriented morality. You can really see this played out in the various comments just on this post.

The source of trouble is more usually some half-cocked web page / news story which misunderstands and misquotes two sentences at random – and is then believed as written.

(If sports journalists behaved the way science journalists are required to, they’d be fired in a week.)

Consequently, if you’re a good enough friend of Joe to know his email address, just add that to your friends circle. My (still suspended) account has had several people “go live” on G+ since I last checked it a week or so ago, for example, because I added them by email address as soon as I got on G+.

tl;dr – don’t assume what’s true for you is true for others, and it would be nice if Google+ would support the diversity that exists in real life.

there are a whole bunch of reasons for pseudonymity centered around the
fact that scientist-bloggers aren’t professional writers. They’re
professional scientists. Often employed by older people who don’t
understand why they’d want to blog, or what the value is in doing that,
or who’d worry about how a subordinate’s blog will reflect on them.

One of the book series that I re-read many times when I was young was written by a famous science and science fiction writer, Paul French.  Oh, wait, he’s actually better known as Isaac Asimov.  But at the time, he didn’t want to have his more serious work tainted by fiction targeted at a different audience.

He also famously *tried* to publish a spoof scientific paper under a pseudonym, worried that it would damage him in his doctoral examination if it was taken badly.  It was thankfully taken in good humor, though they did make him sweat over it.

Long before blogging came to be, of course.  Everything old is new again.

Surely if it’s bad enough that the police are investigating threats
against some researchers, it’s bad enough that your excuse for posting
pseudonymously isn’t lame.

No, the reason why it is still lame is that presumably the researcher would still have to use his or her real name on the actual research paper which would presumably be the source of disgruntlement.

Part of being passionate about things like this is to not allow your deeply held desires about anonymity be subjected by your desire to be on the cool-kids social network.

I think that this is a case of power over verses power with. Do you have power over your friend Joe to force him to let you find him if YOU want to? Or do you have power with him to connect online in a way that you both agree to?

It should be up to Joe to decide how he is found, not up to you to.

Sounds like you haven’t tried to organize anything major in RL with your pseudonym friends.  It’s majorly distracting, particularly when you’re first going to a new place.

If Joe doesn’t want to be found, opening up a “social” networking site account sounds like a bad idea. Sorta like if you don’t want to be found, you get an unlisted number.

“When I go looking for my friend Joe online, I want to be able to find Joe, and know it’s Joe.”

It should be up to Joe to decide how he is found, not up to you to.

This isn’t about “posting with pseudonyms” — it’s about owning the right to present your identity as you desire and to who you desire.  A right that, barring criminal investigation, should not be infringed upon by government or corporations.  It doesn’t matter how lame or serious the reasons to do so actually are, it’s about having the right to do so.

On the rare occasion I post on Facebook, I post under my own name. That works quite well among my small circle of friends and family.

But I am also a gamer, and a longtime user of Usenet. On my newsgroups, and on the forums for the games I play, I post as The Beatnik, or some variation thereof. Those with whom I interact online, for the most part, would be confused should I start posting under my real name rather than my psuedonym. I experienced this for myself in the early days of G+, when a good portion of my time was spent peering intently at unfamiliar “real” names, and trying to discern which were friends, which were mere acquaintances, and which were spammers. The only names that were instantly familiar to me were the psuedonyms. Those names are now banned, their accounts abandoned, thanks to Google’s implementation of their policy.

So, for me, the policy has had the opposite of the originally stated intent.

But it shouldn’t be necessary for every scientist who wants to offer a voice of reason in public to risk social, physical or professional harm to do so.

They don’t have too, but I’m going to have less respect for somebody who doesn’t identify themselves, or expose their credentials.  At that point they have just as much authority as I do, on any topic they wish to expound upon.  My exposing their credentials I can double check who they are, and what their existing reputation is, rather than go through the long and exhaustive process of reading everything their pseudonym has published.

(Also G+ isn’t the only place to blog on the ‘net)

If Joe’s that much of a friend, you probably already know his favoured
pseudonym. If you don’t, then 1) see if he also has a real-life-name
network, 2) ask, or 3) he didn’t want you to, and the system is working
as he intended – keeping his online writing separate from his RL
friends.

That’s great for my very close friends, not so great for acquaintances I’ve lost contact with, people I’m casually connected with, or new friends.  It’s also confusing trying to remember yet another name for somebody when we as human beings are so poor at remembering one name.

That shows that not all scientist-bloggers need nyms. The article is about whether any need nyms, and if you check, it mentions a number of good reasons some might.

Yes, but the reasons given were pretty lame. It’s not as if bloggers using their real names shy away from controversial things that could potentially cause threats to themselves. Evolutionary biologists like Eisen and Coyne often deal with the wrath of creationists. Rosie Redfield publicly criticizes well-publicized but potentially flawed science such as the arsenic bacteria of Mono Lake. The fact that these scientists are willing to publicly speak out is exactly what we need more of. And, as a bonus, if you don’t use a nym, you don’t have to worry about people threatening to “expose” you by figuring out your real name.

If “real” names are required online, and you’re assuming “Joe” is his real name. Did you ask for a government-issued ID?

Google+ asks that you use the name you are commonly known by; for some of us, that isn’t the name on our birth certificate or ID. I’ve been going by Ysengrin for over thirty years. That’s how people are going to be looking for me.

Why I keep it up: 

-My real name is unique, and I am protective of it.
-The less data attached to me, the better. Cross
-When you get right down to it, I’m not at all hard to find in real life. Make some effort, will ya?
 
If one’s livelihood compels someone to have an online presence (for example, our esteemed hosts here at BB), I think it is perfectly legit to have a nom de plume for that purpose.  

I hereby propose NICK: ‘Nym + Years + Consistency = Kudos.

The NICK theorem to refute the poisoned GIFT… ;-)