This is a terrific read. Who knew that the venerable ivory tower got its name as a result of a bar brawl!

This episode of the radio show Spark, from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, looks at online pseudonymity from a theoretical and practical point of view. It talks about why we may segment our identity online and offline identities, the shortcomings of 'real name policies' and demonstrates how reputation and credibility are actually created using pseudonymity.

What I took from this piece is that we view the digital identities of others and create our own based on how we perceive others and how we wish to be perceived and that's why I called my post "This is who I am to you". And as a result of our sophistication with multiple identities, we easily navigate pseudonymities them, and we are setting cultural and social norms based on them.

This episode of Spark on CBC is from September 2011.

Listen here from 27:25 to about 44:00 of Spark 115, segment titled Pseudonymity Online http://podcast.cbc.ca/mp3/podcasts/spark_20110918_54146.mp3