Who is Hahleq?
Both of you that read this blog thus far may be wondering what the picture in the upper right corner is, as it obviously isn’t a picture of me. Also to the right in the Blogroll you’ll see a link to “Hahleq’s Hideout”, a web page of mine that generally is neglected, but does provide a few links to other interests of mine. The picture of “me” is actually the picture I use associated with my Xbox Live persona. Basically, except for business communications, if you want to find me on any forum just look for me as “Hahleq”.
So the obvious answer to the question posed in this post’s title is, Hahleq is my online alter ego. So the next question is, why bring that into this forum? The answer should be obvious and transparent. This blog is about identity and Hahleq is one of my identities. I have used this identity online now for over 10 years. There a lot of people I frequently correspond with in various forums and across various interests that know “me” only as Hahleq.
Clearly, I’m not doing this to try and mask who I really am, as a couple quick links around and some use of Google would reveal that the “real world” identity of Hahleq is actually, Tim Renshaw. Interesting to think however, that for many of those who know me only as Hahleq, what would the revelation of my real name really gain them? What they think of me and how they relate to me is established by our historical interactions. We generally refer to this as reputation.Â
Sure, they might feel differently to find out my age, my career pursuit and background, my marital status, my geographic location, etc., but this is generally immaterial to the context in which I currently interface with them. These relationships range from very shallow to relatively in-depth. Of course, many of these folks also are known to me by their online nom de plume (sorry, as a blogger, I feel incented to occasionally use needlessly intellectual phraseology) or screen name. This is where the idea of anonymity comes into play.
I’m obviously not revealing any novel or earth shattering concepts here, but these concepts lie behind so many discussions I’m having lately across so many seemingly disparate online venues, that I need to put some of these thoughts on a page. Strong authentication, validated identity, reputation, anonymity, privacy, verifiable assertions, etc. across everything from the very business oriented forums such as online banking, brokerage, e-commerce payment, digital content controls to the seemingly less serious (that’s in the eye of the beholder or partaker, though, no?) community forums ranging from social networks of all types to online video gaming from the PC to the various consoles both handheld and in the home entertainment center. You can check out my thoughts on how important identity is for me, and I suspect for many others over at my purely gaming related blog at GameSpot in this particular post.
What are your various online identities and how do you view their value (i.e. why use an avatar)? Or do you forswear such schemes and use your real name everywhere? If so, why?