Primarily due to the increasing need to stay safe online. When we first launched SF the real name policy did indeed establish a more courteous discourse as users in those days could simply sign up with multiple sock puppet accounts and generally ‘troll and go’ as they pleased. We have much more sophisticated software avaiable to us now so that is no longer neccesary for that reason at least.
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I judge people by the company they keep, so I guess I do.
I think there’s a big difference between say the likes of PA’s continued friendship with Epstein compared to Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos having dinner with him as part of a group of wealthy businessmen in the early 2000’s before Epstein was charged.
When I first signed up here I was surprised at the requirement to provide real names to be used on a public site, but was not that concerned and, after a while came to appreciate the friendliness that acknowledging people by name engendered.
So, although I raise no objections as there appears to be a good reason (what is a ptf btw? 
), I find it sad that I can’t now always identify who I am talking to. A shame, no more than that. 
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I’ve sent you a pm.
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Thank you, 
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Can I archive my posts on survivefrance?
I don’t think there is a user option for this in Discourse but the site administrators probably have tools available to them to archive posts.
That said, your Activity in your Profile does list all your posts and there is a function to Download All:
Clicking on the option will ask you to confirm the action before proceeding to do so and dependant upon the level of your activity make take up quite some space. I haven’t done it but I would guess it ask you where you wnt to place the archive.
And at least this thread has nudged me into combining both name and pseudo and at the same time adding a profile photo. 
If anyone is interested, the gloomy looking old bugger is not me but my beloved Rottie, Boss, who was anything but gloomy, a gentle soul and great companion. He died at the age 12 and a half 18 months ago.
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To me, as I don’t know the people on forums from Adam, the real name means no more than a user name. If one is in employment, (I’m retired) I would think avoiding all social media, other than for mundane matters, should be avoided.
Isn’t that a contradiction in terms? Did you really mean to say “all social media […] should be avoided”…
Sorry to show my semantic tendancies 
I have been on here about a year and have had many discussions with different people all of whom are in my memory by their real names. I paid no attention to their pseudos so now that those have almost all disappeared it will take me some time to work out who’s who all over again.
For me it’s merely that much easier to recall that Thomas is the one who knows a lot about cars, and Sarah lives in the Charente, than Pink Flowerpot or Radish. With familiar names I can picture the person (rightly or wrongly) so Thomas might twirl a moustache, but what would Radish look like?
I’m sure we’ll get used to it!
Quite different to a wtf - but a similar reaction to recent events!
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Depending on when it was it might have been me doing the suing 
Hello,
My user name comes up on your site as “Tony Perla”, which is indeed my name. Does it need changing?
If so, just use this name: LeRicain
With regards, Tony PERLA
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It is up to you if you want to change it.
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If you want to change it but not sure how to then say so and there will be help at hand…
Hi @LeRicain there is no need to change your username unless you wish to do so. In which case you can do it yourself or I can do it for you, just let me know. 
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I have just changed my profile picture away from my skiing version which must be 10 years old (and been profile picture for last 6 years!) - probably best not to change my username right now as with new photo & new username nobody would have a clue!
(new photo is from my recent ish 50th Birthday lunch out - but does actually show my face which skiing one did slightly dodge that requirement!)
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