/////////////////////////// changed my mind

I try to stay anonymous but after posting for a long time, I don't have that luxury. Anyone can find out anything, if they want to.

Since I don't post anything inflammatory and always stand by what I say, I am not too concerned. I have met several people from the forum and everyone is a reasonable person.

They are those who want to stay anonymous as they post things they wouldn't say to a persons face under the proviso "they only speak the truth". Some have said that some of us have rose colored glasses about TV and wouldn't know the truth, unless, it hit us in the face.

I agree that we disagee, respectfully.

My internet identity looks a lot better than it did 13 years ago. You should have seen it then. I had a particularly nasty cybersmearer/cyberstalker from 2002 through 2006 or so who had declared war on me for that period. I tried the FBI, the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office and the Chesterfield County Sheriff's Office (Virginia) to stop him but it went on-and-on. They knew him well it seemed at the Chesterfield County Sheriff's Office as he was a defendant in some white collar and sexual harassment cases and always insisted on defending himself in these. We met on Findlaw where I tried to help him out back in 2002 but I did not figure out he was the man cyberstalking/cybersmearing me until 2004 or so. He used many names on there including mine. I could never figure out who hated me that much with the constant personal attacks. It turns out he was upset with me because I could not find him just the right case to get him off his white collar criminal case. Go figure.

He has not shown up on the Internet since 2008.

I am pretty sure I was not his only long term victim as he seemed to really enjoy himself and was extremely good at saying just the right thing to make me more and more upset.

At least, the wild wild west of the internet has been tamed except on Topix.com where you still see that kind of free speech at its worst.

Facebook is very good at allowing you to delete stuff posted against you and you can report stuff that is trolling or worse quite easily.

TOTV does a good job of moderating this forum and keeping the personal attacks to a minimum and does seem to take serious trolling as something to stop.

I don't worry much about it. A lot of people around the Villages know me and anyone who is a friend of mine on or off facebook, pretty much knows my life. I drink, I like to party, we travel a lot, I don't cook, hate cleaning house, love animals and they have my e-mail, phone number & know where I live.
All in all, I'm fun, but, otherwise, pretty boring. :D

You sound fun not boring.

There are many years when I longed for not having such a colorful Internet identity. But the 224 613 Journey has not allowed that all that much and the computer was often the only resource I had to get my work out there. That and hundreds of thousands of e-mails and maybe a thousand letters and/or packages. It also does not allow me to be all that anonymous. I do think that fighting to empower survivors/victims of various kinds of crimes through giving them access to practical information is a very worthwhile cause or I would not have been working on it off-and-on since January 1991. I did inform the Sumter County Sheriff's Office that I was here around November 2005 after our move from Palm Harbor, Florida in June of 2005. I was worried about the Chesterfield County, VA cyberstalker/cybersmearer so just touched base-- so to speak-- with the Sumter County Sheriff's Office. I decided not to be a pest though like I had been with the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office which probably had put me in the fruitcake file. I know some people still do that anyway.

I still get pot shots taken at me on Topix.com but just see them as going with the work that I do. Part of my Internet identity and not worth any worry.

That's a great service you are providing to help people !! :)

I choose anonymity to avoid embarrassing my dear wife.

/////////////////

Remember if you use your name as some news sites require your comment and name will be permanently indexed in the search engines.