Much of the Mudcat preoccupation with identity is based in the desire to get to know, to some extent, others who post here. Not everyone who comes here sees that as attainable or important.

Unless acquaintance is established through personal contact, or unless posters know each other offline, or unless names used in the outside world or other identifying facts are shared, posters are known to one another only by user names. So all the pretensiousness about giving names often comes across as bizarrely incongruous with prevailing concepts within the Internet universe.