Allyson, I agree to some extent, but my posts are my posts, so I reserve the right to style them as I like.

The name someone chooses for themself online is for all intents and purposes, you know, THEIR NAME.

This. Having been online for a very long time, I can assure you that my long-lasting online names are ones that I occasionally use when thinking of myself in third person, and answer to in real life.

Also, if I were to use my actual factual first name as a login anywhere (which I don't, on account of it being too uncommon), it's just the sort of name that people would assume wasn't a name, and might encase in scare quotes, causing me to go all ragetastic about it.

My various writing and posting names are a part of my identity, some more closely rooted in my everyday life than others, but they're all me.

I didn't think it was particularly scary/craxy so much as unbearably pretentious hyperbole.

I can see the pretentiousness, but really, most people who aren't hardcore fans aren't going to look at all the little things, and "Serenity/Curling/Underwater Basket Weaving is teh best thing EVAH!" seems to be a pretty common among fandoms, IME. Not saying it's a great post, just doesn't seem out of the ordinary to me.

As for online nicknames, I don't have an issue with them. While I'd prefer to be called by my real name in facespace, it doesn't bother me when people who've met me online call me Kalshane. It's just another name, much like my family calls me "Robert", my friends call me "Rob" and one of my best friends calls me "Bob" despite nearly two decades of protest. Beyond that, I have a very common first and last name. A vanity Google nets me hundreds of results, none of them me. Google my nick and you get nothing but me (okay mostly me. There's apparently a man from CA using that nick as well. Weird.) I'm Kalshane wherever I go on-line, (now, anyway. I did a couple different ones when I first hit the net) so it's as much a part of who I am as any version of my "real" name.

my posts are my posts, so I reserve the right to style them as I like

I'm an extreme case, but my name is my name, and it makes me all reservey too.

Heh. A vanity Google of firstname-legal lastname gets me online petitions from 1994 and some old, old, old BBS listings.

Oh, and like, two Usenet/mailing list posts from the same time period.

Oh, don't get me wrong, I'm not bothered by online nicknames being used online - that's the point of them, after all. Just in real life it seems, I don't know, a tad bizarre to me.

So I should stop calling shrift "shrift"?

Oh, don't get me wrong, I'm not bothered by online nicknames being used online - that's the point of them, after all. Just in real life it seems, I don't know, a tad bizarre to me

My online nicks have tended to be easier for people to spell and say than my real name.

And, occasionally, they've more closely resembled an actual name.

Just in real life it seems, I don't know, a tad bizarre to me

Whedonesque's not real life. Well, not realer than here, anyway.

We'll end up on fandom wank at this rate over quote marks.

ETA: Yeah, but I consider Whedonesque a little more visible. Hence, more formal. Or something.