chaostitan said:
Glad to see you're not gone for good, Ian. But I'm going to ask a stupid question: couldn't Mac just change your username for you, without deleting the old account? Or are you trying to completely separate "Ian" from "Sean"?
I could have had Mac just change my username, but I realized that if people read other people's posts that quoted my old posts, they would be more apt to put two and two together and realize who I was. I am, in fact, trying to separate completely, like you said, 'Ian' from 'Sean'. The idea is that I want to write my posts using my newly-decided-upon pseudonym. This way I can hopefully separate my private life from my professional life. It's a decision I've been wanting to make for years; it's just that I have only now finally made the decision.
Besides, I never really knew what my pseudonym was going to be, before this morning. Because of this, I had no name to transfer to at an earlier, possibly more convenient, time.
And a quick aside to Maryn:
Nobody was cruel to me or anything like that. My decision was purely a professional one. Some recent events might have made me think harder about this idea, but I've been thinking about it for a very long time.
Thank you kindly, everyone, for your concern. I never thought, honestly, that my disappearance from the boards, even if it was only for a few hours, would cause such concern for me. I'm sorry if I scared anyone.