I do this every few years, mostly to no avail. I’m begging you. Please change your Cellartracker handles so we can tell who you are! Why? Because otherwise your notes are useless to everyone else. Let’s take two positive examples. Keith Levenberg and Loren Sonkin, both of whom use their real names. Two very different palates, but I can calibrate to them and if I see a note from one of them, there is a good chance that I will know how I will respond to the wine. I once even used a review by Keith while at a restaurant to select a wine from the wine list. We were at a Greek restaurant, the wine list was all Greek to me, so I pulled out my iPad and started looking up the wines on CT. Lots of useless drivel by unknown people who drink Yellowtail, but then I saw Keith’s review. I knew his palate, understood what he meant, decided we would like the wine, and I chose it. I was rewarded with a nice white wine from Greece with a grape, let alone a producer, that I had never even heard of.
You want to maintain confidentiality to the civilians and you don’t want to be searchable by the CIA? Fine. Use @ for an A, € for an E, ! For an I, 0 for an o and if the only vowel I you name is a U, I don’t care about your reviews anyway.
I changed mine years ago from Bestjetsfan to J@yh@ck and that seems to work. I lost none of my historical notes, all of which now show my new handle regardless of when I wrote them.
Agreed, Jay. I find most Cellartracker notes pretty much useless. Perhaps if one spent many hours there and sorted out who was who and could remember the bizarre handles, they would be helpful. But they aren’t now, with the exception of the few real names that I recognize - Keith, Salil, Jeremy and a few others. Of course, I recognize you, but we drink the same wine about once a year.
Great suggestion Jay! However, now that I know you’re a Jets fan I know your taste in football teams doesn’t match mine. I’m sure you have much better taste in wine though.
I’m with Alan - it’s just as easy for me to follow the notes from a handle as a name. If I know the person, I’ll know their handle. If I don’t know the person, then it doesn’t really matter to me whether it’s a name or handle. Sometimes handles are more distinctive and easier to remember anyway.
On the other hand, someone once accused me of being a secretly ITB based on CT notes from a person that wasn’t me, so I do see that there can be downside. I’ve been NYC_Maenad since the old Wine Commune Forums, though, and I’m not going to change it now, even though I no longer live in NYC!