Things like pictures of me (dressed, obviously), my height, weight, age and first name I'm fine with posting.
Yep, that's me too.
I'm a believer than most people on the internet are just... normal people much like in real life. The risks are similar to getting to know some random person you met somewhere in real life and getting to know a person you met on the internet. It IS riskier, but that only depends on where you go. As in real life, the internet has seedy places and seedy people that you can weed out from the rest. If those places are avoided, the chances of danger in my opinion are low. There's still a certain element of risk not found in real life, of course. But it's still a low chance. I think media just instilled this risk in peoples' heads due to sensationalism.
Most people probably don't give a crap where you live anyway. I mean, you're just some random person on the internet. Not a celebrity, not anything special. So why would someone come barging to your house anyway?
Despite knowing this, I typically only go so far as to tell people the general area (such as state) that I live in and don't say any more than that. I'm still paranoid.
I'm basically uncomfortable about any sort of talking with people, so it's hard for me to ascertain when "enough is enough" so to speak. When is it being legitimately cautious and just being paranoid, that is. But at the same time, I like to satiate peoples' curiosity. So I try to be moderate between the two.
However, I won't give out things like addresses or phone numbers unless we have been talking to each other for several years or I feel that you are trustworthy. (One way to gain my trust is in a webcam chat. I refuse to give them out unless I see you moving around like a real person and speaking as normal. On occasion, voice chats will suffice too. I've actually made people do these with me even if we've been talking for a while just to be sure) I've only given out my address to... seven people. Out of those seven, I am only still in contact with two. (One of them actually has come to live with me, so the point is moot now. :P) But the others have respectfully not come to my door, sent me spam, or called me up again when we ceased our relations. So I think I have good judgement when it comes to this.
