There is a good question specifically about StackExchange sites already but I would like to learn this about other sites as well.
In my specific case I started using one of my personal user names (which is known to my employer) on a developer forum. On that forum, I have written some posts which are work related but nothing which would clearly identify to other users the company or my real identity. However, I use the same user name on other development sites (e.g. Github, Sourceforge etc.) as well.
Part of my job is to contribute to the development of a piece of software and I found using the forum helpful for that. The software is only used inside our company so far.
Now my employer is considering to make this software open source on Github or a similar site. If we do this, we will post on that development forum about it.
In theory, I could use my personal Github account to put up the software but that seems like a bad move for several reasons (what happens if I leave the company, keeping the source code clean of my contact details like work email address, my name, the company, etc). Though it would naturally fit in with the already existing contributions I had made to the developer forum.
Therefore I am tempted to create another identity which is completely unrelated and which will I use only for this employer (and maybe only for this project)... are there other options?
To complicate things, my colleagues who also contribute to that software would also make changes to the Github project and participate in the development forum.
How do you deal with your online identities in a scenario where the personal and the professional suddenly start to overlap? Should the new user name identify me, the company, both or none? Or should we create a single company account for this project?