I've hung out in the stores board off and on for years. There really is a lot to learn on there.
It's usually a safe place to use your real seller ID, and can result in extra sales when you do. But other ebay forums can be brutal and I definitely recommend a posting ID for those.
Ebay didn't used to restrict posts in the forums and there were a lot of upset people when it started. And a lot of recipe purchases, from my understanding.
All you need to set up a buying or posting ID is a separate email address. Either a separate one from your ISP, or a web-based email address and a credit card. I highly recommend having more than one ebay ID... it is especially good to have if you are purchasing items for resale on ebay.