Who was the real William Shakespeare?

I'll bet you're asking - Who do I think wrote those Plays? I have not yet made up my mind who the author is. Here's another post I wrote a while ago from BiblioHistoria.

I can tell you who I don't think it is, and that is Francis Bacon. If ciphers were the ONLY way one can determine an author, then all the authors determined by this method, IMO, would be faked. Some years ago, a book called "The Bible Code" was published. I briefly looked through it, but when I saw that several pages were nothing but number grids with certain numbers circled, I put the book down and have never read it to date. I have been of the mind that ciphers are not very accurate because one can make a cipher or a number grid read anything they want it to say. You can choose every second letter, every 3rd letter, every 5th or 15th letter, even every 22nd letter (or any other sequence you like) and you can make the cipher say whatever you want. I do not consider that to be scientific or accurate. The Case for Francis Bacon being the playwright depends on ciphers as proof.

Another Website about the Shakespeare authorship debate, has some interesting points on why de Vere/Oxford is not the author. Unfortunately, IMO there is insufficient proof to rule Oxford out despite this specific site saying that the proof was adequate. This site tends to accept that just because Oxford was not listed as being there, therefore he was NOT there.

As I have been told over and over again, you cannot prove a negative, and just because a persons name is not mentioned on a list - does NOT mean they were NOT there. A name on a list only proves that they were there - which is called positive proof.