
Nym Wars (Google+ "real name" rules) - bigiain
http://www.jwz.org/blog/2011/08/nym-wars/
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cookiecaper
The proposition that "real names" significantly enhances a user experience is
a bit silly, I think. It may contribute in some small way as far as what
you're willing to admit, but generally it doesn't seem to change behavior a
lot.

The quality of commentary on a public comment platform has much more to do
with a given community's moderation and social mechanisms than the username
that appears above the comment. YouTube is a mess because it's a hit-and-run
system, there is no social obligation, you just type what you think about the
video and never look at it again. Additionally, YouTube has a short length
limit on comments precluding in-depth discussions, and YouTube's audience is
very varied and primarily non-specialized.

There are many public messaging systems online that have flourished and
maintain a high level of quality even though they allow pseudonyms. Hacker
News, for instance. I can think of five or six high-quality messaging systems
wherein I have actively participated off the top of my head that were not
flooded with YouTube-esque idiocy -- the name policy really has very little to
do with it, I think.

Google+ is completely controlled by its users; you must explicitly accept any
author's content that you wish to view and you can block and explicitly reject
any author's content that rubs you the wrong way. It is a fundamentally
different model than YouTube. In this case, people are generally only going to
accept you into their circles if they know who you are at least vaguely,
whether the displayed name is "cookiecaper" or "Jeff Cook". I just don't see
the point in even having the argument regarding Google+ when it has to be
explicitly regulated by the user anyway. Facebook likewise.

I think the real motivation here on the part of both Google and Facebook is to
discourage the use of multiple identities so that it's easier to target
advertising.

Pseudonymity is still possible, though, so I'm still not sure why this is such
a major deal, because you can just go create a Google Account with whatever
plausible name you can dream up. You can then reveal your identity to the
persons you'd like and everyone else knows you as generic John Smith. In fact,
I do this on Facebook, and I presume that many others with an interest in
pseudonymity do so as well.

~~~
wisty
No, I think it's that real names are bad for privacy, but friends can find you
more easily using your real name. Google+ doesn't suffer much if you damage
your career using a real name, but it does suffer if your friends don't find
you and so you go back to facebook.

~~~
rimantas
Posting things you want to keep private on the internet is bad for privacy.
Real neames are not.

~~~
sesqu
Privacy is about as binary as security - that is, not at all.

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gambler
The notion that using "real names" improves the quality of communication is
not just wrong, it's utterly ridiculous. What it impels is that the (best?
fastest? surest?) way get "better" conversations is to make sure that everyone
is afraid of some sort of retribution for what they say. As far as I can see,
that is the _only_ thing "real names" achieve. After that, you can coat it any
rhetoric you want, it still remain an ugly idea.

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Joakal
Google's handling is pretty cold. They encountered a critical issue with
having a social [human] network, their support isn't human.

They prefer automation over everything. And that aim will keep biting them in
the ass.

~~~
jrockway
I'm not so sure. Look at all the companies that have non-automated support:
Best Buy, Comcast, Bank of America, and so on. Nobody likes those companies
either.

Ultimately, being nice to people doesn't scale. And making money requires
scaling.

~~~
Joakal
What are you not sure about?

~~~
jrockway
_They prefer automation over everything. And that aim will keep biting them in
the ass._

The other companies people hate don't automate anything. But everyone still
hates them.

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wccrawford
I had a feeling the policing of this was stupid, but I didn't think it would
be downright incompetent. If you can't police a policy properly, don't have it
in the first place! Especially one that serves no real purpose and incites so
much anger. Jeez.

~~~
yanw
Any anger here is manufactured. It's just a way for social-media types to
publicize their social web theories.

~~~
sixtofour
Yes, my account is scheduled for suspension tomorrow, for attempting to use my
real "wallet name," which happens to be a mononym. I'm angry. I'm particularly
angry at their oily statement that I don't "comply" and that I'm free to
leave. Google has manufactured that anger.

~~~
yanw
The knowledge that it is still a beta product should soften your anger, it's a
matter of tweaking the system it's nothing to be offended by.

~~~
sixtofour
And yet, I'm offended.

------
protomyth
"When the rebuttal to your argument is The Federalist Papers, generally that
means that you've lost the argument."

That is one of the golden lines of the article and so true. This quest for
better targeting of ads is painful.

Also, I cannot wait until some of the folks on the reservations start getting
flagged by Google. Many of the names people are know by violate Google's
naming policy.

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pasbesoin
Some of the best, most meaningful and informative "social" participation I've
had online has been with pseudonyms. And those people would not have been
there if not for the pseudonyms.

(People shared their real names if and as there were ready, and one-to-one.
I'm still in touch with many of them, a decade and more later.)

I'm not terribly interested in Google's (and Facebook's, et al.) seemingly
self-serving "speculation" on this topic. I'll base my opinion, and decisions,
on real experience.

Buzz. Wave. Get on the clue train, folks.

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sixtofour
To solve the perceived "quality" problem (and that perception is itself a
problem), Google has, true to form, relied on a technical barrier (must have
one and only one first name, one and only one last name). They have then all
but automated catching the ones that get through the barrier, by soliciting
users to report fakes. Whether they review those reports before notice to
suspend is an excellent question, one that Violet Blue has probably asked.
[https://plus.google.com/105822688186016123722/posts/LWySptwh...](https://plus.google.com/105822688186016123722/posts/LWySptwhW7g)

Google's monolithic lack of customer service is well known, and I believe it
starts with good intentions, trying to automate the management of the problem
as much as possible. The problem comes from believing too much in their
algorithms and automated solutions. They're all very smart, but their
solutions are not as smart as they think. Or, maybe they're even smarter than
I think, and they've gone the Pinto route and calculated that a certain amount
of customer "disasters" is relatively tolerable.

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alextp
About the McLovin ID thing, I don't think it's Google's responsability to
police which ids are fake and which are not. As far as I know faking an ID is
a misdemeanor or a felony in most US states [1] and some other countries (like
Brazil), so if there is any complaint against a reporter and he is found to
have submitted a fake ID he is in for a fine and maybe jail time. I'm
personally ok with requiring a user to commit a crime to cause antisocial
behavior, as this ensures that they can be prosecuted in some way (this is the
same principle behind DMCA takedown notices, where the person sending the
letter is liable for a number of crimes if they are not who they claim to be
or if they do not in fact own the right to the media at hand).

[1] <http://www.celticfringe.net/teenlife/fakeid.html> ) and

~~~
sp332
This isn't about liability. They already have common carrier status, which
means that they won't be held accountable for what users say. This is about
the kind of community they want to have. Unfortunately, by putting
restrictions on the kind of community they want, they have also restricted the
number of people who will be able to participate. Google+ can never be
universal if they limit the interactions people are allowed to have.

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gbog
I haven't seen anywhere noted that a significant part of humanity don't have
surnames, eg many Indonesians. How to enforce a real name-like policy under
these conditions?

~~~
shabble
Or the massive variation in transliteration from non-latin alphabets.

Not to mention, the vast majority of Chinese students I met at uni would pick
an easily pronounceable "English" name. I bet that's not on their passport.

~~~
gbog
Chinese people with English names: a bit off-topic but the current trend for
Chinese where I work and around (Beijing Web corps) is to avoid these English
names and use the pinyin translitteration or abbreviations instead, but this
also is a can of worms if one want to enforce real name policy. In the South
of China some people's family name is just "Ng", some legitimate
transliteration of a given name could be "nvzhi" where "i" is not a vowel but
"v" is! I which a good time for the humans or the bots that will have to
enforce real name policies there...

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yuhong
Personally, I am not for real name policies, but the problems with using real
names needs to be fixed if possible.

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Estragon
It's a shame that Google hasn't chosen to address this in the empirical
fashion they're famous for: why not have two google+'s for a while, one which
enforces the "real names" policy, and one which is free for all. See which
results in the better data.

~~~
FaceKicker
Because that wouldn't replicate a world in which either one existed as the
sole Google+...like, at all.

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yanw
It's nowhere near the big issue that the self-described activists think it is.

I'm certain the data suggests that using real names isn't a problem for the
vast majority of people but merely the obsession of the very loud and self-
righteous few, besides it's still a closed beta product and any such
criticisms don't apply until they say that it's ready and open for all.

~~~
sp332
Have you even looked at <http://my.nameis.me/> ? These aren't (just)
activists, these are individuals who are directly affected by this issue and
have many individual reasons for using pseudonyms. None of them are allowed to
participate in Google+.

~~~
michaelcampbell
Right. And? G+ isn't some right that Google is required to make available for
everyone.

Google's handling of this is a bit ham-fisted to be sure, but equally irksome
is the vitriolic entitlement mentality that a lot (not all) are bringing to
the discussion.

~~~
sp332
OK, the entitlement of people who are simultaneously claiming to be un-
privileged is annoying. But Google has global influence, so for them to
exclude a bunch of people seems strange. And they're really shooting
themselves in the foot. Because of the network effect, they've just made their
social network geometrically less valuable to the people in it, and less
attractive to anyone looking to join.

~~~
sixtofour
Not to mention loss of other google services. When my account is suspended
tomorrow, they tell me I will also lose access to Picasa and Reader. People
have lost access to gmail, although that is supposedly a bug (although I have
already moved all my mail to fastmail.fm).

To their credit, they gave me time (four days) to download my data, which I've
done.

And even if I don't lose access to gmail, who's to say that won't happen on
purpose in the near future? It's obvious that Google wants to leverage + as
much as possible.

What about ad sense? Google apps? Everything is potentially targeted for
pulling into the Plus system.

Finally, I've heard that beyond Picasa access, loss of your G+ profile
interferes with Android utility. I don't know specifically what, or even
_whether_ that's true.

~~~
sesqu
This linking of services is very irksome, and has driven me off of several.
Microsoft was there first, as usual, but Google is following in their
footsteps.

~~~
yanw
Other services aren't affected. Period.

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EGreg
Your site hurts my eyes

