

Google Surrenders in the Nymnwars - hornokplease
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/10/victory-google-surrenders-nymwars

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ellyagg
Why would EFF phrase it this way? Do we really need to make policy debates
into wars? This sort of gloating is not useful. Google did not make this
decision. People inside Google, subject to the same biases and ego defense
mechanisms as anyone else in the world, made this decision. If you really want
people to resist you at every turn, by all means, taunt people for agreeing
with you.

~~~
dredmorbius
It's called "nymwars" because ... that's what it's been called. If online
communities had a more Muslim bent, it might have been a jihad, whatever. It
was a struggle between ideologies over resources, and that's fundamentally
what a war is.

"Google" made this decision and by all appearances (see Eric Schmidt's
"identity service" comments) at the very most senior levels.

~~~
Permit
It seems rather polarizing. Instead of coming to an agreement through thought
and evidence based argument, calling things "wars" seems to suggest one should
pick a side and stick with it.

Promoting an opinion based on ideology alone is dangerous.

~~~
true_religion
> calling things "wars" seems to suggest one should pick a side and stick with
> it.

Italy during World War II?

~~~
dredmorbius
We have always been at war with Oceania.

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WiseWeasel
The "nymnwars" will still be waged as long as I do not have the option of
giving GOOGLE a pseudonym, not people in a given circle. The crux of the issue
is the ability to remain anonymous from Google and their advertising partners,
not my friends, who already know my real name.

~~~
rryan
You're a fool if you think you can remain anonymous today. Google products or
not. Real name or not.

~~~
slowpoke
And you're a fool if you think that the fact that there exists no "total
anonymity" (pretty much like there exists no uncrackable encryption) is an
argument against striving for a feasible level of protection of anonymity
rights.

It's not a question whether you can stay anonymous. It's a question of whether
you should be allowed to - which you should.

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thristian
This is promising, but I guess I should wait and see what Google actually
rolls out before I go and start adding content again.

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Zhenya
My theory was and will be that Google knew they would have to eventually allow
other name types. Meanwhile, everyone that was on the fence, relented and used
their real name.

Then when they eventually allow people to do whatever, they look like the good
guys.Google is a pro at suggesting data, before gmail everyone was
cutelolgirl17263@hotmail.com. Google made a fake gold rush to secure your real
name.

IMHO, if that's true, that's brilliant.

~~~
sp332
They've been saying for a while that pseudonyms were a "feature" that wasn't
yet supported in the early release. They've always planned to eventually allow
them. <http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2011/07/google-plus-pseudonyms.html>

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theDoug
JWZ: "EFF declares premature victory in Nymwars"

www.jwz.org/blog/2011/10/eff-declares-premature-victory-in-nymwars/

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tagawa
I wouldn't call this a surrender. Google seems to have bought some time to
enable it to come up with a workaround while being seen to be compliant.

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gentle
What? Let's see what they're going to roll out and then we can discuss
surrendering and capitulation. As of now all we have are rumors.

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mhd
Can we now agree to never again use that sad stump of a word?

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cletus
Google "surrendered" on this in the same way that the Sun eventually
"surrenders" to those at night calling for day.

~~~
pork
You seem to imply that it was inevitable. The big blue and white gorilla in
the room begs to differ. It certainly positions G+ slightly differently than
FB, but whether this is actually a competitive advantage is still to be seen.

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yanw
I recall them saying that pseudonyms would be allowed later on, I think this
is just "later on".

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suivix
It always seemed inconsistent to me that they would require real names on
Google+ but not on YouTube.

~~~
earl
In defense of google -- and I fully support anonymity -- youtube comments make
the btards look like friendly socially adjusted grownups.

~~~
kanamekun
So, so true.

From xkcd: "The internet has always had loud dumb people, but I've never seen
anything quite as bad as the people who comment on YouTube videos."

<http://xkcd.com/202/>

