You are wrong. These terms (and the definitions steveklabnik gave) are very important in sociology, and were coined in large part by sociologists looking for a way to describe social phenomenon that they'd observed.
We've used them in the vernacular (which is the dictionary definition) to describe individual offenses, but when sociologists and academics use them (the field the terms came out of), it is very useful to describe a power structure and things that happen within that power structure.
I'm sad to see that steveklabnik has been downvoted so much on this board for saying something that is so very correct.
No, they are very important to sociologists who also happen to be into women's studies. Pretending all sociologists go along with that is dishonest.
>and were coined in large part by sociologists looking for a way to describe social phenomenon that they'd observed.
No they were not, see the rest of the thread.
>but when sociologists and academics use them
Which is relevant to lay-persons using them here on this forum and then being told they are wrong when they are not wrong?
>I'm sad to see that steveklabnik has been downvoted so much on this board for saying something that is so very correct.
I suspect the downvotes were more due to the way he told people their correct use of a term is incorrect, simply because there is a second correct use of that term.
"which is why I simply flag all LinkedIn emails as Spam...."
That's really not what the "spam" button is for, and you probably know that. You most certainly could turn those emails off - just go to email settings and click "introductions only". There's even a link at the bottom of each email to adjust your settings.
Don't make it more likely that my LinkedIn messages get marked as spam through Spamhaus or gmail algorithms just because you don't want to click twice to unsubscribe or prove some kind of hate-point.
(source: used to take care of an opt-in service's email spam rankings and had tons of people not use the "easy unsubscribe", and others angry they couldn't get their expected/important notifications sometimes when it got sent to a spam folder)
The problem is that they keep expanding the list of emails and auto-subscribing everyone to each new one. So LinkedIn really is behaving like a bad-faith spammer. And when I click the "unsubscribe" link in the email, I don't get one-click unsubscribed, but instead it just dumps me on the "user preferences" page, then I have to hunt for the email settings and the specific box to uncheck.
The thing that infuriates me the most is when they send me a "reminder" email about an invitation I've already ignored. It's like they expect me to immediately log in and immediately respond to every piece of recruiter spam and "connection request" from people I don't know.
Dear LinkedIn: If I'm ignoring an "invitation", it's because I don't care about it, and I'll just click the "decline" button the next time I happen to log in. I don't want the "invitation reminder" emails, and there is no setting that I can find to unsubscribe from the "reminders".
I don't know if it's still like this, but I actually went through a ton of trouble trying to unsubscribe from LinkedIn emails. I dug through all the preferences and unchecked all the email notification boxes, but the LinkedIn emails kept coming. After googling I found that I wasn't alone in having this problem, as if it were some kind of bug or something.
At this point, I gave up and started marking all LinkedIn emails as spam.
This all happened a while ago, so they may have fixed it by now. But quite frankly, I don't care. I would delete my account, but many legitimate companies I've interviewed with specifically ask for my LinkedIn profile to keep in touch. It's kind of annoying.
I've been using careers.stackoverflow.com as an alternative for an online resume, but it's unexpected to potential employers.
Any email that violates the CAN-SPAM act - as LinkedIn's messaging does - I mark as spam. When I can unsubscribe from their emails with one click and no login-wall as they're legally required to allow, I will stop doing this.
I'm sorry if it hurts your experience, but they absolutely deserved to be punished for their flagrant disregard of the law. When they realize that their abusive email tactics actually hurt their users, maybe they'll stop - and then we'll all be better off.
Give all the discussion regarding usability and user experience on HN I find this post baffling.
Why would anyone go through 5 steps and 15 clicks when 1 click achieves the same goal? Do you really expect users to consider and care about the side effect?
It has happened to me - I lost everything, calendar, email, g+ (which I had not ever updated and had no ToS violations on), absolutely everything.
In the next two days I googled (yes, I did) for answers while receiving automated messages that seemed to indicate I was never getting my accounts back (submitted the form they asked me to, but nothing came of it).
I lost my appointments, contacts, and had business people doubt my veracity, as I'd just given my gmail to several new contacts and their initial emails all bounced.
If I hadn't had multiple friends inside of google I might never have gotten my accounts back, and I heard they weren't even sure what exactly happened other than a confluence of events. I then learned how very very common it is to lose a google account and never know why, and never be able get back anything on them (family pictures, phone numbers stored in contact lists...)
I'm now mostly divested from google and the things I still have there I now have backups and redundancies for.
Your mother didn't have multiple friends inside Google.
This is the story we hear again and again - you CAN get customer service from Google if you have contacts inside or you can raise a big stink at some forum that Googlers read.
Confirmed. When I say Google supplied me with the single worst customer service I've ever had, I do mean customer. Not user. Customer.
e.g. "24/7 Support" meant I was free to sent them an e-mail anytime, day or night. Or I could call the 800 line and leave a message ("Calls are usually returned within two business days!").
When I did get through this way, I had to run a gauntlet to convince the asshole (and he was an asshole) that I'd exhausted every imaginable self service option before having the audacity to call for help directly - even though this was the exact service I was paying for.
Seriously, you'd think I'd called 911 to report that I was running out of milk and eggs. In reality, my accounts had vanished completely. Business accounts, I might add. Not that it mattered to Google.
Like an earlier commenter noted - if you use Google for anything that matters, you'll probably be okay. After all, the odds are in your favor. But if you do get screwed, you get screwed completely, suddenly, and without warning. And that's true of customers and users alike.
Lawsuit for what? Google's terms are set up such that "we algorithmically decide to provide you with nothing whatsoever in exchange for your money" is perfectly within their rights.
That's what I thought. When Google Apps for businesses came out I was interested in subscribing, so I asked their customer support about what migration paths they offer. I never heard back from them.
He's paying for Gmail+Docs storage, that's not the same as Google Apps for Business. If he were paying for Google Apps for Business then he has a 24/7 support phone number that he can call.
I'm only one, but as a woman - a woman in tech - I do not put my identity out in public. If I can't use a pseudonym I don't use a service or even RSVP to an event. Many tech events now require a Facebook RSVP; I just delete those invitations and don't attend.
I've had the creepy stalker thing happen to me and now anything requiring my legal name is a service/event/circle/platform I don't (and can't due to real safety concerns) use.
That was my initial feeling, and I continued to do what I did. After several years of it now, I'm tired. I'm tired of having someone at my door, showing up where I am, joining groups and communities I'm in, and friending my co-workers and vendors, sending notes to my employers, and so on.
They're doing nothing illegal these days (with one exception about four months ago), but when I surface it's always causing just one more thing to deal with.
Once I decided to actually use my privacy, it was refreshing. Aaaaah, the calm. Aaaah, the amount of freedom I felt going that first stretch of months without incidents.
Also, after dealing with this for just over four years it's pretty tiring to always be told that I'm the one who is doing something wrong.
I wasn't necessarily a "privacy advocate" before, but understand that viewpoint more and more.
It's kind of frustrating dealing with your vendor at Google who sends you a note saying "hey, I can't find you on g+ - let's use hangout" and saying something (nicely) like "yeah, I'm not on g+" and then leaving it at that.
Admittedly, I get somewhat cranky at all the questioning about my choices and my behavior and it's all I can do not to respond "because g+ use is completely optional and no one is forcing me to use it, according to Eric Schmidt".
I give up the interaction with my friends, vendors, co-workers and potential friends, vendors, co-workers, etc. in return for lack of harassment and stalking. I'm not super-happy about it and it's not a perfect solution but don't feel I should have to justify it. Yet I did once again (* /em headdesk*).
If you ever get around it, you should share your stories and takeaways with the rest of the community. I've never realized that women in tech had to deal with all these issues on a daily basis. Raising awareness can only be good, right?
I'm unsure how to take your phrasing "never realized that women in tech had to deal with all these issues on a daily basis."
On any other board I would assume that phrase to be argumentative and patronizing, but HN people always seem to be earnest and helpful, so I will take it on face value.
Many people have that kind of issue. Most of them are women. Women exist in tech. :) It's just more frustrating and sort of ironic when you're the one working on the products.
Not sure there's anything I can add that danah boyd hasn't covered on her many privacy presentations or that wasn't already "done to death" during the past "women in tech" arguments on Techcrunch, HN, etc. If there's something new or revealing that I can think of I'll share it, though!
ETA: Also, I didn't bring it up during the g+ name controversy on HN because I honestly couldn't add anything new. The pros and cons of the policy are out there for everyone to read. I watched it go on and decided what was right for me, which is to not engage in that medium due to the way it works and the intentions (that is, that g+ is an "identity service").
I apologize if my reply sounded patronizing, I'm notorious for getting the wrong tone across the Internet.
What I had found interesting about your post was the level of detail of what you described. This clearly shows my ignorance of the subject. I was aware of the G+ pseudonym issue, but I imagined that the harassment was limited to your personal information being looked up on the Internet and certain people sending creepy / unwarranted messages to you online.
Again, I must have been very naive about this, but I didn't realize that women in tech with any level of Internet exposure had to continuously deal with stalkers in real life, following you home, to meetups, to your workplace and so on.. It's quite awful, borderline terrifying. I thought the harassment was mostly verbal and impersonal, still unacceptable obviously, but at least not nearly as dangerous as what you described.
Online and offline ("real life") are inextricably tied to each other, though, particularly where real-world identity is imposed in online (indexed/searchable/social networking) platforms. What starts online can lead offline and what starts "in real life" can continue online.
I've been a die-hard citizen of the internet for over 15 years, I know how to handle things. If you have a threat in real life call local law enforcement and show them. If you have issues with someone online, use the privacy tools at your disposal, don't escalate things with the person, make reports to the service you're using if the other person violates the terms of service, but don't cause a scene (because that's often exactly what they're looking for; they want to rattle you).
I believe after the first in-real-life police episode the other party realized that they could not do anything physical to me. The odds are low that I'm currently in danger of a physical assault (in my opinion).
But back in 2008, when the Huffington Post suddenly decided to index the name of everyone who contributed to any political campaign by first name, last name, middle initial, address, and employer, I did feel that I was under physical threat. Their intentions were noble; have transparency about where political dollars were coming from. What they ended up doing is making the entire first page of Google results for my name all of the information about me that someone who really wanted to hurt me would need. I sent in four requests asking for it to be removed, re-indexed with my street number or first name removed, anything, and let them know I felt I was in real-life danger... but I never got a response, so for a year the first result on my name in a Google result was a map to my house, neatly pre-expanded in the first result. I moved, and I will never contribute to another political campaign again, in order to have that never happen to me again.
The annoyances that one can make on another without actually violating a law or getting banned from a service are enormous. It's a quality-of-life issue.
When my employer gets a call from someone for a reference for me, is it that person or a legitimate reference? When I get a friend request on Facebook, LinkedIn, or somewhere I have an account, is it that person? Or someone sent by them to find out where I'm currently working or living or hanging out?
The worst is when they get a bit bi-polar and start contacting my acquaintances out of the blue and asking if I'm okay, saying they miss me, and telling them all about our history. That happened to me when Facebook decided one couldn't hide one's listed friends. Over a certain threshold of people around me getting that type of communication about me and perception of me is permanently tarnished. It's not fair, but it's true - people think that the person being harassed must have done something to deserve it, or are "just handling it wrong" or something. It hurts my reputation, which impacts my ability to network effectively. Also, it makes me sad.
I still get LinkedIn friend requests from people I don't know: for instance, a college student from two states away. Is that last year's intern whose name I don't remember, or someone sent by this person, and I spend an hour finding photos of them to be sure... not a dangerous situation, but why should I have to deal with this until one of us dies? (Based on a follow-up Inmail, turned out to be someone sent by them, who thought that I'd welcome them putting the two of us "back in contact", ugh.)
I loved commenting at my local newspaper's website and a local online community blog/zine and had had an account/handle there for years. "In order to raise the quality of comments" they transitioned to Facebook commenting, so I don't do that anymore.
Based on advice from a psychologist, I left our old mutual acquaintances who didn't know the situation on my Facebook friends list back while things were still scary. Better to just stay status-quo than to provoke a reaction with a de-friending where you might cause more problems by having to explain to someone else the whole deal who isn't even aware there is a situation.
I actually was able to use Facebook with custom filters for updates, closing my wall, going to "just me" for every visible setting. But then Facebook came out with a new notification that randomly and without prompting posts a notice on your friend's activity feed that you're playing a certain game or using a certain app; there is no option to set that to a filter and I had no idea it was going to happen.
When that fired off without my knowledge I woke up the next morning to a bunch of comments (from mutual acquaintances who hadn't seen an update from me in two years) asking me where I'd been. The friend requests and attempts to locate me resumed, so I assume some of them asked around and let this person know they'd seen activity from me on Facebook so I must be using it.
If I stay un-searchable and off of "real name" social networks they seem to lose interest. I go about my life freely and don't even think about it for weeks at a time. When I surface, or my name shows up somewhere things tend to escalate.
I love talking to people and being on the internet and am passionate about social media - so flying under the radar may never be possible for me without a real-life name change. It doesn't feel fair that I'd have to do that, though.
But even then, I wouldn't join a public industry circle under my legal name, or RSVP to a public event under it, now that I have had this learning experience.
Not because I'm physically afraid anymore, but because I do not want to have to explain away anything that person might say or do. I don't want to have to be harassed or concerned about harassment when all I want to do is talk about fantastic ideas with smart people.
I don't want strangers or acquaintances to know my email, phone number, general location, employer, or where I'm going to be at 6:00 on Thursday night. Like most people 20 years ago, those are things I share with my friends, not the world.
There's only been one "incident" this year, but it was a doozy. Maybe it will calm down for me, but only time will tell. Privacy is not dead, but some of the greatest parts of the internet are unusable to people who desire it.
Sorry to be so long-winded, but it felt important to give an accurate picture. Now, hopefully to transition to a lighter mood and ring in the New Year! Happy 2012 to you!
Thank you for sharing this...I was half-expecting a "What difference does it make if a HN participant is a male or female, we're all equal, right?" response to my question and I think your comments make a case for why gender-awareness is still an important thing to have.
Even if in cyberspace each gender were treated equally, in real life, that's not the case. And that's an issue we have to be aware of and vigilant in changing (for the better)...But we can't if there are virtually no women involved in our otherwise interesting and thoughtful discussions.
Your response reminded me of another article I just read recently about how prevalent Asperger's seems to around the high-tech crowd, especially among the male population. It's likely not the main cause for negative experiences such as yous, but I wonder if it still hasn't had a big impact.
We've used them in the vernacular (which is the dictionary definition) to describe individual offenses, but when sociologists and academics use them (the field the terms came out of), it is very useful to describe a power structure and things that happen within that power structure.
I'm sad to see that steveklabnik has been downvoted so much on this board for saying something that is so very correct.