On Google+, Posting publicly as requested

[sasha_feather]

I really want to love Google+. I like a lot of things about it-- the ease of use, the built in posting circles (filters), the photo uploader, and especially the hangouts feature, which prompted me to dig through a box of junk to find my never-used webcam and finally use it! I wanted G+ to replace Facebook, which I have little love for. I'm an early adopter and have provided a lot of feedback.

What I dislike is this business of disallowing pseudonyms. Friends of mine have had their accounts suspended. Other friends of mine are leaving voluntarily over this issue. For a while there, G+ was full of WisCon people and fanficcers and generally the people I want to spend time with. The brand power of Google means that more people will join. Now, people are leaving.

I have a very common legal name which protects me somewhat from stalkers and the like. Which makes me casual about using my given name and connecting it to my pseud. Most people don't have this privilege. Also, how do you even know what's a "real name"? It seems real? Shame on you, Google. Get with the 21st century. Haven't you read any cyberpunk?

Comments

[trouble]

The more I see this happen, the more I want to publicly talk about how Anna Pearce isn't my legal name, it just looks like one which always makes me safe, but we all know that the people being reported are being reported by griefers and fuck I am not up to going through any more of that.

[meloukhia]

That is one of the things about this that is really starting to piss me off; Google is acting like it can easily detect pseuds on the basis of what 'looks fake.'

[holyschist]

Facebook doesn't allow pseudonyms, either, it's just big enough that they're not good at enforcing it. So between the two, I still like G+ better. But...I want G+ to NOT MAKE THAT DAMN MISTAKE.

[sasha_feather]

I don't understand that, since lots of people have FB accounts for their dogs and cats. It seems to me that such usage is part of the appeal of FB.

[holyschist]

Oh yeah, and I know tons of people on there under their SCA names. I think the policy is a holdover from the early days of Facebook, when you had to have a college email address and your name had to match it--as I said, it's not enforced MUCH now due to scale, but there are still some nasty episodes, often with people whose names look "funny" (=non-European) or whose names happen to match with a celebrity.

Owl Goingback is an example of the former.

Policies like that are always incredibly random unless they require some kind of ID upon signup--and the people who get targeted are disproportionately those with non-European or otherwise "weird" names.

[holyoutlaw]

I have a Facebook friend named Thezombiefetus Stolemycarkeys. Meanwhile, Owl Goingback, a Native American author of Young Adult fiction, can't get an account.

[sasha_feather]

Owl Goingback, a Native American author of Young Adult fiction, can't get an account.

D:

[eggcrack]

I'm on Facebook so I guess I probably shouldn't have any complaints about Google+, but something about it just makes me really wary. Maybe it's because I use Gmail for both fannish and RL purposes and I really, REALLY don't want to risk the two getting mixed. My stress-handling capabilities are quite miserable already so I don't exactly want to give them extra work.

[sasha_feather]

That makes sense to me! It's weird to be using Google maps or whatever and see the little notifications thing there at the top.

[sophygurl]

Yea, I actually personally have no issue connecting my real name and my internet id. But I think I'm going to wait and see if Google+ will change their policy on this before signing up with it because I think it's a messed up policy and I want to protest/boycott it.

Also, OMG, one more social networking site to keep up with? If suddenly everyone I care about on FB switched over, I'd make the move, too. But otherwise it seems unimportant to me. Which is also how I felt about DW. Since some of my friends were moving over, I wanted to at least make an account here so I could keep up with them - but unless Everyone moved over, LJ was/is still my home.

I suppose if G+ changes their pseudonym policy and I have a mix of folks staying on FB exclusively, staying on FB and moving to G+, and going on G+ only, I'll create my G+ account and keep up with both sites. But woe, I'm getting tired of adding more and more sites.

I still haven't quite figured out tumblr! heh

[sasha_feather]

Yeah, that makes sense! I've pretty well abandoned LJ but it's a tough choice for a lot of people.

[sasha_feather]

Ha, so, you might like this comic:
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/state_web_summer

[luinied]

I'm hoping that this was an instance of someone making some very poor decisions of what work is good to do on a Friday afternoon, and that pretty early this week we will see a revised policy that is not horrible to people who need or want pseudonyms. Because I was really feeling good about Google+ until this happened, and we so need a Facebook alternative that reasonable numbers of people actually use...