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

[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.