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I registered with Quora using my legal name as documented on credit cards, my library card, my utilities bills and my drivers license. My account was blocked,

I registered with Quora using my legal name as documented on credit cards, my library card, my utilities bills and my drivers license. My account was blocked, and I was asked to register with my "proper" name. So far my replies have been ignored. So I've left.

Vivtek 16y ago
Your parents should have known not to name you "Rider". What were they thinking? It's bad enough you're saddled with the surname "Giraffes".
- RiderOfGiraffes 16y ago
  <grin> I should've known someone would make the comment. Oh no - wait - I did. But no, I didn't try to register with RiderOfGiraffes. That would just be silly.
- user24 16y ago
  > saddled...
- pyre 16y ago
  Giraffes isn't his surname. It's his hometown. ;-)
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
nika 16y ago
I registered with a completely fake name, though it sounds like a real name rather than a handle. I have to wonder about a mother who names her kid "Quora" anyway, and I would like to point out that Quora isn't giving us her last name, yet she demands that we give her ours? I learned my lesson with facebook, which promised privacy and then years later made the data public. That is the last site that got my real name. I've changed my name on facebook several times to completely obviously fake names, and while they claim that you have to use your real name and they claim to review them, no repercussions. I'm only keeping the account while I go back, and delete old status updates a few months at a time anyway. And really, no website actually needs it. Trying to fight it is silly, as there is no mechanism whereby you can authenticate identity online. Faxing a passport doesn't even work, unless the business is tied into the government network, and if it is, then other businesses are as well and fake passports become easier.
- yuhong 16y ago
  "I learned my lesson with facebook, which promised privacy and then years later made the data public." FYI, it is not that simple.
- rexf 16y ago
  > I registered with a completely fake name, though it sounds like a real name rather than a handle. This is why their real name policy is flawed. A real name that sounds fake gets flagged as fake. A fake name that sounds real does not get flagged. The process is completely subjective as to what sounds real. Requiring ID is one way to prove/disprove it, but checking scanned IDs does not scale well.
- T-hawk 16y ago
  > Trying to fight it is silly, as there is no mechanism whereby you can authenticate identity online. Handling fake names or other identifiers is like handling software piracy. You can't prevent it and technology can't prevent it. The pathological cases will do their thing anyway. The best you can do is make it sufficiently inconvenient that the bulk of users will simply go the legit route and the bulk of clowns will go away. Incurring some false positives is a cost, which Quora has chosen to bear. This is what government itself does for issuing its own IDs. They just have the power for "sufficiently inconvenient" to include criminal charges.
  - pyre 16y ago
    > Incurring some false positives is a cost, which Quora > has chosen to bear. The issue here is that you cannot claim to be an 'international' company just because anyone can sign up. If you discriminate against people whose names are 'weird' just because they don't conform to your cultural norms, then all you're doing is exposing your ignorance to the international community that you're hoping to embrace. Stating that Quora is 'open to entire world, so long as they conform to American cultural ideals' is just confirming that stereotype of the American business man that shows up in a foreign country to do business, expects everything to work like it does in America and views all local culture/customs to be 'inferior' because things work so much better in America. On top of that Quora doesn't seem to even have a consistent policy, or so it appears from their communications. The first 'your name appears to be fake' communication implies that the user just needs to say, "Yup, that's my real name," and all will be well. The further communications relay the message that once you've been determined to be 'fake' you need to provide a government id.
jackowayed 16y ago
Related idea I got: one "easy" (nonmanual, not super-invasive) way for them verify names would be to do a credit card verification, which would verify that they had a credit card in that name. But people probably wouldn't be too keen to give their credit card info to a free site just for "name verification".
- hkuo 16y ago
  This works for people with credit cards, but there would need to be another layer for people without credit cards.
- bkmartin 16y ago
  People do it for "free" prOn sites all the time for "age" verification purposes. If the perceived value is there, then people will do it.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- gergles 16y ago
  Credit cards don't verify names anyway, it's not even an option to get back from the authorization network. You can use a credit card to verify addresses, but not names.
- sidek 16y ago
  Three words: Gift credit cards.
  - jackowayed 16y ago
    But most people aren't dedicated enough to trolling to get a gift credit card so they can verify the fake name they want to troll with.
  - ja2ke 16y ago
    Given that my name is "Valued Customer," that influx of gift card users would probably fuck my chances of ever getting a validated Quora account.

Vivtek 16y ago

Your parents should have known not to name you "Rider". What were they thinking? It's bad enough you're saddled with the surname "Giraffes".

RiderOfGiraffes 16y ago
<grin> I should've known someone would make the comment. Oh no - wait - I did. But no, I didn't try to register with RiderOfGiraffes. That would just be silly.
user24 16y ago
> saddled...
pyre 16y ago
Giraffes isn't his surname. It's his hometown. ;-)

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

nika 16y ago

I registered with a completely fake name, though it sounds like a real name rather than a handle. I have to wonder about a mother who names her kid "Quora" anyway, and I would like to point out that Quora isn't giving us her last name, yet she demands that we give her ours? I learned my lesson with facebook, which promised privacy and then years later made the data public. That is the last site that got my real name. I've changed my name on facebook several times to completely obviously fake names, and while they claim that you have to use your real name and they claim to review them, no repercussions. I'm only keeping the account while I go back, and delete old status updates a few months at a time anyway. And really, no website actually needs it. Trying to fight it is silly, as there is no mechanism whereby you can authenticate identity online. Faxing a passport doesn't even work, unless the business is tied into the government network, and if it is, then other businesses are as well and fake passports become easier.

yuhong 16y ago
"I learned my lesson with facebook, which promised privacy and then years later made the data public." FYI, it is not that simple.
rexf 16y ago
> I registered with a completely fake name, though it sounds like a real name rather than a handle. This is why their real name policy is flawed. A real name that sounds fake gets flagged as fake. A fake name that sounds real does not get flagged. The process is completely subjective as to what sounds real. Requiring ID is one way to prove/disprove it, but checking scanned IDs does not scale well.
T-hawk 16y ago
> Trying to fight it is silly, as there is no mechanism whereby you can authenticate identity online. Handling fake names or other identifiers is like handling software piracy. You can't prevent it and technology can't prevent it. The pathological cases will do their thing anyway. The best you can do is make it sufficiently inconvenient that the bulk of users will simply go the legit route and the bulk of clowns will go away. Incurring some false positives is a cost, which Quora has chosen to bear. This is what government itself does for issuing its own IDs. They just have the power for "sufficiently inconvenient" to include criminal charges.
- pyre 16y ago
  > Incurring some false positives is a cost, which Quora > has chosen to bear. The issue here is that you cannot claim to be an 'international' company just because anyone can sign up. If you discriminate against people whose names are 'weird' just because they don't conform to your cultural norms, then all you're doing is exposing your ignorance to the international community that you're hoping to embrace. Stating that Quora is 'open to entire world, so long as they conform to American cultural ideals' is just confirming that stereotype of the American business man that shows up in a foreign country to do business, expects everything to work like it does in America and views all local culture/customs to be 'inferior' because things work so much better in America. On top of that Quora doesn't seem to even have a consistent policy, or so it appears from their communications. The first 'your name appears to be fake' communication implies that the user just needs to say, "Yup, that's my real name," and all will be well. The further communications relay the message that once you've been determined to be 'fake' you need to provide a government id.

jackowayed 16y ago

Related idea I got: one "easy" (nonmanual, not super-invasive) way for them verify names would be to do a credit card verification, which would verify that they had a credit card in that name. But people probably wouldn't be too keen to give their credit card info to a free site just for "name verification".

hkuo 16y ago
This works for people with credit cards, but there would need to be another layer for people without credit cards.
bkmartin 16y ago
People do it for "free" prOn sites all the time for "age" verification purposes. If the perceived value is there, then people will do it.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
gergles 16y ago
Credit cards don't verify names anyway, it's not even an option to get back from the authorization network. You can use a credit card to verify addresses, but not names.
sidek 16y ago
Three words: Gift credit cards.
- jackowayed 16y ago
  But most people aren't dedicated enough to trolling to get a gift credit card so they can verify the fake name they want to troll with.
- ja2ke 16y ago
  Given that my name is "Valued Customer," that influx of gift card users would probably fuck my chances of ever getting a validated Quora account.