5 ms·

Google [briefly] suspends Limor Fried's ("Ladyada") Google+ profile

34 points by another 15y ago

spicyj 15y ago
This article is written to sound like the suspension was due to blantant sexism, but there doesn't seem to be any reason to believe that. Almost certainly just a innocent misunderstanding.
- sp332 15y ago
  Sexism? She guessed it might be because of her nickname in quotes, or because the page talks more about her business than it does about her. But I don't see any claims of sexism.
netaddict 15y ago
The reason for suspension is probably the quotes in her name. A Google engineer on g+ posted that you should not have any special characters in your name to avoid getting suspended.
- tshtf 15y ago
  Then why does G+ allow you to have quotes in your name? This is absurd.
  - blhack 15y ago
    >Then why does G+ allow you to have quotes in your name? Because it's still in beta. >This is absurd. No it isn't.
    - asdkl234890 15y ago
      Yeah it kind of is. Google has a lot of resources. I still don't know if their strategy of long running public betas is marketing or a true inability to start with something much better then a beta version. If it's marketing this, quotes in your name stuff, is not funny. If it's a true inability to iterate and scale without a public beta, well they are not a start-up, it is kind of absurd.
      - blhack 15y ago
        They went from a few thousand to 10 Million users in about 30 days. Of course there are going to be little hickups like this. The problem is already fixed. How is that absurd?
- Matt_Cutts 15y ago
  "The reason for suspension is probably the quotes in her name." I think the profile previously said "Adafruit Industries." You can still see that name in Bing.
taken11 15y ago
funny that its still in googles cache: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:jiwjaQHd7HAJ:https://plus.google.com/108772200278976934119+Limor+%E2%80%9CLadyada%E2%80%9D+Fried&cd=13&hl=en&ct=clnk&source=www.google.com http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:jiwjaQH...
blhack 15y ago
She's prominent enough that I'm sure they'll reinstate it. Guys, it's a beta right now. This is why. Part of signing up for G+ at this time is volunteering to be a bug tester. She found a bug that where it allowed here to put quotes in her name, even though she's not supposed to.
- dsr_ 15y ago
  The problem is for all the people who are not prominent enough, but get nuked anyway. When people get special treatment because they are prominent, have a reputation, or have a posse, that's a problem. Often the problem is that the special treatment should not be special, but should be the usual case. I have at least four friends on G+ with this problem... which makes me suspect that the name/identity/pseudo problem is not merely a few special cases, but is in fact widespread.
- rjd 15y ago
  Pull the other one. Its a deliberate feature not a bug. Its to try and detect the use of pseudonyms (and fake profiles) and force people to use real identities. I 100% will not support another platform which does this. Its to important to the arts not to have pseudonyms.
vaksel 15y ago
I don't understand why everyone is giving Google a pass by saying they are in beta. A link didn't get broken, a photo didn't fail to load...instead an account was suspended intentionally. That has nothing to do with being a beta, and has everything to do with Google being a company that spits on its users. A company that actually cared about their users would just fix the error and edit the name or simply send a warning...instead Google goes for the kill shot each and every time. Crap like this is exactly why people should be wary of putting in the effort to switch over to Google plus...for all you know you might end up losing everything a few months later
- pyre 15y ago
  It's possible that while in Beta they are at a point where there are no clear policies or standard procedures. Or that such things are still very malleable while they figure things out.
  - vaksel 15y ago
    in what world is account suspension for having " " in your username justified? There should be nothing malleable about that
    - pyre 15y ago
      > There should be nothing malleable about that You're taking what I said to the worse possible extreme. (Personally, I think that says something about you, but I'll digress on that point) When I said malleable, I was saying that any standards/procedures currently in place could be changed to accommodate unforeseen consequences/fallout/whatever. In this example, a policy of "ban accounts with names that don't match m/^[a-zA-Z ]+*/" could be loosened when they ban someone that has a legitimate gripe, and realize the mistaken logic behind that policy. You shouldn't be spending so much time railing on them for the banning of an account so much as how they respond to it. Do they apologize and change policy? Do they backpedal, blame the account-holder, and leave the policy in place?
      - 15y ago
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
Matt_Cutts 15y ago
I just saw this and passed it on to the right folks in Google+. Added: Looks like it's back now. The field test is definitely helpful for finding corner cases that we can improve before rolling out more broadly. One small thing: If you do the query [site:plus.google.com ladyada] on Bing, it looks like Bing has an older version of the profile. The title for that search result is "Adafruit Industries - Google+" So my quick guess is that the name of "Adafruit Industries" might have been the issue. Either way, I'm glad that it's solved now.
- another 15y ago
  ... and now it's back. https://plus.google.com/u/0/108772200278976934119/about https://plus.google.com/u/0/108772200278976934119/about
- logic 15y ago
  Matt, can you suggest a strategy for dealing with Google support issues that doesn't involve "get Matt Cutt's attention on Hacker News"? I don't mean any snark with that question, for what it's worth, but I fear that you don't scale well. :)
  - jrockway 15y ago
    So far, it seems the occurrence rate is 1 user in 19,000,000 users. If everyone on Earth joined Google+, then there would be a grand total of 316 similar incidents. I think Matt will be able to handle that :)
  - Matt_Cutts 15y ago
    One thing that I love about Google+ is that a bunch of Google employees are feeling more comfortable interacting with the outside world. For example, it looks like Amanda Walker from Google stopped by Ladyada's blog and left a comment just before me with even better advice than I gave: http://www.adafruit.com/blog/2011/07/23/google-suspended-limor-fried-ladyada-google-profile-no-show-and-tell-tonight/#comment-22232 http://www.adafruit.com/blog/2011/07/23/google-suspended-lim... . Amanda pointed to the official way to appeal, and I believe that appeal would have gone through quickly. So I think the right thing would have happened in not that much more time.
fds4324 15y ago
Google+ is bullshit. We want something better than Facebook, but with Buzz and Google+, Google has shown they have even less respect for user privacy. I'm deleting my account and (pessimistically) crossing my fingers for Diaspora.

34 points by another 15y ago

This article is written to sound like the suspension was due to blantant sexism, but there doesn't seem to be any reason to believe that. Almost certainly just a innocent misunderstanding.

sp332 15y ago
Sexism? She guessed it might be because of her nickname in quotes, or because the page talks more about her business than it does about her. But I don't see any claims of sexism.

netaddict 15y ago

The reason for suspension is probably the quotes in her name. A Google engineer on g+ posted that you should not have any special characters in your name to avoid getting suspended.

tshtf 15y ago
Then why does G+ allow you to have quotes in your name? This is absurd.
- blhack 15y ago
  >Then why does G+ allow you to have quotes in your name? Because it's still in beta. >This is absurd. No it isn't.
  - asdkl234890 15y ago
    Yeah it kind of is. Google has a lot of resources. I still don't know if their strategy of long running public betas is marketing or a true inability to start with something much better then a beta version. If it's marketing this, quotes in your name stuff, is not funny. If it's a true inability to iterate and scale without a public beta, well they are not a start-up, it is kind of absurd.
    - blhack 15y ago
      They went from a few thousand to 10 Million users in about 30 days. Of course there are going to be little hickups like this. The problem is already fixed. How is that absurd?
Matt_Cutts 15y ago
"The reason for suspension is probably the quotes in her name." I think the profile previously said "Adafruit Industries." You can still see that name in Bing.

taken11 15y ago

funny that its still in googles cache: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:jiwjaQHd7HAJ:https://plus.google.com/108772200278976934119+Limor+%E2%80%9CLadyada%E2%80%9D+Fried&cd=13&hl=en&ct=clnk&source=www.google.com http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:jiwjaQH...

blhack 15y ago

She's prominent enough that I'm sure they'll reinstate it. Guys, it's a beta right now. This is why. Part of signing up for G+ at this time is volunteering to be a bug tester. She found a bug that where it allowed here to put quotes in her name, even though she's not supposed to.

dsr_ 15y ago
The problem is for all the people who are not prominent enough, but get nuked anyway. When people get special treatment because they are prominent, have a reputation, or have a posse, that's a problem. Often the problem is that the special treatment should not be special, but should be the usual case. I have at least four friends on G+ with this problem... which makes me suspect that the name/identity/pseudo problem is not merely a few special cases, but is in fact widespread.
rjd 15y ago
Pull the other one. Its a deliberate feature not a bug. Its to try and detect the use of pseudonyms (and fake profiles) and force people to use real identities. I 100% will not support another platform which does this. Its to important to the arts not to have pseudonyms.

vaksel 15y ago

I don't understand why everyone is giving Google a pass by saying they are in beta. A link didn't get broken, a photo didn't fail to load...instead an account was suspended intentionally. That has nothing to do with being a beta, and has everything to do with Google being a company that spits on its users. A company that actually cared about their users would just fix the error and edit the name or simply send a warning...instead Google goes for the kill shot each and every time. Crap like this is exactly why people should be wary of putting in the effort to switch over to Google plus...for all you know you might end up losing everything a few months later

pyre 15y ago
It's possible that while in Beta they are at a point where there are no clear policies or standard procedures. Or that such things are still very malleable while they figure things out.
- vaksel 15y ago
  in what world is account suspension for having " " in your username justified? There should be nothing malleable about that
  - pyre 15y ago
    > There should be nothing malleable about that You're taking what I said to the worse possible extreme. (Personally, I think that says something about you, but I'll digress on that point) When I said malleable, I was saying that any standards/procedures currently in place could be changed to accommodate unforeseen consequences/fallout/whatever. In this example, a policy of "ban accounts with names that don't match m/^[a-zA-Z ]+*/" could be loosened when they ban someone that has a legitimate gripe, and realize the mistaken logic behind that policy. You shouldn't be spending so much time railing on them for the banning of an account so much as how they respond to it. Do they apologize and change policy? Do they backpedal, blame the account-holder, and leave the policy in place?
    - 15y ago

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

Matt_Cutts 15y ago

I just saw this and passed it on to the right folks in Google+. Added: Looks like it's back now. The field test is definitely helpful for finding corner cases that we can improve before rolling out more broadly. One small thing: If you do the query [site:plus.google.com ladyada] on Bing, it looks like Bing has an older version of the profile. The title for that search result is "Adafruit Industries - Google+" So my quick guess is that the name of "Adafruit Industries" might have been the issue. Either way, I'm glad that it's solved now.

another 15y ago
... and now it's back. https://plus.google.com/u/0/108772200278976934119/about https://plus.google.com/u/0/108772200278976934119/about
logic 15y ago
Matt, can you suggest a strategy for dealing with Google support issues that doesn't involve "get Matt Cutt's attention on Hacker News"? I don't mean any snark with that question, for what it's worth, but I fear that you don't scale well. :)
- jrockway 15y ago
  So far, it seems the occurrence rate is 1 user in 19,000,000 users. If everyone on Earth joined Google+, then there would be a grand total of 316 similar incidents. I think Matt will be able to handle that :)
- Matt_Cutts 15y ago
  One thing that I love about Google+ is that a bunch of Google employees are feeling more comfortable interacting with the outside world. For example, it looks like Amanda Walker from Google stopped by Ladyada's blog and left a comment just before me with even better advice than I gave: http://www.adafruit.com/blog/2011/07/23/google-suspended-limor-fried-ladyada-google-profile-no-show-and-tell-tonight/#comment-22232 http://www.adafruit.com/blog/2011/07/23/google-suspended-lim... . Amanda pointed to the official way to appeal, and I believe that appeal would have gone through quickly. So I think the right thing would have happened in not that much more time.

fds4324 15y ago

Google+ is bullshit. We want something better than Facebook, but with Buzz and Google+, Google has shown they have even less respect for user privacy. I'm deleting my account and (pessimistically) crossing my fingers for Diaspora.