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The proposition that "real names" significantly enhances a user experience is a bit silly, I think. It may contribute in some small way as far as what you're wi

The proposition that "real names" significantly enhances a user experience is a bit silly, I think. It may contribute in some small way as far as what you're willing to admit, but generally it doesn't seem to change behavior a lot. The quality of commentary on a public comment platform has much more to do with a given community's moderation and social mechanisms than the username that appears above the comment. YouTube is a mess because it's a hit-and-run system, there is no social obligation, you just type what you think about the video and never look at it again. Additionally, YouTube has a short length limit on comments precluding in-depth discussions, and YouTube's audience is very varied and primarily non-specialized. There are many public messaging systems online that have flourished and maintain a high level of quality even though they allow pseudonyms. Hacker News, for instance. I can think of five or six high-quality messaging systems wherein I have actively participated off the top of my head that were not flooded with YouTube-esque idiocy -- the name policy really has very little to do with it, I think. Google+ is completely controlled by its users; you must explicitly accept any author's content that you wish to view and you can block and explicitly reject any author's content that rubs you the wrong way. It is a fundamentally different model than YouTube. In this case, people are generally only going to accept you into their circles if they know who you are at least vaguely, whether the displayed name is "cookiecaper" or "Jeff Cook". I just don't see the point in even having the argument regarding Google+ when it has to be explicitly regulated by the user anyway. Facebook likewise. I think the real motivation here on the part of both Google and Facebook is to discourage the use of multiple identities so that it's easier to target advertising. Pseudonymity is still possible, though, so I'm still not sure why this is such a major deal, because you can just go create a Google Account with whatever plausible name you can dream up. You can then reveal your identity to the persons you'd like and everyone else knows you as generic John Smith. In fact, I do this on Facebook, and I presume that many others with an interest in pseudonymity do so as well.

yanw 15y ago
I don't think there has to be an ulterior motive to this sort of policy, they have decided upon a set of rules to build their community and that is it. And persons with theories about how socializing on the web should be, start chiming-in as they chose this pseudonym topic to publicize and unfold their theories and criticisms. They can go elsewhere to be as pseudo-anonymous as they like, I recognize that pseudonyms have legitimate purpose but all this self entitled rhetoric is just trolling.
- troymc 15y ago
  You, as "yanw", have accumulated a karma of 7218 on HN, which is quite impressive, even though I have no idea what your "real life" name is. Do I need to know? Of couse not. But you're not welcome on Google+ (as yanw).
wisty 15y ago
No, I think it's that real names are bad for privacy, but friends can find you more easily using your real name. Google+ doesn't suffer much if you damage your career using a real name, but it does suffer if your friends don't find you and so you go back to facebook.
- cookiecaper 15y ago
  Google could easily promote and encourage real names a la Facebook and still let pseudonymous profiles slide. I think that the typical first/last name convention is good, and that it'd be fine to require pseudonyms that follow that convention.
- rimantas 15y ago
  Posting things you want to keep private on the internet is bad for privacy. Real neames are not.
  - sesqu 15y ago
    Privacy is about as binary as security - that is, not at all.
- gte910h 15y ago
  People who aren't friends can too, and you can't exactly coyly avoid people in many forums.
- dws 15y ago
  Friends can find you more easily using your real name? Try that if you have a very common name. There are over 80 pages of G+ results to sort through if you have mine, and I have it easy. Friends with common Chinese or Indian names have it a lot worse.
rfurmani 15y ago
Good point, although I feel that real names would make things better on Hacker News by giving (1) accountability for comments (2) credentials and justification for opinions. By the latter, I mean that it constantly seems that (for example) on many posts lately involving mathematics there's an argument where one side is forcefully saying one thing that's false and covered in any good college pure math course. For third-parties it isn't obvious that one side is correct and that one side may be a professor or PhD.
- waqf 15y ago
  I like to think my HN comments are more likely to be believed by others and useful to them because of my cogent observations or clear writing style, than because of my name which is probably not known to most people, or my degrees which are not relevant to most topics.
  - rfurmani 15y ago
    Most topics yes, but is it hard to accept that education and degrees are useful when talking about math or physics or whatnot? If both sides are well written I'd like to know if one side is an expert in the area and if the other side just has cursory knowledge of the area from blog posts and Wikipedia. My personal opinion is that deferral to authority can be a useful thing. If one is a Putnam fellow, ACM gold medallist, pure math PhD, and head of research at a hedge fund, with experience at Google etc, then occasionally some post comes up in ones area of expertise and there is some blatant misinformation, but it's not worth it to reply since the people with more time to write posts and reply in the thread will control the conversation. Hacker News has some truly great people coming in all the time, and I want to listen to them. If a world expert stops by he/she may have only time for one sentence, but that sentence is highly valuable (see: reactions to pg, spolsky, etc) You are right that posts should stand on their own merits, but it would be nice to be able to keep track of some kind of reputation.
    - darklajid 15y ago
      Are you arguing that we should share our degrees, grades, upload a CV with a picture (maybe I'm more believable when we're talking about white middle-class people if I prove that I'm white a middle-class guy)? A driving license showing that I'm allowed to drive trucks of all sizes, for the off-chance that I'm making comments on stories relating to that? Your idea starts out simple and innocent, unless you think it through. You are not entitled to know these things. If people argue about math and you cannot judge who's right: Bad luck. That's not a reason for them to prove anything to you. If you actually care about math topics and notice that usually X is supported by most people or - after investing some time of your own - is right according to your own investigation, X gains your trust. Y, always arguing against X, is probably talking bull.. It's the same in real life. If you meet a guy in a bar and you start talking about something other than weather and nonsense, how do you judge him? Unless you're way out of line you probably need to learn if he's talking sense or regularly pulls things out of his rear end as well. Do the same here.
superuser2 15y ago
I don't want to have to deal with pseudonyms to talk to people I know in real life just because I'm using a computer. Facebook understood this, and Google does too. Pseudoynm communities can still be awesome for situations where you want your persona to stay within the internet. I love HN, and I wouldn't want to use my real name here. Same with most forums. But pseudonyms have no place in social networking. As Zuckerburg figured out from watching MySpace unfold, having Internet-only "friends" is sketchy, unfulfilling, and kind of dangerous; the mainstream wants to use the internet to connect to their real-life friends. That was the principle behind Facebook, and that's what Google+ is trying for. There is still a segment of people that likes talking to anonymous strangers. Usually it's about some topic, but some people still have MySpace "friends." There is certainly a market there, but it's not for everyone. Google tends to build products for the widest possible audience, and I don't see why Google+ would be any different.
- troymc 15y ago
  Are you kidding? The proposal isn't to force you to learn two names for every person, one for "real life" and one for when you're using a computer. That's a straw man. Facebook began as a network for Harvard students, then island networks for other universities, and so on, and it only got merged into one monster network later on. Because of that history, it tends to be a social network for people to connect to school friends, family, work colleagues, etc. (i.e. people you've met in real life). Google+ has much different beginnings. Twitter seems to be doing quite well allowing pseudonyms. Same with Hacker News. You wrote "pseudonyms have no place in social networking" but what is Hacker News if not (in part) a social network? An anonymous comment isn't the same thing as a comment under a pseudonym. People tend to use the same pseudonym (or set of pseudonyms) everywhere they go: people can get a sense of who they are, what they believe. They can even use that pseudonym when not online (e.g. Mark Twain never had Internet access). "Real names" and pseudonyms are just handles. They're like variable names when programming. The computer doesn't care what you call the variables. Why should you care whether someone goes by the name their parents gave them or something else? Shouldn't that be their choice?
  - esrauch 15y ago
bad_user 15y ago
It creates precedents. And just as in real life people will still be assholes, regardless of any naming policy. I had hopes that Google+ would be a better Facebook in regards to my privacy. It isn't, so why should I switch from Facebook? Is it because it's newer and shinier?

yanw 15y ago

I don't think there has to be an ulterior motive to this sort of policy, they have decided upon a set of rules to build their community and that is it. And persons with theories about how socializing on the web should be, start chiming-in as they chose this pseudonym topic to publicize and unfold their theories and criticisms. They can go elsewhere to be as pseudo-anonymous as they like, I recognize that pseudonyms have legitimate purpose but all this self entitled rhetoric is just trolling.

troymc 15y ago
You, as "yanw", have accumulated a karma of 7218 on HN, which is quite impressive, even though I have no idea what your "real life" name is. Do I need to know? Of couse not. But you're not welcome on Google+ (as yanw).

wisty 15y ago

No, I think it's that real names are bad for privacy, but friends can find you more easily using your real name. Google+ doesn't suffer much if you damage your career using a real name, but it does suffer if your friends don't find you and so you go back to facebook.

cookiecaper 15y ago
Google could easily promote and encourage real names a la Facebook and still let pseudonymous profiles slide. I think that the typical first/last name convention is good, and that it'd be fine to require pseudonyms that follow that convention.
rimantas 15y ago
Posting things you want to keep private on the internet is bad for privacy. Real neames are not.
- sesqu 15y ago
  Privacy is about as binary as security - that is, not at all.
gte910h 15y ago
People who aren't friends can too, and you can't exactly coyly avoid people in many forums.
dws 15y ago
Friends can find you more easily using your real name? Try that if you have a very common name. There are over 80 pages of G+ results to sort through if you have mine, and I have it easy. Friends with common Chinese or Indian names have it a lot worse.

rfurmani 15y ago

Good point, although I feel that real names would make things better on Hacker News by giving (1) accountability for comments (2) credentials and justification for opinions. By the latter, I mean that it constantly seems that (for example) on many posts lately involving mathematics there's an argument where one side is forcefully saying one thing that's false and covered in any good college pure math course. For third-parties it isn't obvious that one side is correct and that one side may be a professor or PhD.

waqf 15y ago
I like to think my HN comments are more likely to be believed by others and useful to them because of my cogent observations or clear writing style, than because of my name which is probably not known to most people, or my degrees which are not relevant to most topics.
- rfurmani 15y ago
  Most topics yes, but is it hard to accept that education and degrees are useful when talking about math or physics or whatnot? If both sides are well written I'd like to know if one side is an expert in the area and if the other side just has cursory knowledge of the area from blog posts and Wikipedia. My personal opinion is that deferral to authority can be a useful thing. If one is a Putnam fellow, ACM gold medallist, pure math PhD, and head of research at a hedge fund, with experience at Google etc, then occasionally some post comes up in ones area of expertise and there is some blatant misinformation, but it's not worth it to reply since the people with more time to write posts and reply in the thread will control the conversation. Hacker News has some truly great people coming in all the time, and I want to listen to them. If a world expert stops by he/she may have only time for one sentence, but that sentence is highly valuable (see: reactions to pg, spolsky, etc) You are right that posts should stand on their own merits, but it would be nice to be able to keep track of some kind of reputation.
  - darklajid 15y ago
    Are you arguing that we should share our degrees, grades, upload a CV with a picture (maybe I'm more believable when we're talking about white middle-class people if I prove that I'm white a middle-class guy)? A driving license showing that I'm allowed to drive trucks of all sizes, for the off-chance that I'm making comments on stories relating to that? Your idea starts out simple and innocent, unless you think it through. You are not entitled to know these things. If people argue about math and you cannot judge who's right: Bad luck. That's not a reason for them to prove anything to you. If you actually care about math topics and notice that usually X is supported by most people or - after investing some time of your own - is right according to your own investigation, X gains your trust. Y, always arguing against X, is probably talking bull.. It's the same in real life. If you meet a guy in a bar and you start talking about something other than weather and nonsense, how do you judge him? Unless you're way out of line you probably need to learn if he's talking sense or regularly pulls things out of his rear end as well. Do the same here.

superuser2 15y ago

I don't want to have to deal with pseudonyms to talk to people I know in real life just because I'm using a computer. Facebook understood this, and Google does too. Pseudoynm communities can still be awesome for situations where you want your persona to stay within the internet. I love HN, and I wouldn't want to use my real name here. Same with most forums. But pseudonyms have no place in social networking. As Zuckerburg figured out from watching MySpace unfold, having Internet-only "friends" is sketchy, unfulfilling, and kind of dangerous; the mainstream wants to use the internet to connect to their real-life friends. That was the principle behind Facebook, and that's what Google+ is trying for. There is still a segment of people that likes talking to anonymous strangers. Usually it's about some topic, but some people still have MySpace "friends." There is certainly a market there, but it's not for everyone. Google tends to build products for the widest possible audience, and I don't see why Google+ would be any different.

troymc 15y ago
Are you kidding? The proposal isn't to force you to learn two names for every person, one for "real life" and one for when you're using a computer. That's a straw man. Facebook began as a network for Harvard students, then island networks for other universities, and so on, and it only got merged into one monster network later on. Because of that history, it tends to be a social network for people to connect to school friends, family, work colleagues, etc. (i.e. people you've met in real life). Google+ has much different beginnings. Twitter seems to be doing quite well allowing pseudonyms. Same with Hacker News. You wrote "pseudonyms have no place in social networking" but what is Hacker News if not (in part) a social network? An anonymous comment isn't the same thing as a comment under a pseudonym. People tend to use the same pseudonym (or set of pseudonyms) everywhere they go: people can get a sense of who they are, what they believe. They can even use that pseudonym when not online (e.g. Mark Twain never had Internet access). "Real names" and pseudonyms are just handles. They're like variable names when programming. The computer doesn't care what you call the variables. Why should you care whether someone goes by the name their parents gave them or something else? Shouldn't that be their choice?
- esrauch 15y ago

bad_user 15y ago

It creates precedents. And just as in real life people will still be assholes, regardless of any naming policy. I had hopes that Google+ would be a better Facebook in regards to my privacy. It isn't, so why should I switch from Facebook? Is it because it's newer and shinier?