7 ms·

Nymwars: A view from the trenches within Google

44 points by bootload 15y ago

sciurus 15y ago
Recent discussion on this topic at http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2906434 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2906434
thristian 15y ago
A friend of mine reshared that post on G+ yesterday and I left this comment there: "nymwars" is a big complicated thing that has far outgrown my ability to keep track of the nuances, so I don't understand what this means for my personal pet feature (showing different names to different people), but it's encouraging to hear that there is raucous debate inside Google. I still think that the strongest argument for pseudonyms is that a system that doesn't handle them is Wrong, in the same way that "everything can be losslessly converted to ASCII" is wrong, or "an accurate map of a geographical area can be drawn on a flat surface" is wrong. Pseudonyms aren't a feature you can decide whether to support or not, they're part of the problem that you're trying to solve.
- grourk 15y ago
  Huh?
- Aglet 15y ago
  Are you saying that everything cannot be losslessly converted to ASCII?
  - thristian 15y ago
    You might claim that everything can be losslessly converted to ASCII by applying, say, base64, but I would claim what you lose in that situation is readability. When I wrote that, I was mostly thinking about systems that assume it is always safe to replace "é" with "e", for example.
- InclinedPlane 15y ago
  The worst part is that google+ does support pseudonyms... if you're rich or famous enough. Personally I thought google was better than that.
  - starwed 15y ago
    That's not what OP means... Your point is that google allows famous folk to use their RL pseudonym as their primary ID on google+. What thristian means is that the system itself needs to allow a single account to present multiple nyms, depending on context.
    - InclinedPlane 15y ago
      That's only part of the problem. The core problem is that google doesn't allow pseudonyms at all (even a single pseudonym across all circles) unless you happen to be famous enough, regardless of legal identity. It's a double standard.
natesm 15y ago
Is this really a huge deal? I haven't really been using Google+ (after I finally dropped Facebook, I guess I just... stopped caring about this sort of thing), but this topic keeps showing up everywhere. I'm not sure why it's a problem. Google+ isn't that kind of website to me. Reddit, HN, etc. are really in a different class of websites and should be treated as such. Google+ is like my Address Book. I want real names, because they look nice. I should not that (in my mind) this doesn't make "JK Rowling", "Mark Twain", or "Jon Stewart" unacceptable. "rms" or "natesm", on the other hand, aren't the sort of thing that I'd want to see on Google+. Similarly, I have Adium set up to display real names and real pictures instead of ugly AIM screen names. I don't talk to ladygagafan05, I talk to "John Smith".
- thwarted 15y ago
  "rms" or "natesm", on the other hand, aren't the sort of thing that I'd want to see on Google+. You, as the recipient or the viewer, don't really get to decide how people would like themselves to be referred to. That doesn't really stop people from referring to others however they want to, which leads directly into... Similarly, I have Adium set up to display real names and real pictures instead of ugly AIM screen names. And that's most likely the best or real solution to all of this: allow people to change the labels they see for other people to something custom, which only they see. This actually mirrors how the real, non-Google+ world works.
  - random_mooer 15y ago
    Interestingly, the only way I know who thwarted is through this handle. If HN was nym-free, I wouldn't even know he was the same guy. And if I were add him on some social network, I would like to have him labeled as 'TE.' How he refers to himself (and others refer to him)in talking with employer, TF2 clan or loved ones is largely irrelevant to me.
- mrphoebs 15y ago
  It's a huge deal. I don't use Google+ either but a social network this big will set precedents for everything that comes after it. Every website that might allow you to sign in with g+ id will be affected.
jrockway 15y ago
How is Google's policy different from Facebook's? Google is enforcing the policy more strictly? People are just complaining because it's new and they think they can change it? I don't really get it. Host your own blog and you can be called whatever you want.
- thristian 15y ago
  G+ is different from Facebook because Facebook's policies are already firmly set. G+ is still nominally in "limited field testing" and Google has shown a willingness to change the system based on feedback from their users. So, they're getting feedback from their users.
- neilk 15y ago
  Facebook doesn't go out and actively eliminate users they think have pseudonyms. Google+ does. Facebook just reserves the right to ask you for your government ID, if there's a dispute or you need to reclaim an account. But in practice pseudonyms are tolerated unless you make a nuisance of yourself.
  - comex 15y ago
    I was banned from Facebook a while back for having a fake name; no dispute or issue that I know of, just a random banhammer.
    - neilk 15y ago
      Ok, I didn't know that. But half my Facebook friends have demi-pseudonyms, like "Dan Aestetix".
- darklajid 15y ago
  If you start a new product, label it 'Beta' and people use it, like it, but have a problem with it: Do you answer 'So - go away and build it yourself'? I agree that there is a lot of whining involved. 'The right to use G+', 'Think of the children/lesbian/gays/victims of numerous crims' arguments that cannot really be countered in a productive way. But if you actually look into the debate you find lots of people that are merely asking Google to reconsider. These are people that started using the product in its early beginnings, care about it (otherwise it would be a non-issue and we could just host a blog as you suggest or go elsewhere with a shrug), but won't - for a multitude of reasons - support this 'community guidelines'. Facebook? Really? Who cares about Facebook. Why is Facebook coming up in this discussion all the time? If G+ is ~like Facebook~, why do we need it in he first place? It's a competing product in the same market, granted. But arguing 'Facebook does X, why do you care that G+ does the same' is really weird in my world.
yuhong 15y ago
>(ironic that these anonymity requirements are needed to talk about nymwars) Anyone know what is exactly happening here? I am not advocating for real names, but things like this should still be fixed if possible.
motters 15y ago
The nymwars demonstrate that dictatorships in "the cloud" are not always benign ones. Why is Google trying to control the identities of its users, and why doesn't it seem to care about the legitimate needs of certain groups of people?
nl 15y ago
http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2011/02/freedom-to-be-who-you-want-to-be.html http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2011/02/freedom-to-be...
JulianMorrison 15y ago
Fuck their attitude that LGBT people are expendable.
- homosaur 15y ago
  Could you like, explain this?
  - JulianMorrison 15y ago
    From the link: - "Women, LGBT, abuse victims, etc, will be disadvantaged" Larry/Vic: "There are other places they can go to, we don't have to fight every ethical and social injustice every time in everything we do, G+ is one of the occasions when we don't seek to right the wrongs of the world, we just want to get the work done."
    - homosaur 15y ago
      Yeah, I read it, and I keep hearing people saying it. I just don't know what it's supposed to mean. Are we saying gay people are going to be using pseudonyms on G+ to avoid harassment? I keep hearing this and I don't get the angle.
      - JulianMorrison 15y ago
        Gay kids who don't want to be outed to their parents. Gay Ugandans who don't want to be shopped to the authorities for jail or worse. Trans people, newly out to themselves, experimenting with a name that they have chosen, not the mistake foisted upon them by parents who thought they were cis. Trans people asserting their real names, the ones they use in public every day, in the face of bigoted official refusal to change their paperwork. And so on. Edit to add: for what it's worth, playing cross-gender characters in WoW has been a common thread among my trans friends before they came out. So what looks like a playful profile of your elven mage or something, might actually be part of a disguised foray into publicly presenting as the other gender. This is an example of why it's a mistake to force either real names or single profiles per user (though I think it would be OK to internally cross-link all pseudonyms of a given user, so they all take the same hit if any of them goes trolling).
mypov 15y ago
So sad that we are like sheep waiting to see what" Vic" and big G decide in regards to our (practically) our social identity and the nature of the social space as well. One certainly can have the equivalent. Of real-life anonymity. The issue is institutional will.

44 points by bootload 15y ago

Recent discussion on this topic at http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2906434 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2906434

thristian 15y ago

A friend of mine reshared that post on G+ yesterday and I left this comment there: "nymwars" is a big complicated thing that has far outgrown my ability to keep track of the nuances, so I don't understand what this means for my personal pet feature (showing different names to different people), but it's encouraging to hear that there is raucous debate inside Google. I still think that the strongest argument for pseudonyms is that a system that doesn't handle them is Wrong, in the same way that "everything can be losslessly converted to ASCII" is wrong, or "an accurate map of a geographical area can be drawn on a flat surface" is wrong. Pseudonyms aren't a feature you can decide whether to support or not, they're part of the problem that you're trying to solve.

grourk 15y ago
Huh?
Aglet 15y ago
Are you saying that everything cannot be losslessly converted to ASCII?
- thristian 15y ago
  You might claim that everything can be losslessly converted to ASCII by applying, say, base64, but I would claim what you lose in that situation is readability. When I wrote that, I was mostly thinking about systems that assume it is always safe to replace "é" with "e", for example.
InclinedPlane 15y ago
The worst part is that google+ does support pseudonyms... if you're rich or famous enough. Personally I thought google was better than that.
- starwed 15y ago
  That's not what OP means... Your point is that google allows famous folk to use their RL pseudonym as their primary ID on google+. What thristian means is that the system itself needs to allow a single account to present multiple nyms, depending on context.
  - InclinedPlane 15y ago
    That's only part of the problem. The core problem is that google doesn't allow pseudonyms at all (even a single pseudonym across all circles) unless you happen to be famous enough, regardless of legal identity. It's a double standard.

natesm 15y ago

Is this really a huge deal? I haven't really been using Google+ (after I finally dropped Facebook, I guess I just... stopped caring about this sort of thing), but this topic keeps showing up everywhere. I'm not sure why it's a problem. Google+ isn't that kind of website to me. Reddit, HN, etc. are really in a different class of websites and should be treated as such. Google+ is like my Address Book. I want real names, because they look nice. I should not that (in my mind) this doesn't make "JK Rowling", "Mark Twain", or "Jon Stewart" unacceptable. "rms" or "natesm", on the other hand, aren't the sort of thing that I'd want to see on Google+. Similarly, I have Adium set up to display real names and real pictures instead of ugly AIM screen names. I don't talk to ladygagafan05, I talk to "John Smith".

thwarted 15y ago
"rms" or "natesm", on the other hand, aren't the sort of thing that I'd want to see on Google+. You, as the recipient or the viewer, don't really get to decide how people would like themselves to be referred to. That doesn't really stop people from referring to others however they want to, which leads directly into... Similarly, I have Adium set up to display real names and real pictures instead of ugly AIM screen names. And that's most likely the best or real solution to all of this: allow people to change the labels they see for other people to something custom, which only they see. This actually mirrors how the real, non-Google+ world works.
- random_mooer 15y ago
  Interestingly, the only way I know who thwarted is through this handle. If HN was nym-free, I wouldn't even know he was the same guy. And if I were add him on some social network, I would like to have him labeled as 'TE.' How he refers to himself (and others refer to him)in talking with employer, TF2 clan or loved ones is largely irrelevant to me.
mrphoebs 15y ago
It's a huge deal. I don't use Google+ either but a social network this big will set precedents for everything that comes after it. Every website that might allow you to sign in with g+ id will be affected.

jrockway 15y ago

How is Google's policy different from Facebook's? Google is enforcing the policy more strictly? People are just complaining because it's new and they think they can change it? I don't really get it. Host your own blog and you can be called whatever you want.

thristian 15y ago
G+ is different from Facebook because Facebook's policies are already firmly set. G+ is still nominally in "limited field testing" and Google has shown a willingness to change the system based on feedback from their users. So, they're getting feedback from their users.
neilk 15y ago
Facebook doesn't go out and actively eliminate users they think have pseudonyms. Google+ does. Facebook just reserves the right to ask you for your government ID, if there's a dispute or you need to reclaim an account. But in practice pseudonyms are tolerated unless you make a nuisance of yourself.
- comex 15y ago
  I was banned from Facebook a while back for having a fake name; no dispute or issue that I know of, just a random banhammer.
  - neilk 15y ago
    Ok, I didn't know that. But half my Facebook friends have demi-pseudonyms, like "Dan Aestetix".
darklajid 15y ago
If you start a new product, label it 'Beta' and people use it, like it, but have a problem with it: Do you answer 'So - go away and build it yourself'? I agree that there is a lot of whining involved. 'The right to use G+', 'Think of the children/lesbian/gays/victims of numerous crims' arguments that cannot really be countered in a productive way. But if you actually look into the debate you find lots of people that are merely asking Google to reconsider. These are people that started using the product in its early beginnings, care about it (otherwise it would be a non-issue and we could just host a blog as you suggest or go elsewhere with a shrug), but won't - for a multitude of reasons - support this 'community guidelines'. Facebook? Really? Who cares about Facebook. Why is Facebook coming up in this discussion all the time? If G+ is ~like Facebook~, why do we need it in he first place? It's a competing product in the same market, granted. But arguing 'Facebook does X, why do you care that G+ does the same' is really weird in my world.

yuhong 15y ago

>(ironic that these anonymity requirements are needed to talk about nymwars) Anyone know what is exactly happening here? I am not advocating for real names, but things like this should still be fixed if possible.

motters 15y ago

The nymwars demonstrate that dictatorships in "the cloud" are not always benign ones. Why is Google trying to control the identities of its users, and why doesn't it seem to care about the legitimate needs of certain groups of people?

nl 15y ago

http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2011/02/freedom-to-be-who-you-want-to-be.html http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2011/02/freedom-to-be...

JulianMorrison 15y ago

Fuck their attitude that LGBT people are expendable.

homosaur 15y ago
Could you like, explain this?
- JulianMorrison 15y ago
  From the link: - "Women, LGBT, abuse victims, etc, will be disadvantaged" Larry/Vic: "There are other places they can go to, we don't have to fight every ethical and social injustice every time in everything we do, G+ is one of the occasions when we don't seek to right the wrongs of the world, we just want to get the work done."
  - homosaur 15y ago
    Yeah, I read it, and I keep hearing people saying it. I just don't know what it's supposed to mean. Are we saying gay people are going to be using pseudonyms on G+ to avoid harassment? I keep hearing this and I don't get the angle.
    - JulianMorrison 15y ago
      Gay kids who don't want to be outed to their parents. Gay Ugandans who don't want to be shopped to the authorities for jail or worse. Trans people, newly out to themselves, experimenting with a name that they have chosen, not the mistake foisted upon them by parents who thought they were cis. Trans people asserting their real names, the ones they use in public every day, in the face of bigoted official refusal to change their paperwork. And so on. Edit to add: for what it's worth, playing cross-gender characters in WoW has been a common thread among my trans friends before they came out. So what looks like a playful profile of your elven mage or something, might actually be part of a disguised foray into publicly presenting as the other gender. This is an example of why it's a mistake to force either real names or single profiles per user (though I think it would be OK to internally cross-link all pseudonyms of a given user, so they all take the same hit if any of them goes trolling).

mypov 15y ago

So sad that we are like sheep waiting to see what" Vic" and big G decide in regards to our (practically) our social identity and the nature of the social space as well. One certainly can have the equivalent. Of real-life anonymity. The issue is institutional will.