3 ms·

My friend was denied permission to use Quora for not revealing his ancestor name. Could you explain how it happened in this specific case, since it sounds like

My friend was denied permission to use Quora for not revealing his ancestor name. Could you explain how it happened in this specific case, since it sounds like the name that your friend gave appeared to be real. That it, it wasn't something like "Fake Name" or "Bite Me", so how did Quora know? And, in general, could someone explain how the likes of Quora and Facebook decide that a name isn't "real"? Does someone at Quora or Facebook manually scan new account names? Do they wait for complaints from other users? Is it something algorithmic like noting that you receive messages such as "Hi Mike" but where you registered as "Fred Flintstone"?

JonnieCache 14y ago
>Does someone at Quora or Facebook manually scan new account names? At facebook they certainly do. When you change your name you have to wait for some period of time before it gets approved by a human. The person doing it doesn't seem to give a shit though. It is the fashion amongst a certain sector of the youth to use utterly ludicrous pseudonyms on FB - most of my friends do. I would love to quote some of them here because they're very funny but I don't want to jeopardise anyones privacy. Personally I have changed my name several times on FB over the years and never had a problem. For a long time it was 15 letters with no vowels. That was fun at parties - "What are you called on facebook?" "I literally can't remember. Guess I'm going to have to add you."
- Lewton 14y ago
  I suspect the wait time for changing names on facebook are there to give the illusion that a real human looks at it. AFAIK if you try to change your name to something obviously fake, like "Superman", it will reject it immediately
  - seunosewa 14y ago
    It's likely that the system is setup to reject obviously wrong names instantly to save the manual reviewers' time.
- saurik 14y ago
  I've noticed the same phenomenon (knowing tons of people on Facebook--to be clear, just "normal people" I knew from college--with ludicrous handles on Facebook). It thereby really bugs me when people hold up Facebook as an example of why real name policies are good, or claim that forcing real names is ok because Facebook set a precedent, when it is fairly clear that Facebook doesn't really care.
aangjie 14y ago
I suspect in this case, he just used initials for the last name instead of expanding it. It's a common style followed in India. For example He use Deve G. or Fred F.
joering2 14y ago
I was contacted by Quora 2 days after creating an account. They thought "Ring" was a joke. OT: my favorite "delete your account" is at buy dot com. At least couple months ago, there was no option to do so, so I called them and someone told me: just add "DELETE" in front of your account; this way you wont be able to login to it anymore.
- justincormack 14y ago
  I am sure changing your name to 'DROP TABLE users; works fine too in that case...

JonnieCache 14y ago

>Does someone at Quora or Facebook manually scan new account names? At facebook they certainly do. When you change your name you have to wait for some period of time before it gets approved by a human. The person doing it doesn't seem to give a shit though. It is the fashion amongst a certain sector of the youth to use utterly ludicrous pseudonyms on FB - most of my friends do. I would love to quote some of them here because they're very funny but I don't want to jeopardise anyones privacy. Personally I have changed my name several times on FB over the years and never had a problem. For a long time it was 15 letters with no vowels. That was fun at parties - "What are you called on facebook?" "I literally can't remember. Guess I'm going to have to add you."

Lewton 14y ago
I suspect the wait time for changing names on facebook are there to give the illusion that a real human looks at it. AFAIK if you try to change your name to something obviously fake, like "Superman", it will reject it immediately
- seunosewa 14y ago
  It's likely that the system is setup to reject obviously wrong names instantly to save the manual reviewers' time.
saurik 14y ago
I've noticed the same phenomenon (knowing tons of people on Facebook--to be clear, just "normal people" I knew from college--with ludicrous handles on Facebook). It thereby really bugs me when people hold up Facebook as an example of why real name policies are good, or claim that forcing real names is ok because Facebook set a precedent, when it is fairly clear that Facebook doesn't really care.

aangjie 14y ago

I suspect in this case, he just used initials for the last name instead of expanding it. It's a common style followed in India. For example He use Deve G. or Fred F.

joering2 14y ago

I was contacted by Quora 2 days after creating an account. They thought "Ring" was a joke. OT: my favorite "delete your account" is at buy dot com. At least couple months ago, there was no option to do so, so I called them and someone told me: just add "DELETE" in front of your account; this way you wont be able to login to it anymore.

justincormack 14y ago
I am sure changing your name to 'DROP TABLE users; works fine too in that case...