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posted by martyb on Wednesday July 16 2014, @03:16PM   Printer-friendly
from the arrows-buy-ennui-utter-gnome-our-crust-as-wheat dept.

According to the Google+ Page, Google is finally giving up on forcing everyone to user their real names to join Google+.

When we launched Google+ over three years ago, we had a lot of restrictions on what name you could use on your profile. This helped create a community made up of real people, but it also excluded a number of people who wanted to be part of it without using their real names.

Over the years, as Google+ grew and its community became established, we steadily opened up this policy, from allowing +Page owners to use any name of their choosing to letting YouTube users bring their usernames into Google+. Today, we are taking the last step: there are no more restrictions on what name you can use.

We know you've been calling for this change for a while. We know that our names policy has been unclear, and this has led to some unnecessarily difficult experiences for some of our users. For this we apologize, and we hope that today's change is a step toward making Google+ the welcoming and inclusive place that we want it to be. Thank you for expressing your opinions so passionately, and thanks for continuing to make Google+ the thoughtful community that it is.

I know many folks that refused to join Plus, just because of the restrictions and the fact that they *cough* suggest you to anyone in your contacts. They've given up on youtube comments, app store ratings, and a dozen other things that require Plus accounts.

Some might now join, though most probably won't simply because Google was so darn stubborn about this for so darn long.

What say the Soylentils?

 
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  • (Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Wednesday July 16 2014, @03:57PM

    by Nerdfest (80) on Wednesday July 16 2014, @03:57PM (#69830)

    I used to use Facebook, but found it too intrusive and filled with people I frequently didn't want to communicate with. I use Twitter as there are quite a few of the big names in fields I'm interested in (software development and wine) that are active there. It's nice to exchange ideas with someone like Robert Martin (as an example) on occasion. I use Google Plus for general social media for other interests. I have circles for mathematics, science, motorcycling, photography, popular culture, etc. The functionality of it is quite good and their Android app is really nice to use. Facebook's was a nightmare last time I checked, which admittedly is several years ago. I like Soylent as well, but we're a very small community.

    I never had a serious problem with their real name policy for myself, but I can understand it being a problem for some and I'm glad they've changed it. I do hope the quality of discussion stays up though, as it's quite good at the moment.

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