SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
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?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Wednesday July 16 2014, @06:02PM
"I didn't really have a problem with the real name policy."
Its interesting to look at century old social media networks like Ham Radio where "everyone" has access to a list that turns a callsign into a real name, real address... Even that I have an extra class license and have had it almost long enough to join the QCWRA club (old timers club, AARP for radio I guess you'd say)
It boils down in practice and a century or so of experience to not matter very much to almost everyone.
Hearing people complain doesn't mean that many people care.
One interesting aspect is the semi-official yet not legally enforced amateur radio code where you just don't talk politics or religion on the air unless you want to be considered pretty much a dirtbag by everyone else. Oh and paid astroturfing is illegal. Oddly enough no flamewars means no real problem with the "ham radio real name policy".
Note the existence of some smelly corners of 75M / 20M sideband does not invalidate the above... those are kind of the 4chan of ham radio, for better or worse. If you want to hear what /b/ will sound like in about 50 years just monitor 14.313 MHz or whatever it is. Not intending disrespect toward either party, just pointing out the similarities.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by karmawhore on Wednesday July 16 2014, @07:01PM
Interesting example. I would guess that in a relatively small community like amateur radio, using your real name would tend to keep you civil and honest. Same with SN, in a way. I'm using a handle, but I try not to blast total nonsense on here, because I would be bothered if I got a bad reputation in the SN community.
By contrast, browse the comments on some of the major news sites -- the ones where commenters log in via facebook. It doesn't keep them civil OR honest! Same goes for twitter, which is another interesting case, because twitter is a good mix of real names and pseudonyms. You've got a lot of people who should know better saying stupid things to the ENTIRE WORLD and attaching their real names to it. Don't they care?
=kw= lurkin' to please
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday July 16 2014, @07:28PM
"By contrast, browse the comments on some of the major news sites"
Our local newspaper comments are unreadable. Paid political astroturfers sloganeering at each other. Mostly college students hired per hour to post slogans. Its a farce.
Are they real names, or "google plus old style" real sounding names? Ditto the twitter.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Wednesday July 16 2014, @07:42PM
I was always told Politics/Religion ban was somewhat more than just ethics, and a recognition that some operators in some countries (soviet union always used as an example) could be jailed for drifting into politics.
Was it all just propaganda?
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday July 16 2014, @09:41PM
Well, since they could get jailed merely for speaking, speaking into a microphone doesn't give them much immunity. Its not like the USA is immune, providing formal legal or medical advice without a license is problematic.
From what stories I heard of authoritarian regimes, a ham radio license was seen as something of a privilege and administrative interference was seen as kind of a non-judicial punishment. So did your license renewal disappear because of no reason at all or because you're talking about naughty things? Also a lot of the authoritarian regimes wouldn't issue a license to individuals or at least strongly discouraged it, but clubs were OK and everyone assumed someone in the club was an informant. Don't screw up everything for everyone else in the club, that kind of thing.
There's lots of "grind game" ham ops who just want to log that they talked to some far away state. I said Hi to a guy in the Dominican Republic a couple years back on the 6M band (which is mildly unusual) and at least 100 other people were also trying to say "Hi", and I don't speak Spanish anyway, so that was a rather short conversation, which would make it hard for him to get in trouble anyway.
I have had long conversations with North Americans. I would say its very much like meeting someone's spouse at a christmas party, if the first thing you two do is start screaming politics and religion at each other you've probably both had too much to drink already. On the internet it seems accepted, but ham radio despite being weirder is none the less more "real life" than the internet. This Canadian guy I talked to for awhile, health care system just never came up in the conversation. That wouldn't happen on the internet, that's for sure.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 16 2014, @08:44PM
> Hearing people complain doesn't mean that many people care.
Correct. The people who have the most to lose by forced-identification simply refuse to participate.
How many hams that were still in the closet talked about it on air?
(Score: 2) by VLM on Sunday July 20 2014, @12:01PM
"How many hams that were still in the closet talked about it on air?"
Sorry for the super late post, but over a 1/4 century or so I've never discussed my sex life nor anyone elses nor overheard discussions happening. Given there would be no theoretical stigma to hetros talking about hetro lifestyles, yet its never done, we can safely assume the number you're looking for is very close to zero.
Its a big hobby and there's some interaction between subcultures but perhaps not as much as you'd think. So it is possible a mostly-emcom local unlinked 70 cm repeater 1000 miles from here has 24x7 discussions of this topic, although I find it almost infinitely unlikely.
(Score: 1) by Nickyname on Thursday July 17 2014, @01:09PM
At least one 2m repeater in Los Angeles that have been spewing sewage that for quite some years, namely 147.435mhz.. I left California in 1996, and it had been blasting its sewage way before then and apparently still is.. Every few years the "Florida Citrus Commission" slaps a few hands, and like clockwork, the idiots are back at it again in just a short while..
de K7DGF