Link: True Names
Aug. 23rd, 2011 06:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lyornCharles Stross: Why I'm not on Google Plus:
Next, there is the assumption that people want to trust Google with their true name.
[...]
Indeed, having a name that you're willing to be known by to authority and to Google Plus users smacks of unexamined social privilege: you have two names, a personal name and a family name. No accented characters, no hyphens, no intercapping. Nobody is after you with malice in mind, and indeed, you fear nothing because you have nothing to fear. This is probably a reasonable picture of your average nerdish Google senior architect: privileged, naive, boringly conventionally whitebread, and unafraid.
The blog entry contains a list of common false assumtions about names which is a thing of beauty in itself and should be an inspiration to everyone having to come up with naming conventions for a secondary world.
Next, there is the assumption that people want to trust Google with their true name.
[...]
Indeed, having a name that you're willing to be known by to authority and to Google Plus users smacks of unexamined social privilege: you have two names, a personal name and a family name. No accented characters, no hyphens, no intercapping. Nobody is after you with malice in mind, and indeed, you fear nothing because you have nothing to fear. This is probably a reasonable picture of your average nerdish Google senior architect: privileged, naive, boringly conventionally whitebread, and unafraid.
The blog entry contains a list of common false assumtions about names which is a thing of beauty in itself and should be an inspiration to everyone having to come up with naming conventions for a secondary world.
