I was gently nudged to repost here, i.e. pls someone else organize this.

[amireal]

quote from LJ post:

I am sick and tired of being told that in order to participate in the internet I have to tell you my full name and gender. I am tired of being told there's nothing wrong with this by people who obviously are not women and/or a minority on the internet. It's impressive that a company like google can operate in willful ignorance of basic internet history. One of the reasons the internet really caught on was that it ,it let scared, afraid and lonely people connect with other scared, afraid and lonely people with similar problems. One of the reasons these people were/are scared is that simply being themselves puts their lives/jobs/safety at risk.

Forcing me to be female on the internet, no matter what I'm doing, is just an open invitation for harassment as soon as I dare to be controversial in the wrong male forum. In this case controversial means having a mildly different opinion than the majority. Imagine if I were to do something radical like talk about my disability, psychological problems and sexuality in an atmosphere that does not care to protect me in any way.

Apparently this is a concept google has not strained itself to understand.

I would love if someone could write up, with links, a clear and concise message to google that I and others would be more than happy to send to google as feedback of their new social site. Because don't get me wrong, I quite like it, even if I'm annoyed that google is being complimented with the "revolutionary" idea of filtering and circles (which seems pretty counter to their thoughts on private profiles, etc), but their disregard for the privacy and safety of a potentially large portion of their customers basically makes them Facbook 2.0 and there's a reason I don't use Facebook.

Apologies to those on my DWCircle & G+Circle who are seeing this thrice

[elke_tanzer]

(cross-posted to https://plus.google.com/107619776564880847214/posts/Cg4RGwi5HD7 and http://elke-tanzer.dreamwidth.org/1082873.html)

I've just posted the following as a comment to https://plus.google.com/104013835962992611989/posts/GuDVrkAdmTy (edit: because of a technical glitch, John has moved the post to https://plus.google.com/104013835962992611989/posts/j7w3CmpSUo4)


Hi John... The post you have linked to here is from July 9th; I have in fact posted more recent information, and respectfully request that you take a careful look through my more recent posts.

The fact that official Google documents are not internally consistent is a serious problem, and one that in all of my information-gathering I have not seen satisfactorily addressed anywhere.

This sentence is very unclear:
Google services support three different types of use when it comes to your identity: unidentified, pseudonymous, identified. Google Profiles is a product that works best in the identified state.

When I activated my G+ account, it was with the understanding that while G+ might work "best" in the identified state, it was also quite acceptable to participate in G+ in the pseudonymous state, and frankly, that is an important differentiating factor between G+ and Facebook for me.

Until http://www.google.com/support/profiles/bin/answer.py?answer=1228271 is clarified, it is my understanding that my pseudonymous account conforms to G+'s naming requirements, because those requirements are nebulous and unclear.

However, just in case you have not figured it out from my Profile: Elke Tanzer is a persistent pseudonym which is not the name on my passport; I have been online as Elke for over a decade. I go by my legal name in certain settings, and I go by Elke in other settings, and I have maintained that separation for over a decade.

If Google officially clarifies the naming policy such that it is clear that pseudonymous use of G+ is disallowed, I will be Data Migrating and Downgrading my account (so that I can continue to use Gmail), to comply with a clear policy. I will also have decided that G+ is quite the equivalent of Facebook (which is to say: completely insufficient for my social networking needs, because half of my social graph knows me as Elke and half of my social graph knows me by my legal name).

By speaking up about this names policy problem (rather than bowing to the chilling effects and silencing that Google's lack of clarity is causing in all of these discussions), I am facing increased risk of spurious suspension of my G+ account, until the G+ policy is clarified.

Side note: If anyone wants to save a local copy of the G+ Orientation Linkspam post I made (which many have found useful: https://plus.google.com/107619776564880847214/posts/9DqSD5QFVx1), now might be a good time to do so, because I do not know what happens to reshares while an account is suspended. I strongly suspect that someone malicious will be trying to make a test case out of me; Elke has had confrontations with misogynistic men online who I never, ever want to allow access to my legal name, and they may still be stalking Elke's online presence.


EDIT: Additional technical information from Liz Fong in the comments on this post over at G+: "while a profile is suspended, all top-level posts by that profile temporarily 404. The person's G+ profile 404s as well. However, comments that person has left on other peoples' posts, and reshares of that person's posts remain intact."

And a quick followup... "I know you're with me, Sam..."

[elke_tanzer]

(crossposted at https://plus.google.com/107619776564880847214/posts/eDo21AKN4Xz and http://elke-tanzer.dreamwidth.org/1083007.html, because I may be targeted as a test case, and if I can protect my friends from those with malicious intent, I will. Also... I have just done a G+ Data Liberation to make a backup copy of things in case I'm TOSed from G+, and am also in the process of backing up my Gmail messages onto a local machine as well just because it's a Good Idea. This situation really does feel quite a lot like hobbits facing Mordor.)

I have just set my Profile page to not show those who have encircled me, nor show those I have encircled; I have set those to Private. I have not un-encircled anyone, but I will do so at the request of any friends who may feel the need to do so for their own safety; please contact me privately as needed.

Some of my recent posts here on G+ have become much more high-profile, and if malicious people start coming out of the woodwork, I want their stalking to stop at me, not sweep through my connections. I have also just set my Links to my other websites in the sidebar of my Profile to be viewable only by my Circles, for the same reason.

So, for the approximately hundred or so people who either have encircled and/or are encircling me here... well... encircled friends (some of you dear friends who are also persistently pseudonymous)... most of you already know which other sites to find me on if my account is TOSed here for being a pseudonym, and/or for not having a picture of my face.

Oh, one more thing: Trying to do a Data Liberation while Multiple-Login'd to two G+ accounts? Makes things on multiple tabs get very borked; the login name in the top bar no longer accurately corresponds to the stream being presented in the middle column of the screen when it should. And yes, I am sending feedback about that.

Edit: Feedback sent: Doing a Data Liberation while Multiple Login'd to two accounts (I'll call them Elke and not-Elke for purposes of this feedback) does work while having multiple browsing tabs open on various G+ posts, but afterwards the tabs I have open for each account are all messed up as I click through to other links... trying to show my own stream as not-Elke results in a page with not-Elke as the login name in the upper left, but Elke's stream presented in the middle column of the page.