perspectives from the Second Life realm

[elke_tanzer]

(I originally posted this in my G+.)

Oh, this is just getting messier and messier... (disclaimer: I know very little about Second Life culture, but I respect and acknowledge that it's a common practice there, similar to in media fandom culture, to go by a pseudonym both online and offline in "daily life".)

Opensource Obscure (who was apparently TOSed from G+), and plenty of SecondLifers seem to be in the middle of another epicenter of discussion activity about the pseudonym issue. I started following some of these threads and blogposts late last night, and wow, some of the comment threads are getting toxic... a quick few links to check out:
http://dwellonit.taterunino.net/2011/07/08/google-seemingly-split-on-pseudonymous-google-accounts-and-google-profiles-its-okay-until-it-isnt/
https://plus.google.com/113892479804684135897/posts/FSsd9ePQZi7
http://www.thinq.co.uk/2011/7/8/google-starts-account-cull-google/
https://plus.google.com/102942054433646692990/posts/7u2H9RyDiPB
https://plus.google.com/107316733400561258834/posts/CWqCjXho2M7
http://dwellonit.taterunino.net/2011/07/11/follow-up-google-confirms-real-names-a-requirement-for-profilesplus-mostly/

Comments

[xenacryst]

I had a brief foray into Second Life at one point, and from what I recall, when you sign up, you are allowed to pick your first name, and then you are given a list of about 10 last names that you can choose from for your character. In other words, the culture there requires pseudonymity rather than "real" names. Different parts of the web, different cultures, of course, but Google not recognizing that a rather major player in the online social space plays by different rules than they're enforcing is ... troublesome.