Live data from Hacker News

Quora has blocked me because it doesn't think Theodore Ts'o is my real name

plus.google.com

31–40 of 158 posts

Re: Quora has blocked me because it doesn't think Theodore Ts'o is my real name

#31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a friend who, courtesy of some... let's say unique parents, was graced with multiple middle names and then multiple hyphenated (and unhyphenated) family names as her parents divorced, remarried and she moved between households. Then she got married herself and tacked her husband's last name onto the end of it. Her legal name at this point clocks in at enough words and characters to not fit in most government d…

Got a friend from Bangladesh that has the same problem. He went with first, last, and a string of middle initials. Still has problems. I often think we need a whole class in college on these type of issues. Probably right after the ethics class.

Names: https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-...

Time: http://infiniteundo.com/post/25326999628/falsehoods-programm...

Addresses: https://www.mjt.me.uk/posts/falsehoods-programmers-believe-a...

Geography: http://wiesmann.codiferes.net/wordpress/?p=15187&lang=en

Re: Quora has blocked me because it doesn't think Theodore Ts'o is my real name

#32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a friend who, courtesy of some... let's say unique parents, was graced with multiple middle names and then multiple hyphenated (and unhyphenated) family names as her parents divorced, remarried and she moved between households. Then she got married herself and tacked her husband's last name onto the end of it. Her legal name at this point clocks in at enough words and characters to not fit in most government d…

Got a friend from Bangladesh that has the same problem. He went with first, last, and a string of middle initials. Still has problems. I often think we need a whole class in college on these type of issues. Probably right after the ethics class.

My family came from South America to the US where people use their father's and mother's last names as part of their full name. Sure enough, that's what's on my green card, social security card, and driver's license. But since in real life we only use one last name, all of my non-government but still important stuff (college, work, etc.) only has one last name. And in real life only my family knows I even have another last name.

I've had countless problems with this and delays in getting stuff transmitted or done because people won't believe it's me or won't understand why I have a second last name (which I or my family never asked for when moving here). If just one extra word causes problems, I can't imagine what other cultures have to deal with! No wonder European immigrants a hundred years ago Americanized their names when moving here :-)

Re: Quora has blocked me because it doesn't think Theodore Ts'o is my real name

#33
post #15

Unless their policy has changed, it's a temporary restriction of the account until the user helps work with a mod to verify the name. Happened to me way back in 2010, because my real name sounds terribly fake: Stormy Shippy

Story behind your name was pretty amazing. Ever find out the story behind his?

Re: Quora has blocked me because it doesn't think Theodore Ts'o is my real name

#34
post #9

I should get a couple of people from around here (Native American reservation) to sign up and see how messy their policy is. If you cannot validate names, then you probably should not use a real name policy. It bad enough Facebook (and I guess Quora) causes people pain, don't add your own wounds.

Facebook's policy is so weird. I have a ton of older test accounts that literally include TEST and other such very obvious fake text in the name.

[deleted]

Re: Quora has blocked me because it doesn't think Theodore Ts'o is my real name

#35

I was banned by Quora for not agreeing to repeated edits to MY OWN question. Reason? VANDALISM. Mind boggling.

That's a whole 'nother can of worms concerning participation / nonparticipation elections by various services.

And the question of when a service ought / ought not allow participation.

I'm strongly in the camp of controlling my own personal online interactions. Which is somewhat curious in the case of HN as that's not possible -- there are no user blocks. HN's moderation policies and practices ensure that this is virtually never necessary.

However I've got issues with how and why various online services draw the line at participation. I agree with some of the groups banned from Reddit, for example. I take exception to Imzy's banning my account (largely for being hounded, misrepresented, and harassed by others on the service). I'm exceptionally critical of Google, on Google+, but that's not resulted in repercussions (there are times when an adversary's belief in "the marketplace of ideas" is an advantage).

I'd prefer a world in which relying on access to other's soapboxes and spaces wasn't so necessary.

Re: Quora has blocked me because it doesn't think Theodore Ts'o is my real name

#36
post #6

I should get a couple of people from around here (Native American reservation) to sign up and see how messy their policy is. If you cannot validate names, then you probably should not use a real name policy. It bad enough Facebook (and I guess Quora) causes people pain, don't add your own wounds.

Haha, now I'm curious! Could you please provide some examples of Native American names?

There's a few on this page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook_real-name_policy_cont...

Eg: Robin Kills the Enemy

Re: Quora has blocked me because it doesn't think Theodore Ts'o is my real name

#37

Obligatory link to Patio11's gem of an article about this: https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-... Edit: phone typo

The only feasible way to handle a name given that, at least what I can think of, is a single unbounded textbox that's also optional.

Actually, I guess it really must be a foreign key M{0,}:N as a many-to-many to allow for having multiple names.

Re: Quora has blocked me because it doesn't think Theodore Ts'o is my real name

#39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Got a friend from Bangladesh that has the same problem. He went with first, last, and a string of middle initials. Still has problems. I often think we need a whole class in college on these type of issues. Probably right after the ethics class.

My family came from South America to the US where people use their father's and mother's last names as part of their full name. Sure enough, that's what's on my green card, social security card, and driver's license. But since in real life we only use one last name, all of my non-government but still important stuff (college, work, etc.) only has one last name. And in real life only my family knows I even have anothe…

I tried to get two last names through marriage but California wasn't having any of it ...so my partner and I decided to shift names over and functionally have the same result. I probably saved myself your trouble - and I had a Spanish roommate in the past that had mail addressed to him with his two last names in 10+ different combinations - but that so many people have yet to tackle their misconceptions about names is frustrating :(

I do have two wonderful? related problems now though: I come across the occasional racist jerk that I can learn to avoid because they can't help Questioning my last name not matching my ethnicity, and I come across people that don't realize that my name in my other language hasn't changed (and that that's just not a Thing that happens in that culture). Yay names.

Post reply on HN