Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

plus.google.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 158 posts

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

#41

Post by franciscop »

As a Spaniard, I have 3-word first name and 2 family names. No middle name. Now shove that into a non-space-enabled, 2 inputs web form. For plane tickets which basically could leave me stranded in any country.

I normally get some trouble trying to retrieve them in the airport in those auto-check-in machines that are being deployed all around Asia. I mean, they can spend thousands of dollars in those machines but don't care about correctly accepting a name. Then the person helping there tries again the same; finally she redirects me to the counter.

I have give up and just go by my first-word first name and fist family name to handle things easily (which is a bit disrespectful for my mother's family).

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

#42

Post by jshap70 »

stormy wrote: post #27
danieltillett wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stormy did your parents choose your name or did you?

Easiest way to answer is with Quora itself: https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-story-behind-Stormy-Shippy...

loved this, thanks for sharing

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

#43

Post by igravious »

tedmiston wrote: post #37
ajmurmann wrote: post #11

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.

One URL* that's a persistent URL to the identity broker of the person†.

* Ok, URI, or IRI, or whatever we're technically calling them nowadays.

† Or other named being, robot, entity …

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

#44

Post by seiryuz »

Oh boy, Indonesian here, I only have one name (No last name). Websites that require me to have both first name and last name are the bane of my existence.

Quora also blocked me, despite me sending an email to their appeal division with a copy of my ID. In the end I gave up fighting for it.

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

#45

Post by callalex »

franciscop wrote: post #41

As a Spaniard, I have 3-word first name and 2 family names. No middle name. Now shove that into a non-space-enabled, 2 inputs web form. For plane tickets which basically could leave me stranded in any country. I normally get some trouble trying to retrieve them in the airport in those auto-check-in machines that are being deployed all around Asia. I mean, they can spend thousands of dollars in those machines but don'…

This has an interesting parallel to having a spectrum of gender pronouns.

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

#46

Post by thaumasiotes »

franciscop wrote: post #41

As a Spaniard, I have 3-word first name and 2 family names. No middle name. Now shove that into a non-space-enabled, 2 inputs web form. For plane tickets which basically could leave me stranded in any country. I normally get some trouble trying to retrieve them in the airport in those auto-check-in machines that are being deployed all around Asia. I mean, they can spend thousands of dollars in those machines but don'…

This is particularly odd because multi-word last names aren't exactly obscure in the US. Here are some famous people: van der Waals, von Neumann, de Soto, van Gogh, da Vinci...

We have a sizable Italian community domestically, too, plus lots of history of Dutch and German settlement.

And then we have lots of Mexicans, who, intuitively enough, use the Spanish system of double surnames. But somehow they all get shoehorned into hyphenation.

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

#47

Post by mdadm »

wlesieutre wrote: post #31
protomyth wrote: post #16

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.

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

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

    32. People’s names are assigned at birth.
    33. OK, maybe not at birth, but at least pretty close to birth.
    34. Alright, alright, within a year or so of birth.
    35. Five years?
    36. You’re kidding me, right?
I must know what case there is of this, and who exactly was the poor soul to stumble upon it...

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

#48

Post by behnamoh »

stormy wrote: 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

In this day and age, with the heavy DS and ML that's going on in companies like GOOG, it's actually not wise to use your real name anyway.

Let them think you're just John Appleseed.

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

#49

Post by lucaspiller »

dawnerd wrote: post #9
protomyth wrote: post #5

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.

Just need to name your kids Testy McTest. Problem solved!

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

#50

Post by parennoob »

stormy wrote: 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

I don't know about Quora's "work with a mod to verify the name" policy works, but I have heard from at least one friend that Facebook makes you give them a scan your driving license or other Government ID in order to show that your slightly unusual name is actually what you say it is.

Which is just absurd. A random social network should never be so powerful as to demand your Government-issued IDs for some bogus "real name" policy that penalizes names like Theodore Ts'o in favor of "normal" ones like John Smith. The day Facebook asks me for one is the day I'm done with it. Same for Quora if their policy is similar.

Post reply on HN