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When operating "at web scale", users often simply don't have "real names"

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Re: When operating "at web scale", users often simply don't have "real names"

#71

Post by wisty »

potatolicious wrote: post #51
gaius wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I know people who IRL insist on being called by made-up names, mostly goths, you know, something like Darkraven Bloodmisery. Whatever they called themselves in Livejournal. Very few of them follow through tho' and fill in a deed poll form! For me that's the acid test: whatever it says on your passport is your real name. And government IT - the least efficient kind! - has managed to solve this. Why can't the mig…

> "And government IT - the least efficient kind! - has managed to solve this. Why can't the mighty Google?" Because government has really one use for your name: the proper identification of a person for the purposes of the provision and execution of government responsibilities and services. Google has a larger mandate, one where enforcing "official passport names" is not only inconvenient, but would also drive away a…

>> Google is developing a social system

As I've said before, Facebook beat MySpace because it uses "real names". It's a lot easier to discover people you know, and that drives adoption. Google+ has to copy them, if they want to win the masses over.

They might be better off letting you have several, privately linked identities. For example, I could have friends under my "wisty" account, and friends under my real name. But they are best waiting until the muggles have already created great name accounts, and hooked up with their high-school semi-friends.

Once google is on near-equal terms with facebook, they can allow handles as well as real names. You could just move your "internet friends" circle over to your handle, and leave your "school friends" circle on your real name account. But until they have everyone's real name, this would be a poor business decision.

Re: When operating "at web scale", users often simply don't have "real names"

#72

Post by sixtofour »

gaius wrote: post #9
patio11 wrote: post #2

This title is 5 words longer than it could be, because people don't have real names. Apologies in advance for the self-citation: http://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-b... My name+ is confusing gibberish where I live. It is highly likely likely that when I have children, they will go through life having multiple sets of gibberish so that they can pick the non-gibberish option when asked "What is…

Well, I know people who IRL insist on being called by made-up names, mostly goths, you know, something like Darkraven Bloodmisery. Whatever they called themselves in Livejournal. Very few of them follow through tho' and fill in a deed poll form! For me that's the acid test: whatever it says on your passport is your real name. And government IT - the least efficient kind! - has managed to solve this. Why can't the mig…

Government IT.

I have legally had a one-word name for decades. SS card. Driver license. On credit cards I fake a first initial, same with other DB-enslaved contexts.

Some time after the DHS was invented, SS changed their database systems. Where the SS used to list me as "myname," now I'm listed as "#unk myname."

Since my SS record no longer matched my driver license, when I went to renew my license I was refused, because the DHS tells the states that DL must match SS. That took weeks to sort out, but I did finally get my DL properly renewed, after they found the employee that knew how the DB system works.

Government IT.

Re: When operating "at web scale", users often simply don't have "real names"

#74

Post by blahedo »

FaceKicker wrote: post #11

As much as I understand the privacy concerns etc., am I the only one who REALLY hates being on Facebook and seeing a fake name with all sorts of odd punctuation and random capitalization in a list that consists otherwise of clean "Firstname Lastname"s? Even seeing "Equality" as someone's middle name bothers me to an extent. Maybe I have OCD, but I'm personally glad I don't have to see this on Google+ for now (but I w…

I have a number of former students who do this, and generally they have come up with some clever way to modify their name so that a search on their IRL name will not turn up their FB page, but a glance at the FB name will immediately bring to mind the IRL name. It's a useful tactic for anyone job-hunting, honestly, because as inappropriate as I find it that employers take into account irrelevant outside-of-work behaviour, the fact is that a lot of employers do take into account irrelevant outside-of-work behaviour, and it's a perfectly valid privacy tactic to make oneself less net-stalkable.

Re: When operating "at web scale", users often simply don't have "real names"

#75

Post by sixtofour »

FaceKicker wrote: post #11

As much as I understand the privacy concerns etc., am I the only one who REALLY hates being on Facebook and seeing a fake name with all sorts of odd punctuation and random capitalization in a list that consists otherwise of clean "Firstname Lastname"s? Even seeing "Equality" as someone's middle name bothers me to an extent. Maybe I have OCD, but I'm personally glad I don't have to see this on Google+ for now (but I w…

Does everyone have a first name and a last name? Or do you only see people on the list whose names can fit the mold?

Re: When operating "at web scale", users often simply don't have "real names"

#76

Post by daemin »

nradov wrote: post #68

I am disappointed by how software developers continuously reinvent the wheel badly . There have been comprehensive data models for human names available for years. For example see the HL7 V3 EntityName data type. http://www.hl7.org/v3ballot/html/infrastructure/datatypes_r2... Any Entity can have multiple names, each of which is tagged with zero or more use codes such as "official", "pseudonym", "maiden", "tribal", et…

Though what would be better and easier to fill out: (a) multiple text boxes with one for each important kind of name, (b) multiple text boxes together with some sort of code selection for each text box, or (c) a single text box that just says Name.

Re: When operating "at web scale", users often simply don't have "real names"

#77

Post by wisty »

ars wrote: post #67
salvadors wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With different names on each?

That's pretty common for dual American/Israeli citizenship. Lots of Jews have two names: A Hebrew name and an English name. Sometimes they are transliterations of each other, sometimes translations, and sometimes no relationship between them at all.

Also, transliterations can change. "Bruce" Lee and "Jet" Li have the same "last" (family) name. But China decided to replace the English-friendly Wade-Giles with the more efficient pinyin, so younger Chinese will transliterate their names differently.

Re: When operating "at web scale", users often simply don't have "real names"

#78

Post by ilkandi »

dredmorbius wrote: post #52
ilkandi wrote: post #44

As other posters have noted, many Chinese have the Chinese-lettered name eg "strong army", the pinyin version and if they move to a Western country they pick their own English name like "John" or something. In writing, Choi/Choy (and I think Chua and Chow) are the same. I will skip the philosophical discussion of what reality is to the viewer. I don't understand the linking to a real name. Give everyone a private num…

Why make it a unique number? As Google+ has realized with circles, we have different associations we make in life. Some of those are widely separate identities. I see no reason why any identity I have on one site should be associated with one I have on another, if I deem that it not be. For some purposes (voting, financial transactions, long-lived financial accounts such as SSI or a life insurance policy), you'd want…

Oh sorry, I'm wasn't intentionally arguing against being pseudonymous. I was thinking of ways to manage the mutability, multi-mapped and non-uniqueness of common names behind the scenes. If circles can be kept separate, you could have a single login containing different circles for your pseudonyms. As an aside, I hate how current FB and G+ policy turns us non-celebrities into second class citizens. Disgusting.

Thanks to nradov above for info on HL7. Surely these major international orgs should already have been aware of it?

Re: When operating "at web scale", users often simply don't have "real names"

#79

Post by benologist »

mason55 wrote: post #36
protomyth wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shipping address has to be on the most shoehorned pieces of data in any database in the world. The only thing that seems to have put some structure on it in the US is the 911 implementations. For most of high school years, our house was listed as "311 Behind the School" or some other variation. There were no actual street names (although I am told the electric company and only the electric company had a map with stre…

May I ask where this was? Crazy to me that there would be a place with UPS service but not E911 service.

We have Fedex/UPS/DHL and use directions in Nicaragua and surrounding countries - I live 50 meters south of a doctor's clinic.

Re: When operating "at web scale", users often simply don't have "real names"

#80

Post by nradov »

daemin wrote: post #76
nradov wrote: post #68

I am disappointed by how software developers continuously reinvent the wheel badly . There have been comprehensive data models for human names available for years. For example see the HL7 V3 EntityName data type. http://www.hl7.org/v3ballot/html/infrastructure/datatypes_r2... Any Entity can have multiple names, each of which is tagged with zero or more use codes such as "official", "pseudonym", "maiden", "tribal", et…

Though what would be better and easier to fill out: (a) multiple text boxes with one for each important kind of name, (b) multiple text boxes together with some sort of code selection for each text box, or (c) a single text box that just says Name.

The usual solution is to provide users with a choice. Default to showing a simplified field or set of fields that suit the common case for that locale. And provide an "advanced mode" with more fields and options to handle unusual cases.
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