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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"

#91

Post by StrawberryFrog »

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…

I know a couple of LJ'ing goths who now have Google+. Thus I can see people with stated first names like "Persephone", "Ariadne" etc. The rule of thumb is that if someone says that's their name, that's what you call them. There are also some clearly pseudonymous accounts, e.g. last names like "jumpycat", "Purple" etc.

It's impolite to ask what their "real name" is. I've seen someone (call her X) get upset because someone pressed the point of finding out what X's mother used to call her (if that's a a "real name" in any meaningful sense). And it was pointless too, what could you do with that information?

There's lot's of inaccurate information there anyway, I have two "Jo"s in my friends list. On is male, one female. In both cases "Jo" is a contraction, in one case of a middle name. They also chose to be called "Jo".

I don't really see why Google+ needs to know or care. What people answer to is what people know to look for, so that's what should be shown.

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

#92

Post by mike_esspe »

nitrogen wrote: post #86
SeoxyS wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I totally agree. I can't stand people who put random crap in their Facebook names (and actually tend to unfriend them.) Similarly, I religiously give everybody on my IM buddy list their real name. I would go crazy if everyday I only saw pseudonyms and had no idea who was who.

Clearly you never used IRC. When I got started with computers, BBSes, etc., using your real name was considered a monumentally bad idea.

I still don't understand why the fetish for the names from government ID originated. Was it because of Facebook's policy? I'd like to see this trend reversed.

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

#93

Post by dlss »

tantalor wrote: post #70
politician wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The title is a reference to the fact that G+'s identity system fails to cope with names considered normal in their respective cultural contexts. In fact, it couldn't be more to do with "web scale" since it refers to how literally everyone in the world reveals their (sometimes multiple) identities through Google's world wide social network.

It might be a poorly defined term, but I believe "web scale" refers to the performance and availability, not features, of web applications. To say "They messed up feature X for population Y" doesn't speak to their ability to scale. No matter how much effort Google put into supporting "real names", they would still disappoint somebody. Does Facebook do this any better? I believe they also require users to provide thei…

"Web scale" refers to dealing with the problems and issues that occur when you have hundreds of millions of global users. This includes performance and availability, but also security issues, social/cultural issues, and business/tax/legal issues. (Not that "web scale" is in Websters -- just google around and look at the other uses)

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

#94

Post by iwwr »

whatusername wrote: post #55
patio11 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And government IT - the least efficient kind! - has managed to solve this. Governments essentially avoid this problem, and they have for generations, because they realized that names are intractably hard. This is why they give people numbers instead. Here's my name written in my passport (US): "MC KENZIE PATRICK JOHNATHAN" The Passport Control Center is the only organization which thinks I have a space in my name. If…

For a quick hint -- to attempt to establish the gender of a name from another culture -- Image Search is fantastic. I'm one of these white folk with no idea whether Hideyuki is generally a male or a female name -- but a Image Search results page full of male faces is pretty conclusive. General caveats apply about edge cases (and Gender is specifically complex issue that maybe this advice is useless)

And yet, in Germany or Austria, 'Maria' can be a man's name.

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

#95

Post by ralfd »

iwwr wrote: post #94
whatusername wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a quick hint -- to attempt to establish the gender of a name from another culture -- Image Search is fantastic. I'm one of these white folk with no idea whether Hideyuki is generally a male or a female name -- but a Image Search results page full of male faces is pretty conclusive. General caveats apply about edge cases (and Gender is specifically complex issue that maybe this advice is useless)

And yet, in Germany or Austria, 'Maria' can be a man's name.

Only as a second middle name. (Klaus Maria Brandauer)

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

#97

Post by innes »

dlss wrote: post #93
tantalor wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might be a poorly defined term, but I believe "web scale" refers to the performance and availability, not features, of web applications. To say "They messed up feature X for population Y" doesn't speak to their ability to scale. No matter how much effort Google put into supporting "real names", they would still disappoint somebody. Does Facebook do this any better? I believe they also require users to provide thei…

"Web scale" refers to dealing with the problems and issues that occur when you have hundreds of millions of global users. This includes performance and availability, but also security issues, social/cultural issues, and business/tax/legal issues. (Not that "web scale" is in Websters -- just google around and look at the other uses)

The naming problem is no greater proportionally 'at web scale' than it is at lower numbers of users. Used in this context, it's a cringeworthy bit of chin-stroking jargon.

At global scale would be a more sensible. 'At web scale' doesn't mean, 'With users from outside the US'.

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

#98

Post by dlss »

innes wrote: post #97
dlss wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Web scale" refers to dealing with the problems and issues that occur when you have hundreds of millions of global users. This includes performance and availability, but also security issues, social/cultural issues, and business/tax/legal issues. (Not that "web scale" is in Websters -- just google around and look at the other uses)

The naming problem is no greater proportionally 'at web scale' than it is at lower numbers of users. Used in this context, it's a cringeworthy bit of chin-stroking jargon. At global scale would be a more sensible. 'At web scale' doesn't mean, 'With users from outside the US'.

re: proportions: If Google+ was only for Chinese plumbers, the percentage of "problem" names (and the kinds of problems those names posed to the G+ DB schema) would obviously be different -- hence the usefulness of the term "web scale" when talking about this sort of problem.

re: "web scale" not implying/talking about global users... Do you know of anyone operating a web scale business that doesn't have global users? Even sites that are supposedly for US customers only (netflix, etc -- caused by regional licensing), still have non-US customers using proxies to bypass their geo filter...

Web scale /is/ global scale. :p

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

#99

Post by pornel »

tintin wrote: post #89
blauwbilgorgel wrote: post #13

Having a Dutch surname like "Spring in 't Veld" (roughly translates to "Jump in th' Field") causes all kinds of problems on form entries and editors that add smart quotes. - Many non-sanitized SQL queries fail, - buggy URL or HTML parsers create code like: /spring-in/ - Pagetitles like: Spring in /'t Veld - Added smart quotes "Spring in ’t Veld" from Word or Rich Text Editors cause problems with sorting and identity…

Your roughly translated HN name is also funny: Blue buttock gargle ;) But yes. Programmers have a hard time using unicode. It's a shame not all programming languages use unicode. I also think is has to do with bad research. It isn't hard to check different types of family names and naming order. There are a lot of countries where they place the family name first followed by there personal name. I'm still trying to fi…

You can't (simply) use family names to group Polish names (and I think Slavic in general), because spelling of names often (but not always) depends on gender, e.g wife of Mr. Kowalski is Mrs. Kowalska.

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

#100

Post by nradov »

daemin wrote: post #87
nradov wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just for government purposes. If your hypothetical web startup has to integrate with any third-party systems (like anything in healthcare or financial services in the US) then you need the name broken into parts.

Well I would consider that to be for government (mandated) purposes, since the service you're contacting with has a government mandated schema for the name it must use, and hence you must also use. Of course you can always have different fields for billing information.

In most cases those requirements for name format are not goverment mandated at all.
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