Google+ names policy discriminates against American Native Indians • Hacker News Board

Re: Google+ names policy discriminates against American Native Indians

#111

Post by protomyth » Sun, Mar 09, 2014, 6:08 AM UTC

ampersandy wrote: post #98

nimblegorilla wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure the programmers who did this had no ill intentions, but when someone tells you about a broken algorithm multiple times and you ignore it then you are no longer smart. A lot of very common names are also dictionary words (Jack, Jon, Dick, Smith, Smart, Baker, LARRY PAGE, etc...) so someone clearly sat down and figured out an algorithm to allow or restrict certain words. Whoever came up with that algorithm sho…

As if Google's naming policy is a check against a list of words... More likely; Google has implemented an algorithm that uses machine learning and several other heuristics to try and determine the probability that the name is real or not. Still sound like incompetence? Does a name like "Elaine Yellow Horse" seem real or fake? You simply can't win all the time when you deal with billions of people. Google's customer s…

"Still sound like incompetence? Does a name like "Elaine Yellow Horse" seem real or fake?"

The name seems pretty real to me. Could you please explain what about it would indicate it was fake?

Yes, using fancy methods to get a wrong result is still wrong. Let's also remember we are talking about a company that indexes the web. Perhaps they could use that data to test.

Re: Google+ names policy discriminates against American Native Indians

#112

Post by protomyth » Sun, Mar 09, 2014, 6:13 AM UTC

chris_wot wrote: post #110

protomyth wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having grown up on a reservation, I really have never heard that combination. Its "Indian", "Native American", or "American Indian". Canada adds "First Nation". Using three words is pretty unnatural. Really not sure why people are down voting you.

I apologize if I got this wrong. No offense was intended.

Never was offended, just confused.

Re: Google+ names policy discriminates against American Native Indians

#113

Post by nimblegorilla » Sun, Mar 09, 2014, 6:46 AM UTC

ampersandy wrote: post #98

nimblegorilla wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure the programmers who did this had no ill intentions, but when someone tells you about a broken algorithm multiple times and you ignore it then you are no longer smart. A lot of very common names are also dictionary words (Jack, Jon, Dick, Smith, Smart, Baker, LARRY PAGE, etc...) so someone clearly sat down and figured out an algorithm to allow or restrict certain words. Whoever came up with that algorithm sho…

As if Google's naming policy is a check against a list of words... More likely; Google has implemented an algorithm that uses machine learning and several other heuristics to try and determine the probability that the name is real or not. Still sound like incompetence? Does a name like "Elaine Yellow Horse" seem real or fake? You simply can't win all the time when you deal with billions of people. Google's customer s…

I don't know how Google implemented their algorithm, but it is clearly some type of check against a list of words. There is literally no other way to decide that "Elaine Yellow Horse" is a fake name while "Pat Eve Smith" is a real name.

Re: Google+ names policy discriminates against American Native Indians

#114

Post by rmc » Sun, Mar 09, 2014, 11:50 AM UTC

raverbashing wrote: post #45

chaz wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's satire. 12. People’s names are case sensitive. 13. People’s names are case insensitive. Edit: Let me explain ... I was responding to the parent post, and that it wasn't meant to be a logic list of rules. Individual points may be true, but the overall tone of the list and post uses humor to explain the complexity of names. 32. People’s names are assigned at birth. 33. OK, maybe not at birth, but at least pretty c…

"It's satire" Absolutely not! Case sensitivity varies amongst countries. One very simple occidental example: in France names are usually written LASTNAME Firstname So if you type Lastname and your DB doesn't normalize the capitalization of names you won't match So for the last name the search is case insensitive but for the first name not so much. Another example is Turkish, where there are two capital I's, one with…

And even normalizaing capitalization of names isn't always simple. How do you correctly capitalize "mcgee"? "Mcgee" or "McGee"?

Re: Google+ names policy discriminates against American Native Indians

#115

Post by cal_contractor » Sun, Mar 09, 2014, 3:26 PM UTC

Even people who don't have a middle name can have problems on some sites.

Not to mention

Admiral Sir Reginald D'Arcy ffolkes-O'Harris

And in college I knew someone with a name very similar to the name in the article, a "normal" first name, and family name .

Re: Google+ names policy discriminates against American Native Indians

#116

Post by ampersandy » Sun, Mar 09, 2014, 9:02 PM UTC

protomyth wrote: post #111

ampersandy wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As if Google's naming policy is a check against a list of words... More likely; Google has implemented an algorithm that uses machine learning and several other heuristics to try and determine the probability that the name is real or not. Still sound like incompetence? Does a name like "Elaine Yellow Horse" seem real or fake? You simply can't win all the time when you deal with billions of people. Google's customer s…

"Still sound like incompetence? Does a name like "Elaine Yellow Horse" seem real or fake?" The name seems pretty real to me. Could you please explain what about it would indicate it was fake? Yes, using fancy methods to get a wrong result is still wrong. Let's also remember we are talking about a company that indexes the web. Perhaps they could use that data to test.

How many people do you know with adjectives in their name? If you met someone and they said their name was "Joey Red Puma", would you assume that's real or fake? You'd probably say something like "really? you're joking, right?" I would certainly be skeptical.

For all we know that might be a real name too, but all we can do is make an educated guess about whether or not it is. My point is that determining if a name is real or not is pretty arbitrary so if your objective is to verify if a name is valid or not, you simply can't be 100% accurate.

A wrong result is wrong, but making the best of what you have to try and get the right answer most of the time (while still being wrong sometimes) is in and of itself not wrong. Take any NP-hard problem, the best you can do is use heuristics to try and approximate a good solution, since the "right result" is simply impossible to compute.

Re: Google+ names policy discriminates against American Native Indians

#117

Post by protomyth » Sun, Mar 09, 2014, 9:33 PM UTC

ampersandy wrote: post #116

protomyth wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Still sound like incompetence? Does a name like "Elaine Yellow Horse" seem real or fake?" The name seems pretty real to me. Could you please explain what about it would indicate it was fake? Yes, using fancy methods to get a wrong result is still wrong. Let's also remember we are talking about a company that indexes the web. Perhaps they could use that data to test.

How many people do you know with adjectives in their name? If you met someone and they said their name was "Joey Red Puma", would you assume that's real or fake? You'd probably say something like "really? you're joking, right?" I would certainly be skeptical. For all we know that might be a real name too, but all we can do is make an educated guess about whether or not it is. My point is that determining if a name is…

"How many people do you know with adjectives in their name? If you met someone and they said their name was "Joey Red Puma", would you assume that's real or fake? You'd probably say something like "really? you're joking, right?" I would certainly be skeptical."

Nope, I grew up around people with adjectives in their name. It is very, very common among the plain tribes[1]. I tend to be suspicious of people named "Smith" or "Johnson" since it seems like a common dodge on forms.

I am troubled that you think having an adjective in a family name should be cause to trouble someone. I realize European names have suffixes added in place of adjectives, but that should not blind people from other ways names are assembled. I am also particularly unhappy with an American company that has heuristics that flag a specific ethnic group in the USA.

"the best you can do is use heuristics to try and approximate a good solution, since the "right result" is simply impossible to compute."

Then don't friggin do it. Google is a SEARCH company and has indexed a huge amount of the web. Running names through their damn heuristics should have shown a problem. If you google "Yellow Horse" you see multiple examples of people with that family name on the first page of results.

Google especially shouldn't try it since they don't have support needed to handle the exceptions without people going to the press.

1) not sure about south or east or 1st Nations

Re: Google+ names policy discriminates against American Native Indians

#118

Post by mcv » Sun, Mar 09, 2014, 11:46 PM UTC

greggman wrote: post #52

mcv wrote: post #42

Google's stupid name policy is probably their worst idea ever. Interestingly, it's somewhat undone by one of their other bad ideas: merging Youtube and Google+ accounts. Because nobody had a real name for their Youtube account, and suddenly Google creates a bunch of Google+ accounts that nobody asked for and are obviously pseudonyms.

The actual implementation may have been bad but the intent (improve the quality and civility of comments) was not a bad idea and has arguably worked.

I don't see how G+ was any less civil before the stupid name policy.

Re: Google+ names policy discriminates against American Native Indians

#119

Post by wpietri » Mon, Mar 10, 2014, 1:28 PM UTC

smm2000 wrote: post #87

wpietri wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like your understanding of racism is not very nuanced. Explicit statements of racial hatred are the most obvious kind of racism. But that's not where it ends. For example, consider the study "Are Emily and Greg More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal?" [1] They found that resumes with black-sounding names were less employable than the same resumes with white-sounding names. Is that because a large number of…

Google employees (engineering) are mainly Asian and mainly non - millionaires

I think the people senior enough and around long enough to be setting this policy are as described.

Re: Google+ names policy discriminates against American Native Indians

#120

Post by mcv » Tue, Mar 11, 2014, 10:45 AM UTC

userbinator wrote: post #58

The weirdest thing about their naming policy is that you can make up a ton of fake names that fit their policy, but then someone with a real name comes along that doesn't. (Some part of me thinks we should just give everyone a GUID or something and be done with it...)

Exactly. That's why I don't call it a "real name policy", but a "no unusual name policy". They ban real people for having unusual names, but a believable pseudonym is perfectly okay.