Tag Archives: NymWars

A Cute Motto Can’t Make Up For Evil Actions

I recognize that Google’s motto is not (the oft-misquoted) “Do no evil”. It’s the much easier-to-achieve mandate of “Don’t be evil”. But even that very low bar is one Google doesn’t seem to be hitting any more, and they don’t seem interested in trying to. The latest “Google being evil” story, where it turns out they’ve […]

Her Name is Skud

Skud has been involved in Open Source, and in activism and advocacy, for years and years. She does a little of everything, having coded, written docs, managed developers, and spoken out on important topics. She has been, or is currently, a contributor to projects ranging from Eureka to Perl to Xen to HTML::Mason. Way back in […]

Google+ Doesn’t Want “Real” Names. They Want WASPonyms.

Three pieces of news lately about Google+ make it clear that when Google claims they want you to use your “real” name, it’s a load of hooey. First off, a legally mononymous Australian journalist named Stilgherrian was told he couldn’t use that name — his actual, legal name — on Google+. He was not at all pleased, […]

How Many Identities Does a Single Person Have?

(This was originally posted on Google+ itself. I’m also keeping it here, for easy reference.) A friend of mine notes that one of the problems of the current Google+ “real names policy” is that “Google is attempting to deal with (I’m assuming) manufacturing a community of 1-to-1 RL presence-to-online presence” — in particular, he says that […]