Community Standards: A Comparison of Dreamwidth and Google+

[firecat]

I know that Google+ and Dreamwidth are very different services, and that there's no particular need for people to choose only one of them. But when I saw this post I was inspired to do a similar comparison.

http://jilliancyork.com/2011/06/30/google-vs-facebook/
"Community Standards: A Comparison of Facebook vs. Google+"

Identification

Dreamwidth:
You need to choose a username to use the service, but it needs bear no relationship to any other name you might use. You are required to provide a Display Name, but there are no restrictions on what is in the Display Name field, other than the general restrictions mentioned in the Terms of Service. (You can use punctuation, numbers, professional titles, etc.)

This quote is from the FAQ about changing your journal's username.

our username restrictions: 25 or fewer characters with letters, numbers, and hyphens (-) only, with the first and last characters of the username being letters and numbers only.

You can create an account that is a community, which can be posted to by more than one person.

Google:
Their name policy includes the following rules:

Use your full first and last name in a single language.
Note that professional titles aren't allowed in the first or last name fields.
Avoid unusual characters in your name.
Your profile and name must represent one person.

Community Guidelines

Both Google and Dreamwidth disallow abuse, hate speech, invasion of privacy, illegal content, spam, and impersonation.

Dreamwidth:
http://www.dreamwidth.org/legal/principles includes the following:

Freedom: We believe in free expression. We will not place limits on your expression, except as required by United States law or to protect the quality and long-term viability of the service (such as removing spam). We will provide you with tools that make creativity and free expression easy. If, at any point, we have to place restrictions on your expression, we will tell you why, and work to find the best solutions possible.

http://www.dreamwidth.org/legal/tos includes the following:

Within the confines of international and local law, we will generally not place a restriction on the type or appropriateness of any Content.

Google:
Google's guidelines include the following:

We don't allow nudity, graphic sex acts, or sexually explicit material.
Your profile picture should not include mature or offensive content.

Community Policing

Dreamwidth:
http://www.dreamwidth.org/support/faqbrowse?faqid=80

How do I report a violation of Dreamwidth's Terms of Service?
Currently, to report something you believe to be a violation of Dreamwidth's Terms of Service, you may open a Support Request in the Terms of Service category, or email abuse@dreamwidth.org.

There is no "flag this" or "report this" marker on any content.

Google:
There is a "Report abuse" item in the drop-down menu for every post. There is a "Report this profile" button on every profile page. The button brings up a dialog box that asks you to pick why you're reporting the profile:

Report abuse
Thank you for helping Google by reporting content which may be in violation of our Community Standards.

Why are you reporting this profile?
Spam
Nudity
Hate speech or violence
Child abuse
Copyright
Impersonation
Fake profile
Other

Comments

[erika]

Fuck Google. Seriously. Avoid unusual characters in your name. What if your name HAS unusual characters?

[firecat]

What if your name HAS unusual characters?

"Use the name everyone knows you by, except if we decide it's too weeiirrd."

[erika]

Seriously.

Or in my case, my name is so unique that anyone googling me immediately finds me and only me. Luckily all that shows up right now is Amazon reviews, but I don't exactly want random people to have an EASIER time finding me.

[pne]

I wonder whether, say, Condoleezza Rice would pass the filter.

[brooksmoses]

FWIW, I've seen a bit of discussion of this that implied that what they mean by "unusual characters" is not things like accented letters, but some of the not-part-of-any-language characters in Unicode like upside-down letters and arrows and dingbats.

On the other hand, the discussion did also include numbers in the examples of "unusual characters", which I would agree is considerably more doubtful, especially if one does allow online-name sorts of names.

[pne]

On the other hand, the discussion did also include numbers in the examples of "unusual characters", which I would agree is considerably more doubtful

Jennifer 8. Lee, anyone?

[brooksmoses]

I had not previously heard of her; now I have. Glad to see that my instincts that numbers were plausible in names are correct.

Any idea if that's something that's culturally common, or just one person being unusual? Wikipedia doesn't give me any idea on the subject.

[pne]

I have no idea, either.

Another person is 3ric Johanson; as I understand it, that's his legal name.

But I believe that in neither of the two cases was the number part of their legal name at birth.

I wonder whether there are people where "III" or "3rd" or similar are part of their legal name, though - I mean, we talk about "William Henry Gates III", but I don't know what it says on his ID. (Just as "Jr" and "Sr" are, in my understanding, not usually part of the legal name, but may be for some people.)

[bcholmes]

+1

[redbird]

I wonder what constitutes a "single language." Bernardo O'Higgins, anyone?

[firecat]

Ooh yeah, I hadn't thought of that.

[musyc]

Hah, that was my question. My first name's French and my last name's German. Guess I'm out even if I use my legal name, by their standards.

[zaluzianskya]

I'm wondering this, too. My legal first name is Latin and my last name is English, so... But then, the first name I prefer to go by is English, too. That also makes me wonder, do you have to use your legal name on Google+ like you do on Facebook?

[azurelunatic]

John Huang, who may or may not have another personal name that is only used by, say, family and church.

[brooksmoses]

I'm guessing what they really mean there is "single character set" -- no first name in Latin characters and last name in Cyrillic or Chinese.

[azurelunatic]

And it depends on who "everybody" is. Is it people I mostly haven't seen for a decade, who may or may not actually share any of my interests, and most of whom I'd be okay with not seeing for another decade? Or is it the people who I see in person regularly and spend most of my online time talking to?

[sophie]

Technically, the rules you give for the name policy are only the 'guidelines' given for names according to that page, and the actual content policy reads:

13. Display Name

To help fight spam and prevent fake profiles, use the name your friends, family or co-workers usually call you. For example, if your full legal name is Charles Jones Jr. but you normally use Chuck Jones or Junior Jones, either of those would be acceptable.

Of course, we all know that this is not at all what Google are actually holding people to. :(

[djm4]

Nitpick: Dreamwidth has a 'Mark this comment as spam' checkbox if you delete a comment. I don't think that changes your overall point, though.

The inevitable but useful links about names

[eftychia]

"First and last" names, huh?

Long list of bad assumptions, many of which no 21st Century system designer has a good excuse for getting wrong: http://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-believe-about-names/

Several cultures' naming conventions, in comments: http://blog.jclark.com/2007/12/thai-personal-names.html

On realness of real names: http://modernhypatia.info/2010/07/real-names-defining/

Re: The inevitable but useful links about names

[catpella]

I have totally run into systems, including booking airline tickets! which refuse to believe that my last name has a hyphen. In one case it wouldn't take spaces OR hypens so I smushed it up as LastnameLastname. I have so far not YET run into TSA issues, but it's still kind of irritating.

Re: The inevitable but useful links about names

[firecat]

Thanks for the links!

Re: The inevitable but useful links about names

[twisted_times]

Seconded - interesting links there! ^^

I also love the origination comparison too. :)

[bibliofile]

Thanks for putting it down like this.

[0jack]

The longer this goes on, the less I want to use G+. Ugh. YUCK.

I have two first names and one last name. Not a middle name. And my second first name should have a punctuation mark in it. *headdesk*

Also... psuedonymity is not anonymity. More yuck. I just hate this lofty normative feel I get from Google. Also, WTF, forcible gender assignment? Gross, people.

[firecat]

I just hate this lofty normative feel I get from Google.

Exactly. Where normative = white anglo-saxon male.

[fyreharper]

Or female, or Other, but you still have to pick one. And tell them what it is. :(

[firecat]

Right, and there's no option for "None of your damn business."

[adrian_turtle]

I think a fundamental part of the problem is that Google doesn't want two-way communication. There's no way for a particular user to have a conversation with somebody at Google about what, exactly, is going on. Google is so big that it would be expensive for them to have responsive customer service...but I think it says something that they don't want to talk at all.

[andrewducker]

I just had it pointed out over on my LJ that there is a contradiction between:
"We will not place limits on your expression, except as required by United States law or to protect the quality and long-term viability of the service (such as removing spam)."
and the banning of hate speech.

Much as I dislike hate speech it's not illegal, and it's not spam.

[firecat]

Actually in some cases hate speech is illegal. But in general you're right.

[daweaver]

Before the site launched, I queried whether Dreamwidth's "Guiding Principles" document should be seen as part of a contract between service and user.

I was advised that the only legally-binding terms were those in the Terms of Service and the Privacy Policy.

There's no contradiction here: one document is binding in a court of Mary Land, the other is a piece that Dreamwidth can repudiate without incurring legal liability.