Pseudonyms Now Allowed On Google+

An anonymous reader writes When Google+ launched, it received criticism across the internet for requiring that users register with their real names. Now, Google has finally relented and removed all restrictions on what usernames people are allowed to use. The company said, "We know you've been calling for this change for a while. We know that our names policy has been unclear, and this has led to some unnecessarily difficult experiences for some of our users. For this we apologize, and we hope that today's change is a step toward making Google+ the welcoming and inclusive place that we want it to be."

Comments

Youtube Comments

[exomondo]

I see the only major impact of this being that people can now leave pseudonymous comments on Youtube again.

Re:Youtube Comments

[Darinbob]

Google+ is not about a popularity contest. It's about being social without being on facebook, or keeping track of special interest groups (including celebreties). The only real problem with Google+ was that it wanted to tie you to other stupid services like youtube, without even letting you go slumming on a separate account. Google should have left it alone instead of trying to get a one-acount-fits-all login (trying too hard to be a facebook clone instead of being something better).

Re:Youtube Comments

[Anonymous Coward]

There's no reason to be contributing to that pool of bile anyway. Youtube comments are notoriously atrocious.

They got worse with the redesign, though.

Old and busted: You could always look at page 1/2/3 of the comments or binary-search your way through the pages (pre-page-57 or post-page 57? pre-page 84 or post-page-84?) if a video that hadn't been relevant for ages became relevant. At 100 comments per page, all displayed in full, and popping tabs for each page with a bunch of middle-clicks, it was relatively easy to skim through the 99.99% of the shit to find the 0.01% you wanted
New hotness: Some fucking UXtard goes for infinite scroll, and you have to click to expand subthreads, and then click to expand any comment longer than three lines in any subthread.

Every time a UX designer fucks with something to make it more mobile-friendly, they make it less usable for both desktop and mobile users.

Re:In other words

[osu-neko]

Yeah, I already figured Google knows who I am and what all my aliases are anyhow. It's not Google I'm trying to keep from putting the pieces together, it's J. Random HR twerp who doesn't need to know my hobbies and kinks to determine if I'm qualified for the job.

Re:Anonymity makes sense for special cases.

[jeIIomizer]

Whistleblowing, witness protection, for example. For most other cases anonymity degenerates into a cesspool of behavior that is not accepted in normal society.

People suppress their true nature in "normal society." "normal society" bores me to tears.

Overnoght the forum changed from endless spam and trolling to respectful discourse between actual people.

More like useless, non-controversial discourse. By tying everything to real names, you make it less likely that anyone will do anything controversial, even when it needs to be done. Who knows if a future employer will decide to not hire you because you said something they don't like, even if you thought it was completely innocuous?

I'd rather deal with trolls and spam than have "respectful discourse" between fake people.