According to "TheBlack Box", which is the avatar name of a Second Life user, Google allowed him to keep his Google+ social network account named after that pseudonym. After changing the G+ account name from his real life name to his SL avatar name, his account was flagged, and he sent Google this SL group website link, to prove he was known as TheBlack Box by over 2500 SL users. After some more back and forth, as he reports on his active Google+ account, Google eventually sent him this e-mail:
"Thanks for sending us your appeal. You're right: your name does comply with the Google+ Names Policy. Your name has been updated on your Google+ profile. If you submitted the appeal during sign up, your profile has now been restored. Log in to Google+. Sorry for the inconvenience, The Google+ team."
And so now TheBlack Box in SL is officially TheBlack Box on Google+. This is evidently evidence that Google will indeed allow at least some SL avatars to go by their pseudonym on Google+, when provided sufficient evidence that the avatar name is well-established. When I spoke with her on Tuesday, a Google spokesperson was cagey on what kind of evidence they would accept for pseudonymous G+ accounts. And different Google policy review staffers may make different decisions. But at least in The Black Box's case, a pseudonym-only avatar name was apparently allowed.
Hat tip: Botgirl Questi.
So we should all go join a few of those massively large fashion shopper groups in SL, so we can say 'these 10,000 people know me'... :)
Posted by: Pussycat Catnap | Thursday, January 26, 2012 at 12:11 PM
My Google+ profile was reinstated after I appealed and provided them with my LinkedIn (252 connections), Twitter (441 followers), and Plurk (111 following) profiles. Of course, I was reinstated once before after appeal then subsequently kicked out again then reinstated again so maybe it is just a matter of which Google employee is looking at your Google+ profile at what time during their changing policies.
Posted by: Missy Restless | Thursday, January 26, 2012 at 12:53 PM
I quit Google+ when I heard I was also in danger of losing g-mail and my blogger accounts also. So I am only on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn as Pituca FairChang. Even my kids and grand kidlets know who Pituca is.
Posted by: Pituca FairChang | Thursday, January 26, 2012 at 01:14 PM
I guess that shows that, a meaningful number, can be marginal.
Posted by: Adromaw Lupindo | Thursday, January 26, 2012 at 04:29 PM
Well seems i must say again, this time a bit louder.... Don't care nor wish to be on,
FACEBOOK and GOOGLE!
Posted by: foneco zuzu | Friday, January 27, 2012 at 05:39 AM
And to remind an amazing post, that shows the need for some to come here and fight, cause Hamlet's Agenda is not for sure Second Life nor Open sim one!
Quotig:
And then there's people who aren't into the social media the way you exactly are Hamlet, and so might make totally different choices than you do.
I have a friend who every time someone tries to link Facebook to her SL identity, we get a LONG lecture on why she Absolutely Positively Will NOT do that - she has a real life stalker, she's had to move thousands of miles to get away from and SL is a refuge.
Just because Mr. Z. came up with the idea of "Everyone has to use their real name on the Internet" doesn't mean that everyone agrees with him. And Google+ or Google- or Buzz or whatever it's called this week, is now on trajectory to be "same as Facebook" and we all know how that works. Only one company ends up on top.
However, on the good side of all this, Facebook has now been top dog long enough to have hit their crest and some new startup that no one has ever heard of will soon be "the new Facebook." I doubt if that will be Google. They do search engine fabulous, the rest of their social services have been fail.
And, unlike folks who believe a constant cacaphony of "me, me, me" is the best background music for life, there are still some folks who prefer not to put out on a minute by minute basis, every random thought percolating through the brain cells.
As for me, having been invited to join FB in its early days when they had no name rules, and then kicked off rudely by FB for having an "unreal name," I'm going to wait for the dust to settle on any other service that wants to track my every move in exchange for advertising revenue.
BTW, my unreal name gets thousands of hits. My real name... pfft. Who needs another "Mary Smith" on Google+?
Have fun with Google+ but please don't get cranky if Everyone fails to Use the Service the exact same way you do.
And Hamlet, please stop saying that SL is dying or a dead end especially based on the word/s of people who have noisily quit. Their opinion is their opinion. Despite the best efforts of a chorus of nay-sayers many of whom have predicted the imminent demise of the platform since before I got my account, SL is still alive and well.
I see new players every day for whom SL is just as magical as it was for you when you started. All this doom and gloom is like listening to that old guy who said the world would end last April... no wait, November... no wait, December for sure... He looked really silly when the globe ignored his predictions and continued spinning merrily along.
Dude, I've been reading "The Sky is Falling, The Sky is Falling," by Hamlet Au for five years now. And truth? The sky hasn't fallen yet.
If I believed what you wrote when I joined SL, I would have marched right back out the door and never done any of the marvelous things that make me who I am now.
How many others have you cut off before they could bloom with your authoritative words and fancy graphics? How many people haven't stayed in SL because of the things you write? Maybe it's not "the Lab" that's entirely the problem but the negative buzz in blogs like yours that claim to be authoritative.
Even when invited inworld to the SL Birthday, you got frustrated in first 60 seconds and left - as you wrote at the time. So how much of the New Art did you see in one minute? How much art would you see in a museum if you only got to the coat room?
You can't say nice stuff about artists if you don't go see their stuff... but you can sure say nasty things about SL when you haven't been inworld in ages, still have an out of date avatar, claim you can't find your AO and can't remember how to use Marketplace to get a free one.
Just because you're mad at the Lab, or yourself, or something - please stop taking it out on folks who are still having fun?
Instead of more nattering negativity, how about you challenge yourself to a Positive February where every article you write about SL would be nice, pleasant, and positive, about the good people who are doing creative things in a world you used to love?
Posted by: Toady Nakamura | Wednesday, January 25, 2012 at 05:57 PM
Unquote:
And the ones that still believe that Sl and or OS has so much more to offer stil, will make sure to remind this amazing post By Toady Nakamura, whenever its needed!
Posted by: foneco zuzu | Friday, January 27, 2012 at 05:59 AM
I echo @Pituca FairChang — I did the same to my Google+ account, a few days after it seemed that a disapproval on Google+/Google Profiles would mean "no more Google services" for me.
It's really a bit like playing Russian Roulette. If you're lucky and get approved by a friendly Google employee, then all's well and you can have some fun. If not, bye-bye Gmail, GDocs, GCalendar, Google Adwords, Google Adsense, Google Analytics, Google Code... oops. Suddenly everything I have that Google manages on my behalf, be it pleasure, work, academic research or business (even money! I have money on ad campaigns!), disappears in an instant.
This is way too risky for me to feel comfortable about. Sure, if I got handled by the same employee as TheBlack Box, I'd be able to pile up tons and tons of more links and information (some of them provided by Google itself!). I could even point them to New World Notes ;) But who knows "how much is enough"? And how long I would have until they decide to review my profile again? (While, in the mean time, be excluded from using Google's services or getting access to the money I have stored with them)
This is still way too dangerous. What I should be doing is to move out everything from Google — even email! — and then safely apply to get a profile on Google+. But that's a pain. And there are no easy substitutes for Google Adsense/Adwords/Analytics (of course there are alternatives, but none have the same widespread target as Google). And, of course, it would also mean being willing to lose all the money there, if I had to forfeit my account.
I'd be fine if this worked the other way round: submitting an application for a profile first, and then await the results. If the application gets rejected, fine, I'd stay with my profile as it is. If it gets approved, great. That way, there would be no money and data loss. Right now, it works the other way round, and that's way too dangerous for me to "experiment"...
Posted by: Gwyneth Llewelyn | Thursday, February 16, 2012 at 11:45 AM