Linden Lab Originally Planned to Have Real Name-Only Policy for Sansar -- Until Women & LGBT Members of User Community Protested

Remember in 2016 when I reported that Linden Lab was planning to require Sansar users to use their real name, which the company strongly disputed? The podcast interview I blogged yesterday (embedded after the break) includes some fascinating backstory courtesy Tara Hernandez, Linden's Senior Director of Engineering. While addressing the problem with griefers in virtual worlds, Hernandez discusses how the company originally planned to try and solve it:

Hernandez: “One idea was, no is allowed to use a pseudonym, there is no anonymity, and that way everyone will play nice, because we all know who everyone is… [to female interviewer TC Currie] You just winced. You can imagine the roar of outrage.”

TC Currie: “I'm sure those were men who were making this suggestion, mostly.”

Hernandez: “I think that's a fair assessment… Women and also members of our queer community were like, ‘Hey we get what you’re trying to do, but you might want to re-think that a bit because it’s a safety issue. Stalking is a thing, virtual and otherwise'… I’m happy to say that that discussion prompted the change... I think officially it’s been deferred, but listening happens.’"

Sansar still requires users to choose a male or female avatar, with no specifically non-gendered option. (Something Hernandez herself says she's not satisfied with, since her SL avatar is a bear nicknamed Baloo.) But at the very least, users aren't (yet) required to publicly associate their real names with their Sansar avatars. So there's two important takeaways here:

As Currie suggests, incredibly important decisions like user names can go really wrong due to male bias. (Something I've written about before.) But Linden Lab is at least responsive to the user community raising reasonably argued objections. Hernandez goes on to mention that Linden Lab is actually the most diverse and inclusive tech company she's ever worked for. (That was even true back in 2006 when I still contracted there.) Just imagine all the bad decisions tech companies with way less diversity are making every day.

Comments

[Montana Hanna]

I gave up any hope of Sansar it just is not up with the times with almost everyone myself knowing using cell phones to be online not $2500 Home computers
Imagine they just decided to upgrade SL from the very beginning as two grids SL & SL2.0 it would have made more sense
someone is going to come along blowing Sansar and High Fidelity right out of the water you just wait and see!

[Erik Mondrian]

For a company based in San Francisco—and especially one running a long-established, highly diverse platform like Second Life—you'd think they'd have more understanding (without having to be told!) of the nuances of self-presentation and the risks involved in forcing a one-to-one relationship between real and virtual identities.

[ReBeccaOrg]

In an era when we have Facebook, right there, as an example of how real name policies don't do anything to make people "play nice", I find even the basic premise baffling.

That they somehow missed all of the previous blow ups, that their staff was sufficiently cloistered to think that everyone feels safe having names out in public, those I find less surprising. They might be in SF, but I would expect given their size and age that they've largely shifted to median SV culture.

[Susan]

Using real names was considered as an option to have people be nicer. It was a good sentiment if not a good idea. When that became obvious the idea was dropped.

New World Notes seems to be always looking for ways to make Sansar look bad. Why is that?

[Amanda]

This was an idea that was dropped before Sansar was well off the ground and long before it opened to the public. This makes Linden Lab look good.