It's possible that while in Beta they are at a point where there are no clear policies or standard procedures. Or that such things are still very malleable while they figure things out.
You're taking what I said to the worse possible extreme. (Personally, I think that says something about you, but I'll digress on that point)
When I said malleable, I was saying that any standards/procedures currently in place could be changed to accommodate unforeseen consequences/fallout/whatever. In this example, a policy of "ban accounts with names that don't match m/^[a-zA-Z ]+*/" could be loosened when they ban someone that has a legitimate gripe, and realize the mistaken logic behind that policy.
You shouldn't be spending so much time railing on them for the banning of an account so much as how they respond to it. Do they apologize and change policy? Do they backpedal, blame the account-holder, and leave the policy in place?
I dunno about you, but you'd have to be pretty clueless about your customers if you think automatic bans over having " " in your username is a justified reaction.
As far as judging the response...you can't do that, since the issue was made public....if the issue went through the proper channels, there'd be a very high chance of her being told that there is nothing Google can do.
There is such a thing called common sense, and in this case, it was severely lacking. What other kind of mines are hidden in the terms of service that will get your account banned over nothing? What other rules will be added later and applied to all accounts retroactively.
Will you find yourself 4 years from now getting permanently suspended from Google plus, because in your message history, you used the word "Bing" in a message to your friend today?
Any other company, you have a good chance of getting a retarded decision revoked. With Google, you have a better chance of playing a 24 hour marathon of Russian roulette, than getting an issue resolved through the support system.
"You'd have to be pretty clueless about your customers if you think automatic bans over having " " in your username is a justified reaction."
I posted elsewhere here, but judging from an older copy of the profile in Bing, the profile used to be for "Adafruit Industries." I'm guessing the profile was flagged when it wasn't as close to a person's name.
Somehow, to me, this just makes it worse. Maybe I'm still misunderstanding the situation here, but are you saying the timeline was this?
1) user sets up account, "Adafruit Industries"
2) user's account is flagged by someone, unknown to user
3) user is reading online, learns more about the Terms of Service, and finds out Google is serious that they /must/ use their real name
4) user /changes/ the name of their account to fit the Terms of Service
5) at some undetermined time later than #4, Google decides to act on the now obsolete flagged data, to punish the user for a minor transgression that they already unilaterally corrected
Does this really seem like a good way to be treating users? I've now read enough about Google+ issues that I'm on the verge of closing my Google+ account, and I already have a ton of followers and never had anything but my real name in the blank (despite the fact that EVERYONE online knows me as "saurik", and VERY FEW people know me as "Jay Freeman", so arguably "Jay Freeman" is a fake name and "saurik" is real)... I just can't risk my Google account getting closed for some frivolous reason: it is just that important to me.
Also, by the way, this entire notion of putting your real name on a service whose very premise is about privacy seems ludicrous... I know a ton of friends, both famous (hundreds of thousands of followers on Twitter) and closeted (barely use a computer), who simply don't like telling random people online their real name, much less connecting it to a picture of themselves. Why isn't this circled or something?
"Humorously" enough, I just went now to find MuscleNerd's profile on Twitter and Google+ to show an example of someone who people /love/ on Google+, /only/ know as MuscleNerd, and obviously are quite famous, and you know what? It turns out his profile was deleted today... I don't even think he's noticed yet, and I don't think his insanely large following is going to be very happy about it.
In case anyone actually reads this comment (someone, at least, upvoted it), I figure I will connect the post I just made on Google+ on this subject to link through:
saurik, I don't think the timing on #4 and #5 are right; the same day that Limor's profile was suspended, I think the account name was still outside the common names policy.
For the record, I do want Google+ to support pseudonyms. I think Bradley's post showed that we want to get there too. But it's going to take some time, and in the mean time, my impression is that the Google+ folks are trying to keep fake/spammy/business profiles from getting out of control.
Comments
It's possible that while in Beta they are at a point where there are no clear policies or standard procedures. Or that such things are still very malleable while they figure things out.
in what world is account suspension for having " " in your username justified? There should be nothing malleable about that
When I said malleable, I was saying that any standards/procedures currently in place could be changed to accommodate unforeseen consequences/fallout/whatever. In this example, a policy of "ban accounts with names that don't match m/^[a-zA-Z ]+*/" could be loosened when they ban someone that has a legitimate gripe, and realize the mistaken logic behind that policy.
You shouldn't be spending so much time railing on them for the banning of an account so much as how they respond to it. Do they apologize and change policy? Do they backpedal, blame the account-holder, and leave the policy in place?
I dunno about you, but you'd have to be pretty clueless about your customers if you think automatic bans over having " " in your username is a justified reaction.
As far as judging the response...you can't do that, since the issue was made public....if the issue went through the proper channels, there'd be a very high chance of her being told that there is nothing Google can do.
There is such a thing called common sense, and in this case, it was severely lacking. What other kind of mines are hidden in the terms of service that will get your account banned over nothing? What other rules will be added later and applied to all accounts retroactively.
Will you find yourself 4 years from now getting permanently suspended from Google plus, because in your message history, you used the word "Bing" in a message to your friend today?
Any other company, you have a good chance of getting a retarded decision revoked. With Google, you have a better chance of playing a 24 hour marathon of Russian roulette, than getting an issue resolved through the support system.
"You'd have to be pretty clueless about your customers if you think automatic bans over having " " in your username is a justified reaction."
I posted elsewhere here, but judging from an older copy of the profile in Bing, the profile used to be for "Adafruit Industries." I'm guessing the profile was flagged when it wasn't as close to a person's name.
Somehow, to me, this just makes it worse. Maybe I'm still misunderstanding the situation here, but are you saying the timeline was this?
1) user sets up account, "Adafruit Industries"
2) user's account is flagged by someone, unknown to user
3) user is reading online, learns more about the Terms of Service, and finds out Google is serious that they /must/ use their real name
4) user /changes/ the name of their account to fit the Terms of Service
5) at some undetermined time later than #4, Google decides to act on the now obsolete flagged data, to punish the user for a minor transgression that they already unilaterally corrected
Does this really seem like a good way to be treating users? I've now read enough about Google+ issues that I'm on the verge of closing my Google+ account, and I already have a ton of followers and never had anything but my real name in the blank (despite the fact that EVERYONE online knows me as "saurik", and VERY FEW people know me as "Jay Freeman", so arguably "Jay Freeman" is a fake name and "saurik" is real)... I just can't risk my Google account getting closed for some frivolous reason: it is just that important to me.
Also, by the way, this entire notion of putting your real name on a service whose very premise is about privacy seems ludicrous... I know a ton of friends, both famous (hundreds of thousands of followers on Twitter) and closeted (barely use a computer), who simply don't like telling random people online their real name, much less connecting it to a picture of themselves. Why isn't this circled or something?
"Humorously" enough, I just went now to find MuscleNerd's profile on Twitter and Google+ to show an example of someone who people /love/ on Google+, /only/ know as MuscleNerd, and obviously are quite famous, and you know what? It turns out his profile was deleted today... I don't even think he's noticed yet, and I don't think his insanely large following is going to be very happy about it.
In case anyone actually reads this comment (someone, at least, upvoted it), I figure I will connect the post I just made on Google+ on this subject to link through:
https://plus.google.com/116098411511850876544/posts/4t8sFLLK...
saurik, I don't think the timing on #4 and #5 are right; the same day that Limor's profile was suspended, I think the account name was still outside the common names policy.
For the record, I do want Google+ to support pseudonyms. I think Bradley's post showed that we want to get there too. But it's going to take some time, and in the mean time, my impression is that the Google+ folks are trying to keep fake/spammy/business profiles from getting out of control.