So the powers that be at Facebook have finally caught up with me and I've been banned for violating their terms of service. Technically they are right, as they state that you should use your birth name to register.
However, someone like myself, chromatic or Abigail are known professionally by a pseudonym. On my friends list there are only a few that know my birth name, and that includes some of the people I work with!
I've used the pseudonym professionally for over 20 years, and there are plenty of people I've worked with, both in the music industry and in IT that only know me as Barbie. It's part of my identity, particularly my online identity. If you were to search Google with my birth name you would be hard pushed to find anything related to me.
For me this is a failing of some online social tools. They always assume that people are happy to have their birth name made public. If you make an effort you can find out my birth name, but I don't use, it's not what I'm known by and as such it is a true identity of me. I would be quite prepared to provide my birth name, providing it was concealed from public view, but it doesn't seem like that is possible.
I have sent them an email complaining about this, so I'll see what their response is. I'll be disappointed if they don't make provisions for cases like mine or chromatic's or Abigail's as I'm sure there are plenty of people out there who have a similar identity.
Re:A rose by any other name
barbie on 2007-07-20T09:43:13
There's also the fact that it's a ** SOCIAL ** networking website. Had it been a been about professional associations I could have understood. LinkedIn don't have the same restrictions, but I would appreciate why they might want to. Admittedly they make a distinction between first and last name, but that is mostly because western employment uses those two fields. However, the difference between the two is that on LinkedIn you are representing yourself to potential professional contacts. If you choose to use a name that you are not known professionally by, then it's a bit pointless.
Facebook are trying to dictate how they would like the online world to interact, and unfortunately that's not how a lot of social interaction works. By our very nature we are individuals and many of us don't like to have arbitrary rules enforced on us.
I have also talked about changing my name by deed poll, not that Nicole would be happy about that, but what then? Does Ingy have a Facebook account? If so would they have an issue with "döt Net" as his last name?
But I do like your suggestion. I may well add a new account
;)
I wonder if perhaps Mattel, Inc. had their attack lawyers investigating Facebook and they came across you. That would be a bit stupid, though, considering that it's not like you're pretending to be that other Barbie.
Re:How stupid
barbie on 2007-07-20T13:03:09
No this is nothing to do with Mattel Inc. this is all the Facebook admins. I happened to come to their attention because I highlighted a bug in their software. This is the thanks I get!
They state their policy is that you have a full first name (you cannot use just an initial only) and a full last name. You may have a nickname, but it must be derived from one or other of the other two names. For example Liz would be an acceptable abbreviation of Elizabeth.
I can't see them saying they need it for legal reasons as they have no other method of authentication of your name. They don't require a credit card, passport or National Insurance number, so what is the point of stipulating a rule that is essentially meaningless? Answers on a postage stamp
:) Re:How stupid
jdavidb on 2007-07-20T20:16:47
My grandfather's name was J. T. Not his initials; his name. The national guard actually made up a name for him at one point. Genealogical records often supplied a matching name of an ancestor and named him a Jr. I wonder what facebook would do about him.
My grandfather and I shared an employer, and thus an insurance provider and other benefits, although he was retired before I was born. And we lived together for a while, and my name is John David, which I abbreviate to J. David, which is often screwed up in terrible ways. And people love to drop middle initials, and so we'd get mail for "J Blackstone" from our common benefits provider and wonder who it was for.
Re:Frankly...
chromatic on 2007-07-20T17:59:37
Their service, their rules.That's a fair enough point, but I could imagine having the real name "Tom O'Malley" (not the name on my birth certificate) and not being able to sign up on certain web sites due to similar oversights. It might not be worth the work of supporting some of us oddballs, but that means we'll either break the rules of the site or not sign up. I choose the latter.
Re:Frankly...
Matts on 2007-07-20T18:08:27
Honestly, you're not missing much. I don't get the hype. Though their backend technology is kinda cool.Re:Frankly...
barbie on 2007-07-20T19:08:23
Their service, their rules.That's absolutely true. But I still find it a bit weird that they should feel the need to tell everybody how they should be called when it is essentially a "social" site. It's flavour of the month now, but these sort of sites are popping up all the time, and I would not like others to follow suit.
As to what value I get out of Facebook, that's a very difficult one to answer. I've found it fun and a nice way to connect with people I've met at conferences and the like. It's a more informal LinkedIn, a basic Flickr and an alternative Yahoo Groups all in one.
I would consider this rule a bit sinister if I believed the people who thought it up were that rigorous in culling accounts with dubious names.
I just hope other future sites bear in mind that people like me, are not that difficult to accommodate.
Groucho Marx take on clubs
mr_bean on 2007-07-21T03:59:49
"I sent the club a wire stating, Please accept my resignation. I don't want to belong to any club that will accept me as a member."
But he was probably playing fast and loose with the facts. The club was probably not accepting him, seeing he was Jewish.
