I’ll tell you what I want, what I really really want

I want to be transparent.

I keep hearing people talk about how the Google+ names policy is meant to avoid fakes and pretenders, as though using a pseudonym is about pretence – but I don’t want to use a pseudonym and pretend it’s my real name, I want to use a pseudonym openly, I want to be transparent about it, just as here I’m signing my posts as “Not Celia Rogut” and not pretending that Not Celia Rogut is my name.

The Google+ names policy requires people to use the name they are commonly known by. For some people that works, and that’s great. I have friends who are on G+ with the names they are known by in ordinary life and to them it’s not a problem. Sadly there are people who actually want to use the names they are commonly known by but these names don’t fit the acceptable pattern of what Google reckon a name should look like, but that’s another story, painful though it is – right now I want to focus on the use of pseudonyms.

The people I’ve met on Google Plus who want to use pseudonyms are not seeking to mislead anyone – if anyone wants to do that, they can very easily set up an account in a name like John Smith and stay under the radar. What we want is to use a pseudonym without pretending that it’s anything other than a pseudonym – that’s what the current policy doesn’t let us do, so those of us who need to use a pseudonym are forced into a pretence which we do not want! (either that, or being open about it and risking getting reported and suspended – some of us have opted for that rather than pretend.)

Some need to use pseudonyms for reasons of safety and security – as in my case; some want to use pseudonyms for reasons of continuity – they’ve been known online for years under a particular name and if they use the name they are known by offline then their blog readers or social networking friends simply won’t recognise them. In either case, whether it’s about using a name we’re already known by on the internet or whether it’s about protecting ourselves by using a name we’ve made up, we have no need or desire to pretend – what we need from Google is permission to stop pretending!