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Comment by jonknee | Hacker News Reader

Dave's been for a long time the tech version of an old man screaming at kids to get off his lawn. Matching your "Real Name" to advertising partners isn't at all why Google wants your "Real Name". They want it because it makes for a better social network. Most Gmail users provide a "Real Name" so Google already had hundreds of millions and so far as I know, hasn't decided to hook up with my grocery to somehow advertise better to me. They do use interest data, but it's one-click to opt-out of (http://www.google.com/privacy/ads/) and knowing someone's name adds little to being able to target ads.

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Your comment reads better without the Ad Hominem. You have an opinion, it differs from his, that’s fine, and that’s all you need to say.

I don't think it's a stretch to characterize Dave Winer as a curmudgeon. He has made valuable contributions and I respect him, but he's still a curmudgeon.

I don’t think it’s a stretch to look at my comments here on HN and say that I’m cranky. Nevertheless, that doesn’t in any way add to a debate over my specific comment: Either I’m right or I’m wrong. If I’m wrong, say so and explain why. Saying (correctly) that I’m a cranky guy is still an Ad Hominem.

Summary: Ad Hominems can be factually correct yet they are still Ad Hominems and still the lowest form of disagreement.

And my point in this case isn’t that the entire argument was an Ad Hominem, but rather that it was a (possibly correct) Ad Hominem followed by a perfectly reasonable point. I stand by my assertion that the point is stronger on its own without the Ad Hominem.

Point taken, and lest I myself appear persnickety, I'll leave it at that.

And likewise, I will mention that while I’m quibbling about one little bit, I consider the rest of your comment worthy of an upvote.

Nevertheless, that doesn’t in any way add to a debate over my specific comment

This assumes that the OP's only goal was to debate. I opine that his secondary goal was to be a little cheeky and possibly evoke a chuckle, which was successfully achieved with me! You can interpret the "curmudgeon" comment as an ad hominem to the extent that his exclusive concern was the logical presentation of his argument, which I do not think is true for most cases in human discourse, on or off the internet.

I disagree. If someone responded face to face to a comment in a public debate by you by making a personal remark "wanting to be a little cheeky and evoke a chuckle", you would absolutely interpret it as being an attempt at ridiculing you and lowering the value of your opinion in the eyes of the audience, and you'd very likely be right. That is the essence of an ad hominem argument.

For what it's worth, I would (and have!) absolutely call someone out for being a curmudgeon face to face. I even called myself out on it the other day after trying to explain to a friend why I was turned off by Spotify.

Obligatory pedantic reply: the OP would be engaging in ad hominem if he argued that Dave Winer is wrong about real names on g+ because he's a curmudgeon. Instead, he argued that Dave Winer is wrong about real names on g+, and also he's a curmudgeon.

No.

This is an incredibly silly claim that people who enjoy engaging in and supporting ad hominem always make when ad hominem is pointed out. Grandparent absolutely intends his insult, in proximity to his argument, to undermine his disputant's credibility. He doesn't need to literally say, "because he's a curmudgeon, his argument is wrong" for it to be ad hominem.

"Grandparent absolutely intends his insult, in proximity to his argument, to undermine his disputant's credibility."

I don't think that that is clear at all. In fact, his derision reads more like a thesis statement to me: "X is a curmudgeon. Why? Well, because of statements like Y."

The first thing the grandparent says is that Dave is a curmudgeon. It's absolutely an ad-hominem, more specifically it is the poisoning the well[1] variety. Everything read after the opening sentence is tainted with the idea that Dave's actions are that of a curmudgeon. Most ad-hominem's are accidental; they're so prevalent in internet discussions that it's difficult not to engage in it, so I'm sure the grandparent meant no harm. He had a genuinely good point, but I agree that it's somewhat ruined by the well poisoning.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_the_well

My claim is pedantic, but it's not silly. I'm not a fan of either ad hominem or garden-variety insults, as I hope my comment history will demonstrate, but I do think it's worth drawing the distinction on principle.

>They want it because it makes for a better social network.

Psueudoanonymous accounts certainly haven't made Twitter a worse social network. My stream would be considerably duller without them.

Ideally, Google should allow those who only want to interact with real named accounts to indicate this in their account settings. Filtering, not censorship, is in order.

Considering all the bots and spam accounts that pollute twitter, I'm not sure if I agree.

Yeah, you have a point. I'm willing to put up with the spam for getting to read anonymous viewpoints, but others my not be, so ideally it should be an option.

That's what I don't get: in a social network where you only receive updates from people you have subscribed, how can spammers affect the experience?

Twitter's @replies are a good example. Friend requests / follow updates are another.

How exactly does it make for a better social network?

Blizzard tried, awhile back, to enforce the real name restriction to their bulletin boards, to disastrous effect. Developers were outed and harassed, and the general consensus was that having real names wouldn't affect the trolls in any meaningful way.

I forsee a lot of John/Jane Smith's on Google+ in the coming years.

In World of Warcraft's case, most of the people on your "Friends" list are just other characters you've played with, whereas with Google+, your "Friends" are usually people you actually know by name and face. I think it's understandable why Blizzard's community would be more concerned about revealing personal information than Google+'s.

At work, so I can't look up the references, but this isn't in relation to the friends list, this is in relation to their official forums. Their original proposal, prior to being shot down by the players, was that every post had a person's real name attached to it in an effort to "improve the community".

For general/anonymous discussion, it might not be a big deal, but if you want to talk about one of your characters, then you're still associating the character with your own name.

Yes, that connection could be problematic, but not nearly as big an issue as when people took a developer's name and started posting personal details about that developer (including, but not limited to, where that developer's children went to school).

Damn that's a disgusting characterization. Really awful.

Anyway, the key point of my piece was this:

"Simply put, a real name is worth more than a fake one."

Do you doubt that?

I suppose we disagree on what the worth is. I think the worth is making a better social network (which is valuable to Google for a number of reasons), not for being able to better target advertising.

The early days of a social network are critical for setting the tone and Google knows that. They see the comment quality on YouTube and are not proud of it. Do you think YouTube comment quality would increase if it were tied to people's real names? I do.

I suspect you are correct. I think Google wants G+ to be a useful way for people to find people they know, as that is the sole reason many people are on Facebook.

I think it has more to do with Facebook and Microsoft taking away quite significant parts of the online ad revenue. Facebook is economically destroying Google in terms of display ads.

Companies don't have loyalties to either company, they just go where the best value is. Currently thats Facebook.

Google developed an attention economy, and Facebook has improved it.

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