10
votes
Have you guys read "Without Their Permission" by Alexis Ohanian?
It's about u/kn0thing (the reddit user, not the tildes user, I don't think they're related), the reddit co-founder, and how to start a startup, It's very interesting, you guys should check it out.
For those who are confused by this, it is referring to a book, Ohanian's Without Their Permission: How the 21st Century Will Be Made, Not Managed. Being a book by a Reddit co-founder from 2013, I have to wonder how much the account would show its age, in this brave new world that has such people in it as were not so visible in that more hopeful era, and has Reddit holding a rather different reputation.
I would note that, in making a post like this, it would be nice to hear what you found interesting.
it mostly talked about how to make a startup successful, which I found inspiring.
FYI: There is no Tildes user @kn0thing; that user page returns an error, which means the account doesn't exist.
(Until someone reads this comment and decides to create that account as a joke...)
It actually was a registered account (albeit an inactive one), but I let Deimos know about it when I saw this topic, since it likely wasn't Alexis and so violated the "malicious impersonation" rule in the Tildes Code of Conduct. And given the fact the account has now been removed, I would strongly recommend that nobody else register it, even as a joke (unless they actually are Alexis Ohanian), since I doubt Deimos would appreciate it.
Oh. Okay then.
Interesting. Are usernames from other fora able to be impersonated? If someone else had registered "Algernon_Asimov" here on Tildes before I got here, would they be impersonating me? What about something generic like "Bob" or "myaccount" or "throwaway123"? How special does a name have to be in order for it to qualify for impersonation? (These are mostly just think-out-loud musings. I know the answer: "It's subjective and it's up to Deimos to decide.")
The rule specifies “real world or online”, so yes, other fora count.
LOL, indeed, but I’m sure that common sense and judgement of intent applies here. Bob and the throwaways are pretty generic usernames and so you would be hard pressed to convince anyone just because it was also used on X forum, the user who had it on Tildes was trying to maliciously impersonate them... but given the fact Deimos is a former reddit employee and most users here are redditors, kn0thing and various unique/prominent reddit usernames are more likely to be considered off limits to all but their owners from reddit, yours included.
That was what I was getting at: when is a username "copyrighted", for want of a better term? Are you even able to impersonate someone from another forum? If "user1" on Reddit posts silly jokes, and "user1" on Tildes posts silly jokes, is that accidental coincidence by two different people, deliberate impersonation of one person by another, or two accounts operated by one person? What's the effective difference? How could you tell if one user is or is not the same as another user? What if I'm not the same person who operated "Algernon_Asimov" for 6+ years on Reddit? How would you know? Would it even matter? What if Reddit's CEO used "Bob" or "throwaway123" for their account? Is it open because it's a generic name, or is it off-limits because it's used by the CEO?
This is what I think about! I need a more interesting life. :P
Yeah, there will always be edge cases like a famous CEO that uses Bob for their username elsewhere... but I think in cases like that, so long as the Bob here is not actually trying to impersonate the CEO, it's tough luck for Bob the CEO if he wants the same username on Tildes too. He should have picked a more unique username for himself.
Again, common sense and judgement of intent. If Bob the CEO reached out and let us know they are not the Bob here (who is claiming to be them), then that would be a pretty good indication the user here should lose access to the username. And if a user on Tildes had a "famous" username from elsewhere, we could also simply reach out to that user on the original platform they are active on to ask if they are the same person here... which I have actually already done a few times via PM on reddit.
Me too... and ditto. :P
It's definitely a judgment call. On the registration page (you'd have to log out or use a private window to look: https://tildes.net/register), under the username field it has:
So it's mostly whether other people will be likely to think it's someone in particular's account based on a "well-known" (on some level) name, and if there's not really a reasonable reason that the person chose that name. Like, if it's "bob" and the person's name is Bob, then it's pretty reasonable for them to have chosen it. If it's "kn0thing", it's a lot more unlikely that they just happen to want that name without knowing the connection to Alexis.
"fora" as a plural of forum? I always said "forums". Interesting..
Fora is the Latin plural of forum (similar to memoranda being the plural of memorandum), so both are correct, just in different ways.
Did you mean to post this comment in the weekly "what are you reading" topic? ;)