...fantastic. YouTube are pushing for people to use their full name on YouTube, which shows up in place of their username. I just got a prompt suggesting I do that.

I've posted about this matter in the past, though this is slightly different, because at the moment (and hopefully this'll be the case always), YouTube aren't forcing people to use their real name. You can decide whether to use your full name on YouTube, or to continue using your username. (Though it should be said that YouTube ask you to justify continuing to use your username if you want to go that way, which really rubs me the wrong way.)

It is nice that they offer a choice, somewhat. But when I said that they're pushing it, I mean that the UI is such that you're fairly likely to go through with it if you don't read carefully. And as I say, the fact that you have to justify your reasons for continuing to use your username is just... eugh. It gives you a choice of 6 buttons IIRC, and one of them is a button saying "I'm not sure, I'll decide later", but that sounds like they still expect a justification later.

There's also a slight annoyance because it makes it harder to tell who's who for me, but that's basically protesting change because it's change, and I'm sure I can get used to it. I'm much more concerned about what I've written above.

What are your thoughts?

User: maiden Date: 2012-12-26 22:30 (UTC) Subject: (no subject)

(belated, I know)

It's stupid. I declined posting my full name simply because I prefer to have a pseudonym. At least they learned (I assume) from the Google+ debacle.

It's also stupid that they required justification. Mine was that I prefer to keep my persona private - as a woman on the internet, it's easy enough to attract stalkers, and avoiding them where possible just seems smart. I don't have any videos actually showing myself, but what if I chose to? Sure, I could privatize it, but if I ever wanted to started a vlog, I don't think that I'd ever associate it with my Facebook or anything with my actual name on it. I'm sure people would be able to link me to it, but... I just prefer a pseudonym (disclaimer here being I have no interest in a vlog due to the fact I wouldn't want people to be able to link it with my personal life - internet trolls can be pretty tenacious).