Using your real name

VERY happy to see this policy, Dan! This will help filter out anyone who has anything to hide, as well.

Cheers for the community!

Interesting new policy. The stage name and initial exceptions seem to make sense but still don't get the 'Chief Show Off' exception. Can you provide examples of non-exceptions?

Would "Chief Show Off" and "Network Guru" fall under the same exception?

I dont know Dan.... Seems like if you make an exception for one you need to make an exception for 2 or 3 or ....... regardless if its a stage name or not... if you want real names that should apply to everyone

Dan... I support the "Real Name" policy, and even though the profile of Chief Show Off is real cool, I don't understand why he can't use his real name and put his "brand name" and picture in the logo area.

The real name and the real face picture goes a long way towards developing trust in a relationship. Just my two cents worth. ....Howard

My feeling is that all members should be ID'd by name. I can't see any reasons for exceptions.

Clear identification seems fitting and appropriate for membership in a community such as Biznik. Unidentified people don't feel like community members.

I think we should all be tagged with RFID's so when we pass each other on the street we know who we are walking past...

(JUST KIDDING!)

I think real names are an excellent idea. My nick is Design Monk and one of my business names is Design Monks. But I would prefer someone calling me Scott over Design or Hey Monk! So I say, real names for everyone please!

Dan... Thank you.

Let's ALL not forget that Biznik is BUSINESS networking. Yes we are social souls also, but our ultimate goal is BUSINESS connections. Our on-line relationships must be as honest and truthful as in the old-days when we did everything "in person". Sometimes we may get a little silly with Biztalk banter, but we still need to feel comfortable with who we are communicating with. Real names will make for Real Business... Howard

BTW: My stage name is "That Lease Guy" and I've never had a problem promoting it using my real name.

One of the reasons why I use my real name is that I have a last name that's nearly impossible to spell, so I "put it out there" so people see it repeatedly. I also use it because it is me. I would not be the professional that I am under a pseudonym.

One of the great uses of taglines is to have a place to have fun with what you represent -- after you've identified yourself by your real name.

I also prefer to do business with people who regularly introduce themselves by their first and last names, especially at networking events. Hearing, "Hi, I'm Cindy" just doesn't have the same impact as "Hi, I'm Cindy Engquist".

by opening this thread i assume you are asking for honest feedback.

as a person whose profile was edited i must go on record as being not happy about it.

I don't think i did anything wrong with my using the handle Justin@BiZi Bee Floral . anyone who has ever met me/done business with me knows me as Justin and there is more at stake for us as a business when i involve BiZi Bee Floral (the name we are building needs to have value which means we must deliver!!).

My profile never stopped any of the Bizniks here from doing biz with me. Have you ever heard any complaints? Certainly know there are a lot folks around here who had a pretty decent flower/gift buying experience.

In fact, i really want to emphasize that it did much to alleviate confusion about who i was and what i do. it was perfect from a biz standpoint, and yet it left me with a reasonable measure privacy.

i clearly wasn't keyword stuffing either. i have the rest of my profile to use for keyword repetition. it was my way of letting folks here know, "hey, there's a florist on here!"(currently the only one i know of, in spite of invites i have sent to others)

I can't help but feel picked on because i am a high ranking member in the directory. this makes it all to convenient to make an example out of me at my own expense. Now all those searches that i come up under as Justin@BiZi Bee Floral have a ZERO chance of bringing me business. Not what i feel i am paying for as a supporting member. Quite the contrary.. as of right now the phone has nearly stopped ringing since my profile was edited for me.. Coincidence? perhaps, but most of my business comes from Google.

So naturally right now i am pretty upset. I've tried to stay calm and reasonable about it.. but having this done TO me..without my ok.. shoot why stop at rewriting my profile, Dan? Just come down and take the keys to my store from me! That's what it feels like.. Just hope i can make rent this month..

By all means feel free to make exceptions to as many of my fellow members at your own discretion... After all Dan, You have the whole Biznik world in Your Hands..

Oh well, i guess a mere mortal like myself can be patient and drift in the wind until enough SE updates bring my new profile up, and now it's gonna be that much easier for a scammer or someone with mal intent to create trouble for me. But hey, i am just one of the little people.. no big consequence.

Genuinely, in your heart of hearts Dan.. I know you care about Biznik and the members of community.. However, on this issue i'm not feeling the love.

I don't feel that there was any harm in my profile the way it was.. (if it was really that bad i'm sure you would have said something to me months ago when i first adopted the handle right?)

Going forward, i propose this test: it has to be overtly offensive or harmful to an individual member or members at large to warrant an Admin Edit. otherwise, Hands Off!

Rant Concludes Now, Justin@BiZi Bee Floral & Gifts

who knows maybe i had a bad day and i am taking it out on you.

seeing this thread just reminded of how pissed i was when i discovered my profile had been edited. my profile feels like really personal space, and i hope you give careful thought to that before touching anyone's profile in the future.

when you change your name like that it's a pretty big deal.. it sees the old name as a totally seperate page as the new one..

ironically, you are getting so much crap from me because you have done a really good job of making a great product. i value my profile.

I agree with real names being visible in the profile, no exceptions. There are plenty of reasons why a real name should be in the profile--to build trust as Howard said, for safety reasons, to let new visitors know we are actually people and not made up characters, to keep biznik an authentic community based on real connections with real people, to demonstrate how we are different than other online networking groups.

One thought for someone like Xakary is to allow him to use his stage name but then include his real name in his profile. Not sure if this would solve the issue.

I absolutely "feel the love" from Dan and Lara for wanting biznik to be a place of integrity, both online and off. Thanks for having high standards and for really staying involved at this level of detail to make biznik a quality experience and quality place to interact.

I use my real name... and actually avoid SEO stuffing Biznik to death using all my tricks of the trade.

Yes- there is some benefit to "stuffing" the keywords, but there is also a detractor from the community. Laughingly some of my experiences and knowledge I simply don't share here simply because Dan, Lara, and John would be pulling hair out with edits left and right if I published "5 ways to abuse Biznik" for SEO.

From a real world perspective- there are two different entities we are all promoting and building. One is personal brand, the other is professional. Sometimes those two things mix.

However when I am communicating here on Biznik, I'm communicating with the individual. For the most part, this is not a Business to Business community, it is a Person to Person community.

There are plenty of B2B communities that allow companies to interact as business extensions.

There are plenty of ways to promote the SEO benefits of link juice, but I would like to highlight from an online marketing / branding perspective it is a very bad mistake to use a single community portal profile as an integral part of a search campaign.

In this case Biznik made the choice to do something on purpose, but there are plenty of things they can do unknowingly or on accident that would wipe out the page rank across the board.

Justin and Heather=BiZi Bee Floral .. we are a small business.. we are our brand. to me our name and our biz name are interchangeable. our name is on each and every arrangement and gift that comes out of our store.

allow me to point out i had my profile the way it was for several months with no issues..suddenly a drum gets pounded on and now i have to wait for an indeterminate period of time for this product i am paying to support to start doing what i need it to do. folks when the gears grind in my cash machine i am going to get a little cranky!

folks if my previous comments seem a little harsh..i would like to point out that i am not busting my chops every day to casually participate in a hobby. this biz is our livelihood and represents every hope we have for the future. when anything happens that has a negative impact even for a short time on these two things i am going to go a little sideways.

i appreciate Barry's advice. perhaps i have a little too much invested here and need to diversify a little. i do know i have much to learn about SEO. what has been nice about Biznik is that it gave me a really neat little way to create measurable results without spending prohibitive amounts of time and money getting them.

well lets hope there really is a pot a gold at the end of this rainbow cuz i am sweatin my guts out trying to make it rain.

Since everyone is expressing their oppinons... here is mine.

Biznik = Business networking that doesn't suck

A lot of rules = Suck

I'm not saying that rules are bad... but I'd hate to see the freedom of expression, creativity, and choice disappear.

Many of us are already holding back on replying to comments fearing that they might be seen as a "me too" comment.

Now more rules...
No one gets evicted in 1 day... there is a 30+ day process, warnings, notices, notices, notices, warnings, notices, and etc. You don't wake up on the street surprised. I don't feel that proper notice/warning was given.

I feel that A LOT of the changes that happen here are for pleasing Google and not the Biznik community.

And when things are changed...
What happen to [for example in Justins case] "We're sorry for inconveniencing you. We value your business and we have credited your $24 membership fee for last month... it's the least we can do." ?

Maybe using your real name works for you... but maybe it doesn't work for someone else.... even if it's "logical/the norm/commonsense." Commonsense = What is normal in THAT society. In another society that very thing may not be "commonsense." We should respect each other and not decide that [example] "unidentified people don't feel like community members." When I signed up for Biznik I didn't use an actual profile photo of myself but instead a penguin represented me.... I still felt like part of the community.

Justin's problem is pretty big...

1. The profile URL once had PR [pagerank] 4 and now PR 0. All of the links that were on his profile, including his own website, benefited from the PR 4. Now... there is no PR 4 to benefit from.

2. Google sometimes takes over a year to update PR. [The cache will be updated soon with the update profile URL.]

3. All of the links and badges from other websites that pointed to "justin-bizi-bee-floral" need to be corrected.

4. 600+ backlinks from Biznik cached on all search engine as previous profile URL: (http://biznik.com/members/justin-bizi-bee-floral) [This explains why the traffic slowed down]

5. Etc...

When it's "suck" vs. "doesn't suck" there can be only one winner.

I hope that Biznik remains as "doesn't suck" !

-Andrey

Andrey, I'll second your comment re 'A lot of rules = Suck'.

May be they can charge another membership fee for those wanting to not use their real name on their profiles! :-)

andrey,

i appreciate your courageous support. thank you for articulating the source of my own pain far better than i could do so myself. i was so mad i was seeing sideways and not making a lot sense as i ranted about it.

i'm a little concerned that folks around here tend to be "Bandwagony"..whatever bandwagon is going at the time they can't wait to jump on it. so many comments i see around these boards..it just looks like before anyone speaks they put their finger up and see which way the wind is blowing. i've been guilty of it too.

my hope for Biznik is that it genuinely gels into a REAL community with REAL people with REAL opinions. i am coming to hate the me too's..and i pray that this wonderful place doesn't turn into a snarled mash of clickiness and "i'm cooler than you" elitist people.

basically if setting an example is what is important Dan, then i look to you to set an example and rectify the damage i am facing here. it could be as simple as deciding that me having my name as Justin@BiZi Bee Floral was not key word stuffing..rather a genuine attempt to convey who i am and what i do. I am one of the only operators of a retail store around here..i have a strong need to reflect my identity within the framework of that store. one of the advantages of doing biz with us is that their is a face to BiZi Bee..it's not Walmart.. To me BiZi Bee Floral is personal. I named it!

the funny thing is the credit card i pay my Biznik membership with has both my business name and my personal name on it. That doesnt stop Biznik from running it every month.

I feel that all my efforts to bring people here, to promote events for myself and others...essentially that and my 24$ a month should give me some say on this issue. dan i bet you i tell at least 500 people a month about Biznik. i have been the best walking talking billboard you'll ever have. i deserve more courtesy than i was shown on this issue. to go from a terse i think you should change your profile name to 24 hours later changing it for me without my consent..the way you handled that..it was just too abrupt and way inconsiderate. you could have handled that better.

everyone makes mistakes. even creators of online communities. i don't expect anyone to be perfect. just please show me you are real and can own up to it when you err. that would immensely to the already great respect that i have for you.

Thanks for Reading, Justin@BiZi Bee Floral

ps.. Consensus does not equal right! Hitler was democratically elected and yet i doubt anyone here would defend his policies!

I'm new to Biznik so I don't really have an opinion on the whole issue of new rules; however, my initial thought upon seeing this real name requirement was "Great!" for the same reasons that others have expressed. It's nice to know who the real person is that I am networking with. That said, I really don't know much about how this whole SEO and Google rankings thing works, but it does sound as though the new policy is causing problems for Justin, at least. Having looked at Chief Show Off's profile, I don't feel I know anything about him, nor could I find any information about a real person on his website. I am sure that Chief Show Off is a fine, professional person, but I would certainly feel a lot more comfortable dealing with Justin, whose profile had his first name, his physical store address, and a photo, than with someone whose profile had no personal information at all. If the real name policy is being implemented, it seems that it should be aimed precisely at people like Chief Show Off who have no personal information at all in the profile. (Sorry for picking on you, Chief, if you're reading this, but your profile was the example given as an exception!) I support the real name rule for reasons of trust and transparency, but if there are people for whom this really is a major professional issue who are already on Biznik, perhaps the requirement could be modified to allow them to use a different profile name (though I would argue that it absolutely needs to include at least a first name) as long as their full real name is prominently mentioned in the profile itself. Or, if this wouldn't mess up the search engine thing, perhaps Biznik they could be allowed include more info in their profile name, at least if they are paying members. That way Justin could have "Justin Baker - Justin@BiziBeeFloral." As I said, I really know nothing about search engine stuff, so maybe that wouldn't solve anything, but if it would work, I think that would be the best option. I would make this a grandfather-clause type of thing, though, for those few members who have a valid issue with the policy. For new members, I think the real name policy is great and, as I understand it, would not involve the SEO issues since the profiles would be new on Google. Just my thoughts, for whatever they're worth.

I don't agree with this new policy.

If it is permitted for folks to put their degrees after their names (James Doe, MA), then I should be permitted to be able to include my certification as a QuickBooks ProAdvisor which I have earned after my name as well.

I also have Justin's link problem as well and that means that anyone who clicks on my old profile name (http://biznik.com/members/keith-gormezano-certified-quickbooks-proadvisor) will not be redirected to my new profile name. It is in a number of past e-mails that I have given to people.

Dan, are you planning on fixing this?

As long as people include their real name in their name field, I don't care what they put after it. I look forward to seeing Justin's new profile read "Justin Baker, BiZi Bee Floral"

To hell with Google. Let us choose if we want to be penalized by them.

And of course, Justin could change his name legally to Justin Bizi Bee Floral.

Can I ask what Google has to do with this? I'm not well versed on this whole "SEO keyword stuffing" business, so I'm genuinely asking because I'm a bit confused.

I read Dan's original post to say that Biznik now has a policy that requires people to use their full names. What does that have to do with Google?

I'm sorry to see that there's some upset in the community about this issue, but since I obviously don't know the full story (being neither Justin nor Dan), I don't want to throw my weight in on either side.

I will say that, as one of those people with degrees after her name, I'm happy to change it to fit with whatever the policy is or becomes. My hope is that whatever policy is put into place, it's equally enforced for all members.

I DO want to say that I am glad to see that there's a space made for discussion of the issue. This is something that I find Biznik consistently does well, and that I appreciate.