So Google suspended my Google+ profile because they didn’t think that Daljit of NORN, the name I’ve gone by online for some 13-15 years, wasn’t real or some such garbage. I had to fill out a form with links to “reputable” websites online where I go by this name to prove that I’m not a spammer or business entity or whatever. Hey Google+, how about you look at the Gmail service I’ve been using since you launched it? I’ve been Daljit of NORN on there for always. And yes, Daljit is my real first name. In fact, I’ve even been called Daljit of NORN by my friends on many occasions! In a hilariously ironic twist, I gathered the list of links to reputable sites by… wait for it… doing a Google search for “Daljit of NORN.” Yeah. Nice job, Google+ account clowns. I wanted to include links to my PS3 and X360 user profiles, cause guess what name i use there…

Daljit of NORN!

Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be a way to share that info via a link. Oh well. I hope Facebook, Twitter, foursquare, my personal website, and a wiki that dates my use of the name back to the late 90s are enough.

There isn’t a roll eyes graphic big enough. I am so disgusted right now. And this from a company that I’ve come to look to for doing the right thing. I guess we’ll see what happens once they review my petition.

Update 1: Oh, I almost forgot! On the form I had to submit, there was no text entry field where I could write a well reasoned few lines to state my case. I had a choice, submit links or a photo ID. Great. I really hope they do the right thing, because to have a company tell me that the name I’ve used online since before they existed is a bit ludicrous.

Update 2: Hmmmm… you know, the internet is a pretty cool place. Using the Wayback Machine (I think it’s called the Internet Archive Project now?) and (irony!) Google Groups, I’m trying to track my first use of the name. It looks like it was either late 97 or early 98, but I’m trying to pin it down more precisely.

Update 3: From what I can tell, it looks like the first time I used the name was November 9th, 1997 on alt.games.creatures. Embarrassingly enough, I’m using it in an exchange of… I don’t even know what to call it. Me and another poster were having an argument (but not really, no one was actually angry, we were just being silly) and instead of yelling at each other in context, we wrote sort of stories of what our imaginary army of computer game artificial life organisms were doing to each other, and (now here’s the really embarrassing part!) in it I refer to myself in the third person. Ugh. Apparently I was too cool for school. Ah, the indiscretions of youth! 😉