[tone]

Yeah things like that are a good way to immediately discredit any other content you had, regardless of its legitimacy.

I also read the word "triggering". A term I can never seem to figure out in it's context. It seems some people believe they (at least ought to) exist in some Utopian society where everyone should know what may upset everyone else (even in the slightest way) and endeavour to avoid at all costs. I mean it's maybe a nice concept on the whole, but the over intricate levels these people take it to are ridiculous.

The whole article smacks of entitlement. Simplifying a name, or even a gender is not a personal attack or an attempt at discrimination, it's just in truth a simple system. If you use ten names and five genders, then why the hell should things like this cater to you? Not specifically to ignore you, but if everyone has these over indulgent massively personal requirements then all cannot be fulfilled.

I'm sure there are people in the same situation that haven't had this problem, so how it isn't user error is beyond me. It's a free service...

[normloman]

We can't walk on eggshells all day because anything we say could trigger someone's traumatic memory. But use some common sense. If you're gonna talk about rape, murder, suicide, and your audience may not expect it, ... maybe give people a warning.

Also - entitlement schmitlement. Expecting a company to handle your personal information discretely is a reasonable expectation. When Google acted recklessly with peoples private information, they violated their users trust.

[king_jester]

> I also read the word "triggering". A term I can never seem to figure out in it's context. It seems some people believe they (at least ought to) exist in some Utopian society where everyone should know what may upset everyone else (even in the slightest way) and endeavour to avoid at all costs. I mean it's maybe a nice concept on the whole, but the over intricate levels these people take it to are ridiculous.

That is not what triggering means. Generally triggering means you are going to talk about things that, for people who may have suffered horribly at the hands of, may cause you to flashback to those times. For example, if you are writing an article about rape, it may be that someone who is a survivor of rape would not want to read such a story as it may trigger flashbacks, panic attacks, etc. due to their history. Generally speaking, you usually want to notify someone up front if a post or writing contains something really disturbing for some readers. Moreover, being slightly upset is not being triggered, being triggered is more like a full on episode and is emotionally traumatic. If you've had the luck to never have something like that happen to you, you should be extremely thankful.

> Simplifying a name, or even a gender is not a personal attack or an attempt at discrimination, it's just in truth a simple system.

Actually, systems that override a person's ability to control their name and/or gender are discriminatory inherently. How many times have we heard stories about people from different cultures with longer names that have them badly handled by services and cause them problems? Systems and designs that normalize western style names are inherently discriminating against everyone else. Systems and designs that proscribe for only 2 genders or that genders are static are inherently discriminating.

> I'm sure there are people in the same situation that haven't had this problem, so how it isn't user error is beyond me. It's a free service...

Free service or not, how user data is handled is an important aspect of design. When the systems being produced by Google leak details intended for use in only one service or product start to cross pollinate in a way that is difficult for the average user to understand, it is not user error it is designer error.

[tomp]

I, on the other hand, agree with the article, apart from the quote above. More of my reasons here: [1]

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7108133