World of Warcraft forums are "where flame wars, trolling, and other unpleasantness run wild", says Blizzard, the publisher of the mega-online game. And it thinks it knows how to get everyone to behave more nicely.
With the next iteration of its Battle.net forum, the company is to publish users' real names in full on official …
I can see blizzards point.. their forums are so full of trolls they're essentially useless for normal conversations. I'm surprised they didn't shut the lot down and introduce something moderated and locked down, to be honest.
Whether you call youself 'trollwithbigpenis' or 'Joe Bloggs' is really immaterial.. you'll be judged on your behaviour. Using something more easily tracked to you introduces consequences, which the 12 year olds on the blizzard forums badly need.
Ah, but see there's the issue. Something moderated and locked down would be completely ok. Nobody's advocating letting the trolls run rampant. Throwing out personal details that I provided when I created my account under the premise that such information would be kept confidential is not ok, when all I'm looking for may be an answer to the question on the support forum.
Further, even the trolls on the forum should be protected if they're 12 years old. Minors especially shouldn't be able, much less required, to post under their real names. Or... say I created a b.net account for my kid to play a game and he goes off trolling in a forum, he's just done so under my real name. The implications of where all this could lead are horrifying.
Pretty sure they could afford to hire alot of moderators
Blizzard are pulling in money hand over fist from WoW players.
But their solution (rather than hiring a bunch of moderators which they could easily afford) is to expose peoples real names (possibly in the hope that long term trolls will actually be killed in real life).
Nice one!
Biggest issue I found (when I played Wow) was that huge amounts of people were getting their accounts hacked and their accounts then used to post malware links on the forums in order to hack more people. This would obviously be the last step after taking everything valuable off the account. These posts would persist for quite along time (even after lots of reporting). Clearly moderation is their top priority.
I'm sure posting people's real names will just lead to an increase in this kind of thing...
It is also very inconsistent, when I played WoW it seemed to be the intent of the developers to force you to group with random idiots wherever possible. I guess random idiots pay most of the bills.
Coming Soon:
A scam where hackers use the real names to send messages to people in game (or via email) pretending to be their mates in order to social engineer passwords or guild bank access permissions etc.
Uptick in Korean style "man murdered for in-game sword theft" crimes in WoW playing countries.
this is the latest and most complex phishing scam... Has everyone checked the web address for this news snippet? It doesn't originate from Nigeria by anychance does it? =)
It'd be nice if it was just an uba phishing scam to be honest...
I'm on the forums more often than I am ingame since I went casual anyways.
For myself the biggest issues would be if my companies clients were to see that I was a 'gamer' it would reflect badly on them, and it's also extremely limiting with regards to future employment.
Sadly, I'm one of the more active (and helpful) posters in the corner that is the Mage Forums. I'm also not alone in leaving the forums, the majority of the theorycrafters will be leaving should this go through.
... Blizzard probably no longer have the time or the resources to maintain the forums to the same level, and/or they no longer want to spend that time/those resources maintaining them.
So they've found a crafty way of closing the forums down without actually closing them down. When 'real ID' comes into force, postings there will dwindle to literally zero, and everyone will go to other forums elsewhere which Blizzard don't run or pay for the upkeep of.
I don't like the policy, but in the interests of facts...
1. In-game RealID is by invitation only. It brings excellent benefits (such as cross-realm chat) but has one insidious feature that means you can see the RealID's of friends of friends. This is unwelcome because by accepting an invitation for RealID from a trusted friend, I'm then granting implicit (albeit much lower level) trust to people I probably don't know. This is bemusing decision #1.
2. Forum RealID is intended to be compulsory, this is bemusing idea #2. However publically associating yourself with your in-game character name(s) is *entirely optional*. This means that you can post as much as you like to the forums and there is no direct way of knowing who you are in the game. The "only" information you give up is your name; your identity in the game is still hidden.
I'm not arguing the merits of someone's name being available via the game, but let's keep the facts straight.
The RealID system is bugged so that addons can currently display your RealID to people who you do not invite, or even talk to.
I understand that's a bug and not intended, but it still means that in game there are ways to see people's RealIDs.
As for the second point, it basically means you can no longer use the Blizzard forums for recruitment, asking for advice on your character or anything of that kind without creating the direct link between char and RealID. So while it's optional, it removes some of the basic things the forum is used for.
Hello, nice to meet you, I would tell you my name but then I'd have to kill you
I am bewildered by most of the reactions to this. We have people working themselves into such a frenzy about "OMG, INTERNET PRIVACY" that they're arguing that their names are secure information that can't possibly be shared. Tell me, how do you introduce yourselves at parties?
... there was at least one time I did actually use a fake "real name" in RL, because I never, ever wanted to meet the person again.
The parties I tend to attend don't attract the same crowd as the WoW forums do. I would NOT want to attend that party. If I did so, I would probably feel the need to use a fake name :P
If people are that afraid of the ramifications of what they say, find another forum to bitch on. If a company owns the servers and the forum surely they can do what they want? Maybe replace the real name with the IP address? And if you don't want to take part, fine, go do something in the real world like play football in the park or have an ice-cream with some real friends. Good on the people up there for cancelling their subscription, hope you like the taste of fresh air, maybe a bike ride or flying a kite won't do you any harm after all.
If people are worried about employers searching for a post they made years ago, what goes around comes around. Maybe people should think about what they type and take a bit of personal responsibility for once. After all, the registration of your car can be traced back to the registered owner. If you drive about ignoring the rules of society, decency, taste, manners and responsibility, the authorities find you in real life. Why should the internet be any different? You wouldn't walk around a supermarket or a pub shouting your head off like some people would on a forum
... but some people have funny ideas about a casual interest.
I tended to spend a lot of time in the newcomers forum, helping people out (I like to be nice like that), and never got into the flamewars, so I don't worry about my post content.
Not all WoW players just WoW ¬¬, though I'll bear the flying a kite tip in mind :P
Coincidentally, I don't go round the supermarket shouting "I am a WoW player!".
If this does happen, the author of the most hated addon in Warcraft, GearScore will most likely end up in hiding when the hate mob tracks him/her down.
great but it is easy to take an old post, compare handles and then go after someone. There was a comment above about privacy concerns not being valid. I for one like the concept of privacy. I work in a professional environment and many of my colleagues came up into my line of work through different means. I enjoy playing video game online from time to time and would rather not be judged based on common stereotypes. Thankfully I do not play WOW but I do know several others who do. They are in a similar capacity to myself at other organizations and will likely quit and take their money with them.
Which makes you in the *perfect* position to give your viewpoint...
"...but I do know several others who do. They are in a similar capacity to myself at other organizations and will likely quit and take their money with them."
Unlikely. Worst case scenario is that they no longer post inane guff on the forums... There's no need to leave the game!
Besides which, I've done a google search on my own name before and found hundreds of entries that weren't me - how is anyone going to know who made the post?
I would say this has little to do with Trolls and a lot to do with the amount of cash they will be able to make off the Battle.Net - Facebook Integration.
Well, it does not matter to me anymore, since I have not played WoW for about two years, and never used the forum anyway... But I certainly would not want my future employers to Google me and find 1000+ posts on the WoW forums.
I've had this unique internet identity of Flybert for well over 12 years and it's easy to find my real name.
I am/was the most controversial character in another online/offline game, still have the most popular websites related to it. At the height of that game's popularity and forum *discussions* I had more than one nutcase threaten my life and one in particular blame me for ruining his life for over 2 years, posting such nonsense on as many forums as he could find ( and getting himself banned more on various delphi forums than anyone in history ... lol )
1) Don't post anything you'll regret posting EVER .. assume your real life identity can be found out. Same goes for email unless you've got a signed and legal confidentiality agreement .. I can't believe what some idiots have handed me in insulting, ranting emails thinking I won't use it against them publicly if I were to choose so. That being said, I'm known for keeping useful information secret among friends, and very well known for being a complete asshole if you want to butt heads over something in the venues I frequent .. people don't even try anymore ..
2) Never start an argument on the internet that you haven't already won based on facts. Don't start arguments that are based on opinions alone, unless you know beforehand you have the vast majority of the audience, or the forum owner, on your side. In other words, don't start or get involved with a flame war without a fireproof personality and be sure the fire is set underneath the other guy ;-)
3) Some people think a public forum has a free speech component, however it's the website's owner that .. well .. owns the forum .. it is private property and they have all the rights, not the posters/posers .. forgetting this risks that the forum owner will make you look like a fool and ban your ass so you can no longer respond
I've been playing WoW since release and I don't see myself stopping any time soon. I don't really use the official forums; I used to but they're such a horrific place to spend time I simply don't see the point. The official forums are 0.01% good stuff drowned out by 99.99% hate, bile, venom and general repugnance. True, I can't see this realID thing helping there, wankers are wankers after all and don't give a fuck if people know their names.
As for in-game, realID is (currently at least) entirely optional. I have a total of two realID friends, and that's all I want primarily because I want to keep my alts secret. Why? Because I'm the guild leader of one of the better (in terms of progress) guilds on my server but once in a while I like to escape from the drama and demand of being a guild leader but still be able to play the game. So I go on my alts that no one in the guild knows of.
Beyond that I've no problem with guildies knowing my real name. I set up a facebook group for the guild, so anyone in the guild could easily get my real name.
It all just seems a weird fuss over nothing to me.
I am "on facebook", mainly because workers are and they thought it odd that a geek wasn't. So I created a profile, left most of my personal details blank. ;-)
One of my bosses, who is maybe mid-40s, is obsessed with some marbles game. Loads of times when she wasn't working (and thus should be sleeping, enjoying family life, making whoopee with her husband, taking kids to school, peeing...) Facebook was blurting out her new high score. I eventually killed status updates from that app, but I must confess I can't look at her now without thinking "my God you're sad".
That, alone, is reason for anonimity. Be sad in peace, and don't have cow-orkers giggling at you.
"Be sad in peace, and don't have cow-orkers giggling at you." I can't believe how many people seem so insecure that they are in a virtual meltdown because someone might find out they play WoW in their own time, I don't give a monkeys who at work knows I play WoW, granted I won't go around shouting about it but I won't deny it either. If an employer finds out what you post in a forum, what are they going to do about, it bears no resemblence to your performance at work (well it shouldn't, if it does that your hangup), they can't sack you a tribunal will see them roast for that.
Time people gre some balls and learnt how to be a bit more confident in life.
Softly softly, catchee monkeys says the organ grinder?
Of course, it would have nothing to do with efforts to patrol and control the Cyber domain for real, would it? ...... create a little chaos and indignant outrage? ...... http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/04/weekinreview/04markoff.html?_r=1
If anyone does try looking you up on the internet and then emailing you abusive stuff then I'm pretty sure you'll end up with their email address too. That is assuming that they find only one person with your name and don't end up emailing abuse to some random punter...
It means that trolls, spammers and those posting inane comments will swiftly be exposed for the retards they are...
"If anyone does try looking you up on the internet and then emailing you abusive stuff then I'm pretty sure you'll end up with their email address too."
Unless they use a fake one.
"That is assuming that they find only one person with your name and don't end up emailing abuse to some random punter..."
Which the random punter will find hilariously amusing, just as you find all those direct mailings that end up on your doormat one of life's true pleasures.
"It means that trolls, spammers and those posting inane comments will swiftly be exposed for the retards they are..."
Trolls, spammers and those posting inane comments are already swiftly exposed for the retards they are in virtue of their postings. It's not like you're going to read trolling, spamming or inane comments and think "Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter" unless you are, yourself, a retard. In which case you will probably already have been exposed.
Now I understand more completely (though not yet fully) why an acquaintance of mine is having his first name legally changed - and I'm not kidding here - to "Anon".
Not that I think daft names by deed poll is necessarily a bad thing (veteran of many election night specials, me, and a keen fan of the Monster Raving Loony candidates and their sense of occasion), It's just that I feel that making your real name match your screen name on various forums is a bit !sane.
What happens if your RL name is one of the unlucky few that gets caught by hyperactive profanity filters?
Surely this brings whole new ways to troll and grief. With a name like John Smith, you are still just as anonymous, or even more so, if you have a name common with someone else, you can troll, and they'll get the blame, not you!
I don't recall if it requires a credit card, as you can pay for the WoW account and time card in cash. Then you can put any name you want on there, to be preserved for posterity.
False sense of anonymity, because, well, all the cool kids are doing it.
If people are being trolls, dicks or whatnot, the forum already knows who these people are. Ban them. Empower senior forum users with the tools to moderate the forums that allow them to mod trolls into oblivion and / or report them if necessary to Blizzard employees.
Blizzard already ties nicknames to real names so behind the scenes they have the tools to effectively wield the ban hammer, but what possible reason does a FANTASY GAME need to expose real names to other users for?
Anonymity is important especially in a fantasy game. Doing away might save Blizzard some effort but it will have a chilling effect on the whole forum and possibly the game and not just on the trolls.
"Or if you're applying for a job, and the employer decides to google your name and finds less than moderate posts you wrote when you were in your late teens/early twenties."
So basically, it's a great way to teach people to be accountable for their actions.
I like privacy, and I hate facebook et al for the greater implications (and because I'm a bit of a hermit), but I do see the sense in real names. It hasn't done the CreativeCow forums any harm, and they're a lot more productive than most other forums.
That said, I'll not be posting on the WoW forums anytime soon :)
If you don't want to look ever so hypocritical you should start posting with your full name and set an example.
Back in reality people don't want to expose their real names for a raft of reasons which have already been pointed out. No one is stopping you choosing a nickname which also happens to be your real name. But forcing people to use their real name is simply not defensible ESPECIALLY in a fantasy game where the whole point is roleplay.
Register
World of Warcraft forums are "where flame wars, trolling, and other unpleasantness run wild", says Blizzard, the publisher of the mega-online game. And it thinks it knows how to get everyone to behave more nicely. With the next iteration of its Battle.net forum, the company is to publish users' real names in full on official …
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This post has been deleted by a moderator
No biggie..
I can see blizzards point.. their forums are so full of trolls they're essentially useless for normal conversations. I'm surprised they didn't shut the lot down and introduce something moderated and locked down, to be honest.
Whether you call youself 'trollwithbigpenis' or 'Joe Bloggs' is really immaterial.. you'll be judged on your behaviour. Using something more easily tracked to you introduces consequences, which the 12 year olds on the blizzard forums badly need.
think of the children!
Ah, but see there's the issue. Something moderated and locked down would be completely ok. Nobody's advocating letting the trolls run rampant. Throwing out personal details that I provided when I created my account under the premise that such information would be kept confidential is not ok, when all I'm looking for may be an answer to the question on the support forum.
Further, even the trolls on the forum should be protected if they're 12 years old. Minors especially shouldn't be able, much less required, to post under their real names. Or... say I created a b.net account for my kid to play a game and he goes off trolling in a forum, he's just done so under my real name. The implications of where all this could lead are horrifying.
Pretty sure they could afford to hire alot of moderators
Blizzard are pulling in money hand over fist from WoW players.
But their solution (rather than hiring a bunch of moderators which they could easily afford) is to expose peoples real names (possibly in the hope that long term trolls will actually be killed in real life).
Nice one!
Biggest issue I found (when I played Wow) was that huge amounts of people were getting their accounts hacked and their accounts then used to post malware links on the forums in order to hack more people. This would obviously be the last step after taking everything valuable off the account. These posts would persist for quite along time (even after lots of reporting). Clearly moderation is their top priority.
I'm sure posting people's real names will just lead to an increase in this kind of thing...
It is also very inconsistent, when I played WoW it seemed to be the intent of the developers to force you to group with random idiots wherever possible. I guess random idiots pay most of the bills.
Coming Soon:
A scam where hackers use the real names to send messages to people in game (or via email) pretending to be their mates in order to social engineer passwords or guild bank access permissions etc.
Uptick in Korean style "man murdered for in-game sword theft" crimes in WoW playing countries.
Perhaps...
this is the latest and most complex phishing scam... Has everyone checked the web address for this news snippet? It doesn't originate from Nigeria by anychance does it? =)
It'd be nice if it was just an uba phishing scam to be honest...
On the upside...
.....It'll help the WoW addict support groups
As a wow player
I just unsubscribed.
I'm on the forums more often than I am ingame since I went casual anyways.
For myself the biggest issues would be if my companies clients were to see that I was a 'gamer' it would reflect badly on them, and it's also extremely limiting with regards to future employment.
Sadly, I'm one of the more active (and helpful) posters in the corner that is the Mage Forums. I'm also not alone in leaving the forums, the majority of the theorycrafters will be leaving should this go through.
Look at it from another angle...
... Blizzard probably no longer have the time or the resources to maintain the forums to the same level, and/or they no longer want to spend that time/those resources maintaining them.
So they've found a crafty way of closing the forums down without actually closing them down. When 'real ID' comes into force, postings there will dwindle to literally zero, and everyone will go to other forums elsewhere which Blizzard don't run or pay for the upkeep of.
I don't like the policy, but in the interests of facts...
1. In-game RealID is by invitation only. It brings excellent benefits (such as cross-realm chat) but has one insidious feature that means you can see the RealID's of friends of friends. This is unwelcome because by accepting an invitation for RealID from a trusted friend, I'm then granting implicit (albeit much lower level) trust to people I probably don't know. This is bemusing decision #1.
2. Forum RealID is intended to be compulsory, this is bemusing idea #2. However publically associating yourself with your in-game character name(s) is *entirely optional*. This means that you can post as much as you like to the forums and there is no direct way of knowing who you are in the game. The "only" information you give up is your name; your identity in the game is still hidden.
I'm not arguing the merits of someone's name being available via the game, but let's keep the facts straight.
Actually at the moment
The RealID system is bugged so that addons can currently display your RealID to people who you do not invite, or even talk to.
I understand that's a bug and not intended, but it still means that in game there are ways to see people's RealIDs.
As for the second point, it basically means you can no longer use the Blizzard forums for recruitment, asking for advice on your character or anything of that kind without creating the direct link between char and RealID. So while it's optional, it removes some of the basic things the forum is used for.
Thecowking
Legal Ramifications
The Register - Do you have any take on the legal implications of these privacy changes? UK, EU, Canada all have pretty strong laws protecting privacy.
Hello, nice to meet you, I would tell you my name but then I'd have to kill you
I am bewildered by most of the reactions to this. We have people working themselves into such a frenzy about "OMG, INTERNET PRIVACY" that they're arguing that their names are secure information that can't possibly be shared. Tell me, how do you introduce yourselves at parties?
Tell me Mark
... are all the conversations you have at parties indexed and made available globally in perpetuity? If so, what's the URL?
With my first name, how do you introduce yourself to frothing loonies who accost you in the street?
Because I'm betting you don't hand out your full name to them.
Now you came to mention it...
... there was at least one time I did actually use a fake "real name" in RL, because I never, ever wanted to meet the person again.
The parties I tend to attend don't attract the same crowd as the WoW forums do. I would NOT want to attend that party. If I did so, I would probably feel the need to use a fake name :P
Unneccesary titular bollocks
I signed up with the wife's credit card. She'll be in deep shit now! :D
Much wailing and bleating
If people are that afraid of the ramifications of what they say, find another forum to bitch on. If a company owns the servers and the forum surely they can do what they want? Maybe replace the real name with the IP address? And if you don't want to take part, fine, go do something in the real world like play football in the park or have an ice-cream with some real friends. Good on the people up there for cancelling their subscription, hope you like the taste of fresh air, maybe a bike ride or flying a kite won't do you any harm after all.
If people are worried about employers searching for a post they made years ago, what goes around comes around. Maybe people should think about what they type and take a bit of personal responsibility for once. After all, the registration of your car can be traced back to the registered owner. If you drive about ignoring the rules of society, decency, taste, manners and responsibility, the authorities find you in real life. Why should the internet be any different? You wouldn't walk around a supermarket or a pub shouting your head off like some people would on a forum
I don't regret what I post...
... but some people have funny ideas about a casual interest.
I tended to spend a lot of time in the newcomers forum, helping people out (I like to be nice like that), and never got into the flamewars, so I don't worry about my post content.
Not all WoW players just WoW ¬¬, though I'll bear the flying a kite tip in mind :P
Coincidentally, I don't go round the supermarket shouting "I am a WoW player!".
Gearscore
If this does happen, the author of the most hated addon in Warcraft, GearScore will most likely end up in hiding when the hate mob tracks him/her down.
bah
And for those of us who are better known by our (cultivated over years and multiple different games) online name yet don't act like knobs?
For me, my "real name" *is* my online name!
I love the irony...
Of people who play WoW making pot shots at facebook users!
wtf? WoW a/s/l irl?
I'm not Ian Godman.
But I *could* be, I wanted to.
What is the problem when posting with your REAL name ?
:D
Maybe this is just a way of
1, getting publicity?
2, losing some accounts to save on servers?
3, Letting WOW go to the streets!
Example "OMG WTF my teacher is a F'ing orc! Lets do him at lunch!"
So only new posts will be shown real names...
great but it is easy to take an old post, compare handles and then go after someone. There was a comment above about privacy concerns not being valid. I for one like the concept of privacy. I work in a professional environment and many of my colleagues came up into my line of work through different means. I enjoy playing video game online from time to time and would rather not be judged based on common stereotypes. Thankfully I do not play WOW but I do know several others who do. They are in a similar capacity to myself at other organizations and will likely quit and take their money with them.
RE: So only new posts will be shown real names...
"Thankfully I do not play WOW"
Which makes you in the *perfect* position to give your viewpoint...
"...but I do know several others who do. They are in a similar capacity to myself at other organizations and will likely quit and take their money with them."
Unlikely. Worst case scenario is that they no longer post inane guff on the forums... There's no need to leave the game!
Besides which, I've done a google search on my own name before and found hundreds of entries that weren't me - how is anyone going to know who made the post?
Alternatively....
... search for the signature - that often catches out trolls posting to themselves.
I once changed the char I posted with, as I started WoW again, and forgot to change my sig. Lol.
pft
wonder how blizzard will deal with the sudden drought of prepaid cards and 50,000 Biggus Dickus trolling the forums and realms :D
Facebook Bucks
I would say this has little to do with Trolls and a lot to do with the amount of cash they will be able to make off the Battle.Net - Facebook Integration.
http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/company/press/pressreleases.html?100505
oooo
Well Spotted! :)
RE: Facebook Bucks
...but players can already use one of the Facebook applications to do everything that does in WoW. There's another application for Starcraft.
No posting for me, thanks
Well, it does not matter to me anymore, since I have not played WoW for about two years, and never used the forum anyway... But I certainly would not want my future employers to Google me and find 1000+ posts on the WoW forums.
meh
I've had this unique internet identity of Flybert for well over 12 years and it's easy to find my real name.
I am/was the most controversial character in another online/offline game, still have the most popular websites related to it. At the height of that game's popularity and forum *discussions* I had more than one nutcase threaten my life and one in particular blame me for ruining his life for over 2 years, posting such nonsense on as many forums as he could find ( and getting himself banned more on various delphi forums than anyone in history ... lol )
1) Don't post anything you'll regret posting EVER .. assume your real life identity can be found out. Same goes for email unless you've got a signed and legal confidentiality agreement .. I can't believe what some idiots have handed me in insulting, ranting emails thinking I won't use it against them publicly if I were to choose so. That being said, I'm known for keeping useful information secret among friends, and very well known for being a complete asshole if you want to butt heads over something in the venues I frequent .. people don't even try anymore ..
2) Never start an argument on the internet that you haven't already won based on facts. Don't start arguments that are based on opinions alone, unless you know beforehand you have the vast majority of the audience, or the forum owner, on your side. In other words, don't start or get involved with a flame war without a fireproof personality and be sure the fire is set underneath the other guy ;-)
3) Some people think a public forum has a free speech component, however it's the website's owner that .. well .. owns the forum .. it is private property and they have all the rights, not the posters/posers .. forgetting this risks that the forum owner will make you look like a fool and ban your ass so you can no longer respond
Meh.
I've been playing WoW since release and I don't see myself stopping any time soon. I don't really use the official forums; I used to but they're such a horrific place to spend time I simply don't see the point. The official forums are 0.01% good stuff drowned out by 99.99% hate, bile, venom and general repugnance. True, I can't see this realID thing helping there, wankers are wankers after all and don't give a fuck if people know their names.
As for in-game, realID is (currently at least) entirely optional. I have a total of two realID friends, and that's all I want primarily because I want to keep my alts secret. Why? Because I'm the guild leader of one of the better (in terms of progress) guilds on my server but once in a while I like to escape from the drama and demand of being a guild leader but still be able to play the game. So I go on my alts that no one in the guild knows of.
Beyond that I've no problem with guildies knowing my real name. I set up a facebook group for the guild, so anyone in the guild could easily get my real name.
It all just seems a weird fuss over nothing to me.
Facebook data spew
I am "on facebook", mainly because workers are and they thought it odd that a geek wasn't. So I created a profile, left most of my personal details blank. ;-)
One of my bosses, who is maybe mid-40s, is obsessed with some marbles game. Loads of times when she wasn't working (and thus should be sleeping, enjoying family life, making whoopee with her husband, taking kids to school, peeing...) Facebook was blurting out her new high score. I eventually killed status updates from that app, but I must confess I can't look at her now without thinking "my God you're sad".
That, alone, is reason for anonimity. Be sad in peace, and don't have cow-orkers giggling at you.
Too many people using this argument
"Be sad in peace, and don't have cow-orkers giggling at you." I can't believe how many people seem so insecure that they are in a virtual meltdown because someone might find out they play WoW in their own time, I don't give a monkeys who at work knows I play WoW, granted I won't go around shouting about it but I won't deny it either. If an employer finds out what you post in a forum, what are they going to do about, it bears no resemblence to your performance at work (well it shouldn't, if it does that your hangup), they can't sack you a tribunal will see them roast for that.
Time people gre some balls and learnt how to be a bit more confident in life.
Softly softly, catchee monkeys says the organ grinder?
Of course, it would have nothing to do with efforts to patrol and control the Cyber domain for real, would it? ...... create a little chaos and indignant outrage? ...... http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/04/weekinreview/04markoff.html?_r=1
Surely...
Surely this is a good thing?
If anyone does try looking you up on the internet and then emailing you abusive stuff then I'm pretty sure you'll end up with their email address too. That is assuming that they find only one person with your name and don't end up emailing abuse to some random punter...
It means that trolls, spammers and those posting inane comments will swiftly be exposed for the retards they are...
Shurely Shome Mishtake?
"Surely this is a good thing?"
No, not really.
"If anyone does try looking you up on the internet and then emailing you abusive stuff then I'm pretty sure you'll end up with their email address too."
Unless they use a fake one.
"That is assuming that they find only one person with your name and don't end up emailing abuse to some random punter..."
Which the random punter will find hilariously amusing, just as you find all those direct mailings that end up on your doormat one of life's true pleasures.
"It means that trolls, spammers and those posting inane comments will swiftly be exposed for the retards they are..."
Trolls, spammers and those posting inane comments are already swiftly exposed for the retards they are in virtue of their postings. It's not like you're going to read trolling, spamming or inane comments and think "Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter" unless you are, yourself, a retard. In which case you will probably already have been exposed.
Bah!
Now I understand more completely (though not yet fully) why an acquaintance of mine is having his first name legally changed - and I'm not kidding here - to "Anon".
Not that I think daft names by deed poll is necessarily a bad thing (veteran of many election night specials, me, and a keen fan of the Monster Raving Loony candidates and their sense of occasion), It's just that I feel that making your real name match your screen name on various forums is a bit !sane.
About Time
Good move, Blizz. Your forums were out of control. Not that it matters to me, really. You ain't gettin my fitty cents anymo!
Let's think about this creatively
What happens if your RL name is one of the unlucky few that gets caught by hyperactive profanity filters?
Surely this brings whole new ways to troll and grief. With a name like John Smith, you are still just as anonymous, or even more so, if you have a name common with someone else, you can troll, and they'll get the blame, not you!
I don't recall if it requires a credit card, as you can pay for the WoW account and time card in cash. Then you can put any name you want on there, to be preserved for posterity.
False sense of anonymity, because, well, all the cool kids are doing it.
Anon
I felt a great disturbance in the force, as if millions of anonymous voices suddenly cried out in terror - and were suddenly silenced.
Why is it important anyone knows their real names
If people are being trolls, dicks or whatnot, the forum already knows who these people are. Ban them. Empower senior forum users with the tools to moderate the forums that allow them to mod trolls into oblivion and / or report them if necessary to Blizzard employees.
Blizzard already ties nicknames to real names so behind the scenes they have the tools to effectively wield the ban hammer, but what possible reason does a FANTASY GAME need to expose real names to other users for?
Anonymity is important especially in a fantasy game. Doing away might save Blizzard some effort but it will have a chilling effect on the whole forum and possibly the game and not just on the trolls.
I shall be starting a feral druid..
and calling my self Claude Savagely :D
One of the mods was stupid enough to take the bait, and post his real name.
He was ID raped in pretty short order.
Thus proving why this is a stupid idea..
Someone in marketing needs to be shot... in fact just shoot the whole department to be sure.
hell freezes over first
Names? Real ??? Internet! When hot hell toasting commie mud-hut liberal scum freezes over --
A good thing?
"Or if you're applying for a job, and the employer decides to google your name and finds less than moderate posts you wrote when you were in your late teens/early twenties."
So basically, it's a great way to teach people to be accountable for their actions.
I like privacy, and I hate facebook et al for the greater implications (and because I'm a bit of a hermit), but I do see the sense in real names. It hasn't done the CreativeCow forums any harm, and they're a lot more productive than most other forums.
That said, I'll not be posting on the WoW forums anytime soon :)
Well "Adam T"
If you don't want to look ever so hypocritical you should start posting with your full name and set an example.
Back in reality people don't want to expose their real names for a raft of reasons which have already been pointed out. No one is stopping you choosing a nickname which also happens to be your real name. But forcing people to use their real name is simply not defensible ESPECIALLY in a fantasy game where the whole point is roleplay.
My real name is Raymond Luxury Yahct
http://www.reghardware.com/Design/graphics/icons/comment/joke_32.png
But it is pronounced: "Throatwabbler Mangrove".
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