Blizzard to remove the veil of anonymity
By
Adeon Hawkwood,
Posted on: 2010-07-06 10:48 in Comic and Hero-Villain Culture
hmm, i dunno, i had always been of the opinion that giving out real personal information online was a very bad idea, and given the size of the community, there could be some there that could cause some real life issues for people with reasonable opinions that they simply dislike.
I recall that when the idiot kid got in the snit with "the pro" people quickly found out all his personal info and put it online. Now that was justified and kind of funny, in a karmic sense, would you want some lifeless d-bag doing that to you because you didnt agree that power adjustment x wasn't a horrible unjustified nerf on par with the holocaust? There are some unstable people with the capacity to cause real harm out there, so i dunno.
I imagine just a rise in murders over loot stealing.
The Story of a Petless MM with a dream
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Originally Posted by Deus_Otiosus
This entire post should receive some kind of award for being both hysterical and fantastic.
Well done. |
This is a terrible, awful, invasive idea. I hope that there is a huge enough backlash that they apologize.
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I'm inclined to agree. As much as I'd love to see people hesitate to flame for fear of backlash via the forums (i.e., they won't be able to hide behind alts and such), there seems to be too much room for ID theft and other real life damage. I'm sure Blizzard has thought of this so perhaps they know something I don't?
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Originally Posted by rian_frostdrake
hmm, i dunno, i had always been of the opinion that giving out real personal information online was a very bad idea, and given the size of the community, there could be some there that could cause some real life issues for people with reasonable opinions that they simply dislike.
I recall that when the idiot kid got in the snit with "the pro" people quickly found out all his personal info and put it online. Now that was justified and kind of funny, in a karmic sense, would you want some lifeless d-bag doing that to you because you didnt agree that power adjustment x wasn't a horrible unjustified nerf on par with the holocaust? There are some unstable people with the capacity to cause real harm out there, so i dunno. |
wow, it's like they've never looked at an internet forum before.
great way to keep people from posting, though!
/edit
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Whoever wrote that article has the brain of a gnat.
| Sure, there are privacy issues involved, but then you can simply not post on the forums, right? |
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My City Was Gone
I can't even imagine who thought this was a good idea, or that the resulting backlash wouldn't be horrific.
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Exactly. I have no intention of joining any forums that do this. Also, there are people that hate hate hate me on these forums. I don't begrudge them that; such a thing happens in any long term community. That being said, do I want them to know my legal name? Not in the least.|
Originally Posted by Nethergoat
great way to keep people from posting, though!
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Besides, there are plenty of people that are very close to me that consider "Marcian" my real name.
I've been on the internet since the 80s and my real name has been out there for anyone to find all that time. Despite the fact that I speak my mind and am perfectly willing to call a spade a spade when necessary, I have yet to be stalked, harassed, physically intimidated or otherwise inconvenienced as a result of anything I've done or said online.
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"And I say now these kittens, they do not get trained/As we did in the days when Victoria reigned!" -- T. S. Eliot, "Gus, the Theatre Cat"
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I'd be more concerned with the possibility that someone could find your address and show up to do you physical harm in real life (or start harassing you over the phone) than identity theft.|
Originally Posted by Emissarial
I'm inclined to agree. As much as I'd love to see people hesitate to flame for fear of retribution, there seems to be too much room for ID theft and other real life damage. I'm sure Blizzard has thought of this so perhaps they know something I don't?
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If it works, that's great. The jackholes will retreat to some other dark corner of the internet, but the WoW forums might actually become a civil place (or at least somewhat pleasant).
If it fails, though...well, it's going to be one spectacular train wreck, plane crash, sinking ship, towering inferno of a failure.
Goodbye, I guess.
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This sounds familiar.
The first step in being sane is to admit that you are insane.
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If person X had nothing to live for and you took his Hunter-only elite armor on a greed roll or something after 3 days of effort in a 40+ man raid, person X might look you up in the phone book. But that's me with no faith in humanity, and most of my lack of faith in humanity is squarely based on my absolute disdain for the WOW community.
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Originally Posted by Venture
I've been on the internet since the 80s and my real name has been out there for anyone to find all that time. Despite the fact that I speak my mind and am perfectly willing to call a spade a spade when necessary, I have yet to be stalked, harassed, physically intimidated or otherwise inconvenienced as a result of anything I've done or said online.
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The Story of a Petless MM with a dream
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Originally Posted by Deus_Otiosus
This entire post should receive some kind of award for being both hysterical and fantastic.
Well done. |
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eh anecdotes aren't data, the wow community is very large, the capacity is there, even if it only happens to 1% of the people, if that one percent is you, its an issue when you are getting harassed at work by a unhinged individual. and one percent of 10 million is a hundred thousand.|
Originally Posted by Venture
I've been on the internet since the 80s and my real name has been out there for anyone to find all that time. Despite the fact that I speak my mind and am perfectly willing to call a spade a spade when necessary, I have yet to be stalked, harassed, physically intimidated or otherwise inconvenienced as a result of anything I've done or said online.
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if you'd like i can link you to the story of the russian guy who was knifed over a counter strike duel. and wow is a game with pvp, right? lets let male ego and jock humiliation sit atop the ability to find people.
also, for your example, maybe you just find yourself at odds with rational people a lot, so you are safe.
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No way! I refuse to believe anyone worth anything around here could hate you. Me, yeah, I'm kind of a jerk, that's my whole "thing" around here, but you? Impossible.|
Originally Posted by Marcian Tobay
Exactly. I have no intention of joining any forums that do this. Also, there are people that hate hate hate me on these forums. I don't begrudge them that; such a thing happens in any long term community. That being said, do I want them to know my legal name? Not in the least.
Besides, there are plenty of people that are very to me that consider "Marcian" my real name. |
By the way, following the logic of "WoW boards giving real names because they always start flame wars and stuff", does that mean we get more anonymity for our generally good behavior?
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the fiction that there are some "j-holes" who ruin everything on a forum and IF ONLY we could get rid of them everything would be sunshine and unicorns is ridiculous.|
Originally Posted by Lord_Nightblade
If it works, that's great. The jackholes will retreat to some other dark corner of the internet, but the WoW forums might actually become a civil place (or at least somewhat pleasant).
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this won't do anything to moderate anyone's behavior in the heat of the moment. What it will do is open the door for unstable cretins to persecute other users outside the bounds of the forum.
The way to deal with a fractious forum environment is with mods and admins, not by opening up your users to real-world harassment.
Bravo, Blizzard, bravo.
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
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I have not personally been murdered.|
Originally Posted by Venture
I've been on the internet since the 80s and my real name has been out there for anyone to find all that time. Despite the fact that I speak my mind and am perfectly willing to call a spade a spade when necessary, I have yet to be stalked, harassed, physically intimidated or otherwise inconvenienced as a result of anything I've done or said online.
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And yet, many thousands of people are murdered every year.
Huh.
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
I hope it goes through. I hope someone with Hotwire money gets into jackhole mode. I hope random people start showing up at people's homes and that the murders, mayhem, and aggressive behaviors rise in frequency to the point where CNN places a permanent "WoW: You're Next!" ticker at the bottom of the screen to show the Last 5 victims and the forcast for the future.
(Of course, this is my lack of faith in humanity speaking. So, it sounds good on paper. It may be even more delightful in practice.)
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Saturday January 29th, 2005 (12:37 PM) ~ Monday August 9th, 2010
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Blizzard forums are already exploding with outrage.
-np
I see myself as witty, urbane, highly talented, hugely successful with a keen sense of style. Plus of course my own special brand of modesty.
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honestly, this is what i was going to post as well, the main way to clean up the forums is to use that pornographic amount of cash they are getting and hire a legion of reliable mods, then giving them the authority and training to weed out and MAINTAIN the exclusion of undesirables. (I highlight maintain because a lot of companies do a quick push and then let things slide once things get better) if someone violates the tos after a succinct warning BAN HIM, lower tolerance and have the number of people to make sure that the rule of law stays enforced consistently is what is needed. It will lose people, but wow can handle it, and this will certainly lose more.
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Originally Posted by Nethergoat
The way to deal with a fractious forum environment is with mods and admins, not by opening up your users to real-world harassment. Bravo, Blizzard, bravo. |
Indeed, this seems like a terrible idea.
My attitude on this is the same as when the RealID thing was originally announced: it strikes me as a very bad idea.
Cyberstalking is already an issue on the internet and this sort of thing potentially makes it much more dangerous. Add in the fact that the collective maturity of the internet is somewhere around that of a 13 year old guy with a serious hormone overdose and it makes it worse. A lot of females on the internet choose to hide that fact (especially in online communities related to gaming) simply because of the number of people who can't act rationally around girlz and forcing them to (effectively) reveal their gender is only going to exacerbate the problem.
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What really surprises me is the number of people that seem to support it.|
Originally Posted by NinjaPirate
Blizzard forums are already exploding with outrage.
-np |
As pointed out earlier, the chances of something bad happening are probably small, but they do exist, especially with a game a playerbase the size of WoW.
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You means it's NOT? |
Originally Posted by Marcian Tobay
Besides, there are plenty of people that are very to me that consider "Marcian" my real name.
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...What else have you lied to me about?! I BET YOUR NOT EVEN MY REAL MOM! YOU MARRIED DAD FOR THE MONEY! I HATE YOU, AND I'M GOING TO JIMMIES! *Runs out crying&
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At least on these boards you're just sharing your opinions about the game and AE/fanfic. Nobody thinks those opinions are rude enough to go to the trouble of doing you harm. You may have the sourest, most puckered soul on these forums, but we still like having you around |
Originally Posted by Venture
I've been on the internet since the 80s and my real name has been out there for anyone to find all that time. Despite the fact that I speak my mind and am perfectly willing to call a spade a spade when necessary, I have yet to be stalked, harassed, physically intimidated or otherwise inconvenienced as a result of anything I've done or said online.
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There is no such thing as an "innocent bystander"
I thought the Real ID thing was like your global name here? Is it not the y from x@y in the SC2 names?
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