Blizzard to remove the veil of anonymity

fixed, given some of the rumored issues they might've had with their user management system last year

Conveniently ignoring the fact that I and others have pointed out that we already have millions of people using their real names online without OVER 9000 rates of stalkings, murders, identity thefts, etc. We are already there, the doomsayers are wrong, there is no controversy, you have no case.

Just to touch on a few other points in passing:

• I certainly hope Kali isn't making some lame "violence against women" codswallop argument. Men are twice as likely to be the victim of a violent crime as women and three times more likely to be murdered.
• The driving statistics I quoted were from the only country that matters, i.e. the USA. I'm well aware that many other countries have more reasonable requirements for a driver's license (here, we require a pulse).
• I was on Usenet too and I don't think the flamewars were any worse, at least not in, say, alt.atheism . I believe there were a few hellholes (talk.bizarre, IIRC, and any group with "abortion" in its title) but you knew what you were getting into if you went into them. I think Arcana's argument in this regard is contrary to fact; we don't know what Usenet would have been like with more anonymity.

Do we want them? ;-)

Two things you indicate that you aren't reading her posts:

1) Your wording of "I certainly hope".

2) The part where what you said has very little to do with what she said.

If you aren't interested in reading her argument, you've waived the right to respond to it.

It's 07/08/2010, 10:24 AM, PST. This is still a stupid idea. In other news, the Emmy nominations are out.

It'll be a good thing once we get over that infamous hump where an influx of new players essentially has the old players going "No, really. There is no end game content, but it's actually fun to not level, anyway."

Ever had a stalker in this game? I've had 4 and I could see where something like that could go bad. While i have never made my identity a secret that has always been my choice and mine alone. There are privacy laws in this country for a reason. Now the forum eula for wow much like here means you have signed all that away it is a poor choice on their part to take away the right to privacy for their players.

Well, in his world, leaking tons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico is perfectly acceptable so I don't blame you.

if they have money, hell yeah. people are people, wow players are no different, and the bad ones we can pull the ignore trigger on, but if i were to guess, i'd think the people who would quit over this would not be trolls, they will work around it, but rational people who are concerned with their security, not a bad group to snag.

Or "No, really, you don't need a tank OR a healer"

Yeah. F that.

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/view...opic_id=128252 Is downright scary to read through. I was kinda hoping that they'd get their heads out of their rears, and I could play SC2 in a few weeks, but even if this is stopped, nope. Bye bye Actiblizzard.

I don't get the correlation. Want to PM me the explanation?

He could have her on ignore.

Gad, I'm formally asking that I be named your official stalker.


Also, quick question to all of you who don't see a problem with this - how many of you are women?

"Welcome, new players from WoW! You'll be pleased to know that Freedom has the highest percentage of pure healers and tanks who insist on taking the lead of any server! We're sure you'll feel at home there!"

Hmmm. You are aware that most of this (possibly not the IP addresses and personal information, but certainly chat text and voice communications where they exist) will be in the EULA of just about any MMO you could care to name...? Seeing this bit of text doesn't surprise me in the slightest.

Oh, great. It's been a little while since my last one
Wait, there are people who don't see a problem with this?

I really think its a bad thing but I dont think blizzard will lose any customers, the addiction is too strong with WoW. (comes from that deal with the devil they made)

Yeah, that part isn't even about them giving information to third parties like Faced-book or some other social site. It's more about being able to give information to the authorities in the case of cyberstalking or a murder/violence that's associated with the game. It's rarely used, but if someone goes and stabs someone else for rolling on a piece of loot they wanted and has threatened the person in-game before, they can use that as cause for premeditation.

Of course, with their current practice, it does make it a little bit easier to find that person an insane player might want to stab, but that part of the EULA isn't about their boneheaded RealID plans.

Then my statement stands: If he doesn't want to talk to her, he doesn't get to talk to her. He hasn't read her post yet. She could be in both a state of constructiveness and inflammatory behavior. She's Schrodinger's Troll, and unless he's willing to open the box, posting a response is just pollution.

"City of Heroes, where your secret identity stays secret."
(Buy City of Heroes Going Rogue Complete and get access to both City of Heroes and City of Villains, plus the all new "Praetoria" where nothing is quite what it seems.)

It's a cheap shot, but some times it's good to be cheap.

Yes check Venture's last post it's epic...

Also you need to go to the Justice section I need peeps for the auction......just saying....enri would probably buy you as your stalker and all.

Was curious-- "Lies, damn lies, and statistics," after all:

The FBI's Uniform Crime Report (2004 most recent I could find) has Total murders at 14,121... 10,990 male victims, 3,099 female victims... 32 unknown. If anything, Venture underreported murder... closer to 3.5x

Regarding Violent Crime... notsomuch. Had to switch sources here, but the US bureau of Justice Statistics gave 2007 data of this victimization:

Victims of crimes of violence. Rate per 1,000 persons age 12 and over.
-Both: 20.7
-male: 22.5
-female:18.9

So, even using the most prejudiced math (ignoring "both") in Venture's favor, men are only roughly 20% more likely than women. Venture WOULD be right if you used 15-year-old data. The alarming trend that rallies people against violence against women isn't that they're attacked more often... it's that the attack rate has gone up dramatically over the decades.

Part of this may be better reporting- things like domestic abuse was something that happened but was ignored... part of it may be a greater percentage of women with more public lifestyles resulting in more social interaction outside the home... but it's still an alarming number.

EDIT: This is offset by the fact that these are REPORTED violent crimes. Studies suggest that crimes involving women go underreported more often than crimes involving men (as both actors and victims.) If you factor that into the violent crime stats, it's pretty likely that women ARE more likely to be victims of violent crimes than men. This doesn't affect murder numbers, obviously... just the others.



Keep in mind that driving test requirements are managed on a state-by-state basis. Some states are ridiculously easy... some have been getting increasingly strict.

When I took my test (in Pennsylvania), I had to only do a verbal exam... which could be as many questions as the instructor wanted (minimum two required). I memorized the question list, interrupted the instructor, finished the question, and answered it... so he quit at three questions. There was also a "driving test" in what amounted to a parking lot.

Today, There's a written test and a much longer driving-on-real-road requirement.

Arcanaville's account matches more of my own... and you can make a good case that "anonymity" shouldn't be confused with "accountability" here. Usenet groups have been widely studied sociologically-- they're one of the few early moments where we could see an emerging social exosystem form with near-perfect historical records (logs).

It's been shown that there were reputation societies there-- identities- even if just pseudonyms - that carried weight based on their conduct within that community. Didn't matter that the identity was false-- it was still valued and held in value by the holder. There were other places where the users' identities were well known.

If the assumption that "anonymity matters" were true, you'd expect to see a corresponding increase in flamewar activity among the long-term anonymous flamewarror compared to the KNOWN long-term participant. You don't (yes, grad studies have done research on most of the internet "truisms" like this.... I've yet to find one on Godwin's law and haven't dared look for Rule 34 research).

There is some suggestion in the data that infrequently-used almost temporary accounts appeared more often in flamewars. You could argue that these were "masks" that the others used to hide their identity... but that's showing a case that "ACCOUNTABILITY" (or lack thereof) matters, not "ANONYMITY."
The "invested" anonymous accounts and "real life" identities are held accountable for action. The quick-throwaway account will carry no baggage going forward.

Awesome. I love it.

Are sex crimes reported with violent crimes or do they have their own catagory for stats?

That's absolutely brilliant- clean, right on target, and minimal.