Jump to content
Search In
  • More options...
Find results that contain...
Find results in...
Macro11_1

blizzard-forums-will-soon-display-your-real-name

Recommended Posts

http://kotaku.com/5580585/blizzard-forums-will-soon-display-your-real-name

As you might be able to tell from the url, Blizzard will shortly be forcing people to use their new "Real ID" accounts, and along with it... forcing back the veil of internet anonymity.

I personally believe that this will have both positive and negative effects. Positive in the sense that you will know who your internet bully is, but negative in the sense that it will push internet... "bullying" or trolling, or what ever, to an even deeper level of communication.

oh well,
Just figured it was something interesting.

Share this post


Link to post

This would be right about the point I would delete my account, if I had one. :P


Really, though, there's a reason why anonymity exists. As annoying as anonymous trolls are, at least it's usually not possible for them to bother you in real life -- and there are those who are brave, stupid, or just plain nasty enough to do it, too. Probably the exception rather than the rule, but there's always the possibility. That and I really do't want the majority of the internet knowing who I am in my personal life. No offense intended here, of course. :P

Share this post


Link to post

According to a linked article -

For those who'd rather have everyone known them as Porksword, the mighty Orc warrior, the Real ID feature is completely optional.

Personally, I'd play it safe and register under a false name.

Share this post


Link to post

This will probably just lead to stalking and other assorted fuckry, it's a game not Facebook ffs

Share this post


Link to post

Next they'll start taking away our guns and then herding us into ghettos. Soon after, the death camps.

Share this post


Link to post
Nomad said:

Next they'll start taking away our guns and then herding us into ghettos. Soon after, the death camps.


They came for the Terrans, but I was not a Terran.

Share this post


Link to post

Great. Except I'm pretty sure most trolls won't use their real names when they create troll accounts. And what's stopping "internet bullies" (I hate that term) from just, you know, registering new accounts with fake names if they want to fuck with people?

Share this post


Link to post
Mr. T said:

This will probably just lead to stalking and other assorted fuckry, it's a game not Facebook ffs


There are already plenty of sites and games that require you to log in via Facebook/Twitter. There was also a time when you needed a cell phone to get a GMail account.

Unfortunately it will probably get to the point where everyone who doesn't use these services or just wants anonymity will be branded a troll.

Edit: also-what-is-with-the-thread-title-someone-fix-it

Share this post


Link to post

Day after day I pray for all forums to make "Age" an accurate and mandatory piece of info. Preferably below avatars, in 25pt font.

It would explain many things.

Share this post


Link to post
GreyGhost said:

According to a linked article -

u dont have 2 RealID

Personally, I'd play it safe and register under a false name.

Yes, but what about those who want to use RealID to stay connected to friends but don't want their name broadcast to everybody?

Share this post


Link to post

This only effects the forums. Everyone who posts on the Blizzard forums is a huge douchebag anyway, so this effects no one important.

Share this post


Link to post
Danarchy said:

This only effects the forums. I am a huge douchebag who can't use effect correctly as a verb.

Shut up.

Me and my WoW forum buddies are gonna get your RealID and kick your house.

Share this post


Link to post
DuckReconMajor said:

Shut up.

Me and my WoW forum buddies are gonna get your RealID and kick your house.

Wait, is it affect? I always get those two confused since they have similar meanings. Not as bad as immigration/emigration, though.

DuckReconMajor said:

Not Blizzard's but each respective game's forums.

His point remains. I just recall the WoW forums being a huge wasteland of troll and fail. Maybe I'm just remembering my old server's forums, which was apparently full of 14-year olds who had nothing better to then to corpse camp all day long then brag about it on the forums.

Share this post


Link to post

All the people whining about this change are pretty naive considering their IP and information they plaster all over social networking websites is already out there. If someone thinks WoW forums showing their first and last is going to be the worst culprit of spreading their personal information and resulting in stalking, as opposed to shit like Facebook, Twitter and used to be MySpace, they're pretty fucking stupid.

To further prove my point, put your name or email address in spokeo.com and see how anonymous you really are (not as much as you likely think).

Share this post


Link to post
Half Eaten Carcass said:

World of Warcraft is awesome my real is Kevin Hanekom dont give a shit if anyone knows that

*Tracks* You killed my warrior in game, prepare to die.

/joke

Share this post


Link to post
Xenphire said:

To further prove my point, put your name or email address in spokeo.com and see how anonymous you really are (not as much as you likely think).

Heh - I posted my primary email address there and they claim to have found me on 40+ social networking sites (most of which I didn't know existed) though that's probably due to my having a fairly common name. In reality, apart from authenticating the email address they've got nothing on me. I'm still more-or-less anonymous.

Share this post


Link to post

Using real names on a forum, is trouble.

This may be an effort on Blizzard's part to stop the alias trolling and flame wars, but it also exposes vulnerabilities that used to be hidden behind anonymities as well. Two groups immediately comes to mind that will experience a negative effect as a result of this decision:

Women: If your name is Tracy, regardless of man or woman, expect your PM box to be filled with creepy PMs by geeks who wouldn't know women if one was sitting on top of them. Not only is the cat-calls and request for pics annoying, but you'd potentially be the target of stalkers as well. In a male-dominated environment such as the Blizzard forum, women should have the choice of anonymity to not only avoid creepers, but to have their opinions considered in serious discussions as well.

Muslims: If your name is Muhammad bin Rajalajalalabad, you are a terrorist and I declare fatwa on your presence on the Blizzard forum. You are too backwards to have any meaningful clout in freedom of speech and dating. Since basic humans rights isn't your best topic, most modern-day issues are beyond your cognition as well.

In all seriousness though, this effort may be an attempt to curb the crude dialogue that never seems to end on the internet, but in the end, all it's doing is harming poster diversity and potentially driving away women, which is the opposite of what they want to achieve... unless they're alright with nothing but a sausage-fest. Anonymity to protect the minorities please.

Share this post


Link to post

Actually Huy, I'm gonna have to call BS on that post, at least regarding the woman part. As far as I know, more than half of the players of WoW nowadays are women. When you have a mostly-woman game like that, or at least balance in sexes, guys tend to be less boner-centric and hitting on every female character because there's a lot of fish in the sea. Thus it gets redirected to the sluts, or guys playing girls, and everything is kosher.

As I run a game with players of fairly equal sexes, I can tell you that harassment isn't as big of a problem as sausagefest games.

Share this post


Link to post
Shaikoten said:

Thus it gets redirected to the sluts, or guys playing girls, and everything is kosher.

Actually, you just went to further prove his point. Sluts/guys-playing-girls are picked out because they chose to make their characters/avatars that way. With real names, they no longer have that choice. Now, if someone has a name that some consider "slutty", they have no way to be taken seriously, and now there is nothing they can do about it.

Share this post


Link to post
Doom Marine said:

...Two groups immediately comes to mind that will experience a negative effect as a result of this decision....

Women: If your name is Tracy, regardless of man or woman, expect your PM box to be filled with creepy PMs by geeks who wouldn't know women if one was sitting on top of them.

Muslims: If your name is Muhammad bin Rajalajalalabad, you are a terrorist...


I assume PM's would use your real name as well, which would probably stop allot of people making such PM's.

To be honest this could be considered the next step in removing the anominity (i.e Wikipedia lists the IP addresses of anominous contributors) that has blighted the internet.

I imagine that one day, anominity on the internet will be gone. But whether Blizzard is taking too big a step toward that too soon will remain to be seen.

Share this post


Link to post
Shaikoten said:

Actually Huy, I'm gonna have to call BS on that post, at least regarding the woman part. As far as I know, more than half of the players of WoW nowadays are women.

Nice try Ben, but I'm gonna have to call BS on your calling BS. Blizzard has never published an official demographical breakdown of WoW, and never will. I could be wrong, but where did you pull that claim from? Anecdotal evidence?

To give truth a fair chance though, I rummaged around the internets for third-party research that revealed better than expected WoW gender ratio. If we hold the linked article as reliable, the ratio of men:women is about 6:4. That's surprisingly high and less of a sausage-fest than I thought. In light of this, claiming that more than half players of WoW nowadays are women is hard to believe and needs some hard facts.

Shaikoten said:

When you have a mostly-woman game like that, or at least balance in sexes, guys tend to be less boner-centric and hitting on every female character because there's a lot of fish in the sea. Thus it gets redirected to the sluts, or guys playing girls, and everything is kosher.

As I run a game with players of fairly equal sexes, I can tell you that harassment isn't as big of a problem as sausagefest games.

While you are right about the effect of balance in sexes, consider that Blizzard isn't just WoW. As soon as you have games that involve destruction and competition, like Starcraft or Warcraft(RTS), the gender ratio gets skewed immediately, in the negative direction.

How you run your game with your good group may or may not reflect the sentiment of the online community's gender dynamics, but I know one thing for sure: having the option of public anonymity is there to protect those that wants to participate in the online community, but also not wanting to be harassed or stalked. It's not too far from the truth to say that there's a lot of crazies out there.

Nowadays, you can Google up stuff about a person that you didn't even want to know in the first place, using only their first, last name, and a few bits of key info. Having the first and last name online for thousands to see is disturbingly scary.

Sure, it's not so scary when you're a white, American male without anyone wanting anything from you, but take a look at some of your more attractive female friend's MySpace / Facebook PM boxes and you'll realize what kind of fucked up creatures we males really are.

Share this post


Link to post

That crap happens anyway. It's just sad that anyone wants to take away the opportunity for anonymity. IP addresses mean nothing about identity in most cases -- especially in countries where nobody secures their wi-fi (Japan ftw...). The trolls are just going to fake their way around this anyway. Other people will just be easier to harass offline.

Share this post


Link to post




Also, to get a little idea as to how good this idea is, here's a little something I found on Encyclopedia Dramatica.

To prove that Real ID wasn't that bad of an idea, Blizzard employee Bashiok posted his full name: Micah Whipple. Within hours, his Facebook account, mother's name, addresses, phone numbers, and relatives were all found. Since then, he's been getting harassed nonstop, so much that he deleted his Facebook profile and stopped picking up the phone. His dox are here, have fun!

Maybe this will prove to Blizzard that they're fucking up.

Share this post


Link to post

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×