Blizzard plans to reveal poster's real names on forums. Rage ensues.

[Revising Ocelot]

http://forums.battle.net/thread.html?topicId=25626109041&sid=3000

Summary is: to cut down on trolling and 'improve the social environment', if you post on any Blizzard forums after a certain date it'll be using your real name - that is, the name you've got tied to your WoW account or whatever for billing purposes. Posts earlier than that date will not be retroactively changed.

The WoW forums version of that topic has, as I write, 19,374 posts, not to mention the huge flood of additional topics. I think that speaks for itself.

[Meister]

This is totally symptomatic for a trend in companies and governments to choose cheap, quick and radical technical solutions with obvious drawbacks over more expensive and subtle ones that need more time to take effect but work better. If they're concerned about the social environment they should hire 10 or 20 decent moderators.

[Amake]

Not that I needed another reason to stay away from all kinds of multiplayer activity in Blizzard games, but much appreciated. Any number of people with me will surely boycott those forums to protect their personal integrity, some will certainly stop playing, Blizzard's stock will go down, and of course they will have a lot less spam and trolling. Everyone wins!

[Professor Smarmiarty]

As Blizzard is a large professional company who make well reasoned and educated decisions, we should follow in thier wake. I expect these changes to be implemented here pronto.

[Funka Genocide]

I'm actually all for this change. I must sadly admit I play the game and am a bit of an avid theory crafter. I've written some guides that have been made sticky threads (mainly for warriors, bless their berserker, steel clad hearts) and the community as a whole is attrocious.

I never really understood why they never seemed terribly interested in visible moderation. Everything that happens (which isn't much) is always shadowy and behind the scenes. There's no mod posts, no warnings, its just suddenly blammo: thread is deleted and some posters aren't posting anymore.

I guess they don't feel like paying people to moderate an internet forum (I can kind of see the reasoning there, moderating those forums properly would be a full time job and honestly, who wants to pay people to press buttons on a forum interface?) and its not as if they can simply elevate users to mod status. You would see the advent of super cliques and arbitrary bannings before long and a complete break down of the system.

They've always had a real hands off approach to the community, and sadly the community is a disgusting rabble of morons and inciteful e-rage addicts. At least now people won't be emboldened to run their mouths on level 1 alts.

Its way too easy to hide behind another character on those forums. Now people can be held accountable for their posts and the bad apples can hopefully be weeded out. Although, in a community like that, we're talking about a variance in rotten fruit, as there's very little of the wholesome delicious variety at the best of times.

[Ravashak]

And I thought it was annoying that they made it so if you added someone as a friend through their email adress that they could see your full name... (not that anyone not speaking dutch could pronounce my last name)

Personally, I'm annoyed by this move, I feel there's no need for others to know my RL name when we're doing something together online, linking a single alias to an account would be a better alternative, imo.

[Kim]

They've always had a real hands off approach to the community, and sadly the community is a disgusting rabble of morons and inciteful e-rage addicts. At least now people won't be emboldened to run their mouths on level 1 alts.

Yes. They will. People who use their real names on the internet are just as much jerkoffs as people that don't. This is all just leading up to an inevitable stalking/kidnapping scandal, rather than the forums getting any better. This is not a legit alternative to getting some goddamn moderators.

[Token]

Considering there are roughly a shitton of other "Corey Smiths" out there, I could care less. Yay generic names.

[Funka Genocide]

You people act like knowing your real identity is going to invite international assassins into your kitchen or something.

Honestly, the fact that you can hide behind a false persona online is artificial and unnatural, what the hell do you do when you go buy shoes are buy an airline ticket? Tons of people know your real name and nobody has stalked you yet.

weirdos man.

[Terex4]

Not to mention the people who would stalk you can get access to information more sensitive than your name. Look at how many WoW accounts are hacked every day.

This change doesn't reveal anything people can use to really harm you.

[Kim]

what the hell do you do when you go buy shoes are buy an airline ticket? Tons of people know your real name and nobody has stalked you yet.

weirdos man.

You're really underestimating just how big the difference is between internet people and real life people.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

Guys, just because people can get access to worse data doesn't mean we should make it easier for everyone else. Basically you're giving a helping hand to the less-internet savvy stalkers.
Also it's going to help out spambots- I guarantee you someoen will set up something to email variations of usersnames and major email providers with false blizzard emails and things.

[Azisien]

This feels oddly relevant right now. (http://www.nuklearforums.com/showthread.php?t=38225)

I feel like I'm forcing myself to care about the issue though. I mean I agree with Meister that it would be better to hire a ton of moderators and crack down on the forums, instead of doing this. On the other hand, interesting social experiment!


Also it's going to help out spambots- I guarantee you someoen will set up something to email variations of usersnames and major email providers with false blizzard emails and things.

Honestly, this is already happening, it's not really going to change much. I don't even play WoW and I get like 15 World of Warcraft Emergency Password Change Notifications a day.

[shiney]

(I can kind of see the reasoning there, moderating those forums properly would be a full time job and honestly, who wants to pay people to press buttons on a forum interface?
I would imagine the actual people who pay money to play the games might want to pay people to press buttons on a forum interface. If you pay money for a service you should have a reasonable expectation of access to all portions of the provided service without harassment.

YOU might not be bothered by this, but there are plenty of people who want to actually safeguard certain aspects of personal data. One of the account location techniques and occasional security questions asked by Blizz if you ever have to call them is your name. Now that's one piece of the puzzle solved by a hacker or whatever. Maybe they can get your address next, or telephone number if you're listed and they know your location. Okay, two, maybe three security questions now answered. Not too terribly difficult from that point to gain access to your account.

It's not a conspiracy or cockamamie theory either. This is not a good idea from Blizzard and it is invasive of privacy on what should otherwise be an anonymous interface. If you don't care, it doesn't mean it doesn't bother you -- it means you're careless.

This is just yet another moronic move by Blizzard / Activision that furthers my belief that I made the right choice in cancelling my account last year. If all they care about is the bottom line, the profit margin, then I want no part in padding it. As it stands you can basically buy anything you want in the game now (directly or indirectly) and actual talent and competitive advantage has been thrown to the wayside in exchange for "let's get everyone to high levels as fast as possible so they buy more expansions". Heaping on invasion of privacy and a lack of commitment to actually solving a real problem just disgusts me, personally.

[bluestarultor]

I think people underestimate how much information people can get based on next to nothing. I have a friend who plays EVE who related a story of a guy whose telephone line was cut to prevent him making some sort of buy for his corporation.

Think about that once. Someone found out not only what he was doing via corporate espionage, but his name and address, and then went there. Sure, they just cut his phone line. It's not like they killed him. But they still found the guy and performed an illegal act over a game.

People do crazy things. As a guy developing my own online game, this makes me double-take. Putting real names up is not going to stop trolling and I have no idea what made Blizzard think it would, and their decision strikes me as an incredibly poor one if for no other reason than privacy rights.

[Azisien]

It's not a conspiracy or cockamamie theory either. This is not a good idea from Blizzard and it is invasive of privacy on what should otherwise be an anonymous interface. If you don't care, it doesn't mean it doesn't bother you -- it means you're careless.

This is a fair point, though we could all just not have forum accounts. And with enough outrage, maybe, they will change their mind.

Think about that once. Someone found out not only what he was doing via corporate espionage, but his name and address, and then went there. Sure, they just cut his phone line. It's not like they killed him. But they still found the guy and performed an illegal act over a game.

People do crazy things. As a guy developing my own online game, this makes me double-take. Putting real names up is not going to stop trolling and I have no idea what made Blizzard think it would, and their decision strikes me as an incredibly poor one if for no other reason than privacy rights.

I know this is a crazy story but honestly this is just fear-mongering.

[bluestarultor]

I know this is a crazy story but honestly this is just fear-mongering.

I'm not saying it's likely, just that making it easier is a very, very stupid idea. I put forth an extreme case, yes, but think about this. People get wrapped up in these things. Even if it's not people going for "visits," there's the possibility of hate mail, harassment, and general creepiness. It's bad enough people are trolling on the forums. Do we really want them to have an easier time harassing people in real life?

Privacy is in place for a reason. Removing privacy means removing protections.



As I said, this is not going to stop trolling. There's no good reason to do this, and it's going to cause much more harm than help.

[Ravashak]

It's not going to stop trolling either, if people want tot roll, they'll just get a new WoW account (quick glance, €15, think it's comparable to character transfers), and attach it to another email adress and a false name. Added benefit of allowing you to impersonate someone else who might not even know it's happening.

Wonder what they'll do with multiple people with the same name, though, add hometown as well? >_>

[Viridis]

If anyone didn't hear, they backed down on this decision really quickly.

http://www.gamepolitics.com/2010/07/12/blizzard-does-180-real-names