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Blizzard/Activision Removing Anonymity From Game Forums

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Re: Blizzard/Activision Removing Anonymity From Game Forums

#51

Post by eru »

silencio wrote: post #50
eru wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Finally I can stalk that pretty Draenei even more so." She's probably a guy.

Or, you do find out that that pretty Draenei is actually female. Guess where it goes from there. I get enough shit for joining vent and talking as a woman that plays WoW in anything non-guild related (oh, please, I still got shit there until I became an "established" player in the guild), I can only wait with joy!!!!! to see what happens on the forums.

Yes, that's the other thing that can happen.

I was quite happy that during my university years the gender ratio was around 50/50 in most of my courses. (I studied math.) That made for a better atmosphere than those computer science or physics courses.

Re: Blizzard/Activision Removing Anonymity From Game Forums

#52

Post by silencio »

csallen wrote: post #41

This is one of those changes that people rebel against simply because it's a change. If the forums had started out like this, and were now changing to become anonymous, I'm sure at least as many people would be complaining as are now. So let's go over some of these complaints: >> Gaming is stigmatized by non-gamers How do you figure? This sounds like it's simply conjecture or personal experience at best... in which c…

Posting in the forums is not completely optional. I mean sure, you can go your entire game-playing life without doing so, but if you ever get a hankering for posting bug reports or wanting more help than GMs can provide in-game, the tech support and bug report forums are now unavailable to you should you wish to never post with your real name.

Also, if I ever stop playing WoW because of the Real ID changes (so far, they're optional, works for me), it's because I hate getting harassed for being female (and my real name is very definitely feminine). Not because I fear what I say in forums or in-game will have a negative impact on my life otherwise. I just don't play a game to be annoyed like that.

I normally don't care about my name being plastered everywhere, as I'm fully aware of how not anonymous the Internet is, but let's just say I don't exactly want Blizzard to go and tell the whole world my real name if I want to post cause those idiot 15 year olds in that retarded guild on my realm would probably go far enough to post IRL details of people they don't like for whatever reason in trade chat and more. I also don't see why that has to be the case, especially when they plan on introducing a big load of new features to help CMs moderate the forums.

There's a difference between keeping that information thinly shielded behind a pseudonym from in-game vs. screaming the name on your billing address for the world to hear.

But.....yeah, I ultimately have a choice. I have the choice to stop playing the game. Works for me.

Re: Blizzard/Activision Removing Anonymity From Game Forums

#53

Post by silencio »

jasonlotito wrote: post #12
pdxmarcos wrote: post #2

This is probably the most ridiculous change ever made by a gaming company. The negative stigma associated with being a gamer and even more so being a wow player is a terrible thing to have when looking for a professional job.

No. This is one of the best things they can do. Have you ever browsed the WoW forums? They are horrible. A new player can get destroyed. Their innocence ruined. Their is only so much policing and banning that can go on. The key part to their announcement is this: > All posts in the future on the new forum systems will be an opt-in choice and ample warning will be given that you're posting with your real first and las…

Guess what. Loss of "anonymity" isn't going to do ANYTHING about that problem. There will still be plenty of people with fake Real Names and the Real Names of the people being billed (read: not the actual people playing the game, i.e. in the case of minors) trolling, except now they get to do it elsewhere with other players' real names. Welcome to the Internet.

This is a big loss for people who go to the tech support forums, bug requests, and do guild recruitment. None of those need real names, and I've almost never seen any flaming going in most of those threads. This is also quite retarded for realm forums where the context of your character is more important than your real name, so what now? Now you get to associate your toons with your real name, and well shit it keeps snowballing from there.

No, this is not a good thing because it doesn't solve the problem at all.

Re: Blizzard/Activision Removing Anonymity From Game Forums

#54

Post by silencio »

jasonlotito wrote: post #33
zach wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, and Barrens chat or the trade channel on a weekend night are pretty awful as well. But are they going to get RealID'd too? If they were only doing this on the general-discussion areas with no gameplay implications, it would be a lot more reasonable. To think you couldn't post on the forum for your character's own server under the character's name is silly.

> If they were only doing this on the general-discussion areas with no gameplay implications, it would be a lot more reasonable. That's exactly what they are doing. The forums aren't part of the game.

Forum access is included in my WoW subscription. I've been told by a GM to go post in the forums once. Official tech support forums are...on the forums. Yeah, not part of the game. Right.

Re: Blizzard/Activision Removing Anonymity From Game Forums

#55

Post by daten »

tibbon wrote: post #39

Newsflash- nothing you do online is anonymous. It hasn't been for a long time now, and it won't be in the future.

This isn't entirely true. In many cases you can post things anonymously online, and they will stay so, unless they're illegal enough to warrant a subpoena forcing a provider to turn over details that can be used to identify you.

We all understand that if you include personal information or post using a known alias, a little bit of searching may identify you. If your IP address is made public in the post or email, it can be used to narrow down who or where you are. Even simply correlating known data, that is linked to your identity, with previously anonymous data can sometimes identify you. And the popular easy to regurgitate advice is that "nothing" you do is anonymous.

The fact is, if you're careful and there isn't enough of a motivation to go to the level necessary to identify you, you can participate anonymously in many discussions.

It's also possible to maintain the option of anonymous discussion in the future if people realize where it has value and make an effort not to give their privacy away voluntarily.

Re: Blizzard/Activision Removing Anonymity From Game Forums

#56

Post by jasonlotito »

silencio wrote: post #54
jasonlotito wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If they were only doing this on the general-discussion areas with no gameplay implications, it would be a lot more reasonable. That's exactly what they are doing. The forums aren't part of the game.

Forum access is included in my WoW subscription. I've been told by a GM to go post in the forums once. Official tech support forums are...on the forums. Yeah, not part of the game. Right.

No, it's not. You need a WoW subscription to have access to the WoW forums, but you don't need to have access to the WoW forums to have access to WoW the game.

> Official tech support forums are...on the forums.

Currently, yes. Which has no bearing on the future setup.

> Yeah, not part of the game. Right.

I was unaware that after landing in a city, you logged onto the forums in game.

Re: Blizzard/Activision Removing Anonymity From Game Forums

#57

Post by jasonlotito »

eru wrote: post #49
jasonlotito wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This will only be an issue if you elect to link your account to various social networking sites. By default, everything is kept confidential. Also, not be able to change your name is pretty key to elements of their security.

> Also, not be able to change your name is pretty key to elements of their security. Why? Just keep a log of all the names you used. Maybe even visible to the public on your profile.

Because the Michael Robert account getting his name changed to Chang Chu isn't going to help Michael when he tries to get his account back. Chang sends his documents saying "Yes, this is my account."

Rarely will a person have their name completely changed.

Re: Blizzard/Activision Removing Anonymity From Game Forums

#58

Post by jasonlotito »

Gormo wrote: post #28

Perhaps Blizzard will successfully improve the quality of their message boards by suppressing anonymity. Or perhaps participants will start considering the impact to their reputation in every other aspect of life each time they post, and undermine the vitality and uniqueness of this particular community. The latter would be especially ironic considering that the forums in question pertain to an escapist fantasy game…

Except HN is far from Anonymous, and excels not because of anonymity, but because of real people. Quality posts here generally come from people that can be traced. HN would suffer if everything was anonymous.

Re: Blizzard/Activision Removing Anonymity From Game Forums

#59

Post by silencio »

jasonlotito wrote: post #56
silencio wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Forum access is included in my WoW subscription. I've been told by a GM to go post in the forums once. Official tech support forums are...on the forums. Yeah, not part of the game. Right.

No, it's not. You need a WoW subscription to have access to the WoW forums, but you don't need to have access to the WoW forums to have access to WoW the game. > Official tech support forums are...on the forums. Currently, yes. Which has no bearing on the future setup. > Yeah, not part of the game. Right. I was unaware that after landing in a city, you logged onto the forums in game.

Oh, no, they're not part of your in-game experience. They're part of your overall package you get for subscribing...but that's still part of the game. You don't HAVE to use it, but then again, you don't have to advertise your ICC craftables or do any guild recruitment on forums or talk in general realm discussion or submit bug reports either. Right? (But yes, I have hope that they'll at least make this separate from the forums in the future if they insist on this stupidity.) It's optional in the sense that you can probably go forever without ever posting once, but it's pretty unlikely for all kinds of reasons.

Re: Blizzard/Activision Removing Anonymity From Game Forums

#60

Post by csallen »

silencio wrote: post #52
csallen wrote: post #41

This is one of those changes that people rebel against simply because it's a change. If the forums had started out like this, and were now changing to become anonymous, I'm sure at least as many people would be complaining as are now. So let's go over some of these complaints: >> Gaming is stigmatized by non-gamers How do you figure? This sounds like it's simply conjecture or personal experience at best... in which c…

Posting in the forums is not completely optional. I mean sure, you can go your entire game-playing life without doing so, but if you ever get a hankering for posting bug reports or wanting more help than GMs can provide in-game, the tech support and bug report forums are now unavailable to you should you wish to never post with your real name. Also, if I ever stop playing WoW because of the Real ID changes (so far, t…

Yes, WoW is full of immature people who may use your real name to harass you (so is middle school). Getting harassed sucks. Maybe you're fearful enough of that possibility that you'll never post on the forums again. And maybe the forums are so important to you that you'll quit WoW without them. Those are perfectly legitimate ways to act, and I'm not arguing otherwise. As you said, it's your choice.

What I am saying is that it's not an invasion of your privacy for Blizzard's forums to be based on RealID; they are not "bad guys" for doing so. In addition, many people feel it's next to impossible to have reasonable discussions in the forums as they are right now, where otherwise-reasonable people create anonymous accounts for the sole purposes of trolling and spamming.

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