Blizzard Nixes Plans to Require Real Names
- Thread starter John Funk
- Start date
Okay. Here's a thought exercise for those of you who think that enforcing real names on forums increases accountability. Because your viewpoint still makes no sense to me and I feel I need to understand the "why" of the whole thing.
Suppose I say something absolutely nasty to you on a forum. (Not racist/sexist/what have you, but insulting nonetheless.) You have my name. What do you do about it?
Suppose I say something absolutely nasty to you on a forum. (Not racist/sexist/what have you, but insulting nonetheless.) You have my name. What do you do about it?
Anonymity I can definitely understand, but usually anonymity is in the hands of that person and it usually depends whether or not he chooses to be anonymous or not. People are responsible for whatever information they choose to share in a forum, and letting people feel those repercussions would have changed the entire community's attitude in a heartbeat.Uber Waddles said:
Then again, stuff like that would've been grounds for a synchronized 4chan raid.
/threadCommander Breetai said:
OT: Blizzard wanted to come up to a solution to a huge problem anywhere on the internet. Trolling.
so they no doubt though up plenty of ideas.
More moderators?: too hard
shut down the forums?:we'd lose millions of fans and devoted users!
Make it so that everyone knows who everyone else is?: it's a middle ground that makes the trolls feel like jerks! Brilliant!
It almost seems like Blizzard wanted to turn the forums from a big city to a suburb. Because nothing bad happens in suburbs, right? there are definatley no bullies in the suburbs, because we all know one another. Were all friends! right? RIGHT?!
I don't get what the fuss is about?
I wouldn't care about people using my name. But then again I like my name.
I guess if my name was Ben Dover I might not be so keen.
I wouldn't care about people using my name. But then again I like my name.
I guess if my name was Ben Dover I might not be so keen.
I don't use the Blizzard forums. I'm afraid they'll resemble the /2 anal wars so I avoid them like I avoid capitol cities. However, this is a smart move on Blizzards part. I foresaw situations reminiscent of Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back, and apparently so did Woody [http://www.gucomics.com/comic/?cdate=20100707].
With a guy here that has that random fear of putting my actual name on the internet and loves Starcraft to death and waiting for SC2 to come out in my state, it's very much a relief that it's no longer required. I understand if it was safe, but seriously, I hate feeling like I just threw my info into a pot and waiting for some people to pick it up.
For anyones who curious the 2500 page thread on the us forums had a lot of people bringing up important issues with the idea of having real names on the forums.
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=25712374700&sid=1
My take since I play WoW and posted in that main thread about it is that all of the other changes Blizz wanted to do like letting people vote up or down on post and tying all of a persons characters together were good ideas and would do a good deal of work to make people more constructive. The reason behind having people use their real name could have been accomplished just as well by having people make a permanent Battlenet handle that all of their game and forum activity would be put under.
You also have to think about what having people post with their real names would actually do to stop certain kinds of trolling. If I try to derail a thread into a flame war under my real name what exactly is anybody going to do about it(You can already report people and a rep system would let people rate my derailing attempt down)? By using real names as the basis for accountability your implying that the consequences should extend to real life, what other consequence would their be?
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=25712374700&sid=1
My take since I play WoW and posted in that main thread about it is that all of the other changes Blizz wanted to do like letting people vote up or down on post and tying all of a persons characters together were good ideas and would do a good deal of work to make people more constructive. The reason behind having people use their real name could have been accomplished just as well by having people make a permanent Battlenet handle that all of their game and forum activity would be put under.
You also have to think about what having people post with their real names would actually do to stop certain kinds of trolling. If I try to derail a thread into a flame war under my real name what exactly is anybody going to do about it(You can already report people and a rep system would let people rate my derailing attempt down)? By using real names as the basis for accountability your implying that the consequences should extend to real life, what other consequence would their be?
The most recent episode of BluePlz at cynicalbrit.com had some interesting things to say on this matter. Among them that a good alternative to using real names is to let you see (I assume through some link) the names of all the characters on a person's account. If a troll is willing to pay for a separate account for the sole purpose of trolling, well that is a dedicated troll, and while rarer than your average troll, could be admired in a stupid sort of way.
Perhaps more interestingly, he argued that Activision-Blizzard (because they are one company, after all) aren't so stupid as to think that this idea would get a positive reception, that this was some kind of test to see just how much they could get away with, test the waters for introducing something like this at some time in the future.
Perhaps more interestingly, he argued that Activision-Blizzard (because they are one company, after all) aren't so stupid as to think that this idea would get a positive reception, that this was some kind of test to see just how much they could get away with, test the waters for introducing something like this at some time in the future.
It was a stupid idea to start with (proper and robust moderation of their own forums/game would clean things up a lot faster) but credit to Blizzard for paying attention, I can't fault them for that.
And the thing is this - if your name is John Smith then you would be just as free to act like a fucking fuckwit, the notion of people knowing your name and that being enough to silence you was always a nonsense. If, like me, a google search of your real name immediately reveals real details then there is a problem. My old job tied my name to some literature, I haven't worked there in years but some trolling tosspot would not know that.
And the thing is this - if your name is John Smith then you would be just as free to act like a fucking fuckwit, the notion of people knowing your name and that being enough to silence you was always a nonsense. If, like me, a google search of your real name immediately reveals real details then there is a problem. My old job tied my name to some literature, I haven't worked there in years but some trolling tosspot would not know that.
Interesting idea, I was going to suggest that people only get to post using maybe their top 3 (or 5 or maybe 2 per server, depending on how many alts they have), meaning their level 1 alts don't get to act like asses, but people who've just joined don't get blocked just because they don't have a level 80 yet. I'm known mainly by 3 horde characters and an alliance, tho I have about 16 characters on the go, including bank alts etc.Thick said: