Blizzard decides to publish each user's name

Post by **ZeroAX** » Tue Jul 06, 2010 2:34 pm

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

yes blizzard make it even easier for child molesters to stalk their prey. Cause you know, noooooo one will think of checking a player's name on Facebook.

Specially if it's a girl. Nope. No one will eeeeeeeeever think of searching for her on Facebook to see if she's hot and ZOMG plays WoW.

This is unthinkable, everyone should make a huge fuss about this. This is NOT about being accountable for one's actions. This is like when being in public, in order to speak you must state your name to every random strange who can hear you.

Post by **Betamax001** » Tue Jul 06, 2010 2:55 pm

To me it sounds like it is (as of right now) just the forums, which I don't go on. This just screams BAD IDEA. What were they thinking?

"They must have been wearing those Bad Idea Jeans from SNL when they came up with this idea."

Post by **Quiet Flight** » Tue Jul 06, 2010 3:02 pm

Who cares, its just WOW players.

Post by **MrPopo** » Tue Jul 06, 2010 3:08 pm

ZeroAX wrote:This is unthinkable, everyone should make a huge fuss about this. This is NOT about being accountable for one's actions. This is like when being in public, in order to speak you must state your name to every random strange who can hear you.

You mean you don't do that already?

Seriously though, if you've got a facebook your name is already out there. And it's not like you'll need to provide your real name for SC2. I could have my realId be Dick.Gobbler and Blizzard will accept it.

Post by **ZeroAX** » Tue Jul 06, 2010 3:20 pm

MrPopo wrote:
ZeroAX wrote:This is unthinkable, everyone should make a huge fuss about this. This is NOT about being accountable for one's actions. This is like when being in public, in order to speak you must state your name to every random strange who can hear you.

You mean you don't do that already?

Seriously though, if you've got a facebook your name is already out there. And it's not like you'll need to provide your real name for SC2. I could have my realId be Dick.Gobbler and Blizzard will accept it.

I've given them my real name in order to pay for my wow subscription with my debit card. And at the time I didn't know that my posts in the forum would be linked with my name.

Post by **Gamerforlife** » Tue Jul 06, 2010 3:29 pm

I'm also leaning towards bad idea. It is an interesting way to stop flame wars and such, but honestly, who cares? That's what we have mods for. Someone is causing problems, ban that person. Problem solved. I support anonymity by default. People can reveal their names and whatever other info they wish to reveal if it's their choice. It should not be forced on them

And facebook has nothing to do with this. You can still be on facebook and yet be completely anonymous on forums and other sites.

This doesn't really affect me as I don't play any Blizzard games, but I don't want them to set a precedent with this. There's a trend happening here for anyone who is paying attention. There have been a lot of articles complaining about all the info facebook puts out there too. All you have to do is pay attention and you can see that certain powers that be are trying to abolish all privacy on the net. I don't support that personally. I know the internet is a great outlet for a lot of people to express themselves BECAUSE of anonymity.

Post by **MrPopo** » Tue Jul 06, 2010 4:04 pm

Gamerforlife wrote:I know the internet is a great outlet for a lot of people to express themselves BECAUSE of anonymity.

For everyone one person that expresses themselves in a good way (speaking out against government, exposing corporate illegalities) there are 10,000 other people who are expressing themselves as such:

And you don't really have the anonymity you think you do, especially with regards to the former. If you're using the internet to say things that important people don't want you to say you can be tracked down. All it provides is an illusion of anonymity. The real benefit of the internet is that information disseminates faster than it can be stopped. We need to stop looking at it as an anonymous platform and instead look at it as a way to insure ideas and thoughts never die.

Post by **Gamerforlife** » Tue Jul 06, 2010 4:27 pm

MrPopo wrote:
Gamerforlife wrote:I know the internet is a great outlet for a lot of people to express themselves BECAUSE of anonymity.

For everyone one person that expresses themselves in a good way (speaking out against government, exposing corporate illegalities) there are 10,000 other people who are expressing themselves as such:

And you don't really have the anonymity you think you do, especially with regards to the former. If you're using the internet to say things that important people don't want you to say you can be tracked down. All it provides is an illusion of anonymity. The real benefit of the internet is that information disseminates faster than it can be stopped. We need to stop looking at it as an anonymous platform and instead look at it as a way to insure ideas and thoughts never die.

I don't care about the 10,000 idiots, just more people to ban. I care about the people who actually have interesting things to say and do it because they like the anonymity. To put it in a political perspective, you can care about people's rights or you can try taking them away to protect us from the evil terrorists. I support the former, hence I didn't appreciate our last president much.

And of course important, high ranking people in the government can track anyone down. A good hacker can do, but what are the chances that people like that would actually care enough to track down the identity of somebody posting stuff on a Blizzard forum? It's an irrelevant point

Post by **ZeroAX** » Tue Jul 06, 2010 4:33 pm

MrPopo wrote:
Gamerforlife wrote:I know the internet is a great outlet for a lot of people to express themselves BECAUSE of anonymity.

For everyone one person that expresses themselves in a good way (speaking out against government, exposing corporate illegalities) there are 10,000 other people who are expressing themselves as such:

really? Just China weights this argument in favor of the good way anonymity imo. And I'm sorry but this will not fix the problem of trolls. Trolls will just be trolls. Believe me knowing my name will not stop me from calling you an idiot if you ARE an idiot. Likewise knowing a troll's name will not stop him from trolling. What this WILL do is help stalkers and child molesters.

Also another really important aspect, how many times have we heard of Koreans killing each other over virtual items? You think it's going to be long before someone ganks(corpse camps) a player in WoW and that player being unstable tracks the guy down and kills him? Or ninja's getting killed for stealing an item they didn't need? These extreme examples HAVE happened and will only get worse with things like this.

Post by **Pulsar_t** » Tue Jul 06, 2010 4:45 pm

"The 'wisdom of the crowds' is the most ridiculous statement I've heard in my life. Crowds are dumb." ― Fark.com founder Drew Curtis :lol:

Blizzard decides to publish each user's name

Blizzard decides to publish each user's name

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