Official forums: Real names only

[Bluspacecow]

Originally Posted by Melody Kitn Me and the hubby were throwing around the idea that maybe it was all a diabolical scheme to get people to complain less on the forums. Since a nice chunk of people were thinking of boycotting posting on the forums if it were to have their real name, imagine the impact it might have had in regards to posting disgruntled issues about ingame things, or rants about bugs and wait times. Less irate posts for Blizz to have to deal with with supposedly less trolls.

Only problem with this theory is they were going to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

I saw almost every regular helpful poster out there categorically state they would leave if Blizzard ever did this.

Posters who have written much of the good unofficial documentation out there (including on wowwiki). People that spend a lot of their own free time helping people out of the forums, giving advice and writing FAQS , stickies and guides.

Effectively the best members of their community basically told them they would not stand this and stated they would leave if Blizzard went through with it. Not threatened. Stated they would leave like it was an indisputable fact that they would leave like how the sun comes up everyday.

[Bluspacecow]

http://thenoobcomic.com/index.php?pos=384

for the lolz

[seebs]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/bl...terview?page=1

Blizzard has now said they aren't going to do the forum thing "for the time being".

So they still don't actually comprehend why this was a bad idea, and will probably try again later. Guess I don't need to preorder Cat collector's editions after all.

[Cralor]

Ultimately we decided we would not go in that direction for the time being, and see if there were other ways we could address the objective we had, which was to improve the forums generally.

No, they will not do the same thing.

Honestly, this affect should not lead you to stop playing the game. (Unless you no longer enjoy playing the game.) But if it makes you happy, do what you want.

Did you also read this?

So, all in all, the process worked. We put the word out. We got the feedback. We reconsidered. We made a change. We appreciate the fact that we have such passionate fans.

Take a look at it from their point-of-view.


In other news...

But one of the things we're doing is allowing people who are posting on the forums the ability to rate the post, so that the moderators can see where the quality conversations are happening. That will help.

This is a great addition to the forums. It is things like this that they are trying to do to help improve the forums overall. There is pros for Real Names, but the cons weighed out. They revoked that idea.

[seebs]

Originally Posted by Cralor "Ultimately we decided we would not go in that direction for the time being, and see if there were other ways we could address the objective we had, which was to improve the forums generally." No, they will not do the same thing.

"For the time being" carries the strong implication that they will, in the future, go in that direction.

Honestly, this affect should not lead you to stop playing the game. (Unless you no longer enjoy playing the game.) But if it makes you happy, do what you want.

I can't understand why this shouldn't make me stop playing the game.

Blizzard has a large number of nice, concrete, examples of ways in which the proposed change would lead to real risk (albeit remote) of physical harm to their customers. After considering all the clearly documented ways in which this would result in such risks, they... backed down only because so many people were mad. And have now explicitly stated that they have backed down "for the time being", which is a statement you don't normally make without specific intent to change things later.

They have 11 million players. Something bad that only happens one time in a million would affect eleven people.

Fundamentally, this means that Blizzard's customers are now a secondary consideration after their facebook deal. It means that if I continue to pay them money, I'm funding their development of screwing people over when "the time being" is up. It means that it would now be not merely a bit undercautious, but stupid for me to trust them with personal information of any sort that might legitimately be considered "private" under other circumstances.

It makes the game no longer fun, because the game is now known to be run by people who don't care what we think, and don't actually care what we say, just how many people were saying it. They "listened" only to the number of cancellations, not to the reasons or explanations. They have not given the risks or problems any thought. Once "the time being" is up, they will move in that direction anyway -- because they don't think it's a big issue.

So I don't trust them anymore, and that makes the game unfun.

I used to be friends with this guy, until I found out he was an utter, total, jerk to women he slept with. Then I stopped being friends with him. Sure, I could have gone and done stuff with him, his behavior wouldn't have changed -- but I no longer liked him as a person, so it wouldn't have been fun anymore. I used to like Blizzard. Now I don't. That makes the game unfun.

And yes, I read that. That is one of the other things they will do for the time being.

They have not acknowledged, at any point, that there were actual problems with real names, other than that a lot of players complained. They haven't admitted that the complaints had any kind of underlying validity. They haven't acknowledged that these problems are inherent and fundamental to the idea of forcing people to be identified by real names, and that means that, no matter how cool the other stuff they do is, they're still people who think it's okay to put their customers at risk in order to get a better marketing deal with facebook.

[Cralor]

Blizzard has a large number of nice, concrete, examples of ways in which the proposed change would lead to real risk (albeit remote) of physical harm to their customers.

I'd be interested in these.

they... backed down only because so many people were mad.

How do you know?


And what is this Facebook thing? How do you know that comes into play at all?


Ultimately, I believe the Real Names is a harmful step, but feel that it was not done with bad intentions. Blizzard is a company that I continue to respect. There is only so many Blue Posts that establish the players' understandings. This is how many things get misconstrued.

[seebs]

Originally Posted by Cralor I'd be interested in these.

Hundreds were posted in the threads.

Obvious examples include:
* Whole categories of people whose jobs REQUIRE that they must not post on the Internet under their real name. Period. All these people are then banned from the forums. Because we know the primary forum trolls were law enforcement and corrections system personnel, right?
* Many women I know who play WoW are pretty careful not to be identified, because they get harassed if people think they're female. Many of them have identifiable names. But that's okay, women were the majority of the trolls, right?
* Forums are full of crazy people who get obsessive and try to stalk other people. Without real names, they can't do much. Give them real names, things change.
* Transgendered people often have a legal name which is not the name they'd usually want to post with. But hey, no problem, we'll just effectively ban them, too.

The problem is that, fundamentally, it is extremely stupid to mandate that people have their posts on an internet game forum be easily associated with their real identity, especially for the fairly large number of people who can be tracked down quite easily given their name. (And that's not just "people who have facebook accounts"; you can get my home address from public records whether or not I willingly post it.)

How do you know?

Well, on the one hand, they say they backed down due to the feedback. On the other hand, they do not, in this post or any other, acknowledge that there were actual problems with the proposal -- so the only thing left they could be responding to is the sheer volume of angry people.

And what is this Facebook thing? How do you know that comes into play at all?

The facebook thing is the publically announced deal where they are doing facebook integration with Real ID. And they put out a press release, so it's not as though this is secret. If you look at Real ID stuff before that was announced, it was full of stuff about preserving privacy and offering privacy controls. When the facebook thing was announced, they said they didn't anticipate any user pushback about not having any privacy controls, because people don't care much about privacy.

It's not proof, but it's a pretty good working hypothesis that the facebook deal is closely tied to the sudden change in their policy.

Ultimately, I believe the Real Names is a harmful step, but feel that it was not done with bad intentions.

How is this possible? I've explained the proposed idea to dozens of people. Every one of those people who had ever dealt with any kind of security or privacy issue in any capacity, every one of them who had ever been female and used the Internet, every one of them who had ever dealt with or even read about stalkers, immediately said "holy *!@#*! that's a stupid idea". It isn't just a tiny bit bad, it is stunningly and obviously bad. It genuinely frightens me to imagine that there are adults living on their own who can't immediately see the badness.

I feel like I'm surrounded by people who are saying "yes, I like this idea of keeping all the fresh vegetables at the grocery store under heat lamps to keep them crisp and fresh", and who, once the problems are pointed out, then say "well, I guess it wouldn't work, but I don't see what makes you think it was undertaken with bad intentions."

Blizzard is a company that I continue to respect. There is only so many Blue Posts that establish the players' understandings. This is how many things get misconstrued.

I cannot conceive of any way in which I could trust someone dumb enough to sincerely propose this idea, let alone a group of people who, after spending "a very long time" thinking about it, had not realized that it was catastrophically bad. But now we have them revealing that, despite the nearly 50,000 post thread, and the dozens of examples from people like law enforcement officers, people in the witness protection program, people whose exes have shot at them, and so on, they still don't see anything wrong with it except that people were complaining.

Okay, imagine that you stand on someone's foot, and they yell about it, and you move back. And then you say "well, obviously you didn't like me standing there, so I won't stand there for the time being, but I might stand there again later, because by then you might not mind". Does that suggest that you have any comprehension of what happened? No, it suggests that you didn't understand it at all. And that would make you Blizzard in this scenario.

[Waverian]

Originally Posted by seebs Hundreds were posted in the threads. Obvious examples include: * Whole categories of people whose jobs REQUIRE that they must not post on the Internet under their real name. Period. All these people are then banned from the forums. Because we know the primary forum trolls were law enforcement and corrections system personnel, right? * Many women I know who play WoW are pretty careful not to be identified, because they get harassed if people think they're female. Many of them have identifiable names. But that's okay, women were the majority of the trolls, right? * Forums are full of crazy people who get obsessive and try to stalk other people. Without real names, they can't do much. Give them real names, things change. * Transgendered people often have a legal name which is not the name they'd usually want to post with. But hey, no problem, we'll just effectively ban them, too.

None of these are even examples at all, let alone "concrete examples of ... risk ... of physical harm". They're you just saying "Well, these groups could be targeted."

You also have absolutely no evidence of the 3rd bullet. Ya, stalkers spend all of their times on forums looking for victims, you figured them out. Most users are inexperienced and naive enough that somebody who cared enough could get personal information about them based on disparate facts already available on the forums. I'm not suggesting that realID on forums is good, but this claim is completely asinine and unfounded.

[Bluspacecow]

Originally Posted by Waverian You also have absolutely no evidence of the 3rd bullet. Ya, stalkers spend all of their times on forums looking for victims, you figured them out. Most users are inexperienced and naive enough that somebody who cared enough could get personal information about them based on disparate facts already available on the forums. I'm not suggesting that realID on forums is good, but this claim is completely asinine and unfounded.

It's not unfounded - look at what happened when a few blues posted their real names on the forums.

Within hours their personal information and the personal information about these spouses and family had been posted. Their home address. Their mothers' home address. Their telephone numbers. Their social networking profiles.

They had to delete their Myspace & Facebook profiles and one had to disconnect his phone as he was getting obscene phonecalls. I also hear some clown kept ordering pizzas to be sent to his address.

[Cralor]

I am highly against the Real Name system. Not for the sake of myself, because I simply don't post anyway, but for the safety and consideration of the entire player-base. Yes, I agree this is not a good sign for the future, but with what the Blizzard Representatives have said, coupled with the above fact that actual employees got hurt, leads me to believe that they know what they are doing and that this is a non-issue.

But ultimately, I still do not see a defined connection that Real Names == Quitting WoW. If there are other factors and reasons to your leaving of the game, then that is perfectly fine, but if this is the only reason, I am boggled.

Especially with no evidence of your points, I cannot believe that Blizzard is out "against us". What if they did not even share this idea? What if they just implemented it in a Patch with no user questioning?

[voodoodad]

Sooo... How 'bout that WoWMatrix? Boy, I really miss using that! It sure sucks that the evil WoWInterface team and the even MORE evil Curse people blocked their access...

On the other hand, WoWMatrix was evil! They weren't giving authors due credit, and they were leaching vast amounts of bandwidth from legitimate sites...

On another note, I love the Blizzard no-pay-for-play policy regarding addons! Give those dirty, money-grubbing authors what for, Blizz!

Alternatively, Blizzard should have no say as to whether addon authors seek payment for their addons! The authors work incredibly hard to produce quality programming that makes the game much more playable.

This has been an attempt to distract attention from an already dead topic. If this had been an actual, current topic you would have been notified to seek shelter immediately.

[Petrah]

[Cairenn]

What voodoodad and Petrah said. Why are we still discussing this? It's a dead issue. If it becomes a live issue again at some point in the future, it can be revived then. Let it go already, folks.

[seebs]

I brought it up because a Blizzard rep, speaking officially, changed the stance from "we will not be requiring real names in the forums" to "for the time being". That's a change from an indefinite future with no plans to make the change, to a pretty clear indication that they plan to make the change in the future. "For the time being" is necessarily a short-term plan with implicit plans to change the decision later.

When it looked like they really had backed down, I figured it was a dead issue. Now that an official rep has stated, in an interview, that they have only backed down for the short term, I don't think it's a dead issue.

[voodoodad]

I might be wrong (it does happen occasionally) but wasn't "for the time being" a part of the original statement? Not that I really want to see this discussion continue. If and when Blizz to institute the real-name policy, I'll decide what to do at that time. Until then, there's way to much real-life stuff to worry about than that.

[Cralor]

Originally Posted by voodoodad I might be wrong (it does happen occasionally) but wasn't "for the time being" a part of the original statement? Not that I really want to see this discussion continue. If and when Blizz to institute the real-name policy, I'll decide what to do at that time. Until then, there's way to much real-life stuff to worry about than that.

Sorry for extending the topic...

I feel the same way.

[seebs]

Originally Posted by voodoodad I might be wrong (it does happen occasionally) but wasn't "for the time being" a part of the original statement? Not that I really want to see this discussion continue. If and when Blizz to institute the real-name policy, I'll decide what to do at that time. Until then, there's way to much real-life stuff to worry about than that.

No. The original statement had two claims:

1. "We've decided at this time that the forums will not require real names."
2. "The forums will not require real names."

While there was an "at-this-time" qualifier, it qualified the decision, not the requirement for real names.

The new statement was "We've decided not to go in that direction for the time being." The time qualifier is explicitly on the decision to require real names. Furthermore, "for the time being" is explicitly temporary. The qualifier "at this time" makes no statement about future times; the qualifier "for the time being" strongly implies that there is already intent that this will change later.

They've made it clear that they are not interested in or concerned with the actual substance of the complaints. I don't really feel like investing more time and money in them. I hope to see some of you guys around sometime in other games.

Basically, the issue here is that I like to feel like I trust the people I'm doing business with, and that they are at least listening to me. I've been active at wowi rather than curse because the wowi community and maintainers seemed to be more actually interested in addon development and the addon developer community. I have actively avoided wowmatrix because they seemed to be totally unconcerned with the addon developer community. Blizzard has just gone from being more like wowi to being more like wowmatrix.

[Seerah]

Originally Posted by voodoodad I might be wrong (it does happen occasionally) but wasn't "for the time being" a part of the original statement?

Yes, it was.

From the original announcement:

As a result of those discussions, we've decided at this time that real names will not be required for posting on official Blizzard forums.

[Petrah]

Can someone lock the thread?

[Cairenn]

You know we try not to lock threads unless absolutely necessary. I had hoped that my not-so-subtle hint would be enough.