Anonymity on the official forums is going away

[Shixin]

I agree. There are a bazillion reasons this is a bad idea. Thank God the change isn't going to be retroactive(posts you've already made before the change will not show your real name), but suffice to say that as soon as this change goes into effect I won't be posting on the official forums anymore. I think we should start looking for a third party forum to be the unofficial Emerald Dream forum, the problem with that is going to be getting most of the guilds on both sides of the fence to agree on a particular forum. This change is really going to screw up the community. Kind of messed up they are going to screw up a good thing for thousands of forums users just to deal with a few trolls. Hell, I'm even a bit of a troll, but I at least have the stones to use "Lokimar" as my avatar when I do it, and not hide behind a level 1 alt.nnEdit: Also.. Blizzard/WoW are ESRB certified, so the more people that file complaints about this, the harder the ESRB will lean on them not to do this. https://www.esrb.org/privacy/contact.jsp.

nThere is a move already to make 3rd party forums for Emerald Dream. It's been a hot topic for the Emerald Dream IRC channel. Bhootam is one of the driving forces behind organizing it. Last I heard, it's not clear if it will be an expanded version of the Emerald Dream Gazette or a whole new site. Based on the changes I see on the Emerald Dream Gazette, it looks like that's the route they might be headed.

nnYeah, but I don't think he's going to get what he wants with the whole link-to-our-accounts thing. I'm pretty sure Blizz would shut that down if it were thrown in their face. Using their images is one thing, linking to their servers is entirely different.

[Leothiel]

Rumor: Blizzard as unhappy and powerless about it as we are.

If that rumor is true, then a good way to protest against RealID is to find out who the top decision makers of Activi$ion are, publish their names and personal info on the WoW boards, then encourage everyone to copy and paste everywhere.

[Warburn]

Rumor: Blizzard as unhappy and powerless about it as we are.

If that rumor is true, then a good way to protest against RealID is to find out who the top decision makers of Activi$ion are, publish their names and personal info on the WoW boards, then encourage everyone to copy and paste everywhere.

nnYou mean do something like this?nhttp://asnowstormbyanyothername.blogspot.com/

[Eyesore]

And I can't really grasp the rationale that one might be worried what a potential employer might think for a couple of reasons; the first is the ol' fashioned, if a potential employer would judge me for what I choose to do in my off hours, that isn't the sort of place I would care to work fall back. The second is wrapped up in discrimination laws. Any company found choosing not to hire someone because they found someone online who shares a name with applicant who plays World of Warcraft (and given enough time, corporate practices of those sort would come out) is going to be on the butt-end of a massive series of lawsuits and public ridicule.

nnI guess I spend too much time with newspapers and newsmagazines, but employers MAY choose to not hire you for as simple a reason as they don't like you. Only civil right factors are protected by law, and those may vary some by state. There have already been cases of not just not hiring, but firings, based on personal information found on the Internet, and courts have backed up the practice. That some employers don't go down this path of inquiry does not mean that others don't. And it is too simple to say that you shouldn't work for such a company anyway, as you may already work for them, or actually need the job. Even a nominee for the Supreme Court can have ANYTHING ever made public, and servers store e-mail, and MAY be legally accessed, admitted into testimony for confirmation hearings, before the entire country, via C-Span.nnI apologize in advance for jumping on this aspect, but I have been too well advised regarding the risks of public posting of personal information to dismiss any aspect of this proposal.nnEyesore

[Euwen]

I may be a minority thinker here, but I firmly disagree with the protesting of the forum change based solely on the premise that some people will be persecuted when a connection is made between them and their in game persona. The only arguments I see are full of speculation and fear-mongering.nnIf you don't want the public to know you've done something, don't do it. No one should ever do something they'll be ashamed of. That's something you learn in grade-school, or even before.nnI can only hope that Blizzard finds a community accepted way to increase the social networking presence to this game, so that it can break the stereotype that gamers are a bunch of unproductive losers.nnnEdit: I just want to add that I respect the privacy of those who want it for whatever reason. I think a lot of work needs to be done with RealID to preserve that privacy to those who want it, such as not listing personal information (email, characters, etc.), but once that is done, the changes to the forums should be re-evaluated.

[Shixin]

I may be a minority thinker here, but I firmly disagree with the protesting of the forum change based solely on the premise that people will be persecuted when a connection is made between them and their in game persona. The only arguments I see are full of speculation and fear-mongering.nnIf you don't want the public to know you've done something, don't do it. No one should ever do something they'll be ashamed of. That's something you learn in grade-school, or even before.nnI can only hope that Blizzard finds a community accepted way to increase the social networking presence to this game, so that it can break the stereotype that gamers are a bunch of unproductive losers.

nnnThat's a really good point, Euwen, and one I didn't think of. The common concern was "what if someone gets mad at you in-game and hunts you down in RL?" The obvious (well, obvious now) is "don't do anything deliberately that will make someone that mad." nnI don't like the idea of my real name being available via a video game I play online. That would be tantamount to my bank publishing a list of its customers online. But, I don't think I'll be doing anything that's going to warrant murder.nnThen again, who knows what warrants murder these days?

[Eione]

The problem with that is, as a female I often get harassed in a "joking" fashion about inappropriate things. Now if that person wanted to take it to the next level, despite the fact I had done nothing wrong (except being born female and being too nice to people) I would still get harassed by people who would think it funny to take that sort of to the next level.nnThe point I'm trying to make is this one http://www.dementedkitty.net/2010/07/real-id-iii.html but the lady (unknown) who made that post did it a whole lot more eloquently than I can at this state of zombie brain.

[Asarelah]

The point I'm trying to make is this one http://www.dementedkitty.net/2010/07/real-id-iii.html but the lady (unknown) who made that post did it a whole lot more eloquently than I can at this state of zombie brain.

nn*nods in complete agreement with the (unknown) female poster*nnYes, she summed it up quite nicely. Thankee for sharing this link.

[Aitana]

Still I agree that something needs to be done. They were going to force us to post only under our real name. I would suggest that they force us to post under a single screen name and put a link in either our signature or by our avatar that allows people reading the forums to see something about the toons we play. It could be every toon we have, just the X number of the last toons we played, our highest level toon(s), or anything like that, but something that prevents us from hiding behind level 1 alts. None of that would get rid of people that make second accounts for the purpose of trolling, but it would make it more work to troll.

[Shimmerwind]

Still I agree that something needs to be done. They were going to force us to post only under our real name. I would suggest that they force us to post under a single screen name and put a link in either our signature or by our avatar that allows people reading the forums to see something about the toons we play. It could be every toon we have, just the X number of the last toons we played, our highest level toon(s), or anything like that, but something that prevents us from hiding behind level 1 alts. None of that would get rid of people that make second accounts for the purpose of trolling, but it would make it more work to troll.

nnThat sounds like a reasonable compromise, and I will be very surprised if that ultimately isn't the direction they go. It would be extremely simple to attach a "forum handle" to our Battle.net accounts, which we would then post under. It would be equally easy to attach that forum handle to each of our characters on the Armory and provide a link by clicking on our forum handle to the Armory that gives a list of our characters, similar to how clicking on it currently sends you to our current character's armory.