I don't see it reducing trolling by all that much. I think that some people have grown so accustomed to using internet forums as an outlet for a certain side of their personality that some abstract notion of "this behavior could come back to haunt you IRL" would not be much of a deterrent.

Quote: Original post by Inf_229
Seriously if they do that, won't people just ...not...supply their real names?
Call myself Guy Incognito or something.

Obviously, they're not displaying a name that you can freely enter, or else everybody's name would be Rock Strongo or Bill deLongo :-)

My guess is that they'll take the billing name/address, which you have to supply correctly for the credit card transaction to validate.

And here is exactly my issue, that's a no-no in my opinion. Not only does it raise the issues stated by ChurchSkiz, but it is also a data abuse. Maybe the laws in the US are different, but in EU, privacy rights impose some very strict rules on everybody who gets their hands on personal data.
Among these are for example that the person must be informed and consent, data must be secured and handled with adequate care, it must be traceable where the data has been transferred, and most importantly, you have to have a valid reason for handling that data, which must be in the interest of the respective person.
Simply yelling out "we bashs tha forumz trollz" doesn't give much in the way of "valid reason in the interest of the person" as for infringing privacy rights. Especially not in the light of the additional dangers.

You may have told some people online where you live, and there is not much wrong with that. You can see where I live next to my name. I don't mind, since there are roughly 667,000 other people living in the same city, so there's not much to be worried about. However, there are only 2 people with my real name living in this city.

Now, the very last thing I'd like to happen would be being

">Zaboo'd one day, or worse.

Quote: Original post by samoth
You can see where I live next to my name. I don't mind, since there are roughly 667,000 other people living in the same city, so there's not much to be worried about.

I can't see it.

Edit: Ah, you fixed it.

[Edited by - GameCreator on July 8, 2010 11:30:40 AM]

Since when is the majority of trolling even that bad? It seems to me that the truly terrible trolls aren't going to be deterred by this, because they're not so much trolls as are they are just downright jerks or bullies by nature. This will also make such trolling twice as "effective."

Another problem is that playing WoW isn't the same as playing a game in your room with a group of friends or colleagues. In the latter situation, obviously everybody will know your name, but there aren't any real security issues because the information is relatively contained and you can choose precisely to whom you reveal it. If you're a girl, you simply avoid playing with sexist douchebags, for instance. And if you want to get a little wild or something, you don't play with anybody connected to your job if such behavior wouldn't be acceptable--it's that simple. If you want to take the opportunity to complain about your boss or whatever, you play with friends to whom you can reveal this information.

The WoW forums will spread your identity to everybody, including people you truly dislike and want to keep a distance from or people who easily could and would use the information against you.

My friend Biggus Dickus is very displeased over this.

I'm not exactly anonymous on the internet. In under five minutes, anyone who wants to can find out my real name, my wife's name, my work address, perhaps my home address, and my cell phone number. The immediacy is a little startling, but the situation isn't far different than it was twenty years ago, when everyone used landlines and most of them were listed in the phone directory. The big difference is, it would probably take you a few days to cobble together the same info. I really think it's the ease of availability, rather than the fact of availability, that puts people off. But the people who are most inclined to stalk someone or otherwise be dangerous to them are precisely the people who are willing to go out of their way and go the extra mile to do so. So while there's much less of a perception of privacy these days, I don't think there's a significantly greater risk because of it.

Quote: My girlfriend was actually harassed quite a bit in WoW back when we played ages ago, and she's not the kind of person who is very vocal about their gender. Information was passed from a friend to a random person down to the harasser, and it goes from there.

I think most of the fallout in this area is going to be a lot more subtle than that, and that's the problem. Most of it will be invisible because it won't look like harassment, or like anything at all. It'll just be the same old dismissiveness and pigeonholing these groups are used to by now. You'd probably give the same advice to Malanis, Rendanga, and Dorther. But, gun to your head, are you really going to do the same for Chanelle, Min-Jung, and Brandon?

Quote: Original post by Sneftel
I'm not exactly anonymous on the internet. In under five minutes, anyone who wants to can find out my real name, my wife's name, my work address, perhaps my home address, and my cell phone number.

I don't really think it's about the anonymity of the internet. As you mentioned, there really isn't any, but it's about the perception of being anonymous. People tend to act a bit more like a jerk when they feel there will be no reprocussions, regardless of the reality.

Part of the reason for real names is that you can't just use a master account username, as those can be created on a whim, or a main character, which a person could create an unused main character, or have another account to which to do their trolling.

Now, there does need to be an alternative, but I am not clever enough to know what that should be. The best I could suggest would be to not allow the forum participant to create their name, but to have their nick be the most played character based on a rolling time calculation. The name, credit card, address, etc., can all be used to inquire what name it should be across all accounts. This way, you can troll, but everyone in-game will know who you are.

As long as users don't have access to your email, ip address, location, or anything else to tie to your name, I think the overall percieved predjudice of this is overblown. Maybe because of where I live, I don't know. The people I think who would be affected the most would be women.

That being said, I don't trust Blizzard to keep anything confidential, and can really only see this as a bad sign of things to come in the future. Perhaps maybe a few identity thefts followed by a class action lawsuit.

Quote: Original post by Nytegard

As long as users don't have access to your email, ip address, location, or anything else to tie to your name, I think the overall percieved predjudice of this is overblown. Maybe because of where I live, I don't know. The people I think who would be affected the most would be women.

You don't need any of that. Best part is - when going after a name, you don't even need to go after the right person - someone with same name may get blasted for no reason at all.

This blog demonstrates the issues, including the possibility of perhaps getting the wrong person.

Apparently in the next patch you'll also have a little hand with an X on it if you're a labelled pedophile. Certain others will get a small little flame mark if they are gingers in real life.

I could see how this might try to prevent the whole anonymous internet syndrome though if someone begins flaming me with the username 'Gr8Sk8er' versus the name 'Bill Johnson' and I don't know any Bill, the whole thing is just pointless.

The only way I could see them being able to 'clean up' their forums to fight trolling is going to be manually moderating them and making their standards more strict though this isn't the most practical idea...

While I don't get all the complaining, I also don't understand what Blizzard thinks will happen with this. This pretty much sums it up, I think.