RealID on the forums? - Downloaded from the Wizards Community, all coding removed by Solauren

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 Idolis Jul 07, 2010 16:10:07	A video game company recently made the decision to have all their forums use RealID and it has caused a real ****storm and I'm wondering would the D and D community react the same way. I personally don't have a problem with it, mainly because I don't have anything to hide and don't care if people know that I game. My employer knows I game, my neighbors know I game, I'm pretty open about it. So most of the things that concern people about it just doesn't concern me. How 'bout you?
#2 Klirshon Jul 07, 2010 16:27:37	While my fleshling platform wouldn't mind, I do. You humans don't need to know my serial number.
#3 zammm Jul 07, 2010 16:29:28	So... is there any information on how Blizzard intends to, well...enforce this? Or are there just going to be an awful lot of new John Smiths trolling their forums?
#4 Idolis Jul 07, 2010 16:34:26	So... is there any information on how Blizzard intends to, well...enforce this? Or are there just going to be an awful lot of new John Smiths trolling their forums? Not that I'm aware of. A lot of people are already saying they will post under assumed names. One Blizzard employee gave his real name and someone linked a bunch of stuff about him including his address and phone number. That Blizzard employee has since come out and said the information was not correct but the moderators have gone silent on the subject. I think they're letting it play out a little more before they say something else.
#5 dirtyfrank Jul 07, 2010 20:01:24	I personally don't have a problem with it, mainly because I don't have anything to hide and don't care if people know that I game. My employer knows I game, my neighbors know I game, I'm pretty open about it. This is pretty much how i feel about it. Why should it bother us if we've done nothing wrong and so have nothing to hide? I can see where using of real names could diminish anonymity but in truth something like Andrew Frank is just as much of a random name to probably all of you here on the forums as dirtyfrank is. I do think that it would probably help some as far as trolling goes cuz well the few very serious ones i've seen seemed to thrive in being anonymous. However i dont think this would get rid of them for people are jerks in RL too. Even people we know.
#6 Escef Jul 07, 2010 21:07:18	I don't mind it. I use my face as my avatar. A Google search on my screen name will turn up my (long untouched) MySpace profile, from which you can get my name. A few searches will turn up addresses related to me, but not my current.
#7 robbypants Jul 07, 2010 21:10:45	So... is there any information on how Blizzard intends to, well...enforce this? Or are there just going to be an awful lot of new John Smiths trolling their forums? Near as I heard, your name is tied to your account. If you use a false name and your account gets stolen, you won't be able to get it back. It's not enforcement, per se, but it would discourage it.
#8 EscherEnigma Jul 07, 2010 21:53:14	Some things are unimportant enough that I see no need to tie them to your real name, but also see no harm in it. Most "safe" hobby sites like this or Blizzard's site are such ones. Some are of a delicate/serious enough nature that they practically demand real names. Academic sites, certain political sites, and arguably news sites seem applicable. And some deal with topics of a delicate/serious enough nature that they need anonymity just to be useful and safe. Support sites for victims of various crimes/abuse, sites helping minors, probably any hardcore BDSM community site and other communities that still face significant discrimination. So to put it in other words: for a site like this one, I would feel comfortable using my real name, so long as it wasn't sprung on me and they weren't retroactively going back and tying all your old posts to your real name.
#9 toastedamphibian Jul 07, 2010 22:03:09	I would not frequent a forum using my real name. I have a few reasons for this, but basically it all boils down to paranoia. Recognizing a feeling as paranoia does not, however, make it go away, and I stand by my statment. Conversations are private. I want people to know about me what I am willing to tell them, not more, not less. Individuals who do not know my online moniker are people who I do not feel should know what I express online, and thoes who do not know my real world identity are thoes who do not need to know it, or who have not expressed any intrest in knowing it, or who I do not trust not to share that information with others. Compartmentalising my social groups is a saftey mechanisim that prevents people from knowing too much about my internal workings (which feels to me like a violation of my mind and makes me unreasonably uneasy.)
#10 Idolis Jul 07, 2010 22:29:18	I would not frequent a forum using my real name. I have a few reasons for this, but basically it all boils down to paranoia. Recognizing a feeling as paranoia does not, however, make it go away, and I stand by my statment. Conversations are private. I want people to know about me what I am willing to tell them, not more, not less. Individuals who do not know my online moniker are people who I do not feel should know what I express online, and thoes who do not know my real world identity are thoes who do not need to know it, or who have not expressed any intrest in knowing it, or who I do not trust not to share that information with others. Compartmentalising my social groups is a saftey mechanisim that prevents people from knowing too much about my internal workings (which feels to me like a violation of my mind and makes me unreasonably uneasy.) Now see, this is what I would like to see over there on Blizzard's site. I have no problem with someone who doesn't like the idea and knows they are being paranoid about it but a lot the stuff I've heard from people railing against RealID is just paranoia wrapped up in arguements about children's safety and women's rights or the right to privacy when anyone that works where you shop, eat, buy gas, or any other activities where you pay with a credit card has more information than just your name. From the way some of them talk it is a wonder that we all haven't had our identity's stolen or other terrible crimes committed against us because of it.
#11 EscherEnigma Jul 07, 2010 22:59:45	[...] a lot the stuff I've heard from people railing against RealID is just paranoia wrapped up in arguements about [...] women's rights [...] Hrm... that's an interesting paranoid complaint, actually. If you have an obviously feminine name, in a community notorious for being less then gentlemanly with women, would you want to effectively pin a target to your back? Seriously though, now that I think about it, I don't see how it can be legal/ethical for them to put up the real names of minors like that. Are minors just banned from the forums effectively?
#12 toastedamphibian Jul 07, 2010 23:06:24	Why is it legal or ethical to put up the name of anyone like that? Why the distinction? Besides, I imagine children are already requiered to have parental permision to use the forums, so it would fall under that. They can put up the childs name because the parents consented. Warcraft 3, World of Warcraft, Starcraft 2 are all rated Teen, Diablo 2 is rated M. They do not make alot of children games in recent history, so particularly young children don;t really have much business on the forums regardless.
#13 Idolis Jul 07, 2010 23:21:34	Are minors just banned from the forums effectively? There are parental controls that will allow parents to keep their kids names from being posted.
#14 EscherEnigma Jul 07, 2010 23:33:22	Why is it legal or ethical to put up the name of anyone like that? Why the distinction? Well, for one thing minors are effectively a protected class of citizens on account of their name and most things dealing with them are held to a higher level of scrutiny. It's why newspapers often don't give a minors name in relation to a crime or legal case (and why sometimes they'll withhold the full name of an adult to protect the identity of the minor). Whether you think that's right or not is irrelevant. As for why it's "ethical"... children (not necessarily minors) aren't always fully aware of the consequences and repercussions of doing different things, which is why they're stopped from doing so (theoretically, anyway...). Adults, on the other hand (not necessarily non-minors) are expected to be fully responsible for their own actions and accept the repercussions for things they did. So in that sense it would be unethical to presume a child knows what they're doing when they make a post with their full name, while an adult can be presumed to be willfully doing so. This obviously doesn't always follow through in practice (some kids can be canny, a lot of adults can be idiots) but that's the idea.
#15 toastedamphibian Jul 07, 2010 23:39:49	If children are banned from the forums why all the moderation around profanity and explicite terms? No idea, I don't frequent the blizzard forums.
#16 toastedamphibian Jul 07, 2010 23:42:14	As for why it's "ethical"... children (not necessarily minors) aren't always fully aware of the consequences and repercussions of doing different things, But, holding people accountable for the consequences of their actions is the whole point, is it not? Out in the real world, parents are accountable for the actions of their children. Let the kids post under their parents name then.
#17 EscherEnigma Jul 08, 2010 0:18:43	Out in the real world, parents are accountable for the actions of their children. Let the kids post under their parents name then. A possible solution. But them allowing minors to use their real names sounds... odd.
#18 dirtyfrank Jul 08, 2010 1:40:26	I talked with someone about this whole thing and they mentioned why not just have forum names appear as part of the character info when viewing a person's alt/toon. Basically your forum name would show up on any alt of yours that you play. This way people can associate alts with forum persona. For games with PvP these forum trolls would likely get hunted down to the point the game would no longer be fun. In games that don't have PvP they would likely get shunned from many social groups. I know with travian there is a guy leading an alliance that is not only a prick but also a big forum name on the travian forums. He's pissed off my alliance so much that about every week or two he changes the account he's on in order to basically both protect himself as well as the account he's playing on. Basically because he knows that he's pissed us off enough that we'd trash any account he's on just to get back at him. So if travian, for instance, forced accounts to have forum names of members on that account he would not be able to hide from people that he trolled on the public travian forums. I think it might make him think twice about his approach to the game. basically it would help keep people anonymous but would make it so that forum A-holes could be found in game. Thus being a prick on the forums would result in a unfun playing experience.
#19 zombie_babies Jul 08, 2010 10:16:39	My reasons are simple. Businesses look at this crap to check you out before hiring you or to check on you while you're employed. While I never talk about my job online, I still don't like the idea of some reject from HR checking up on me personally. It's why I rarely post things on Facebook - I know, for a fact, that site is checked. Since it's linked to my real name, I have to be careful. Anything I say here I'd say to a friend. Friendly conversation, though, is often a far cry from work acceptable talk. That's ok by me, too. But when work can look at stuff that isn't related to work, I have a problem. Recently Facebook and Twitter have come into play in stuff like divorce proceedings, too. So it isn't paranoia that someone may be watching. They are. A site like this is one I come to to screw around and have some fun. To talk to people like I talk to my friends (and strangers alike) when I'm out at a bar or whatever. To relax. Having my ID pinned to what I say here makes me uncomfortable. Very. And I believe I have good reason to feel that way. I don't want people I dont' want to know about me personally to be able to find out personal stuff about me. Get it? I work with people - not friends. I'd like to keep that distinction whole.
#20 scypio Jul 08, 2010 10:30:01	Even though Zombie_Babies brings up a good point, I still don't think I'd mind. I guess its the "I don't have anything to hide" idea. If a company wants to dig up what I say on online forums, then whatever. I guess the only thing would be the excessive amount of time I post. So that might be an issue. But I get my work done so I don't know. Although I probably would make sure not to give out information concerning my wife since people would be able to figure out who she is. I may disclose information, but she has the right for her privacy.
#21 pigknight Jul 08, 2010 11:12:22	I'm sure all of you guys have gotten my name from the crappy video I posted a whiles back. And really, how many people use PigKnight?
#22 toastedamphibian Jul 08, 2010 17:05:29	how many people use PigKnight? Fewer than pigknight might wish.
#23 death_isthe_begining Jul 08, 2010 17:33:31	I'm against even though I have nothing to hide. Yes I am paranoid. I keep a pair of throwing knives in my plainly visible safe. I sleep with a metal bat within reach and next to a window in case I need to run. I do not want anyone knowing where I live unless I tell them myself. I do not use my picture online at all. If they attach my real name to this profile then it will be deleted. A false one (or three) would then be made and deleted to see if they just take what you put as your real name. I don't care about anyone but Me & Mine (Me & Mine includes my friends, family, and me).
#24 toastedamphibian Jul 08, 2010 18:53:03	Honestly, it seems like a terrible idea. The goal is to stop people, people who enjoy **ing with other people, from well, **ing with other people. The proposed solution: Make it so that all the people who are there to legitimatly post have to reveal personal information about themselves. The people who just want to troll will use fake names. So now a bunch of trolls can harass you in real life or elsewhere on the webs to get their jollies. All it does is gives trolls more avenues to hurt people.
#25 dirtyfrank Jul 08, 2010 19:57:29	wise words from a crazy man aka ZB My reasons are simple. Businesses look at this crap to check you out before hiring you or to check on you while you're employed. While I never talk about my job online, I still don't like the idea of some reject from HR checking up on me personally. It's why I rarely post things on Facebook - I know, for a fact, that site is checked. Since it's linked to my real name, I have to be careful. Anything I say here I'd say to a friend. Friendly conversation, though, is often a far cry from work acceptable talk. That's ok by me, too. But when work can look at stuff that isn't related to work, I have a problem. Recently Facebook and Twitter have come into play in stuff like divorce proceedings, too. So it isn't paranoia that someone may be watching. They are. A site like this is one I come to to screw around and have some fun. To talk to people like I talk to my friends (and strangers alike) when I'm out at a bar or whatever. To relax. Having my ID pinned to what I say here makes me uncomfortable. Very. And I believe I have good reason to feel that way. I don't want people I dont' want to know about me personally to be able to find out personal stuff about me. Get it? I work with people - not friends. I'd like to keep that distinction whole.
#26 Idolis Jul 09, 2010 2:29:12	Thanks ZB. I've seen posts like that on the other site and for those reasons I can see people having a problem with it. However, the overwhelming majority are about people being stalked or other crimes committed against them just because someone has your name. An employer would have a lot more than just your name if they wanted to can run credit checks on you as well as forum habits (on a forum that uses RealID). Employment problems are a real concern that I can wrap my head around and so I can see why people would be against it. The other arguments though I'm still going to call paranoid. I don't know the statistics but I know that according to them you are many times more likely to be a victim of a crime perpetrated by someone you personally know than you are by some stranger. I guess though that if everything goes RealID that could change, but I doubt it.
#27 pluisjen Jul 09, 2010 4:01:29	As a moderator and game designer of various online games I know perfectly well that there are a lot of complete nutjobs playing these games that will hunt down all your private information and drop by your house if you do something they don't agree with (read: tell them they are cheating and removing them from the game) So no thank you, I'd rather not post with my real name on these forums, and I don't even have facebook or any other social site linked to my screenname, at all. I'd rather deal with these nutjobs from my position as moderator then as some guy facing off against 5 angry, unreasonable braindead idiots wth clubs because you banned them from an online game.

Post/Author/DateTime

Post

Idolis

Jul 07, 2010 16:10:07

A video game company recently made the decision to have all their forums use RealID and it has caused a real ****storm and I'm wondering would the D and D community react the same way.

I personally don't have a problem with it, mainly because I don't have anything to hide and don't care if people know that I game. My employer knows I game, my neighbors know I game, I'm pretty open about it.

So most of the things that concern people about it just doesn't concern me.

How 'bout you?

Klirshon

Jul 07, 2010 16:27:37

While my fleshling platform wouldn't mind, I do. You humans don't need to know my serial number.

zammm

Jul 07, 2010 16:29:28

So... is there any information on how Blizzard intends to, well...enforce this? Or are there just going to be an awful lot of new John Smiths trolling their forums?

Idolis

Jul 07, 2010 16:34:26

So... is there any information on how Blizzard intends to, well...enforce this? Or are there just going to be an awful lot of new John Smiths trolling their forums?

Not that I'm aware of. A lot of people are already saying they will post under assumed names. One Blizzard employee gave his real name and someone linked a bunch of stuff about him including his address and phone number. That Blizzard employee has since come out and said the information was not correct but the moderators have gone silent on the subject. I think they're letting it play out a little more before they say something else.

dirtyfrank

Jul 07, 2010 20:01:24

I personally don't have a problem with it, mainly because I don't have anything to hide and don't care if people know that I game. My employer knows I game, my neighbors know I game, I'm pretty open about it.

This is pretty much how i feel about it. Why should it bother us if we've done nothing wrong and so have nothing to hide?

I can see where using of real names could diminish anonymity but in truth something like Andrew Frank is just as much of a random name to probably all of you here on the forums as dirtyfrank is.

I do think that it would probably help some as far as trolling goes cuz well the few very serious ones i've seen seemed to thrive in being anonymous. However i dont think this would get rid of them for people are jerks in RL too. Even people we know.

Escef

Jul 07, 2010 21:07:18

I don't mind it. I use my face as my avatar. A Google search on my screen name will turn up my (long untouched) MySpace profile, from which you can get my name. A few searches will turn up addresses related to me, but not my current.

robbypants

Jul 07, 2010 21:10:45

So... is there any information on how Blizzard intends to, well...enforce this? Or are there just going to be an awful lot of new John Smiths trolling their forums?

Near as I heard, your name is tied to your account. If you use a false name and your account gets stolen, you won't be able to get it back.

It's not enforcement, per se, but it would discourage it.

EscherEnigma

Jul 07, 2010 21:53:14

Some things are unimportant enough that I see no need to tie them to your real name, but also see no harm in it. Most "safe" hobby sites like this or Blizzard's site are such ones. Some are of a delicate/serious enough nature that they practically demand real names. Academic sites, certain political sites, and arguably news sites seem applicable. And some deal with topics of a delicate/serious enough nature that they need anonymity just to be useful and safe. Support sites for victims of various crimes/abuse, sites helping minors, probably any hardcore BDSM community site and other communities that still face significant discrimination.

So to put it in other words: for a site like this one, I would feel comfortable using my real name, so long as it wasn't sprung on me and they weren't retroactively going back and tying all your old posts to your real name.

toastedamphibian

Jul 07, 2010 22:03:09

I would not frequent a forum using my real name. I have a few reasons for this, but basically it all boils down to paranoia. Recognizing a feeling as paranoia does not, however, make it go away, and I stand by my statment.

Conversations are private. I want people to know about me what I am willing to tell them, not more, not less. Individuals who do not know my online moniker are people who I do not feel should know what I express online, and thoes who do not know my real world identity are thoes who do not need to know it, or who have not expressed any intrest in knowing it, or who I do not trust not to share that information with others. Compartmentalising my social groups is a saftey mechanisim that prevents people from knowing too much about my internal workings (which feels to me like a violation of my mind and makes me unreasonably uneasy.)

#10

Idolis

Jul 07, 2010 22:29:18

I would not frequent a forum using my real name. I have a few reasons for this, but basically it all boils down to paranoia. Recognizing a feeling as paranoia does not, however, make it go away, and I stand by my statment.

Conversations are private. I want people to know about me what I am willing to tell them, not more, not less. Individuals who do not know my online moniker are people who I do not feel should know what I express online, and thoes who do not know my real world identity are thoes who do not need to know it, or who have not expressed any intrest in knowing it, or who I do not trust not to share that information with others. Compartmentalising my social groups is a saftey mechanisim that prevents people from knowing too much about my internal workings (which feels to me like a violation of my mind and makes me unreasonably uneasy.)

Now see, this is what I would like to see over there on Blizzard's site. I have no problem with someone who doesn't like the idea and knows they are being paranoid about it but a lot the stuff I've heard from people railing against RealID is just paranoia wrapped up in arguements about children's safety and women's rights or the right to privacy when anyone that works where you shop, eat, buy gas, or any other activities where you pay with a credit card has more information than just your name.

From the way some of them talk it is a wonder that we all haven't had our identity's stolen or other terrible crimes committed against us because of it.

#11

EscherEnigma

Jul 07, 2010 22:59:45

[...] a lot the stuff I've heard from people railing against RealID is just paranoia wrapped up in arguements about [...] women's rights [...]

Hrm... that's an interesting paranoid complaint, actually. If you have an obviously feminine name, in a community notorious for being less then gentlemanly with women, would you want to effectively pin a target to your back?

Seriously though, now that I think about it, I don't see how it can be legal/ethical for them to put up the real names of minors like that. Are minors just banned from the forums effectively?

#12

toastedamphibian

Jul 07, 2010 23:06:24

Why is it legal or ethical to put up the name of anyone like that? Why the distinction?

Besides, I imagine children are already requiered to have parental permision to use the forums, so it would fall under that. They can put up the childs name because the parents consented.

Warcraft 3, World of Warcraft, Starcraft 2 are all rated Teen, Diablo 2 is rated M. They do not make alot of children games in recent history, so particularly young children don;t really have much business on the forums regardless.

#13

Idolis

Jul 07, 2010 23:21:34

Are minors just banned from the forums effectively?

There are parental controls that will allow parents to keep their kids names from being posted.

#14

EscherEnigma

Jul 07, 2010 23:33:22

Why is it legal or ethical to put up the name of anyone like that? Why the distinction?

Well, for one thing minors are effectively a protected class of citizens on account of their name and most things dealing with them are held to a higher level of scrutiny. It's why newspapers often don't give a minors name in relation to a crime or legal case (and why sometimes they'll withhold the full name of an adult to protect the identity of the minor). Whether you think that's right or not is irrelevant.

As for why it's "ethical"... children (not necessarily minors) aren't always fully aware of the consequences and repercussions of doing different things, which is why they're stopped from doing so (theoretically, anyway...). Adults, on the other hand (not necessarily non-minors) are expected to be fully responsible for their own actions and accept the repercussions for things they did. So in that sense it would be unethical to presume a child knows what they're doing when they make a post with their full name, while an adult can be presumed to be willfully doing so.

This obviously doesn't always follow through in practice (some kids can be canny, a lot of adults can be idiots) but that's the idea.

#15

toastedamphibian

Jul 07, 2010 23:39:49

If children are banned from the forums why all the moderation around profanity and explicite terms?

No idea, I don't frequent the blizzard forums.

#16

toastedamphibian

Jul 07, 2010 23:42:14

As for why it's "ethical"... children (not necessarily minors) aren't always fully aware of the consequences and repercussions of doing different things,

But, holding people accountable for the consequences of their actions is the whole point, is it not? Out in the real world, parents are accountable for the actions of their children. Let the kids post under their parents name then.

#17

EscherEnigma

Jul 08, 2010 0:18:43

Out in the real world, parents are accountable for the actions of their children. Let the kids post under their parents name then.

A possible solution. But them allowing minors to use their real names sounds... odd.

#18

dirtyfrank

Jul 08, 2010 1:40:26

I talked with someone about this whole thing and they mentioned why not just have forum names appear as part of the character info when viewing a person's alt/toon.

Basically your forum name would show up on any alt of yours that you play. This way people can associate alts with forum persona. For games with PvP these forum trolls would likely get hunted down to the point the game would no longer be fun. In games that don't have PvP they would likely get shunned from many social groups. I know with travian there is a guy leading an alliance that is not only a prick but also a big forum name on the travian forums. He's pissed off my alliance so much that about every week or two he changes the account he's on in order to basically both protect himself as well as the account he's playing on. Basically because he knows that he's pissed us off enough that we'd trash any account he's on just to get back at him. So if travian, for instance, forced accounts to have forum names of members on that account he would not be able to hide from people that he trolled on the public travian forums. I think it might make him think twice about his approach to the game.

basically it would help keep people anonymous but would make it so that forum A-holes could be found in game. Thus being a prick on the forums would result in a unfun playing experience.

#19

zombie_babies

Jul 08, 2010 10:16:39

My reasons are simple. Businesses look at this crap to check you out before hiring you or to check on you while you're employed. While I never talk about my job online, I still don't like the idea of some reject from HR checking up on me personally. It's why I rarely post things on Facebook - I know, for a fact, that site is checked. Since it's linked to my real name, I have to be careful. Anything I say here I'd say to a friend. Friendly conversation, though, is often a far cry from work acceptable talk. That's ok by me, too. But when work can look at stuff that isn't related to work, I have a problem.

Recently Facebook and Twitter have come into play in stuff like divorce proceedings, too. So it isn't paranoia that someone may be watching. They are. A site like this is one I come to to screw around and have some fun. To talk to people like I talk to my friends (and strangers alike) when I'm out at a bar or whatever. To relax. Having my ID pinned to what I say here makes me uncomfortable. Very. And I believe I have good reason to feel that way. I don't want people I dont' want to know about me personally to be able to find out personal stuff about me. Get it? I work with people - not friends. I'd like to keep that distinction whole.

#20

scypio

Jul 08, 2010 10:30:01

Even though Zombie_Babies brings up a good point, I still don't think I'd mind. I guess its the "I don't have anything to hide" idea. If a company wants to dig up what I say on online forums, then whatever. I guess the only thing would be the excessive amount of time I post. So that might be an issue. But I get my work done so I don't know.

Although I probably would make sure not to give out information concerning my wife since people would be able to figure out who she is. I may disclose information, but she has the right for her privacy.

#21

pigknight

Jul 08, 2010 11:12:22

I'm sure all of you guys have gotten my name from the crappy video I posted a whiles back.

And really, how many people use PigKnight?

#22

toastedamphibian

Jul 08, 2010 17:05:29

how many people use PigKnight?

Fewer than pigknight might wish.

#23

death_isthe_begining

Jul 08, 2010 17:33:31

I'm against even though I have nothing to hide. Yes I am paranoid. I keep a pair of throwing knives in my plainly visible safe. I sleep with a metal bat within reach and next to a window in case I need to run. I do not want anyone knowing where I live unless I tell them myself. I do not use my picture online at all. If they attach my real name to this profile then it will be deleted. A false one (or three) would then be made and deleted to see if they just take what you put as your real name. I don't care about anyone but Me & Mine (Me & Mine includes my friends, family, and me).

#24

toastedamphibian

Jul 08, 2010 18:53:03

Honestly, it seems like a terrible idea. The goal is to stop people, people who enjoy ****ing with other people, from well, ****ing with other people. The proposed solution: Make it so that all the people who are there to legitimatly post have to reveal personal information about themselves. The people who just want to troll will use fake names. So now a bunch of trolls can harass you in real life or elsewhere on the webs to get their jollies. All it does is gives trolls more avenues to hurt people.

#25

dirtyfrank

Jul 08, 2010 19:57:29

wise words from a crazy man aka ZB
My reasons are simple. Businesses look at this crap to check you out before hiring you or to check on you while you're employed. While I never talk about my job online, I still don't like the idea of some reject from HR checking up on me personally. It's why I rarely post things on Facebook - I know, for a fact, that site is checked. Since it's linked to my real name, I have to be careful. Anything I say here I'd say to a friend. Friendly conversation, though, is often a far cry from work acceptable talk. That's ok by me, too. But when work can look at stuff that isn't related to work, I have a problem.

Recently Facebook and Twitter have come into play in stuff like divorce proceedings, too. So it isn't paranoia that someone may be watching. They are. A site like this is one I come to to screw around and have some fun. To talk to people like I talk to my friends (and strangers alike) when I'm out at a bar or whatever. To relax. Having my ID pinned to what I say here makes me uncomfortable. Very. And I believe I have good reason to feel that way. I don't want people I dont' want to know about me personally to be able to find out personal stuff about me. Get it? I work with people - not friends. I'd like to keep that distinction whole.

#26

Idolis

Jul 09, 2010 2:29:12

Thanks ZB. I've seen posts like that on the other site and for those reasons I can see people having a problem with it. However, the overwhelming majority are about people being stalked or other crimes committed against them just because someone has your name.

An employer would have a lot more than just your name if they wanted to can run credit checks on you as well as forum habits (on a forum that uses RealID). Employment problems are a real concern that I can wrap my head around and so I can see why people would be against it.

The other arguments though I'm still going to call paranoid. I don't know the statistics but I know that according to them you are many times more likely to be a victim of a crime perpetrated by someone you personally know than you are by some stranger. I guess though that if everything goes RealID that could change, but I doubt it.

#27

pluisjen

Jul 09, 2010 4:01:29

As a moderator and game designer of various online games I know perfectly well that there are a lot of complete nutjobs playing these games that will hunt down all your private information and drop by your house if you do something they don't agree with (read: tell them they are cheating and removing them from the game)

So no thank you, I'd rather not post with my real name on these forums, and I don't even have facebook or any other social site linked to my screenname, at all. I'd rather deal with these nutjobs from my position as moderator then as some guy facing off against 5 angry, unreasonable braindead idiots wth clubs because you banned them from an online game.