Once again, my icon speaks for me.

[seiberwing]

As some of you in the World of Warcraft community may know, Blizzard has contracted a case of the stupid. In short, they have decided that the best solution to the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory is to remove the anonymity factor by forcing people who post to the forums to use their RL names.

I do not have to tell anyone on my flist that this is an outrageously bad idea. I get what Blizzard is thinking, assuming that the only reason people are rude is that they can hide being being Iceburn Elfpants rather than the world knowing their true name. Unfortunately that's not how it works at all.

Someone on the sf_drama (locked, but open membership) commenetd that WoW's general forum is basically '4chan lite'. I'm not a patron of the game myself, but I've heard a lot of stories about people being harassed, particularly women and queer persons. This is how bad it is without people trying that name back to an identity, and if real names are known it's just going to get worse. If someone posts on the forum everyone will know their name--but nobody will know the name of the person who simply lurked in the thread, gathered their name, and proceeded to stalk their Facebook and other internet gathering places. A tremendous amount of information about a person gathers on the internet, especially if your name is particularly unique--I've googled my own and found my Facebook, my school, my hometown, and gleaned the fact that I have bipolar disorder from a four year old newsletter. It's actually a bit creepy. And that's just google, not anything more in-depth like the White Pages or background check sites. If you get a person's real name you can know everything about Iceburn Elfpants and, for jollies, you can make their life hell.

This has already happened, by the way. Mr. Whipple is lucky nobody showed up at his house with a smug grin and a paintball gun, or that the good lads and lasses from /b/ didn't start ordering septic tanks delivered to his house.

As a F_W commenter pointed out, being known on the internet hasn't stopped people from being assholes. What it will do is help that assholes know exactly where that woman they're lusting after lives, and if they're not afraid to stalk her in-game and send sexually harassing messages to her there's a good chance they're not afraid to come after ones who live near them or post on her Facebook. It will also let employers, schools, clubs, etc. know exactly what that person does with their day, and I doubt playing one of the most addictive MMORPGs ever will make someone pick you over a less gamerish candidate. Abusive exes and other RL harassers will be able to find someone in a place they go to relax, and for people already boxed in that's a huge deal.

That's not even mentioning the fact that there's little way of punishing anyone for harassment other than the ways WoW already does (banning, etc). If a guy in Borginia harasses a chick in Zheng Fa, who should she call? The governments aren't going to interfere in each others' affairs over a simple matter like internet stalking. Even within the US legislation against 'cyberbullying' is scarce and light due to a deep misunderstanding of how it works. I believe we're all familiar with the Facebook suicide case, in which the culprit was acquitted despite the fact that she obviously committed a horrible act. It was not the first time, it was not the last time.

In a lot of folkloric traditions, knowing an entity or person's true name gives you power over them. On the internet it's halfway to true, and implementing this policy is going to hurt someone. This is exactly why I need to go out, get my masters and doctorate, and start doing research into psychology in social media...so I can get hired and tell people that stuff like this IS A REALLY BAD IDEA.

Comments

[synaltern.livejournal.com]

This is indeed horrible. There's reasons I refuse to open a facebook account - much less use my real name on it! Maybe they'll realize their idiocy and turn around?

If they actually go forward with such a motion, there'd better - at the very least - be an option to not display that crap.

Gah!

[seiberwing.livejournal.com]

As I understand it, that was actually the previous state of affairs (with a security gap that could let one see the information anyway). Now they want to force everyone to do it.

[(Anonymous)]

I played for just shy of 6months several years ago. I was never aware of such breaches of security...but then I never posted in the forums, only anonymously browsed.

[seiberwing.livejournal.com]

The information only came to light recently, look at the journalfen post.

[goldcelestial.livejournal.com]

I just hope they learn very quickly that this can be a very bad idea....

[antepathy.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, there's no cure for the GIFTheory (I do love that one though I wish it weren't true!) save for people learning some manners and boundaries.

I've been stalked IRL, but thankfully never cyberstalked. The difference: I knew who my stalker was. I could get a legal document delivered to him. With cyberstalking, you're being stalked by a screenname that could be deleted in five minutes.

One early sort of social philosopher in the early days of the internet (like way back in usenet) called the internet 'the playground of the id'. Sometimes that's good (robot porn, games) and sometimes, the id has a very, very dark side.

Curiously, I presented that Facebook case to my students and asked them what they'd have decided as the jury. They were all for acquittal, calling the victim 'stupid' and saying she 'should have known better'. I was...a little taken aback by their lack of sympathy.

[seiberwing.livejournal.com]

Playground of the id, I like that. Besides, percieved anonymity and freedom from consequences work just as well.

[biting-moopie.livejournal.com]

They were all for acquittal, calling the victim 'stupid' and saying she 'should have known better'. I was...a little taken aback by their lack of sympathy.

It's upsetting but unfortunately not surprising. People love blaming the victim. :\ I'm glad your students have a decent teacher at least. Maybe some of your compassion will get through to them.

[iiiskaaa.livejournal.com]

LOL, WTF? I don't know how anyone could think this would be a good idea.

[biting-moopie.livejournal.com]

I will never understand why anyone would think this is a good idea. Maybe this makes money for them in some way we don't yet know about?

[amasaglajax.livejournal.com]

I do see why they think it's a good idea. I was actually just reading an article somewhere on steps people have taken to combat trolls, and among those steps are forcing people to post with their real name, charging them a one-time fee for a forums account (like the Something Awful forums- most 13 year olds won't pay $10 just to call someone a nublet), draining the vowels out of trollish posts so that they attain the visibility the troll desires while obfuscating their message, and even forcing them to have their comment read aloud before they post it (I think YouTube has an optional version of this).

Trolling, especially once it crosses to real life and has real life consequences, really squicks and bothers me, so I support strong endeavors to control it. That said, this seems like such a bad idea. The best way to control trolling is a mixture of strong human moderators, technology, and a forums culture that is united against trolling and all its expressions.

I don't go around by my real name online because I like to separate my real life and my online life as much as possible. This policy of Blizzard removes your ability to act upon your preference and exposes you to the danger of other people knowing too damn much about you. I can't get behind that even as much as I support what they're trying to do. They have to find another way.

[seiberwing.livejournal.com]

I hold rpg.net up as an example of what Blizzard ought to do--the mods are quite strict and crack down on people being asshats at each other. This seems like they just couldn't bother with actually doing their damn jobs.

[xanykaos.livejournal.com]

Mm. I was on a forum for the Fables comic where we all used our real names at the author's request, but it was a very small and very civil forum, so I was pretty cool with it, because at the end of the day, it felt like hanging out with nice adults at a coffee house. Facebook I joined back in college, barely use it, but my real name's not hard to find since I'm trying to act like a professional artist sometimes.

But in this context? Um. Yeeeeaaah, no. No, no, no, no. That's just a massively bad idea. Those forums are not really the place for this kind of....ack, just no.

[seiberwing.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's different. Ursula Vernon (ursulav) has an LJ under her real name to talk about her less than mundane life and post writings, but I hear tell she has a sockpuppet account where she writes Star Wars fanfic.

[xanykaos.livejournal.com]

AH, SO IT'S STAR WARS!

I remember back in the day, she mentioned that she was writing fanfic, but she never gave the fandom (that I recall). Shame. I can understand the sockpuppet thing, but I'd love to read her take on Star Wars in fic form (I would even more love it if she'd go back and work on some of those older story bits she's left alone).

Yeah, there's the professional thing, but like I said, in the context of a forum, I don't think it's entirely out of line to request users go by their real names, provided it's "just" a forum. Y'know, just a little extra, with no bearing on the actual thing the forum's for. It sounds like Blizzard's cutting the legs out from a lot of people by demanding this. Can't last, I'm sure.

[seiberwing.livejournal.com]

If it was a forum for polite tea-time conversations of Jane Austin novels rather than involving a rather notorious videogame that people get very emotional over, that might make a difference.

But then again, if people weren't getting heated over it, trolling wouldn't be nearly as big of a problem.

[valentinite.livejournal.com]

Yeeeeeeeeah, this can go nowhere good. I can mostly hang on to some semblance of internet anonymity as both my first and last names are fairly common, as is the combination, but I still don't try to dump it everywhere.

[seiberwing.livejournal.com]

I really want to know the context of your icon there.

[valentinite.livejournal.com]

It's from a Japanese Gyakuten Saiban fanart site that has long since gone JP-only, or vanished entirely. I did a full set of RP icons for a Phoenix journal ages back, pretty much all using the same fanartist. They had a lot of gorgeous art and a lot of complete crack. Crack japanese fanart is actually usually not my thing, but I loved the range of expressions in the serious panels.

The context for this one appears to be "Maya and Pearl hand Phoenix half of a kid's cup-string telephone. Then the Bellboy comes walking across the string from the Gatewater to the office. For absolutely no apparent reason." It's all in Japanese.

(This icon is the same artist, and yes, it's von Karma in a soothing face mask.)

[seiberwing.livejournal.com]

Ah. Japan. All you needed to say.

[ravenology.livejournal.com]

Late reply, but someone else found this and I thought you might appreciate it if you hadn't already seen it:

http://greyshades.wordpress.com/2010/07/08/an-open-letter-to-blizzard/

...I need an INTERNET DRAGONS icon. Stat.

[seiberwing.livejournal.com]

That is amazingly epic win.