Blizzard "Real ID" on Forums

[Phaezen]

In an attempt to cut down on flamewars and such Blizzard are going to be using peoples names as their forum IDs, announcement here

Some initial thoughts on the matter:

I know I put my name in my .sig, but this is voluntary on my part which I can remove at any point, also my name is fairly common and makes it difficult to find on google. Forcing people to use their names is not cool, especialy given the number of creepy people out there. I have had friends stalked off forums.

Surely there is a better way to handle this kind of thing, starting with decent moderators?

Edit: It also appears that this will be done retroactively with no optout

On a related note, kudos to the enworld mods for keeping a tight lid on any flamewars

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Well Blizzard knows the names of the credit card holders so there is a good chance the the forum names will correspond to real people but I doubt it will do any good.
I used to be a regular on Usenet 15+ years ago and may posted there with real names and many of those on their polite days would be banned from ENWorld, so, you can imagine what they were like in flamewar mode.
I have been following the review of Dragon posted on general and from that it would appear that flameward were going on in the letters page of Dragon 20+ years ago.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

Forcing people to use their names is not cool, especialy given the number of creepy people out there. I have had friends stalked off forums.

People also have the option of not using Blizzards forums. You pay the costs of the bandwidth and maintaing the forum servers - you get to make the rules of those who CHOOSE to participate therein.

Surely there is a better way to handle this kind of thing, starting with decent moderators?

I won't even bother to try and determine how large their forums are and the volume of traffic they get. I think it's fairly safe to say that if it were that easy they'd do that instead. Again, without actually seeing their forums it seems apparant that they have a significant population of rabble. I should think that the larger your "community" the easier it is for flamewars to become a problem - even WITH moderation.

Edit: It also appears that this will be done retroactively with no optout

Actually, as I read that announcement the RealID thing will start immediately in forums covering new games (Starcraft II), WoW will move to it with the release of the next expansion, and other forums (DiabloII, WarcraftIII) will shut down, existing posts shuffled into an archived "legacy forum" area, and then start up all-new using RealID. So - IF I'm reading that correctly - nobody will suddenly have all their past posts revealing the name from the credit card they use to subscribe. But anyone from that point forward who chooses to post on Blizzards private forums will be subject to THEIR posting rules. Nobody has to like it. They just have to live with the changes or take their posts elsewere.

On a related note, kudos to the enworld mods for keeping a tight lid on any flamewars

+1

Well, as I said, if you pay the bills you get to make the rules. I can say that if it were mine to Lord over I'd likely do things differently.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

And apparantly Blizzard has backed off apparantly making that part of the program "voluntary" which pretty much means nobody will use it. But the rest of their "RealID" initiative is still going forward to get their peanut gallery back under control.

 

[LightPhoenix]

I certainly think it's necessary for them to get their forums under control. Sometimes I think we take for granted how civil it can be and often is around here. That said, RealID was a terrible way to go about it, and I'm not sure what ever gave them the idea it would work.

Also, IANAL uhoh, but I would think there are child-protection laws in multiple countries that would make RealID a bear legally.

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

I certainly think it's necessary for them to get their forums under control. Sometimes I think we take for granted how civil it can be and often is around here. That said, RealID was a terrible way to go about it, and I'm not sure what ever gave them the idea it would work.

Yeah, the Blizzard forums are a cesspit. I've had some decent discussions there, but by and large they suck.

Maybe some sort of rep-based thing would work, like what they're doing with group-kick votes. Like, say, if your forum posts are voted down/reported enough times, you'd eventually lose all posting privileges on any character. And if you down-vote people enough, the same applies. Obviously, there would be fading and details.

Brad

 

[Runestar]

For most part, the people here are quite civil and a real pleasure to converse with, so I don't see a need to change anything.

But with Blizzard, I think their forums are beyond salvation.

 

[Umbran]

People also have the option of not using Blizzards forums. You pay the costs of the bandwidth and maintaing the forum servers - you get to make the rules of those who CHOOSE to participate therein.

Yes, they have the right to make the rules. No question.

That doesn't mean that any choice of rules they make is smart. Just because you can do a thing, are within your rights to do a thing, doesn't mean you should do that thing.

 

[Aus_Snow]

never mind. . .

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

Yes, they have the right to make the rules. No question.

That doesn't mean that any choice of rules they make is smart. Just because you can do a thing, are within your rights to do a thing, doesn't mean you should do that thing.

Granted, but then I gather (again not having first person experience with their forums for several years now) that the situation has become quite extreme if they're going to such lengths to clean it up. I do have to admit that _I_ wasn't really thinking about it at first in terms of, "Is that really a good idea?" as opposed to, "Would that work?" So, yeah, they should have thought that one through a bit more given our life and times on the modern internet.