Will Blizzard forums become ghost towns?
p2pnet view Games | Freedom | P2P:- Real ID, Blizzard’s new system, will force gamers to post under their real first and last names, p2pnet reported yesterday.
“This is getting the kids used to it to make it seem normal”, suggested a p2pnet Reader’s Write.
Could that be?
True or not, also affected are Diablo and the upcoming Starcraft II, as Eva Galperin (right) points out on the EFF’s Deep Links, going on >>>
In the upcoming weeks and months, players who want to post to these boards will have to log in using Blizzard’s Real ID system, which will display their real full names next to every post they make. These changes will not be retroactive, meaning that the thousands of existing posts on the online discussion forums will not be affected. Parental controls will allow parents to prevent minors who have signed up for Real ID on the game from posting to the forums, if they so choose.
Why is Blizzard taking such an unprecedented step? Unpleasantness. “The forums have…earned a reputation as a place where flame wars, trolling, and other unpleasantness run wild,” writes Naethera, a Blizzard employee who will soon be posting under her own full name. “Removing the veil of anonymity typical to online dialogue will contribute to a more positive forum environment [and] promote constructive conversations.”
Blizzard appears to have subscribed to the colorful Greater Internet F***wad Theory, which posits that perfectly normal people, when faced with an audience and total anonymity, can become flaming jerks. Internet forums from BoingBoing, Slashdot, Reddit, to newspaper websites, and Yahoo! Finance Message boards have used various techniques — from active moderation by humans to community rating tools and algorithms — to cope with the low signal-to-noise ratio that can result when large numbers of people communicate anonymously on the internet. Some methods have been more successful than others, but innovation in this realm continues to develop. None of these sites has gone so far as to try eliminating anonymity entirely.
Many forum posters do not share Blizzard’s certainty that the forums will be improved by the mandatory use of real names. They cite concerns about privacy and safety as compelling reasons not to link their real names to posts on a forum. Some forum posters feel betrayed, as if their community has been yanked out from under them.
To assume — as Blizzard seems to have assumed — that anonymity enables only “ugly speech” is the product of a failed imagination. Anonymous speech has always been an integral part of free speech because it enables individuals to speak up and speak out when they otherwise may find reason to hide or self-censor. Behind the veil of anonymity, individuals are more free to surface honest observations, unheard complaints, unpopular opinions — incidentally, all healthy contributions to an evolving gaming community.
Blizzard is completely within its legal rights to set rules, standards, and regulations for its forum, but only time will determine whether or not they are making the right choice.
But “Will flame wars substantially decrease as a result of enforced de-anonymization of posters?” – Galperin asks, adding:
“If Blizzard claims success, will other forums follow suit? Will the use of real names lead to the harassment of posters elsewhere online or in the real world? Will it chill speech? Will Blizzard’s forums become a ghost town as players migrate elsewhere to discuss their games? For now, the only way to find is out is keep watching as this experiment unfolds.”
Stay tuned.
… and identi.ca
p2pnet – Anonymity dies on WoW, July 8, 2010
Deep Links – New Blizzard Forum Policy Will Require Posters to Use Real Names, July 8, 2010
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July 9th, 2010 at 10:39 am
LMAO
It’s a “huge success”
Just check the Gamefaqs Poll of the day, where the gamers gather
http://www.gamefaqs.com/
Voted for “terrible idea” of course
July 9th, 2010 at 10:51 am
Dont buy anything Activision.
I just spent the past 2 days dealing with their customer support staff on their forum and by email.
If your cd key wont work they refuse to provide any customer service. That’s right. If you buy an activision published game you can expect them to absolve themselves of any responsibility for it. In fact the customer service rep treated me like a criminal and told me that no matter what I had to say activision would not solve my problem because apparently DRM is not a “technical issue”. Also they claimed the manufacturer is responsible for the DRM therefore they do not provide cd key. I asked for the contact information for the manufacturer or even the name of said manufacturer and they refused to give either!
DO NOT I repeat DO NOT buy ANYTHING activision. I have never been treated in such a manner by any company in my entire life. The irony is Activision is a member of the ESA who lobbies for anti-circumvention legislation while simultaneously denying they have any involvement with the DRM place on their own damn products! Disgusting.
July 9th, 2010 at 11:24 am
“The days of you having a different image for your work friends or co-workers and for the other people you know are probably coming to an end pretty quickly,” and that “having two identities for yourself is an example of a lack of integrity.” —-Mark Zuckerberg
July 9th, 2010 at 11:25 am
We need to know who has an elf army and who writes about their elf army on the blizzard forum
Must know. Have to know. We need to target these people.
July 9th, 2010 at 11:28 am
Once we know who they are, they can then pay spokeo and reputation defender to protect them from things they say, or face being ridiculed and face credit fraud.
July 9th, 2010 at 3:46 pm
Blizzard Backs Down On Real Names For Forums
http://games.slashdot.org/story/10/07/09/1740240/Blizzard-Backs-Down-On-Real-Names-For-Forums
Smart move, guys.
July 9th, 2010 at 8:06 pm
lol, it’s a free market, if they want to impose their wacked-out belief that anonymity is bad, their forum users will go elsewhere. Idiots. I guess they’ve never heard of capitalism.
Some people are soooooo damn stupid it is revolting.
July 10th, 2010 at 7:21 am
“If your cd key wont work they refuse to provide any customer service. That’s right. If you buy an activision published game you can expect them to absolve themselves of any responsibility for it. In fact the customer service rep treated me like a criminal and told me that no matter what I had to say activision would not solve my problem because apparently DRM is not a “technical issue”. Also they claimed the manufacturer is responsible for the DRM therefore they do not provide cd key. I asked for the contact information for the manufacturer or even the name of said manufacturer and they refused to give either!”
Don’t you read the EULA? They won’t even guarantee that the software will actually run on your system. It’s provided as-is and if it doesn’t work, that’s your problem.
July 11th, 2010 at 6:23 am
@rw above. False advertising isn’t my problem. it’s the courts.
July 11th, 2010 at 12:18 pm
I’m old enough to remember the old pre-web days of Usenet and various newsgroups where flame wars and assorted (sordid?) “unpleasantness” was not only a way of life, but downright expected in many of the newsgroups. A lot of use used our real names on Usenet back in the day, or whatever variations on our name/initials that were provided by the administrators on those old Unix boxes, and I don’t remember actually *knowing* who you were shooting at making any difference in the tone or civility of conversation.
Besides, if this “experiment” in forum transparency goes as I thoroughly expect it to, you’ll probably find a lot of folks named “I.P. Freely” and “Amanda Hugandkiss” on their message boards.