Blizzard to require real names for forums

[BiJay]

You know another forum I'm at, gamedev.net requires you to show these information (along with education, and location you live) for a long time already.. Nobody had any problem with it ever.. (It only worked in positive way since people could ACTUALLY contact each other)

 

Maybe no one cared because no one has heard of this forum.

ROFL.. you know that forum probably has more members than runescape has.. And for sure a better reputation (they are often the place important articles about programming/game design are published).. Maybe you don't know about it, but that shows more about your knowledge than about that forum

 

I think these things actually IMPROVE the maturity of a forum. People are less inclined to troll if they know that they might actually commit a crime which is prosecuted! Of course they are not the only reason for immaturity at gaming communities, but they play an important part

in it.

Look at the top right of http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/ : "Total Users : 168,876". Thats nothing compared to the RSOF. But Jagex wouldn't reveal the real identities as it's against their rules which are there for your safety. Bashiok, Community Manager in the Blizzard Forums, revealed his identity, now he deleted his twitter account and changed his phone number...

[Flyingjj]

Wow. I would feel sorry for y'all if this happened. Personally, I don't have much to worry about, as my name is way the heck too generic to track, and people would need something else to go off of to find me.

[xSxqPowerx]

A game developer forum (with maybe 1/20th of the population of RSOF) that has mostly older and mature users is one thing... an online game with millions of kids is another.

[Saru Inc]

I am David D Davidson, prove im not

Your debit card.

 

I kind of like the idea, an MMO isn't a private thing it's a PUBLIC thing. The internet is public and if you can't handle that, it's tough. If you don't want people to know who you really are when you spam, the solution is simply not to spam.

 

I would like that to come to the RS forums. It's not like they'd put your full name in view, it'd be just used for authentication I'd say. At least that's how I'd prefer to have it.

 

1) Who says hes not 12 with no card? What if the name given is his parents? You may never know his *real* name.

 

2) It's most absolutely not a public thing. They are two desperate entities that for people like me, should stay seperate. How would you like it Racheya, if maybe you give someone a low rating, so they go look up your facebook and post the embarrassing story of when you wet your pants at school. (I know you most likely don't have facebook, however most do, and a lot are set on public)

 

 

Yea I don't like it.

[Bangin_Blonde]

Yes, considering it's against Jagex rules to give out info in game about real world info I don't think it would happen. Plus you don't want minors giving out details as well.

[Skull]

The number of potential lawsuits this could cause is staggering. Not a good move by blizzard in any stretch of the imagination. I'm guessing it'll be scrapped.

[Big_Stingman]

People are overreacting.

 

I seriously doubt someone is going to look you up, come to your house and rape/burn/kill you because you had a flame war with them on some World of Warcraft forums.

 

Either way, I don't play WoW, and this is never coming to Runescape anyway because of Jagex's policy. If it did though, I would still play. I don't mind if people know my real name.

[The Observer]

I used to post on there for Starcraft 2 Beta support, guess I won't be doing that anymore.

[Skull]

People are overreacting.

 

I seriously doubt someone is going to look you up, come to your house and rape/burn/kill you because you had a flame war with them on some World of Warcraft forums.

 

Either way, I don't play WoW, and this is never coming to Runescape anyway because of Jagex's policy. If it did though, I would still play. I don't mind if people know my real name.

Yeah it's very unlikely, but there's a good chance that you'd be harassed if you really did things someone didn't like. And besides, all it would take would be one case where someone being hurt was made possible by the information that was "provided" by blizzard and they'd be [bleep]ed as a company. Or at least in quite a bit of trouble.

[pulli23]

People are overreacting.

 

I seriously doubt someone is going to look you up, come to your house and rape/burn/kill you because you had a flame war with them on some World of Warcraft forums.

 

Either way, I don't play WoW, and this is never coming to Runescape anyway because of Jagex's policy. If it did though, I would still play. I don't mind if people know my real name.

Yeah it's very unlikely, but there's a good chance that you'd be harassed if you really did things someone didn't like. And besides, all it would take would be one case where someone being hurt was made possible by the information that was "provided" by blizzard and they'd be [bleep]ed as a company. Or at least in quite a bit of trouble.

Harrassing someone is a crime! - The goverment should protect it's citizens from this: a simple prosecution by quick-law would be enough.. And as I said it's time that this happens (this can only happen once the internet is considered public though, and for that to happen you also have to have your own ID when coming on the internet and not hiding behind something else.. So we're stuck a bit with the egg-chicken problem)

[ghjkl]

I'm surprised that blizzard doesn't wants their forum to die from lack of activity.

[das]

It is illegal to post about others privacy matters without the other giving explicit allowance!

 

 

I'm hoping your a law major or practice law, cause i'd love a good legal debate. For starters unless I am mistaken in facebook court cases recently the law has been ruling in favor of the people who access the information. If you upload a picture of you doing drugs/drinking underage - cops can arrest you for it because it's public information. Angry people who said face-book albums were private have already had cases dismissed. Using public information and posting it - isn't illegal. Please show me the laws where it is.

 

 

(For example 4chan knows the IP, of the offender, they also know the ISP & datetime, now that ISP can link the combination of datetime + IP to a specific household.)

 

For starters 4chan would have to give the IP up, they are not required to do so by law unless it's subpoenad by the goverment - The ISP also protects the customer in that right, so you would need at least 2 to get action - those takes weeks to get - And believe it or not, That information isn't available at the drop of a hat. Most ISP's use dynamic ips (albiet some are more sticky with longer expirations) - but all it takes is a modem power cycle (for high speed) and or reconnecting (for dial up) and you now have hours of logs to sift through . ISP's are not required by federal law to keep that information on hold very long in the grand scheme of things.

 

 

It is time the goverment stops sidelining when it comes to the internet and actively participates, since the internet IS a public domain!

Heh, You seem to be misguided, for starters, no one goverment controls the internet and secondly, you ironically hit the nail on the head - You post your private info on the internet elsewhere - and even if you didn't intend for this forum to see it - it's now public information.

[Kimberly]

I read this on Consumerist. It terrified me, because I know what kind of idiots I play with and I know how far they would go to make other people's lives a living hell.

 

I do not like it at all. This was the lazy man's shortcut.

[Makoto_the_Phoenix]

Why does anyone think that putting your real name and address on the Internet is a good idea? Geez.

 

First, I can see how this is going to blow up in Blizzard's face in a big way. Without the so-called veil of anonymity around many Internet users, there will be markedly less trolling of the kind that they know about. More serious trolling, such as real life threats, kidnappings, muggings, you name it - that will be the new norm. It's scary to even think about it, really. Just one more reason why I won't be joining Blizzard's forum network anytime soon.

 

We can contend that sites like Facebook and Myspace already exist that put our real information up on the Internet. You'd be right, but wrong in a sense. You can get certain bits of your information removed from those sites, not post any contact information, or even claim your "real" name to be something else. As an example, I could say that, right now, my name is 癒 誠 (you'll need Unicode to see that), and you couldn't prove that it was or wasn't otherwise.

 

[Here's a hint: No, it isn't.]

 

Since it's likely that Blizzard would use things like cardholder information to get the real names of people, the era of protecting one's identity on the Internet is coming to an end.

 

I kind of like the idea, an MMO isn't a private thing it's a PUBLIC thing. The internet is public and if you can't handle that, it's tough. If you don't want people to know who you really are when you spam, the solution is simply not to spam.

 

I would like that to come to the RS forums. It's not like they'd put your full name in view, it'd be just used for authentication I'd say. At least that's how I'd prefer to have it.

The problem isn't knowing who is or isn't spamming/trolling. The problem is having your real information just out in the public, wide open Internet (again, you could argue that Facebook is the same, but it isn't quite the case). There are also other systems that could be employed to punish or discourage trolls without having to reveal identities.

 

If a system like that came to the RSOF, there would be tons of backlash against it. Jagex is meant to protect their community. Revealing people's real names would do much, much more harm than good.

[ArtemisCatal]

People are overreacting.

 

I seriously doubt someone is going to look you up, come to your house and rape/burn/kill you because you had a flame war with them on some World of Warcraft forums.

 

Either way, I don't play WoW, and this is never coming to Runescape anyway because of Jagex's policy. If it did though, I would still play. I don't mind if people know my real name.

Yeah it's very unlikely, but there's a good chance that you'd be harassed if you really did things someone didn't like. And besides, all it would take would be one case where someone being hurt was made possible by the information that was "provided" by blizzard and they'd be [bleep]ed as a company. Or at least in quite a bit of trouble.

Harrassing someone is a crime! - The goverment should protect it's citizens from this: a simple prosecution by quick-law would be enough.. And as I said it's time that this happens (this can only happen once the internet is considered public though, and for that to happen you also have to have your own ID when coming on the internet and not hiding behind something else.. So we're stuck a bit with the egg-chicken problem)

You seem to have an inflated idea of what law inforcement is going to do. They have "real" crimes to tend to, they are not going to spend man-hours because some 14 year old is getting threatening phone calls from some other 14 year old. That's just "kids stuff", not something for police to get involved in. And if they do get involved, say the kid is the child of a school board memeber or something, likely it ruins kid B's life, cause they are going to hit him hard and fast, and he will probably be a really hardened criminal when he gets out of juvie when he's 21. There is no middle ground. And it wont matter what age the people are because its in conection with a "game" which means it's not serious and the police will immediatly scoff it off as childishness. Gaming, after all, is not the adult pasttime of drinking beer and taking pop-shots at the cans.

 

It's like trying to get a restraining order against someone stalking you. You can't get it until they do something too you, and that's the last thing you want to happen, and usually by the time they've done something provable, its too late. If you were a business you can sure get someone in jail for steally a piece of gum, but if you are a citizen, someone paint balls your house, breaks your windows, and distories your flower beds, well, thats just stupid pranks, not worth investigating.

 

It's true, that bad thing wont happen to everyone, but do you really want to be one of the dozen someone does latch on to and stalk? And I promise you, that the police will not help you until it's to late, unless you a very very luck to be "someone" or your police aren't underfunded and over worked, like they are everywhere now-a-days.

 

It's not what police should do, it's about what the police do do. Which often isn't even what they could do, because they often don't take something seriously until it is too late.

[stonewall337]

You know another forum I'm at, gamedev.net requires you to show these information (along with education, and location you live) for a long time already.. Nobody had any problem with it ever.. (It only worked in positive way since people could ACTUALLY contact each other)

 

Maybe no one cared because no one has heard of this forum.

ROFL.. you know that forum probably has more members than runescape has.. And for sure a better reputation (they are often the place important articles about programming/game design are published).. Maybe you don't know about it, but that shows more about your knowledge than about that forum

 

I think these things actually IMPROVE the maturity of a forum. People are less inclined to troll if they know that they might actually commit a crime which is prosecuted! Of course they are not the only reason for immaturity at gaming communities, but they play an important part

in it.

 

1.) A game forum is VERY different from a developers forum. I'm a member of a civil war reenactors forum, and we all (or most) use our real name and unit. Its just a different community.

 

2.) I agree that anonomity isn't always good. I've said things in chat or on forums that I would never say in a voice chat to those same people. However, I don't think this is the right place or way to try and prevent flame wars. Harsher moderation would be, IMHO, a better place to start.

[mememe513]

We can contend that sites like Facebook and Myspace already exist that put our real information up on the Internet. You'd be right, but wrong in a sense. You can get certain bits of your information removed from those sites, not post any contact information, or even claim your "real" name to be something else. As an example, I could say that, right now, my name is 癒 誠 (you'll need Unicode to see that), and you couldn't prove that it was or wasn't otherwise.

I just found a profile (by searching those characters) on Facebook showing a Runescape character and the name David. I find that creepy. Wouldn't you find it just a bit frightening that if you had a less secure profile, the person would be able to see your personal info, pictures, and other stuff? Blizzard's idea would only blur the line between the Internet and real life. I think that trolling should stay on its side of the line.

[Makoto_the_Phoenix]

We can contend that sites like Facebook and Myspace already exist that put our real information up on the Internet. You'd be right, but wrong in a sense. You can get certain bits of your information removed from those sites, not post any contact information, or even claim your "real" name to be something else. As an example, I could say that, right now, my name is 癒 誠 (you'll need Unicode to see that), and you couldn't prove that it was or wasn't otherwise.

I just found a profile (by searching those characters) on Facebook showing a Runescape character and the name David. I find that creepy. Wouldn't you find it just a bit frightening that if you had a less secure profile, the person would be able to see your personal info, pictures, and other stuff? Blizzard's idea would only blur the line between the Internet and real life. I think that trolling should stay on its side of the line.

 

This hammers home my point exactly.

 

First, so you don't spaz out, that's me. Giving out others' information is a huge faux pas.

 

Second, suppose that it was my real information. I'd be freaking out about now. But it's all fake. All of it. Even "David" is fake. Such is the miracle of not having to reveal real names.

 

This move (from the looks of it on various news sites, blogs, and even Blizzard's own forums) will spell the end of their empire. No one wants to have their real life information just out there for the whole world to see and do with it what it will. The Internet is a scary beast with identities...

[Hajutze]

I pretty much don't care .. if someone wants to hurt me irl there is a 99% chance that he will have to travel half-across the Earth just to get to me ...

[Kimberly]

I pretty much don't care .. if someone wants to hurt me irl there is a 99% chance that he will have to travel half-across the Earth just to get to me ...

 

You don't need to hurt someone physically in order to cause pain. Perhaps you have a thick skin, but I suspect a barrage of harassment in the form of threats, letterbombs, phonecalls, etc would erode even the strongest person. And that's what people can do, and most likely will do, if the information is placed in the wrong hands. People are cruel.

 

This will reduce flames on their forum, mayhap, but it will cause Blizzard to be responsible for the alternative means their users will take advantage of to get their 'internet victory'.

 

I would personally prefer the trolls.

[pulli23]

It is illegal to post about others privacy matters without the other giving explicit allowance!

 

 

I'm hoping your a law major or practice law, cause i'd love a good legal debate. For starters unless I am mistaken in facebook court cases recently the law has been ruling in favor of the people who access the information. If you upload a picture of you doing drugs/drinking underage - cops can arrest you for it because it's public information. Angry people who said face-book albums were private have already had cases dismissed. Using public information and posting it - isn't illegal. Please show me the laws where it is.

 

 

(For example 4chan knows the IP, of the offender, they also know the ISP & datetime, now that ISP can link the combination of datetime + IP to a specific household.)

 

For starters 4chan would have to give the IP up, they are not required to do so by law unless it's subpoenad by the goverment - The ISP also protects the customer in that right, so you would need at least 2 to get action - those takes weeks to get - And believe it or not, That information isn't available at the drop of a hat. Most ISP's use dynamic ips (albiet some are more sticky with longer expirations) - but all it takes is a modem power cycle (for high speed) and or reconnecting (for dial up) and you now have hours of logs to sift through . ISP's are not required by federal law to keep that information on hold very long in the grand scheme of things.

 

 

It is time the goverment stops sidelining when it comes to the internet and actively participates, since the internet IS a public domain!

Heh, You seem to be misguided, for starters, no one goverment controls the internet and secondly, you ironically hit the nail on the head - You post your private info on the internet elsewhere - and even if you didn't intend for this forum to see it - it's now public information.

Well I have no experience with law, other than the copyright & patent laws (which are pretty stupid in some parts of the world, notably the us where not the date of research but the date of you bringing the research to the office is important). However I think the act of deliberately searching and combining some information just to blackmail a person should be considered (dang my dictionary doesn't have a translation, and bablefish came up with "steeling', dutch would be "stalking") - similar to those people in real life who keep following you and phoneing you to see where you are!

Of course pictures I place here are public: however copying and/or reposting them somewhere else should be against the law (this is what I ment).

 

Secondly, as I said in my post, it's time that the goverments worldwide take action against those things, and similar to a sports club: if THEY don't take action against offenders THEY are prosecuted for the offense! And this also works on the internet (just look at for example how child porn is handled - not saying crimes as described are as bad as child porn - but it does work).

 

ISP's are required to keep data for a month here in europe since a year or 2.. Enough for quick-law to take action (if you're executed by quicklaw, you won't have to hassle with advocates, currently it's only used to prosecute people commiting crimes at big festivals, within 8 hours of commiting a crime you're facing the consequences).

 

You seem to have an inflated idea of what law inforcement is going to do. They have "real" crimes to tend to, they are not going to spend man-hours because some 14 year old is getting threatening phone calls from some other 14 year old. That's just "kids stuff", not something for police to get involved in. And if they do get involved, say the kid is the child of a school board memeber or something, likely it ruins kid B's life, cause they are going to hit him hard and fast, and he will probably be a really hardened criminal when he gets out of juvie when he's 21. There is no middle ground. And it wont matter what age the people are because its in conection with a "game" which means it's not serious and the police will immediatly scoff it off as childishness. Gaming, after all, is not the adult pasttime of drinking beer and taking pop-shots at the cans.

 

Well the first course of action -if it happens through kids- is for the parents to take contact with the other parents.. Then the other parents should give their child a stern look and it ought to be over! If that doesn't work, the parent of the offended kid should take it to the school, which should take action (maybe add a theme about social interactions to the course), if all that won't work, there is apparantly something much more problematic with the offending kid. (not listening to school & parents, isn't really bright) and some other organization specialized for these types of kids should be mobilized!

And don't say me this is a lot of work: most of it goes automatically and really how often do you expect this to happen?

[das]

However I think the act of deliberately searching and combining some information just to blackmail a person should be considered

 

While perhaps it's unethical and immoral, no laws exist to keep you from accessing public domain material, or enforce/regulate it's proper usage, infact it's similar to websites like how peopleofwalmart are ran - If you go out in public with your 1970s pajamas and a multi colored sweater from the 1960s and end up as an internet meme , you have no legal grounds because you were in a public place and lose your right to privacy. Some facebook lawsuits were filed where a friend takes the picture of you drinking a beer underage or doing something bad you don't want people to see - nothing can be done - in usa as far as i am aware, the person who takes the picture - owns the copyright for it.

 

 

Of course pictures I place here are public: however copying and/or reposting them somewhere else should be against the law

 

Often when you upload a picture to myspace/facebook/photobucket (Depending on the sites TOS) You forfeit a great deal of your ownership in the piece. As soon as you send the image to a friend, you lose the rights to it to a degree. Been cases where facebook advertising used your friends pictures for advertisements, people sued, cases did not win at all.

.

 

(just look at for example how child porn is handled - not saying crimes as described are as bad as child porn - but it does work).

 

Child porn is a major Felony and a horrible comparison, and for the most part is only deeply cracked down on in USA, UK and a few other countries like China, places like Russia or Japan - don't care as much if it all. (Lolicon is legal in japan and over 50% of manga produced in japan yet you can get arrested for it in USA, while it's pending criminalization in the UK (currently legal) - 3 major countries cannot agree on what constitutes child porn and art, you think they will on harrasment? Lets not even get into countries like India, China or Iran that filter internet and make it a crime to do common things like blog about current events. India = Homemade porn is 2 years jail, America = Nothing as long as everyone is of age. Worldwide laws will NEVER happen and are NOT practical.

http://www.japanator.com/elephant/post.phtml?pk=8753

 

harassment isn't a felony like Child pornography, as it is currently a misdemeanor. Which means jailtime isn't always even associated with being convicted of it.

 

 

ISP's are required to keep data for a month here in europe since a year or 2.. Enough for quick-law to take action

45 Days in America I believe, the problem is more often then not the government is over-reached and to my knowledge, law requires a court order here, and that takes time. I've never heard of any "quick law" cases involving an ISP and law enforcement, and I do have a working knowledge of law enforcement and lawsuit proceedings dealing with getting information from ISP's due to the nature of my job.

[ldailey06]

Blizzard has every right to kill their forums by removing anonymity. All serious WoW discussion has already moved to 3rd party sites like EJ and AJ. I imagine a change like this would only make the transition complete.

[Fools_Taco]

Im all for this idea... i hate [cabbage] heels on the internet talking tough because they have anonymity.

 

This is a great idea. The people worried are the weak lamers who like to talk [cabbage] and act tough.

 

If you dont be a flaming [wagon] then who cares if people know your name.

[Nhs_Xc]

:thumbup: Glad I do not play any [cabbage]ty Blizard games