Bnet forums to be Real Name Only - Page 27

On July 07 2010 03:56 keV. wrote:




I find it so amusing that people keep posting things like this as proof that it doesn't matter, where, meanwhile, in the Blizzard WoW thread, several people have done the same and been met with tons of their personal information: Including relatives and job history.

To argue that you can't get a lot from just someones name is insane, obviously it is incredibly dependent on the common-ness of the name and internet history. Just because you think you are invincible (and you might be!) that doesn't mean there isn't someone who can be really hurt with just their name available. How can you be that short sighted and selfish? Pay attention to what is being said and think about it a second.

On July 07 2010 04:14 kajeus wrote:
Honestly, I think every single one of you who is afraid of this development is EXACTLY the kind of poster that Blizzard doesn't want on its forums.

This is not a 1984-like Orwellian "Good Citizens Have Nothing To Fear" kind of argument -- it's recognition of a calculated move by a smart company. I don't think they want to have flame wars about balance and millions of posts on their forums. I'm not sure they want too much posting at all. There are other places to argue (TL being but one of them).

So if I were Blizzard, I think I might be OVERJOYED that a huge portion of TL is so upset about this.

On July 07 2010 03:56 baskerville wrote:

good for you that you seem to have trustworthy employers, still that's not the norm out there, and i don't think when you're applying for any job you'd want to showcase who you are (hobbies etc) but just that you applied for the job and have the requirements to fulfill your contract (that's why the rest is called private)

well.. i have traveled in several...
plus companies should have to be able to choose their future employees not force to hire (although not discriminate...tough call)

are you sure you said that? i'm so sorry for you that you have asked for that...
but it still goes a long way towards showing that you've been lucky (and i'm certainly happy for you, honest, shit does happen to people), still i'm not one to address hate mail or threats, even less to prove a point

for example : have you never gone to a demonstration and gotten hit because you were too close to the troublemakers ? or even anywhere whenever just for (justifiably) expressing your discontent?
or how bout wrongful arrests (with the shame or ridicule that goes with it), rumors started by mistake (or worse by people's petty considerations) or even hateful people bashing on or even hurting other people on account of having the wrong name at the wrong time and place...

well too bad you're so POed about my post, sorry it got to you this much, and i still hope you remain that positive about your life experience, still honest
you don't have to have experienced awful things to understand that the privacy on internet is a necessity, there are a lot of people with awful goals and blizz should'nt be helping them (on account of trolls or any other half ass reason like less moderators to pay), but if you'd have you'd want less people to have to go through it
like so many posters said before me, they've got your account number, let them just deal with people that are trouble from that end

On July 07 2010 04:14 kajeus wrote:
Honestly, I think every single one of you who is afraid of this development is EXACTLY the kind of poster that Blizzard doesn't want on its forums.

This is not a 1984-like Orwellian "Good Citizens Have Nothing To Fear" kind of argument -- it's recognition of a calculated move by a smart company. I don't think they want to have flame wars about balance and millions of posts on their forums. I'm not sure they want too much posting at all. There are other places to argue (TL being but one of them).

So if I were Blizzard, I think I might be OVERJOYED that a huge portion of TL is so upset about this.

On July 07 2010 04:17 vesicular wrote:


Blizzard doesn't want community? At first I thought you were nuts, but now that I think about what they did to bnet 2.0....

On July 07 2010 04:12 Steven.Bonnell.II wrote:
Two things.

1: it's funny that you guys think anyone is going to care enough about you to look you up on the internet and destroy your life. Seriously guys, no one cares. You're not Jason Bourne. You're not James Bond. You're no one, you're a random kid on the internet playing games; no one cares if your first or last name is posted.

2: most of you guys who are freaking out about having your first and last name being posted already have that information (plus much MUCH more) freely available on your facebooks/myspaces.

I'll bite on that earlier challenge - I'm xx (go fucking figure) and my facebook e-mail is xxxxxx

I look forward to anyone who wants to destroy my life.

On July 07 2010 04:08 RageOverdose wrote:


It is easier, so that means that people in general are going to do it more? Do I just have too much faith in people? Should I be a cynic? I know it's in the interest of being safe and not necessarily cynical to want to keep your real name hidden, but you will get stalked if someone is crazy (or trying to prove a point) and you can't do anything about it regardless.

The point I'm making is, if someone is willing to take 6-7 months of planning (such as the CS stabbing) to screw you over, they are really screwed up and as unfortunate as it is, hiding your name on a forum is not going to help you. As far as I know, your Steam ID doesn't display that information. In fact, I don't even think it displays your email, but I don't keep that profile edited because I don't care about it, so if I'm wrong, please correct me.

Yes it's good to be safe on the Internet. You could just not post on the forums if it's that big of a deal. If you really want to use the forums, then you have to accept that fact. But Blizzard won't change it unless the forums become useless or if the model becomes a visible problem.

On July 07 2010 04:15 McDonalds wrote:


My name is not common. I would be surprised if there were more than a dozen people in the world who have it.

It's quite strange to me that you would suggest that I'm being selfish when none of this actually has anything to do with me. I'm not going to gain something from Blizzard telling the world your name. Ideally I would like everyone to be safe but let's face facts here. It's not like Facebook where you forget some setting and all of your bikini pictures are exposed to your network. It's going to be plainly obvious.

You can't really protect people from themselves. I imagine that the individuals who had their relatives mentioned had Facebooks with relatives in their friends. I imagine that the individuals who had their job history mentioned have online resumes. This stuff was already out there. The idea that Blizzard is somehow making it worse is almost absurd. Like I said before, I could probably find a lot of your names from something like an AIM address. And I have, multiple times.

On July 07 2010 04:15 keV. wrote:


Probably not overjoyed at the incoming law suits. With a players base of 15~ mil between games, you know it will happen.

On July 07 2010 04:15 keV. wrote:


Probably not overjoyed at the incoming law suits. With a players base of 15~ mil between games, you know it will happen.

On July 07 2010 04:19 ascoe wrote:

1- You would be surprised how far some idiots will go over arguments online. I post on another forum that has had problems with this - from people calling people's houses and leaving threatening messages to people calling other forum users' place of work to cost them their job (and yes, it is a video game forum)

2- These sites have privacy settings that keep your name and your personal info from being broadcast to everyone. That's not something that will be available aside from just not posting

Again, if you post your full email address, know that there are 100's of email bots scanning this page and you will get spam emails..