Perma-banned over RealID post.

[Dallanon]

I love how so many people are jumping on Blizz's "fearmongering" bandwagon. It's only fearmongering until something bad happens. When you're talking about posting the real names of both kids and adults on a gaming forum, you're asking for trouble at some point. And this BS about the world being a dangerous place so "get over it" is a total strawman argument.

[Tuvok]

I heard some fool in another thread say "Anonymity is what makes the internet", I just had to laugh at that one. Freedom of information is what makes the damn internet the internet. Anonymity is considered by many to be the main enabler of trolling, flaming, idiocy, childishness, and just generally every negative thing involved in human communication on the internet. The official forums getting flooded with crybabies that think they are noticeable enough to warrant a stalking murderer, or the army of trolls and chanwhores that feed from lack of accountability is just that, assholes that are afraid of losing their ability to be assholes. Those that have genuine concerns, that's fine, but you are still being completely ridiculous, if you are not a complete jerk, then you have nothing to fear nearly 100% of the time.

The only problem I can think of, is females, which could in some way be mitigated by introducing no-tolerance policies for harassing behaviour based on stalking. There is a beautiful thing called an ignore list though.

[DownButStillOut]

Nice, someone could murder me if I have someone on my real I.D. or posted in a forum.

[Dallanon]

how many times did you post the link? Last night i saw a link to that story in almost every real ID topic there was

Never saw it up at all - just looked today and posted it once. I assume it was becasue they were pulling posts down as fast as you could hit send.

[_Moridin_]

The thing I'm wondering is why everyone is so concerned that this will be a huge issue. Many of the CMs have been pretty hated at points, Ghostcrawler has drawn alot of negative attention on the forums and his real name and picture have been on the internet for a long time. Most of the CMs names/pictures can be found fairly easily. Now, I can't find anything about any issues they've had. What would someone have to do to draw that much attention to be concerned about their safety? Don't be a dick on the forums? No one can link the stuff you do in game to the stuff you say on the forums.

[fxrs]

I love how so many people are jumping on Blizz's "fearmongering" bandwagon. It's only fearmongering until something bad happens. When you're talking about posting the real names of both kids and adults on a gaming forum, you're asking for trouble at some point. And this BS about the world being a dangerous place so "get over it" is a total strawman argument.

Sums it up pretty well. I noticed the post containing the blizz moderator has been deleting from the official forums.

[_Moridin_]

Never saw it up at all - just looked today and posted it once. I assume it was becasue they were pulling posts down as fast as you could hit send.

I saw it about 15 times this morning. Did you look through the RealID thread at all?

[fxrs]

The thing I'm wondering is why everyone is so concerned that this will be a huge issue. Many of the CMs have been pretty hated at points, Ghostcrawler has drawn alot of negative attention on the forums and his real name and picture have been on the internet for a long time. Most of the CMs names/pictures can be found fairly easily. Now, I can't find anything about any issues they've had. What would someone have to do to draw that much attention to be concerned about their safety? Don't be a dick on the forums? No one can link the stuff you do in game to the stuff you say on the forums.

In all honesty its not harm that many people are concerned with, it's id theft.

[BiscuitsJ]

And if you click the link at the bottom of that article it takes you to the same story by the daily telegraph which is a well known broadsheet newspaper in the UK... which i'd say is conclusive proof that it's a real story and not some made up rubbish for a website.

I see no difference in specifics between the articles other than 1 saying he hunted his victim for for 6 months while the other says 7 months. Hardly an important detail.

I would highly recommend you read Flat Earth News, this would advise you that a very high % of news you read in tabloids/radio/tv is related to PR manipulation and Underreporting, of which I have no doubt the story of a gamer killing another gamer is a result of the two by Anti-Gamer lobbyists (a growing threat), and shock and awe news with little actual reporting.

Regarding Blizzard forums... if you honestly go there for anything other than "My server is down/Me and everyone from my guild has severe lag" then you really are wasting your time. Not to mention those two activities are just about the same... It's really not worth the data crossing the internet from Blizzard Servers.

[Elementium]

Sounds real too me. One thing I learned the hard way is to avoid posting at all when the shitstorms are a-brewin'. I got banned for good during the WotLK beta just for posting in the Shaman forums when the Ghost wolf changes were removed because "it's too much like core druid abilities". I appealed quite a few times and no luck.

So yeah word to the wise, just don't post at all whenever there's massive drama going down.

[Dallanon]

The thing I'm wondering is why everyone is so concerned that this will be a huge issue. Many of the CMs have been pretty hated at points, Ghostcrawler has drawn alot of negative attention on the forums and his real name and picture have been on the internet for a long time. Most of the CMs names/pictures can be found fairly easily. Now, I can't find anything about any issues they've had. What would someone have to do to draw that much attention to be concerned about their safety? Don't be a dick on the forums? No one can link the stuff you do in game to the stuff you say on the forums.

The CM's tend not to get pulled down into personal attacks or arguments. There's a big difference between that and PO'ing some nut that you just ninja'd the Needle Encrusted Scorpion from. Who knows what it takes to set somebody off? The entire idea is just setting the table for stalking and harassment...not to mention being a possible gift from heaven for pedos. People never seem to think this stuff through to it's possible logical conclusions.

[Tuvok]

And if you click the link at the bottom of that article it takes you to the same story by the daily telegraph which is a well known broadsheet newspaper in the UK... which i'd say is conclusive proof that it's a real story and not some made up rubbish for a website.

I see no difference in specifics between the articles other than 1 saying he hunted his victim for for 6 months while the other says 7 months. Hardly an important detail.

People have died from toilet seats, having intercourse with dangerous items, drowned in inches of water, struck by lightning, in cars and on the operating table, people don't call for all those things to be removed though, and those deaths sure as hell happen a lot more often. Road deaths and injuries are considered an acceptable loss in return for massive convenience gain for the human population - just as whatever minute amount of harassment that may arise from this change is an acceptable loss in return for the accountability of total idiots that run rampant and destroy the damn official forums.

One goddamn story that shows that every now and then given enough people and time a total psycho will arise IS NOT a valid argument. It is only a testament to statistics.

[Sqeekie]

...and BOOM! Banned.

Wellcome to the club and now you don't have to worry about people finding your name

[Dallanon]

You were banned for spamming it said, most likely you posted the link to that thing over and over again.

I'll say it again - 1st time I posted the link. In fact, 1st time I posted ANYTHING in about a week.

[_Moridin_]

In all honesty its not harm that many people are concerned with, it's id theft.

It's fairly difficult for ID theft to occur from your name alone. Unless you are posting your SSN, your address, your phone number online in public places. If you argue the address on facebook, check your privacy settings.

[MortalWombat]

I'll say it again - 1st time I posted the link. In fact, 1st time I posted ANYTHING in about a week.

Do you honestly think anyone buys the idea that you were doing anything other than causing drama that would turn into a flame war? If I started a thread here with the intention of causing a flame war I would get banned just like I would on WoW forums.

[durion]

i was also perma banned trying to make it clear that doing tyhis will only make it worse not better. it seem any sort of disaprovval or valid concern is deleted or completly ignored

[_Moridin_]

The CM's tend not to get pulled down into personal attacks or arguments. There's a big difference between that and PO'ing some nut that you just ninja'd the Needle Encrusted Scorpion from. Who knows what it takes to set somebody off? The entire idea is just setting the table for stalking and harassment...not to mention being a possible gift from heaven for pedos. People never seem to think this stuff through to it's possible logical conclusions.

How would anyone know you "Joe Dallanon" on the forums is the same guy that ninja'd something?

[fxrs]

It's fairly difficult for ID theft to occur from your name alone. Unless you are posting your SSN, your address, your phone number online in public places. If you argue the address on facebook, check your privacy settings.

While I don't pretend to be an expert I do have a friend who owns a cyber security company, he disagrees with you. And as far as greg street is concerned I wouldn't buy the beer to make the urine to put out the fire.

[Merendel]

Are you serious? You think that is proof? Let me tell you if that pathetic guy didn't go after that guy he would have marked someone else for something else. Maybe a guy who laughs behind his back when he is buying cheetos. Or a guy at work who told the boss he was slacking on the job.

These people don't suddenly become crazy because they have your name. And the chances of this happening is so little you have a better chance at dying from lightning x10.

It is true that this is rare. However as that nut job proved it can happen. Now the attacker in that story was a truely obsessed piece of work. it is extreamly rare to have someone flip out that badly and hold the grudge long enough to spend 6 months working at it for their revenge. However what if it didnt take 6 months? What if in a matter of hours someone with a screw loose could find out that the guy that knifed his toon lived less than a mile away?

My point is that yes these crazy people dont get crazy because they have your name. they are already quite crazy. They are however much more likely to remain fixated on you for 6 hours needed to track you down and get to your location than they are to spend 6 months to do the same thing. Giveing them easy access to your name makes tracking you down an effort of hours at most if your a fairly active poster.