Removing monikers

Overheal

Darragh wrote: »

Fascinating (and timely) reading regarding the Blizzard community (not the band) and their plans to remove names.

http://hellmode.com/2010/07/06/why-real-id-is-a-really-bad-idea/

As for me, I haven’t forgotten about the person from France who spent over six months to track down and attempt murder on a guy who fragged him in Counter-strike (NY Daily News). Call me pessimistic all you want, but I have to wonder if Blizzard’s marketing department even thought about it.

Yes, I recall that incident.

In direct contrast, do the owners of boards, even the posters on it, want to feel responsible if and when someone decides to stalk someone on here and in the worst circumstances murder them?

Its not something I would want a part in facilitating.

AckwelFoley

Overheal wrote: »

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Geraghty


..... lies!

Had the eight year old convinced that i was in the Hurt locker..

"Will we get this movie.."

"Na kiddo, ive seen it.. i was in it!"

"No your were not.. do you think im stupid?!"

"eh, who's name on the box is that?!"

"WOW!!"

I love the way that to an eight year old the concept of there being more than one Brian Geraghty in the world is not possible.

Oh and... http://www.bebo.com/Profile.jsp?MemberId=1133388434
Dont use bebo anymore since darren sutherland died.. He has a few commonet on it and eh..

Anyhow - apologies, this is all completely off topic

Tallon

This pretty much sums it up

pickarooney

As someone whose username provides far more info on him to random googlers than his real name ever would, I find this idea ridiculous.

Spear

Just to update the source of all this discussion, Blizzard have backed down on this already.

http://kotaku.com/5583405/blizzard-scraps-plans-to-display-real-names-in-forums

Overheal

Spear wrote: »

Just to update the source of all this discussion, Blizzard have backed down on this already.

http://kotaku.com/5583405/blizzard-scraps-plans-to-display-real-names-in-forums

didn't really get a choice did they. I've never seen Blizzard so overwhelmingly slammed with negative press.

Overheal

Pages: 2,495

Posts: 49,896 (at time of posting)

In 3 Days.

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=25712374700&sid=1&pageNo=1

And that's just the North American board.

Dudess

What would the actual point of removing anonymity be anyway? Other than to appease people who get on their high horses about people saying "stuff they'd never dream of saying in real life" (not necessarily true) I personally can't see a point to it.
It's not real life here anyway (yes I know these are real people posting here, many of us have made real-life friends via here etc) but it's still an entirely different type of arena to anything you'd have in real life, so why bring people's real names into it?

PrimalTherapy

Rev Hellfire wrote: »

Oddly enough the example you give as a 'bad' example is actually a good example from my perspective. If someone wishes to offer large amounts of legal/medical/physiological advice they should be identifiable just as any expert would be in those areas. A casual passerby would not have such a requirement, but would be subject to having their posts approved.

Naturally it would be nice if those doing the approval also where ideally professionals in the area (though that would not be realistic) but at least also identifiable.

Now I recognize the weight of opinion is against me, but I still believe its a valid viewpoint.

I think that anyone one posting in a health forum, even if not giving advice, who is involved with a suppport group should identify themselves and their group. This is my view because when involved with a group, esp one that is charging for membership, then any information/opinion is likely to be the opinion of the support group and coloured by their wish to have more members and garner publicity for their group.

For this to seem like an objective post or just the opinion of one person is misleading and a diservice to anyone who needs info relating to the issue. I know med advice is not allowed but it is easy to infer a certain train of thought in a well written post. So people reading it should know it is the opinion of someone with a vested interest

Nevyn

Anyone posting to again business from a post is fairly quickly spotted and referred on to the staff to sort out, we don't have reps from support groups in PI we watch out for and currently there are no offical reps from any of the suport charities or invested intrests, that is not the route we want to go down.

Firetrap

As someone who subscribes to Boards from time to time (ok not as much as I should ) I would be extremely angry and aggrieved at my losing my anonymity just because at some stage I gave you my real details so you could get a few euros from me. It would be interesting to know how many people here actually use their real names when registering. I for one have registered on other sites and just made up names/addresses/dates of birth on the spot and connected them with an email address that doesn't have my real name anywhere in it. So in effect you'd be isolating those of us who have given you our actual details and punishing us.

To be fair, some people do use their real names here and that's their choice. It's the not being given a choice that's the problem. There are many reasons why a person doesn't want to give their real name/identity on here and quite a lot of them are valid. Especially I think in the Personal Issues forum. Now that would be a can of worms... :eek:

Personally I think Boards is moderated very well and trolls are given the heave-ho pretty sharpish. The vast majority of people who post here obey the rules. Why punish them?

Rev Hellfire

Firetrap wrote: »

As someone who subscribes to Boards from time to time (ok not as much as I should ) I would be extremely angry and aggrieved at my losing my anonymity just because at some stage I gave you my real details so you could get a few euros from me.

The proposal was never to make money, but rather to concretely tie a user to an identity. The use of a credit card or some other trivial transaction is to provide that link.

Personally I still believe the blizzard idea was a good one, but one badly implemented. Perhaps they should have limited forum users to a single name and restrict users to one forum account per blizzard account.

I also don't buy the idea that the ability of employers/third parties to search and find posts is in any way a case against. Quite simply if you post it you should be prepared to stand by your words.

Perhaps if/when Devore's idea comes to fruition we might see a move in that direction, certainly the idea of rewarding those willing to be identified is a excellent one and perhaps presents a happy middle ground.

There's no doubt in my mind that the opinion of someone prepared to stand up and be named will always count for more than someone who's only prepared to do so from the shadows.

I'm happy to ditch my suggestion and follow Devores

The Hill Billy

Rev Hellfire wrote: »

Quite simply if you post it you should be prepared to stand by your words.

Me (ie, the real person typing this - Mr Xxxxxxx Xxxxxx of Xxxxxxx, Co Xxxxxx, Ireland) is prepared to stand by any & all posts that I make here on boards.ie. That does not mean that the world & its mother needs to know exactly who Mr Xxxxxxx Xxxxxx of Xxxxxxx, Co Xxxxxx, Ireland actually is.

I stand by my words & am happy to account for them if questioned by the admins & owners of boards.ie if necessary.

I'd say that the same is true for 90%+ of boards users.

copacetic

Rev Hellfire wrote: »

The proposal was never to make money, but rather to concretely tie a user to an identity. The use of a credit card or some other trivial transaction is to provide that link.

I think you misread Firetraps post. He meant that at some stage in the past he has subscribed to support boards financially. So boards has his real name and he is raising concerns that boards may reveal it at some stage in the future.

So supporting boards financially has actually made him more at risk of being indentified than someone who has never subscribed.

Rev Hellfire

copacetic wrote: »

I think you misread Firetraps post. He meant that at some stage in the past he has subscribed to support boards financially. So boards has his real name and he is raising concerns that boards may reveal it at some stage in the future.

You're correct I did misunderstand.

copacetic wrote: »

So supporting boards financially has actually made him more at risk of being indentified than someone who has never subscribed.

Indeed it does, but that's not exactly news or at least it shouldn't be.

Rev Hellfire

Hill Billy wrote: »

Me (ie, the real person typing this - Mr Xxxxxxx Xxxxxx of Xxxxxxx, Co Xxxxxx, Ireland) is prepared to stand by any & all posts that I make here on boards.ie. That does not mean that the world & its mother needs to know exactly who Mr Xxxxxxx Xxxxxx of Xxxxxxx, Co Xxxxxx, Ireland actually is.

I stand by my words & am happy to account for them if questioned by the admins & owners of boards.ie if necessary.

I'd say that the same is true for 90%+ of boards users.

tbh I've moved away from my initial stance of requiring real names. Rather I'm supportive of Devore's idea of allowing people to be certified as using their real name.

I'm assuming since these individuals will be readily identifiable people will naturally give more weight to their voice above those who wish to remain anonymous.

It'll have same outcome I would desire without the chilling effect on speech my own initial proposal would have had. See I'm flexible

Darragh

Heya folks, just to clarify

If you'd like to use your real name on Boards.ie, please do

If you wouldn't like to use your real name, please don't

We at no stage have discussed trying to make members use their real names on our site - we are supportive of those who do, but we acknowledge that there's a myriad of reasons that people don't want to, and we wouldn't want to change that.

However, just because you use a nickname doesn't mean that you shouldn't be aware that you are still responsible for what you write on our site and you should always disclose your connections to businesses or affiliations when posting, if appropriate.

Our legal guidelines are here and our site guidelines are here.

Thanks

Darragh

Gordon

Rev Hellfire wrote: »

Rather I'm supportive of Devore's idea of allowing people to be certified as using their real name.

ahem!

Gordon wrote: »

Maybe something that can be floored is a system whereby if someone wants to change their username to their real name then they don't need to be a subscriber, they can be a "verified account" and get a name change for free.

(although his version suggested charging people for it, I'm too nice!)

Firetrap

The thing that would bother most people, and not just me, would be the changing of the rules mid-stream. If you have a Facebook page under your real name, you know from the start what the story is and you can control what you put up there. On Boards, people have posted all sorts of personal stuff about their lives which they would never dream of doing if they knew that they could be identified. It would be most mean-spirited to take advantage of this, especially if people have posted personal information so that they can help others.

copacetic wrote:

So supporting boards financially has actually made him more at risk of being indentified than someone who has never subscribed.

Rev Hellfire wrote:

Indeed it does, but that's not exactly news or at least it shouldn't be.

I have no problem with the good people who run Boards knowing my real identity but I don't want my family, friends, employers, acquaintances to know. I've subscribed to Boards on occasion because I use the site a lot and have found it both enjoyable and useful. That's the basis on which I've given money, not so that I can have my cover blown.

Anyway I'm glad Darragh's clarified things :cool:

PrimalTherapy

Thaedydal wrote: »

There have been two irish sites set up in the last year which mirror pi, on of which has what looked a lot like the charter at the time used on it.

These have this policy, you can pick a username but the admins want your real name and your real email address both with your ip means you can be traced back. You have to log in with your real name every time you use the site.

The notion is to make you think before you post.
While it may work on sites like those it is an impossible thing to implement here where the Support forums in Soc are part of a wider site.

Having 'verified' account only allowed to post in those forum and pre modding all the rest would be far far too much work and you woudl end up with an elite cabal posting all the time and would be far to dangerous and skewed.

Which so call self appointed experts would these be?
I never claim to be a professional or an expert, I know I can be wrong and if someone has better or more up to date info then I do I am thankfull for it as I means I learn more.

can you say what sites these are? Inrelation to IP tracing, is it not only the pc they can trace. There could be 20 pc's on a lan with one IP. How could they be certain which one it was

Nevyn

reachout and turn2me were the sites, one of which has closed it's community forums recently so real names don't stop trolls.

PrimalTherapy

Thaedydal wrote: »

reachout and turn2me were the sites, one of which has closed it's community forums recently so real names don't stop trolls.

thanks never heard of them