Rantings of a Bastard

South Carolina criminals... are you all this fucking dumb?

Motorcyclist protesting a "you must wear a helmet while motorcycling" law in New York dies because he wasn't wearing a helmet.

HOW DARE THEY MAKE IT A REQUIREMENT THAT I USE SOME SORT OF MINIMUM PROTECTION! I'LL SHOW THIS NANNY STATE! *crash* *thud* *ded*

So, in an act of stupidity that rivals... well... no, exceeds anything I've ever seen another game company do, Blizzard has decided that when they update the forums for Cataclysm, anyone who posts on those forums (Blizzard employees included) will have their real first name and last name listed in the post. It's part of their "Real ID is voluntary. Unless you, you know, want or need to post on the forums." roll-out. (Which of course means that if you need to post on the technical support or bug forums because of problems, and their 1-800 number is busy, well, you're kinda fucked.)

As an option, you can have it list the character avatar you want to link it to.

This is supposed to reduce/eliminate trolling. (No shit, that's the official reason given. Because we all know that trolls are completely logical and will act with care and concern if someone knows their real name.)

Does that seem incredibly dumb to anyone else?

Why yes. In fact, roughly 95% of the roughly 22000 posts in one thread (currently on page 1099 of said thread)on the General Forums are against this idea, for many and various reasons, not the least of which are privacy concerns, listing the real names of minors, being stalked/harassed in real life by other players, etc.

Now, there has been a point raised "Well, if you don't post on the forums, then no one learns your real name." This is true. However, if someone hacks your account and posts on the forum, then they learn your real name. Hrm.

And current posting policy says (I'm paraphrasing) "Don't post personal details of anyone.", presumably including yourself.

Sure, if your name happens to be John Smith, odds are good against someone definitively linking that post from "John Smith, playing a level 80 Druid named Varanax" to you. If, however, your name is less common, well, it's pretty damned easy to Google you, find out where you live, your phone number, etc.

As a show of "faith" in the system, one of the Blizzard blue posters (Community Managers) posted his real name. I can only assume he drew the short straw. Oh, by the way, since he did this, he locked down his Facebook page, etc. because of the stream of 'friend requests'. Also, his phone number, address, etc. were all posted within something like 30 minutes.

And see? That's my point. 99% of the people who post on the 'new forums' could be reasonable people who would never use someone's real name to track them down and whatever. All it takes is one, though. One stalker. One idiot who takes Warcraft too seriously, who didn't like your post, or that you ninja'd a piece of loot, or that you even won a roll.

This is going to be a PR nightmare for them.

Oh, and in the time it took me to type this up.... more then 100 posts in the thread have been added. It's past 22000 posts now, and shows no sign of slowing down.

Somali pirates fire on U.S. Navy frigate.

Okay, yeah, it was night, and they didn't know what kind of ship they were shooting at, but wouldn't that make proper ship identification even more important?

Seems there aren't many fans of the 'Guido' show on MTV.

Seriously, who greenlighted this piece of shit?

PLAY MOAR VIDEOS!