[Air-L] Blizzard Forums will soon display real name

Jana Diesner diesner at cs.cmu.edu
Fri Jul 9 16:44:45 PDT 2010


The Wall Street Journal (digits) also had a brief article
(http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2010/07/07/real-names-rile-online-warlocks-and-
wizards/) on this, which triggered plenty of comments there

Regards, Jana 

-----Original Message-----
From: air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org
[mailto:air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of Pete[r] Landwehr
Sent: Friday, July 09, 2010 4:57 PM
To: Nick Lalone
Cc: air-l at listserv.aoir.org
Subject: Re: [Air-L] Blizzard Forums will soon display real name

Hey all,

This may be old news to some on the list (especially since it was just
linked this morning at Penny-Arcade) but there is a fairly long
comment by a female gamer & MetaFilter in the thread on this issue:
http://is.gd/dlBlj

I'm not really certain that the author reaches any dramatic
conclusions (trolling won't be discouraged, RL harassment will occur,
the gaming community has racist & sexist biases that will discourage
participation by minority and female players), but  do think that it's
a nice statement of concerns on the issue that, in the coming hours,
will get quite a few more hits thanks to the aforementioned PA link &
as such may soon become a more specific talking point.

Best,

pml

On Fri, Jul 9, 2010 at 10:37 AM, Nick Lalone <nick.lalone at gmail.com> wrote:
> The forums for FFXI were kind of strange. Allakhazam was strong early on
but
> around the 3rd expansion most discussion had moved on to Blue Gartr or
other
> individual linkshell forums or livejournal groups. They moved because
other
> websites were doing what Allakhazam were doing better but without forums
> (FFXIOnline was much more popular than alla for a while). At some point,
> Square itself created official forums for linkshells through their
community
> stuff. Later, the online auction house FFXIAH also had really active
forums.
> The same thing was around WoW. Forums like SomethingAwful's:
> http://grab.by/5lnD are still super active and independent discussion of
WoW
> for people interested in the "end game" business would go to blogs to
> discuss things as well as individual guild forums.
>
> So I suppose to me this boils down to the casual WoW folks who find
> community in the official forums as well as those in the WoW "end game"
who
> probably do not (exceptions abound here). I want to see how that will then
> change as the trophy trolls of trade chat and the official forums will no
> longer be able to completely hide like they once could. I can also see the
> Real ID stuff really mattering for competing end game groups on the same
> servers. But even then, Blizzard has minimized this competition through
> instancing, cross server looking for group, and other things. So in the
end,
> I suppose i do not see real issue with the REAL ID stuff simply because
> Blizzard has done a lot to mitigate the possibility of internet fury that
> might fuel e-stalking and harassment.
>
> That said, I am also sure that for certain groups, this will be
problematic.
> Women playing Tauren who do not talk on ventrillo or men playing women who
> also do not talk on ventrillo who then seduce other male players for
maximum
> profit. Certain aspects of that culture, I am sure, Blizzard will be happy
> to not deal with again.
>
> I have to wonder what new uncomfortable MMO style drama would arise from
> this change.
>
> Nick
>
>
>
> On Thu, Jul 8, 2010 at 5:00 PM, Mia Consalvo <consalvo at ohio.edu> wrote:
>
>> I haven't read the WoW forums much, since I only played the game briefly,
>> but the tone of the forums always surprised me for its viciousness (which
>> also was problematic in terms of racism, homophobia and sexism being
>> present)- I was a longtime reader of the forums for Final Fantasy 11,
where
>> things seemed much more civil. I don't know if it was the game, the type
of
>> player attracted, or even perhaps the fact that FF11's forums were *not*
>> official-- Square had no such official ones, so players started them
>> elsewhere (I read the ones on Allakhazam). I wonder if enough players are
>> upset, if there would be greater movement towards 'independent' forums
like
>> that.
>>
>> Mia
>>
>> On Thu, Jul 8, 2010 at 5:31 PM, live <human.factor.one at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> > Love what you stated here.
>> > Very similar to what Bonnie Nardi of UC Irvine stated in a new blog
post:
>> >
>> >
>>
http://umichpress.typepad.com/university_of_michigan_pr/2010/07/bonnie-nardi
-is-author-of-my-life-as-a-night-elf-priest-a-new-book-on-the-culture-and-ga
meplay-in-the-international-bestsell.html
>> >
>> >
>> > On Jul 8, 2010, at 8:31 AM, David Jones wrote:
>> >
>> >  I've grown more and more concerned about the power of companies like
>> >> Facebook or Blizzard to dictate what constitutes "identitity" and how
>> >> people
>> >> manage their online personas. Mark Zuckerberg has used the rhetoric of
>> >> "openness" and "integrity" to push Facebook's default stance of making
>> >> their
>> >> participants' data public. There are all sorts of scary questions
about
>> a
>> >> company like Facebook deciding it has the right -- even the ethical
>> >> obligation -- to determine what constitutes an online identity.
>> >>
>> >
>> > _______________________________________________
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>> > Join the Association of Internet Researchers:
>> > http://www.aoir.org/
>> >
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Mia Consalvo, Ph.D.
>> Visiting Associate Professor
>> Comparative Media Studies
>> Massachusetts Institute of Technology
>> 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Building  14N-226
>> Cambridge, MA 02139-4307
>> USA
>> consalvo at mit.edu
>> 617.324.1868
>> _______________________________________________
>> The Air-L at listserv.aoir.org mailing list
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>>
>
>
>
> --
> Nick LaLone
> Texas State University-San Marcos
> Systems Support / Master's Student
> www.beforegamedesign.com
> _______________________________________________
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