RealID Forums

EDIT: So, Blizzard has backed down, as I will probably touch on briefly in a new post. HUZZAH! Still have some misgivings, but for now, I’m celebrating this one victory.

Hooboy. So apparently Blizzard decided privacy invasion was cool and will, with the release of Cataclysm, be displaying everyone’s real name on all forum posts, based on their Real ID account.

Miss Medicina gives an example of how this could be horrific (using her own past stupidity and LJ to demonstrate) on her blog, but I want to talk about why I don’t like it.

Some of the reasons are the same – I don’t want my real name attached to my gaming blog and related comments, and that includes any posts I make in the forums. I’m hopefully going to be headed to university in January, to get my teaching degree, and while I’m sure my future employers wouldn’t hold it against me if I played video games in college, I don’t particularly want them to be able to see what I’d say on the forums, or here on this blog, and connect it to me. Trust me when I say my personal blog (and all shootoffs of that) is getting a serious lockdown the MOMENT I start looking for a post. At this moment, searching my name (which is apparently pretty much unique) in Google, the entire first page is all things that are actually by and about me. Most of it, right now, is pretty embarrassing, but thankfully it’s either old, or I’ll be locking things down from Google long enough beforehand that it won’t be a problem. But with the WoW forums, if my name were attached to those posts, I’d have no way of making sure they didn’t come up in a Google search. In fact, they probably would. And with no way to opt out, those would probably be some of the big things that come up Googling my name.

Thus, I won’t be posting on the forums.

The other problem I have with it, though, is that the name on my account is, as you might remember, not the name I identify with. I don’t want to be posting things under a name that is in every way not me.

I don’t make much use of the forums as it is, except for looking at guild recruitments and so forth on my RP forums, but I think especially on the RP realms, people are not going to want their real names associated with things, thus leading me to decide that I will have absolutely no use for the forums come Cata.

But seriously, Blizzard, what’s next? Having our Real ID name show up next to our characters in the armory? Showing our Real ID name over our toons’ heads below their guild? Cut the crap, stop forcing us to abandon you in order to maintain some privacy.

Geez.

ETA: Chastity over at Righteous Orbs has some very well-put thoughts on the subject, that I agree with completely.