Thursday, July 08, 2010
The threat of RealID
Yet another thought on the RealID on forums story: Why does Blizzard assume that if RealIDs are published on the WoW forums, the quality of the forum posts will improve? What exactly would prevent you from posting a nasty and offending troll post on the WoW forums under your real name, if your name is sufficiently unique?
Obviously the real name does not in any way increase Blizzard's powers of forum moderation. Whatever name you used on the forums, Blizzard already knew your real name. Thus the hoped for effect is other players preventing the troll from posting. And how will they do that? Well, they still have absolutely no forum moderation powers. The only thing they gain is the knowledge of the troll's real name. And for that knowledge to be a threat sufficiently strong to prevent the troll from posting something offending on the forums, it must be possible for other players to hurt the troll by the use of his real name.
If, as some people say, there is no danger to you by your real name being shown on your posts, then how exactly would displaying that name diminish the troll posts? The threat of real life consequences are an inherent part of the RealID on forums plan. That real life consequence might be minor, like somebody sending the troll's mother a link to show her what language junior is using on the internet. But if there was no threat of real life consequences, then the RealID wouldn't diminish troll posts at all.