I did wonder after ranting there (near 8:30am here and been up all night looking after my parents- sorry!).
I think I'll come back to this topic after some snooze!
Inabit!

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/gaming/2010/07/08/blizzard-listening-to-feedback-on-real-id/1

"...many of Wipple's details including his address, phone number, age, family and even the music and films he likes, along with the links to the pages they used to do so."

I had heard he was sent photos of his kids, but I think that's a myth.


Anyway, shit idea. Privacy is a good thing.

Are you also suggesting that your voting habits should be public? If not, why not? Surely you are not ashamed of who you vote, right?

In some cases real name may be needed, but in general I wouldn't want such a "feature" because my future would-be employer might be some pro-DRM freak that doesn't want to hire me just due to my thoughts on DRM.

I even decided not to take a part into an "Finland should arrange a referendum on whether Finland should stay as part of EU"-address, because if it gets accepted, my name would be visible in it. Same reason as above.

It also depends what your name is. If your real name is John Smith, you probably couldn't care less if your name was visible in some pr0n site. But if it is something uncommon that easily identifies you, maybe so.

I don't think we need real names. After all you can judge people by what they say after a comparably short time, indifferent of their nickname. And there are many good reasons why people don't want to give their real name.

All the important issues, wherever you make business (amazon, ...) they have your real name and address and buying habit. So what more do we need?

I'm being sarcastic and ridiculing with my initial credit card post. The point was that why should we stop our day dreaming at "surely nothing bad could come of putting our real names online everywhere" when we could go to the length of "since there are people who might have the same name, we need an additional identifying factor. credit cards are unique and taken seriously. nothing bad could come of putting our credit card info everywhere for everyone to see".

I'm not saying that posting your name will always get you stabbed. What I'm arguing for is that just because someone doesn't mind doesn't mean that it's neutral or even safe for everyone.

Big NO.

The last thing I want is someone else (presumably unmonitored) stalking my activity on one of last free things in the modern society. Websites can set their own rules (scripts) how visitors can post on their pages; there is no reason to regulate it.

I've already refused to further participate in a serious forum that had established this condition. I'm also very much against facebook, and such all-integrating "social" sites.

It's a matter of traceability. I don't like my entire life to be googled up in 3 minutes. We live in several universes simultanously (work, family, friends, etc), and these don't necessarily overlap, we are not the same person to them all. Privacy allows us to adapt our 'face' to different publics (we don't use the same words, make the same jokes, share the same things, with all of them). The internet tends to merge all these circles. I don't even share or "network" my friends.

Plus there is the question of time. we get old and evolve. Our writings stay intemporal. The internet allows us to write as we talk, light-heartedly, candidly, honestly (well, yeah, it also allows the opposite, but that's not the point here). It allows us to write things we would say and would evaporate, which is different from publishing things that would stay and stay attached to our name, even if we get old, change, evolve on various points, and necessarily, at some point, become someone who would not have said this or said it that way. Being googled up would put all our sayings at the same level, temporal and relationnal. This merging (and temporal flattening) may give, ironically, a false idea of who we are at a specific time.

So, it's both misleading, and intrusive in terms of privacy and management of attitudes to the different circles that demand different facets of us. Internet has the potential to become a dreadful panopticon, and using different names/avatars in that global, unique, and universally shared public space, is the only way to emulate the actual way we live and are asked to behave in the flesh-and-blood social realm and its different sections.

They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.

Those who desire to give up freedom in order to gain security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one.

Why don't you start. Put real name and address right here on the forum. Or at least make your forum name your real name.

I don't like the latest trend of employers and facebook so no, I don't think allowing that to go further is a good thing. And for the sake of hoping to get rid of a few trolls? As if it would work.

Strange that people here are looking down on Elenarie even though we already introduced ourselves in this forum.

http://www.gog.com/forum/general/introduce_yourself/post1263

Hell I said my full name here once.

i just deleted my youtube account cuz they keep spamming me to change my username to my real name. fusk them

Posting in a forum thread that my name is Rodrigo Santoro and having it as my screen name as required by law carry different weights.