Will the Real Anna Fodder Please Stand Up?

I was talking to MrMan5.5 not long ago about how I'm happy to write personal things here, but there are some details that I'll leave out - most notably, my full name. There are many reasons for this, but the biggest reason for me is that I don't want to chance meeting somebody who started reading my blog before they met me (I know it seems unlikely, but it has happened to someone I know, so it's not impossible - although she has more of an e-presence than I do). As does probably anyone who spends a large amount of time online, I feel like my online persona is different from my "real life" persona. Sure, I'm the same person in both cases, but there are things that I feel more comfortable talking about online than I do IRL, and vice versa, and so logically, a person's perception of me would differ depending on their main form of interaction with me.

When I found out Blizzard was going to link RealIDs (a Blizzard-wide user ID) with real first names and last names on Blizzard forums, I was suprised by their decision. They blame trolls for this decision, but I love how they add that it will "connect the Blizzard community in ways they haven’t been connected before" as though it's a positive thing. The only "connection" that I can see coming out of this is that it'll make it easier for guys to pick out which players are female in real life (yes, I naively signed up with my real name).

Another problem I can think of is that every time I meet someone new who I find out is a gamer, I will do an internal memory scan to see if I've played with that person before (I know it says forum link, but as someone pointed out in the comments, there are WoW addons that draw data from the armory, so I wouldn't be surprised if someone wrote one to scan the forum for real names. There are even tons of sites like WoW Census that store heaps of information about WoW characters, so it wouldn't be too hard to add real name to the list).

"Oh, are you that John Mitchell that has an 85 rogue on Barthilas?"
"Have we played together before?"
"Yeah.... you were asking my priest for water. I didn't even know rogues had mana."
"Er... umm. Hi."

I don't even see why you'd need to know someone's real name to "make a connection". I have lots of WoW friends who I still call by their WoW names. Partly because it's easier, as quite a few of them are named John, but also because it's easier for me to keep track of them in my head. I know so many David/Daves, but only one Korsair, Mlargle or Meshugganah. Although the only downside to this is when I have to introduce them to my non-WoW friends, I always struggle to remember their real names. I could introduce them by their WoW-names, but people always look so confused as though they misheard what I said. I guess that's a reasonable assumption, but I thought it was an Aussie thing to give nicknames to people like Jozza or Macca (hi, Beans!), so what's wrong with Empathogen or Eviscerator?

What I love the most is what someone quoted out of Blizzard's code of conduct:

Quoted from the Battle.net forum code of conduct
DISTRIBUTION OF REAL-LIFE PERSONAL INFORMATION
This category includes:
Releasing any real-life information about other players or Blizzard Entertainment employees
If a player is found to have participated in such actions, he/she will:
Be permanently banned from the Battle.net forums

GG.

Most of the comments point out that it's really only the people who aren't in it to troll that are going to be affected by this, as anyone who intends to troll will have made a fake name anyway. Sigh. Why is everyone trying to turn into Facebook? Google Buzz failed hard, IMO. I'd log into my email to find a new "Buzz" only to spend ages scrolling down to find someone wrote a smiley face in reply to someone's Buzz from three weeks ago which I didn't even read because I already read it in Google Reader. Thank you, Google, how would I have lived without seeing that?

IMHO, keep the main focus of games on gaming. Or do what Steam does and have an IM-type system. How is learning someone's real name going to encourage friendship - are people going to look up people's addresses and write them letters?

The part of the arguing is between those who want to protect their privacy because of the principle of it (or because you're probably safer that way), and those who think that those who want to protect their privacy must have something to hide. It seems to me to be like that whole if you oppose the Internet filter, you must approve of child pornography argument. Just because you don't want your information revealed to all doesn't mean you have some deep dark secret to hide. I don't walk around with my mobile number tattooed on my face because I don't want random people calling me for no reason. I'm not hiding it, as such, I would just like to be selective in who gets it.

Maybe I'm just too tired to think of any good points at the moment, but really, all I can think of the idea is that it's dumb, dumb, dumb.

[EDIT] Oh, wow. Just as I finished writing all of that, I read a link from Agents Simon saying they decided to scrap the whole real name thing. Zzzzz.