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Blizzard Made Me Change My Name
First of all, the reason that my account is in violation is that my name contains a title prefix. It took dozens of inquiries to get that explained. 'Cmdr' is the problem. I'm told that since the game has an internal honor system with titles, my name is not allowed. Never mind the fact that 'Cmdr' is not one of their titles. Never mind that countless other titles abound in the game: Mr, Sir, Sensei. Am I in violation of their policy? Probably. Is the policy stupid, meaningless, or inconsistent? I think so, but that's not really why I'm writing this.
I've been using 'CmdrTaco' online for around a decade now. It predates the existence of this website. It has followed me from game to game, both local, networked, and massive. My only problem with it is that as Slashdot grew in popularity, I started finding places where an impostor has taken it. I was excited when I was able to get it in Warcraft. It's like a warm blanket. It's stupid I know, but it's mine.
But Blizzard chose to take it from me. Now let me be clear: this is certainly their right: They own the dice and the board and the rulebooks, and I only play in their world. But If the US Government told me to change my name... let's say Congress passed a law making it illegal to have a first name that is a verb (Don't laugh, the White House cease and desisted The Onion!) Well I guess 'Rob' would have to go. My friends would still recognize me: I'd still have the same face, address, and social security number. I'd just have a cool new name like "Captain Fantastic Malda". With a name like that, the auto mechanics would never try to rip me off!
In this virtual world, two levels gives me a couple new pieces of armor, and suddenly I am unrecognizable to anyone who may have run an instance with me. In guild chat, I am a total stranger to people I may have chatted with for months. My history with other players has been erased. It almost makes me wish that I spent my first 45 levels ninja looting!
It's not like Blizzard decided to change gameplay dynamics. I spend a lot of time working on the Slashdot moderation system, and I never have any problem changing any "Rule" in the system if I believe it will improve the overall functionality of the whole system. If blizzard wants to make my mace have 5 less DPS and 3 less stamina because it's unbalanced, well I can accept that. Balancing gameplay is really hard. But in a massive multiplayer game, your name is different- that isn't about balance, it's about identity.
A friend of mine actually quit Everquest over a forced name change. His name was Marilyn Hanson and while fighting something he was disconnected without warning. When he returned, his name had been changed to a randomly generated one. When he asked GM, he was told that he could not have celebrity name. When my friend asked who Marilyn Hanson was, the GM could not answer, but instead just said arguing wouldn't matter. My friend quit EQ that day.
I don't think I'll quit WoW over this, but I will take away some lessons. The GM I talked to had a nickname of something like Lathanian. I found this disconcerting. If you were arrested by Officer Snuggles or found guilty by the honorable Judge Lawtron, it's hard to take that seriously. In this case 'Punishment' is being dealt. A real human is wearing a shroud of anonymity and handing out the bitchslap to a total stranger. That really makes the whole experience even more dehumanizing. In a massive virtual world, we're still people.
You don't see names and faces, which is why you'll see a 60 corpse camp a 30. When you don't see the real person on the other side, the tendency is just to forget. You expect it from opposing factions- but it feels different when it's the GM. Personally this is something I struggle with in my work too. You deal with a hundred support requests and it starts becoming abstract. Unreal. Virtual. I doubt it's much different if you work at the support counter at a retail store, but I think it's easier to forget when the only communication is chat.
Second, the GMs at blizzard really have no power. I asked for contact information. For email information. For names. For an appeal. To talk to a supervisor. And the best they would give me was the generic help phone line or a mailing address. Like with a stamp! I was told that almost every question I asked was unanswerable in game. I gave an email address but they never emailed. They wouldn't even tell me what was wrong with my nickname until after a half dozen inquiries of why. You have really no recourse against a GM. That scares me.
Lastly, I didn't really realize that I was so attached to my nickname. It's not because I'm "Famous"- We have a lot of readers, but these days very few actually know who I am. And of those, the percentage of people who play warcraft, and are alliance, and on azgalor... well it is very tiny. As CmdrTaco I probably had a total of 5 people actually recognize my nickname (and nobody ever gave me gold because they read Slashdot!). As Violated, nobody ever will recognize me for my day job. But that's really not what bugs me. I was really attached to my name. This character bounded through Azgalor slaying monsters and meeting new people. Now that character is erased and another character stands in its place. Same armor. Same class. But different somehow. I like my nickname. I wish I had it on every system I used. I'm annoyed that someone else registered my nickname on gmail before I could. It's always the first name I try when a system asks me to create an account. I feel strangely possessive about it. I doubt I'm alone in being attached to a pseudonym. And I feel kind of stupid admitting it.
Anyway, I've said my piece on the subject. And just to be clear, I'm not really mad at Blizzard. I think what they did was needless and inconvenient, but not evil. Their policy may be silly, but I still was in violation of it, so I guess I got what I deserved. But I wonder about others. And not just in Warcraft, on any online forum. I wonder about our attachment to virtual names. And if nothing less, it will make me take changes in Slashdot a little more seriously next time.
This is all spelt and punctuated correctly, and contains no duplicated paragraphs!
Who are you, and what have you done with the real Taco?
A real human is wearing a shroud of anonymity and handing out the bitchslap to a total stranger.
When did the topic become the moderation system?
You could a) take your money elsewhere
b) keep giving them your money, and give them some publicity on /., too
With enemies like you, who needs friends?
Everybody's a libertarian 'till their neighbour's becomes a crack house.
...if you're playing a Paladin, you deserve everything you get.
"Nothing can shake my belief that this world is the fruit of a dark god whose shadow I extend." - Emil Michel Cioran
if you really want something done about it, why don't you link to their webform in the article. i think they may reconsider your case once they get slashdotted..
-- lol pwned
Geez - Get a job Taco.
I'm surprised in your story that your friend on EQ was disconnected and had his name changed. I had a druid on EQ quite a while back named Girlon and everything was fine until I made the surname Girlaction. Anyway, they just sent me an in-game message saying my surname was going to be changed and asked what I'd like to to be. It was really pretty simple.
Finance tutorials and more! Understandfinance
I don't know who you are, but you might want to pick a different username. CmdrTaco is the guy who runs this website and he'll be mighty upset.
qntm.org
Completely unrelated, but there's an interesting story that happens in just about every Navy that uses the title "Sailor" for enlisted personnel. (So far I've heard second hand reports from both the U.S. and Russian Navies.)
:-)
Every so often a fellow enlists who's last name actually *is* Sailor in the native language. More often than not, this drives his superiors nuts as they have to address him as "Sailor Sailor". Since he isn't an officer they can't give him an honorary promotion to prevent confusion, so more often than not he gets his first promotion free just so everyone doesn't have to deal with with the double name.
(Note that in the U.S. Navy, the actual rank and name tends to be "Seaman".)
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
While I too find this somewhat ironic, he does bring up a good point. In a virtual world where the only truly identifying characteristic is a character's name, how does a name change (forced or voluntary) impact relations with others in the game? A follow up question would be: how could developers, if they so chose, account for this to minimize any negative impact?
If the idea of MMORPG social circles seems trivial or unimportant to you, what about something like a seller's account on eBay? In a digital world when all someone has to go on is the reputation of your "unique ID," what happens when that ID changes such that it is no longer recognizable as you?
Now we know why Taco has so many dupes. He's play WoW all the time!
If you regard this as petty, I understand, but I tried not to write in an agressive tone. My intentions are anything but petty.
Pants are still optional, but recommended for you.
I see violations of the naming policy all the time on my "Normal" server, Eonar. Frankly, there are too many to realistically enforce on all servers everywhere. Those that do get picked out feel (rightly so) that they are being picked on.
IMHO, only Role-Playing servers should have a strict naming policy. The only enforcement on other servers should be for profanity/crudeness. No "IfckedUrMom" or somesuch.
[PowerPoint] is a tool for capitalist presentation
No prefix?
Guess the obvious solution would be:
* TacoCmdr (postfix)
* TheCmdrTaco (infix)
* Taco (nofix)
* AlmightyCmdrTaco (dogmatix)
I think that the real meat of the issue got overshadowed by your commentary on your personal experience. What happens to our virtual identities? What happens when you can't have the name you've built? The same thing happens on AIM and other sites. When you are forced by circumstances to develop a new name, something changes. I'm hoping the discussion here will start to address issues like prospects for a global name registry or a solution to this issue.
Speech is not an abuse of power and Slashdot is his journal.
I might also point out that he specifically said, more than once, that he was not complaining about an abuse of power.
Please keep the petty bitching confined to livejournal.
Et tu? Ahhhhh, the irony.
KFG
It disgusts me how little sense of real community /. folks have. CmdrTaco has been a major force in keeping this place together for years, and you constantly make use of the fruits of his labor. Now he wants to let off a little steam and all you can do is insult and yell at him? What's most interesting is that at least one of these posts are telling him he has no right to bitch, then in the same paragraph complaining about the quality of slashdot itself.
The "abuse of power" charge doesn't hold well, either. He's not asking for any action to be taken. We have plenty of basically editorial articles posted here every day, and many are much more trivial, biased, and/or political. If you can't stand it, maybe you should take your time and energy somewhere else instead of telling him what he can and can't post here.
It'll be a sad day when CmdrTaco is a celebrity name.
"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." -- George Orwell
Please keep the petty bitching confined to livejournal.
Isn't that exactly what Slashdot is? A blog site. Run by a guy called Taco and his friends. Albeit very popular, sold to a larger corporation and run as a business.
Is it his fault he came up with the idea and coded his own system long before Live Journal took off, copied the concept and then gave it to the masses? Does that suddenly invalidate his use of his own site for the purpose he came up with first?
I think we get proprietary about Slashdot. Because it's such a great service, we spend so much time with it, we forget it's someone else's and start to see it as our own. Thus, much like someone coming in and bitching all over our own blog, we take it personally. But, we forget, we're in his house. If we don't like it, we're welcome to leave. Hell, he even shares his code so we can make our own. But, no, we'd rather bitch about his use of his own site.
when did slashdot start having legitimate articles?
Note that in the U.S. Navy, the actual rank and name tends to be "Seaman".
Which, of course, never leads to embarassing and uncomfortable remarks.
Slashdot used to run quite a few opinion and rant pieces written by the editors. Probably the most well-known of these is JonKatz's "Voices from the Hellmouth" series of essays on his thoughts on the whole high school shooting thing of the late 1990s.
Yeah, this hasn't happened on Slashdot in quite a while, but honestly, I'm glad to see it happen again, and I hope that this means it will happen more in the future.
Of course, I think the reason why it ended in the first place is that the comments section for every single opnion piece that Slashdot ran was filled to the brim with slashbots' knee-jerk rants and flaming of whichever editor wrote the article, to the point that the opinion pieces brought Slashdot comments sections to a new low in that absolutely no intelligent discourse would happen whatsoever.
Given that your flame of CmdrTaco hit "+5, Insightful" so quickly, I have a feeling that things haven't changed much since the first time the slashbot crowd killed opinion pieces on Slashdot. So yean, even if I want them back, I admit they probably shouldn't come back.
Everyone, take a second to look past that the submitter is Taco...
This article fits the requirement to be on slashdot even had it not happened to Taco.
1.) It is about technology
2.) It fits into the Games category
3.) It is a legitimate technology concern as to what you can and cannot do on someone elses network
"The Editor I talked to had a nickname of something like 'CmdrTaco'. I found this disconcerting. If you were arrested by Officer ScuttleMonkey or found guilty by the honorable Judge CowboyNeal, it's hard to take that seriously."
/. staff go about their business in exactly the same fashion that the WoW staff do. Feels different when it's someone else with the pseudonym, eh?
I find it hard to take Taco's complaints seriously when he and the rest of the
With few exceptions, I've been "Short Circuit" or "shortcircuit" or some variations thereof since the mid 80s, when I could first pick up a CB mic, and when I first logged into a dial-up BBS. Almost 20 years, and I'm only 22.
I like my name. It's been my identity. It's simultaneously an indicator of my taste in movies and what I do for hobbies. People still see me in public places and shout, "Hey, Short, how's it going?"
And I still get irritated whenever someone registers my name on an IRC network, or on a free email server, or whatever. I still get hung up when trying to log into a friend's machine where he had to truncate my username because it caused formatting issues with tabstops in the config files.
There's a lot in a name. Especially when you've spent years with it, not constantly nym-shifting whenever your inbox got filled with spam.
tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
I played Everquest for almost four years heavily. I really liked it, but I hated the GM's. Everyone I spoke to in the game had some crap thing happen to them because of a GM. Name change. Disconnect because you said "ass" in /ooc. There's nothing you can do about it.
They're not cheap either. Shit, you can get basic cable for almost the same money as some of these online games per month, and if you have a problem with your reception a cable guy comes to your house! In an MMORPG, you can't even get a name of a supervisor, let alone any actual help.
The customer service in online games is positioned in a way that the customer is always lying, cheating, and trying to pull a fast one. It's not true. The vast majority of players just want to play the game and have fun doing it, and the customer service people should be happy to make their customers happy.
So, I'm glad to see a gripe like this on a busy site like Slashdot. Maybe with more pressure from the actual players of the game, they'll start to pay attention.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
We actually have a well written faq entry that tries to address that very thing. Just because I'm pro linux doesn't mean that I'm against something proprietary. I love video games. I love movies. I love music. I have no problem paying for things that I enjoy. I can still believe that freedom of speech is important. I can still believe that open source is better than closed source. I see no hypocrisy in this. I'm quite pragmatic- especially about closed source and video games. For gameplay reasons, you need to obscure implementation details of some types of games.
Pants are still optional, but recommended for you.
You express your anger with abuse of arbitrary power in a virtual realm by abusing your own arbitrary power, in your own personal virtual realm?
/., you deserve to use it to opine on topics. It's his work capital, if you will. Those complaining about abuse of power are just jealous of that power. And based on my short time (har har) on /. (look at my number) I'd say he rarely uses that capital so he has a lot saved up.
I am disappointed in you. Please keep the petty bitching confined to livejournal.
Wait - so he has spent time, probably a bit(or a lot) of his own money to build this site initially, and this is an abuse of power? That's bullshit. Mod me down if you must - I will not stand behind the cloak of anonymity to voice my disapproval of this rediculous statement. I won't even use my KB.
If you build a site from the ground like
Personally this reminded me of years gone by when Slashdot had more CmdrTaco in it. I didn't think it was petty; you said clearly that you weren't mad at Blizzard, you were just writing a short essay on attachment to online identities. I enjoyed it. Keep up the good work.
My troll is called "Slashdot" and I have had a couple of comments so far. But not from GMs as far as I know.
Slashdot is his journal.
:p
True that. This is one of my favorite entries.
We recently had heard in the office over one of the Yellow Machine that's made by Anthology Solutions.
Plus, it isn't like he does this ALL the time.
so I think I'll give him a pass on the occasional rant.
Not that Blizzard would ever be so smart as to apologize or anything. I wonder if they care? (not)
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Thanks for saying it! Slashdot has always been my soapbox. It was my soapbox before any of you read it. And it still is. I just choose not to use it as often today as I did 8 years ago. But I felt that this was important enough to talk about.
Pants are still optional, but recommended for you.
This is no different than Dvorak bitching about Photoshop, or MOG bitching about PJ, or PJ bitching about anyone she perceives as anti-FOSS. Taco has a platform, he'll use it to talk about whatever he wants to talk about, and you're free to stop listening if you want to. Furthermore, you didn't NEED to read the editorial, did you? It was perfectly obvious what he was going to say from the convenient summary on the front page.
If you're playing WoW, you deserve everything you get.
This has also been a rule in EverQuest for a very, very long time.
In response to Taco's claim that "Cmdr" is not one of the PvP ranks, I would just mention that "Commander" is, in fact, such a rank - it's the third highest rank, and the server I play on only has five of them at the moment.
In other words, whine more, noob.
I'd write more, but I'm fairly busy these days. And honestly it's hard for me to write unless I feel something personally. I don't want to just phone it in.
Pants are still optional, but recommended for you.
. . . But wait, is 'Cowboy' considered a title? Because if Blizzard made CowboyNeal change his name, that would be something to get upset over.
I've noticed most of the people complaining in this forum about this editorial are those with higher uid numbers. Now, I'm sure many of them will claim they used to have really low numbers but "forgot their passwords" so they had to create a new account, but we all know that's bogus.
Taco has the right to post whatever articles he wants here. This one does bring up some interesting points for discussion, albeit points that have already been talked to death in other forums. However, he could have posted a long diatribe about the way the bagger at the grocery store put his canned peaches on top of his eggs in the same bag, and that would have also been a valid submission. If he replaced every article with that sort of thing, it would obviously change the whole character of Slashdot, but he (and his corporate parents) can go that direction if they so choose.
I also remember the JonKatz articles, and while Katz was a pompous blowhard who loved to hear himself type, it was a valiant effort at creating original content for Slashdot. It seems the editors have largely given up on that concept, probably due mostly to the slashbot issue you mentioned.
Oh, and don't listen to anyone who compares WoW's GMs with Slashdot's moderation system. Tell me, does WoW have meta-GMs??? If one GM slaps you down, can two more GMs bring you back up? Slashdot is really the only discussion site on the web worth looking at, despite the occasional misspelling or duplicate post, and it is all due to your moderation system.
Party on!
-Brian
But when I was asked in Dark Age to rename my Infiltrator ("Sofonda Cox"), my Cabalist ("Flaymin Nainus"), my Cleric ("Dawn Keebawlz"), and my Minstrel ("Grabbin Mcgroyn"), I wasn't really that put out. I drew the line when my Mercenary, "Meatmissile," was told that his name was inappropriate. That's when I bailed. I've since learned my lesson and my WoW Shaman is called "Jamin," which is actually just part of my real name ("Benjamin"). I only know one person in WoW whose name was changed, and it was done after he omgwtfpwned the hell out of Alliance in AB for a month and people got sick of it and reported him. His name was "Boodah" which was too close to "Buddha," a deity/religious figure, and thus a rule violation. He changed his name to "Dahboo" which I thought was rather clever.
"I have never won a debate with an ignorant person." -Ali ibn Abi Talib
http://www.blizzard.com/support/wowgm/?id=agm01723 p#titles
Titles
Fantasy titles should be earned through the mechanics of the game, and should not be recreated through character naming. This category includes names which:
* Consist of any title prefix attached to a character's name be it fantasy-based or not (i.e. Kingmike, Presidentsanchez)
If a player is found to have such a name for their character he/she may:
* Be prompted to select a new name for the character upon next login
pooptruck
To be fair I'm not exactly sure how long it took. 10 minutes maybe? The GM apparently had to talk to his supervisor before telling me it was the prefix that was the problem. I type pretty fast, so it might have been 8-10 lines of me asking various questions, it might have been like 25. I also explained to the GM that I was a journalist, and i would like to write a story about attachment to on-line identity, and asking to get contact information with someone with some authority so I could get some quotes or feedback for this article. I don't know if he wasn't taking me seriously, or if he thought I was just trying to threaten him. None of that was my intent, but as everyone who communicates via a chat system knows, subtleties of communication are often lost when translated to line-by-line text ;)
Pants are still optional, but recommended for you.
You mean you were able to talk to him? I can't ever get into his office, except when he's out.
When a name is all you know. I've got two perspectives on this. First, I a have had the same email address cross domain since my first in 1991. I Passed up on some services because my email name was not available and I was offered those annoying 'number+name' combinations. I value that name as a way for people to know I am me. As it stands now, I try to use Monkeyboy4 as my email name was a fairly common combination.
Second, I do research on virtual groups and social identity. Our names matter when we interact fora long time online. A name represents a person exclusively online. Even pictures are minimal in effect compared to names, because the name occrs every time you interact with the person. Psych research in onthis question is showing the importance of our online names both to us as individuals and to the smooth running of social structures.
Finally, to all those crapping on CmdrTaco for postin this, leave the discusion. If you don't think it is worth discussing, then DON'T. If you have aposition within the discussion that disagrees with his stance, byu all means chime in. But to dicuss about whether the post is worthy of being in discussion is ironic and a waste of time.
How did I feel when the clerk at the airline check-in desk told me that I was on the "no fly" list? He then corrected himself and said someone with my _name_ was on the "no fly' list.
You have been using your online name for ten years. I have been using "Daniel P. Smith" for, uh, my whole life.
The airline ticket clerk takes my driver's license away from me, along with the driver's licenses of my wife, son, and daughter-in law, and he and another airline ticket clerk took them to some inner sanctum and did something mysterious, and after about five minutes came back and said we could be issued boarding passes.
On contacting the TSA I'm told that I can submit a form called a PVIF along with notarized copies of three forms of identification (driver's license, birth certificate, passport, etc.). This will accomplish... well, it's not exactly clear what it will accomplish. "Please understand that the TSA clearance process will not remove a name from the Watch Lists."
So what does it do? "Instead this process distinguishes passengers from persons who are in fact on the Watch Lists by placing their names and identifying information in a cleared portion of the Lists."
And what does THAT do? Well, here's what it doesn't do: "Clearance by TSA may not eliminate the need to go to the ticket counter in order to check-in. While TSA cannot ensure that this procedure will relieve all delays, we hope it will facilitate a more efficient check-in process for you."
You're upset because some online game doesn't like the name you've chosen for yourself? Please.
_I'm_ upset because my government doesn't like the name I was born with. And, yes, I'm upset because I can see the look in the clerk's eyes... and in the eyes of the notary at my local bank stamping the notarized copies (yes, of course I caved... what do you think I am, someone with principles?)... thinking "Well, he's probably OK but, gee, he's on the TSA's list..."
I think I'm going to get a court order to change my surname to Cmdrtaco. Hopefully there aren't too many people on the no-fly list named Daniel P. Cmrdtaco.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
To be fair, my main currently is a Horde Mage and azjol-nerub. I'd actually agree with your point about alliance- there are many similiarities between horde and alliance (each side thinks the other is unbalanced) but the alliance seems to feel it stronger.
Pants are still optional, but recommended for you.
ThePlayerFormerlyKnownAsCmdrTaco
I know someone who contemplated joining the Navy, but decided against it because he couldn't bear being addressed as "Seaman Sample".
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Sadly this comes as no surprise to me. Due to a bug I was kicked from the server (while my net connection was fine), on immediately reconnecting I found my my WoW character lost tens of thousands of XP (de levelled!), lost gold and had the quests I'd done still marked as completed (so I couldn't repeat them to get back the XP).
I very politely contacted support 4 times over next week and a bit about this issue, including contacting GM's in game and via the site, pointing to there AUP/EULA agreement which explicitly says they will try to reinstate character data, items and gold in such an event (which was clearly due to a software fault) [ unless, it states, the rollback was part of a forced server roll back, which it was not. ].
Eventually, each time the GM responded with a poorly written reply which made no sense (as if he didn't speak English particularly well and / or hadn't read my ticket at all) saying they 'Don't reinstate characters when there has been a server roll back'. Though I got no response back from interim support query I had made via the web site. I indicated they hadn't done a server roll back at all of course, but they kept replying with the same old canned response.
Faced with the choice of grinding mobs for XP to re-level, re-rolling or quitting, I quit.
Bizzard, like SOE, employ some (not all, I'm sure) very poor quality support staff and GM's, that act seemingly randomly (enforcing rules on a whim, merrily ignoring some blatant abuse - even if it's reported multiple times by different players) and abuse customers in a way that, if they behaved like that in any other industry they'd be fined by watchdogs and/or have legal action taken against them by consumers and consumer groups.
Some of the customers are rude, abusive punk kids I'm sure (and I have very little sympathy for them should they get kicked off - which sadly they rarely seem to) but if you treat customers like scum by default, they will abandon you for the competition the first chance they get.
You'd think, given what we've seen happen to SOE, Blizzard would have noticed that (and how much gamers distrust and dislike SOE - the antics of some of the support staff there are legendary, with repeated tales of abuse by GM's and players calling for them to be sacked following repeated abuse).
You'd think, at the very least, they could employ support staff who can actually read and write English.
Of course the network performance (particularly for some of the servers, the ones in a separate data server in Paris) really, really sucks here in Europe - after ~6 months away I just rejoined so I could play with people I knew recently as that's what every one is playing and it's poor for everyone on our server (to the extent you just can't play sometimes - not helped by the fact that if it goes south on Friday afternoon, you're screwed till Monday morning). That's assuming you can log in (not due to server queues - due to the unreliable login system we seem to have).
I'm sure if the Penny Arcade or GU guys had a problem like this on the US servers there would be a huge stink about it, but the media don't cover it and we don't really have any gaming community representatives of our own to draw attention to it.
Ah, so he descends the throne to post among the proletariat. ;)
;)" In the case of "CmdrTaco", yeah, it's pretty much spelled out right there, and even though your online identity in general revolves around using that name, once you get into the game, that identity has to fit through the "Carry-On Baggage Size Checker of Justice". The GMs should try to help you maintain that identity while conforming to the rules (suggesting "Taco" as an alternative, for example, assuming you're not on a RP server), but they can't treat you any differently than anyone else whose name they've changed.
;)
I will say, though.... Back in the day, I was a senior guide in EverQuest. One of the things that senior guides did was enforce the naming policy. Mostly this consisted of changing obvious troll names containing misspelled profanity or an off-color reference. But it also included rules such as "no title prefixes" (this was long before EQ added AA and tradeskill titles, way back in 1999) and "no non-fantasy names". And yes, there were times that I changed character names despite the pleadings of their owners and their friends. Made me feel like a turd doing it, too. These characters had gotten well into the 30s or 40s (50 was the limit at the time) with no problem, and in a way, their being able to get to that point without having a GM or SG talk to them was almost tacit acceptance of their name - and by that point it had in some fashion become their identity.
However, I am lawful neutral at heart, and when a name fairly obviously violated a rule, I had no qualms about changing it - in many cases where the violation was obvious (even if it wasn't vulgar), the person would laugh and say, "You finally got me.
Of course, you probably already know all this, but I think it's important to drive home the point that the society of World of Warcraft or any other MMOG isn't the same as society IRL. There are different rules in this society that go right down to the essence of one's identity. But they're there at the outset, and the decision is ultimately up to the player as to whether they want to participate in a society where the rules might not grant them the freedom to choose or make use of a particular online identity.
On a side note, I don't know why you would want to name a character "CmdrTaco" anyway. Seems like an invitation for constant spam tells to me
Well, I did post it using the 'Editorial' topic icon, which I thought might subtly imply that I was editorializing ;)
Pants are still optional, but recommended for you.
Problem #2: These games require naming policies of some kind that are non trivial to automate. Since they are non-trivial to automate, there will always be people who slip through. Even if you have a human monitoring each new name (Everquest used to do this), Borisyeltsin may slip through because the human monitoring name approval that day happened to not known who Boris Yeltsin is.
In this specific case the core issue wasn't that CmdrTaco was not a valid name, or even that it was changed, it's that it was changed at level 45, after 100s of hours were invested in the character. This makes the impact of #1 very real.
In WOW name petitioning is basically a form of griefing. There is no review process for names. I've seen people who have petitioned and spoken with GMs (who obviously saw their names) and then weeks later their names were changed because someone petitioned them, their name was reviewed, and then changed. All name petitions come from players essentially. Why did the other 10,000 people who saw Taco before not petition? Probably because they weren't jackasses, and the guy who petitioned was.
I don't have a perfect solution but it seems like the best one is a combination solution:
The grandfather-clause policy would apply to a player's name after some period of time (say 48 hours of play time and one week of real time have passed). It would basically say, by this point a number of humans have seen you and have not complained about your name. Your name was reviewed by customer service. At this point while we can still change your name, we recognize the social impact, and as thus will be more lax in applying the policy.
---
I support spreading santorum
CdmrTaco
If read it quickly it'll pass and most everyone who knows you will recognize it.
There is nothing so silly as other peoples traditions, and nothing so sacred as our own.
Subtlety? You must be new here...
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
As Violated, nobody ever will recognize me for my day job. But that's really not what bugs me. I was really attached to my name. This character bounded through Azgalor slaying monsters and meeting new people. Now that character is erased and another character stands in its place. Same armor. Same class. But different somehow.
A hard pit began to form in the depth of my soul, and I began to realize that my life as I knew it was gone. I had been cut off from everyone who knew me, from who I was. I was faceless, nameless, alone in the world. Now I would wander the shadows of the worlds, a piercing invisible wind, striking terror in the hearts of the GMs. Not just for me but for all who are Violated.
Just a quick side note, I think if you and the other editors participated more in the discussion, you would receive less criticism and seem more "part of the crowd" rather than above and beyond as some posters like to make you seem. It would be good to see someone such as yourself bicker back and forth with someone on the merits of say running a large clustered site or if a game is worth playing. Flame on! :-) Excellent essay by the way, its important that issues like these are verbalized so innocent gamers can see the problem is on a larger scale than just them being personally targeted and unable to do anything about it. Regardless of what others are posting, I think this was a responsible use of your position and abilities (the site is after all *yours*).
Regards,
Steve
You occasionally hear ingame about someone well respected selling their account. Their gameplay changes, but their avatar/gear/chat stays the same. I imagine it to be very awkward. There are a dozen players I look for, that i want to party with. Who are good players, and fun to hang out with in a virtual world. To suddenly find yourself playing with someone that looks the same but acts different is something totally new. Something that happens virtually but not IRL. It's a new issue in a virtual world.
Pants are still optional, but recommended for you.
Don't think that the irony of all this is lost on me either- I've said many times that over/underrated mods on Slashdot are problematic. We're definitely removing them when we rewrite the system. And we've talked a lot about some sort of feedback system so moderators and meta moderators can figure out a way to explain their actions. My problem with that is that I don't want the thing to degrade into namecalling. I don't have time to meta moderate the comment on a meta moderation ;)
Pants are still optional, but recommended for you.
Yeah well, since I didn't have an article to ignore, I just figured I'd skip the story instead. This is /., right?!
"You know you don't act like a scientist, you're more like a game show host." Dana Barret
The real CmdrTaco will never find out; it's been years since he last read Slashdot.
Long ago I was 'bitch-slapped'. What did I do? I down-modded one comment, apparently the wrong one. For this crime all of my karma (which was significant at the time) was removed. Apparently the guy I downmodded was some buddy of the slashdot inner circle (if I remember correctly, the notorious Signal 11). I was not aware that one could be 'bitch-slapped' for downmodding a single comment.
I received no explanation and my karma was never restored. I tried to explain that even if my single moderation was incorrect (which is arguable), my overall pattern of moderation was consistent and sound (in fact I rarely downmod, then or now). My arguments fell on deaf ears.
Keep whining Malda. I hope they ignore you.
I considered moderating you down as flamebait for cussing... but you actually express my opinion pretty accurately here. Slashdot is not a normal news site. Never has been. And if it ever has to be one, thats probably when I quit and move on and flip burgers somewhere.
Pants are still optional, but recommended for you.
Slashdot stopped being Taco's personal blog when VA Software bought it and employed him. Oh, and let's not forget the advertisements, slashvertisements and the subscription sales. This makes slashdot a BUSINESS VENTURE (granted a very poorly-run one, if VA's stock is any indication (it's lower in value than SCO's!)), and somebody's personal blog no longer. To paraphrase a previous poster: FoxNews may be Rupert Murdoch's property, but does that make it alright for him to have his "i didnt read the speed limit sign, how dare they give me a speeding ticket" story read as headline news by the anchors? Taco's bad experience belongs on his journal, because that's what the journals are for. He's abusing his ability as a site editor to put this on the front page.
This would be relevant to gaming if it were a well thought out article about online identity, instead of somebody whinging that they had to change their name in WoW because they didn't take the time to read the rules of the game. I've seen Taco point others to Slashdot's years out of date FAQ, so now I'll take the time to point him to one: Part 3, Section A, Subsection 13 (naming conventions) AND I QUOTE (though the emphasis is mine alone):
Now, if you're going to join a service that you must pay a monthly fee to use, that you're going to put in all sorts of time over, then don't you think it would behoove one to read the fucking rules of the service? it's pretty clear that Taco was breaking the rules, so what exactly does he expect to happen? Does he expect to get an exception just because he's That Guy Who Makes Slashdot Run? If it took him "dozens of inquiries to get that explained" then he needs to learn to read the rules of the game before he plays. I don't play Wow, and it took me about 10 seconds to find the relevant rules page and its section regarding names. It's really not that hard.
This is a non-story, the only reason it's on the front page is because of Taco's abuse of power. To be fair, at least it's something fresh and recent instead of the usual "news items" (or duplicate posts) that showed up on the BoingBoing RSS feed weeks ago...
Disgruntled-looking plainclothes GM, his hair ragged, storms into the office of the Blizzard CEO.
"Sir!" he pants, "We've got a problem on US Nathrezim. A bug is preventing an alliance guild from running Molten Core! They've got 40 living, breathing people with families and jobs who've set aside an entire day to get leet loot, and they've been bamboozled!"
"Great scot!" cries the CEO. "Did you reset their raid IDs? Talk to the server admins? The programmers? Metzen?"
"No sir! According to the GM Code, Article 3, Section 6, I am not allowed to do anything useful whatsoever, anything which may be construed as a favor, renumeration, or a meaningful and intelligent action!"
"You snivling little shit! Do you know what this means? I'm going to be up all night making phone calls to those people, apologizing and begging their forgiveness. These wounds don't just heal by themselves. We've gotta do something now, before this situation gets out of control."
"But sir! The code!"
"Damn the code! You mention that pile of marketing bullshit to me one more time and I'll have you flaggelating yourself with a rusty scourge til next month -"
"- I thought that was just a rumor -"
"- with no overtime pay! Now, go down there and grab the lead programmer by the scruff of his neck and tell him he's got to fix this pronto. In the mean time, get your ass out to GM Isle and start farming epics for these guys. Anything they want. [Perdition's Blade] or [Eschander's Right Claw]. Hell, give the main tank the full Wrath set. You don't go home until they have everything they want."
"Sir! Yes, sir!"
"And if I ever hear some shit on the slashdot forums about you not responding like a human being again, I'll bust your ass down to QA monkey for Ghost so fast your thumbs will fall off! In fact, you should consider every day I don't an example of my generousity and mercy. Aren't I generous and merciful?"
"Sir! Extremely, sir!"
"Now, get moving, GM!"
I find it disturbing how many people just say, "who cares", "shut up", "this isn't the right place for this", "stop whinning/bellyaching" etc.
First, stop whinning about Rob whinning. It's hyppocrittical and innaccurate. If you want to take issue with a point of view in the article, fine, but the one line bashing is immature, and a waste of time. You're not contributing anything, you're just flaming.
Second, this article nicely falls into the "News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters" category. I'm a nerd, this matters to me, so it's fine. If it doesn't matter to you, move along. There are planty of articles that don't interest me here, so I don't read them.
Third, it's an opinion piece, which I think is admerably objective. It might be a little preachy, and yes, even a little whinney, but it's heart felt. Why should that be a bad thing. There's no "call to arms to take down Blizzard", there's only a feeling of unfairness, with a realization that Slashdot has the potential for the same abuse and missgivings. There's a moral, or a lesson if you will.
Finally, this is Rob's place! HIS creation, brainchild, work, hobby, etc! Why would he not have a right to throw in something slightly personal now and then? Yes Slashdot would be nothing without the community, but the reverse is also true. And it's not like Rob writes these articles every day. So even if this were the fluff piece some of you seem to think it is, I think it's ok if he writes one every couple years.
The main point of the article, is that people with the power/ability to affect people they'll never see, should think before they act, and be accountable for said actions, and that Rob has a new appreciation for what this means in regards to him. And as a side note, he's upset he lost his name in WoW. Perhapse those of you who were so quick to object to the article, without stating anything meaningful, should take that thought to heart and put more thought into your posts from now on.
--Not to be worried, Pitr fix.
I've used my family's "nickname" -- rather than a long cumbersome Southern three-part name with a Roman numeral trailing it -- since about age five. Nothing in the world except my Social Security card and birth certificate had the long form.
Until this year when the PeopleSoft company took over my employer's staff database, and had to change everyone's name on record (they say because it has to match the Social Security database).
So Blue Cross simply terminated the health record file (close to three decades worth of records) attached to the name I've been using, discarded it, and created a new file under the Social Security file name -- with of course the same SSI number.
So they bounced a bunch of medical bills reporting "that subscriber terminated his health care coverage." Although they claim they do use the SSI as their internal identifier so they shouldn't have thrown the files away. And they told my medical practitioner's office to discard the old files as well -- and they did, the pea-brains -- and opened new empty files for the new SSI-official name Congress now insists I use.
Keep your own medical history as I have done -- else I'd have no health records.
You worry about an online game? Trying to get your life back after your identity is stolen by your government. Or maybe it's not the government, but PeopleSoft claims that's the reason they did it. Or maybe it's Blue Cross, but they blame PeopleSoft.
It's happened to other people I know too -- blindsided them as well when their files went away.
War of Worldcraft, I think this is.
What Taco says:
What Blizzard hears:
BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH I don't think I'll quit WoW over this BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH
The other problem with the editor participation is that some percentage of people don't like "Authority". Why should my opinion be more valued just because I picked the story? I already said my bit by selecting the story in the first place- beyond that, I'd rather let the community voice their opinions.
Pants are still optional, but recommended for you.
>> but as everyone who communicates via a chat system knows, subtleties of communication are often lost when translated to line-by-line text
Right. That must be the reason why human interactions, relationships, and perhaps even the entire scope of civilization could never advance until emoticons were invented.
-dZ.
Carol vs. Ghost
I've been playing mmorpgs since the beginning of UO. I'm sorry to say that I've found Blizzard's overall ability to respond to player concerns effectively inexistant in general
The only feedback mechanisms is the forums, which are unreliable, unsearchable, and lose their history due to posts mysteriously disapearing after a while with no evidence of their existence ever. I can see every post I've ever made to Slashdot over the years, but I can't see posts I made to the Blizzard forums just a few months ago. It's simply just appalling that with the resources their customer base affords them they can't put toghether a decent bulletin board system.
More importantly, however, I can't begin to count the number times I've seen posts with a lot of effort put into them and huge feedback from the player base not even get a single reply from an rep. there. After a while, when people don't get a personal response from their feedback, they stop making it. What's keeping the wave of feedback happening right now is the huge base of players who have yet to really experience the mediocrity of the wow player forums. Simply put, in my book Blizzard gets abysmal marks for community interaction.
World of Warcraft remains a fun game to play. However, in my opinion, without significant community improvements Blizzard stands to lose out massively to the next wow that comes out.
Do not spread "09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0" over the internet, thank you.
As more M3, thats just to crazy ;)
Pants are still optional, but recommended for you.
CmdrTaco, you can't take what you dish out? I've submitted articles in the past that have been rejected and then when I write to Rob, he says that his policy is to not discuss why articles are rejected. Well, that's VERY helpful. Think about your own processes before your condemn others.
Since Bliz made him change his nick he wanted to make damn sure that everyone on his server knew his new name was VIOLATED.
Now he can continue to reap the in-game fruits of his fame. ;-)
Hear hear. As an old-timer I must say I miss this part of slashdot. This site used to be, in part, a vehicle for smart, engaged, motivated and with-it individuals to comment on how their lives, as technology enthusiasts, are affected by their use of technology. This is an outstanding article in that tradition.
Write on, Rob. Write more.
Paul
The real Paul Vallee is slashdot userid 2192, and, what do you mean it's not cool to point out your low userid?
I wanted to reply with just an emoticon, but I got my own damn lameness filter ;)
Pants are still optional, but recommended for you.
I considered moderating you down as flamebait for cussing.
You must be new here. You cannot post in the same discussion you are commenting in.
"My friend quit EQ that day." Sounds like your friend grew just a little bit that day.
Wanted: Clever sig, top $ paid, all offers considered.
All these games WoW, Eq, etc. Could outsource the name validation system to a third party who would allow people to register specific usernames across all such (participating) games. Ask people to pay US$1/month (US$12/year) to maintain a username, password protected, on all participating systems. That way, people who *really* want their names get them. Any violations (copywright, foul language, famous people) would be dealt with by this 3rd party - at the time of creation of the name. Perhaps it takes two weeks, or whatever, to reserve the name - and maybe there is some kind of setup fee I don't know - but once you have it, they stand by it. Appeal to them. If they reject your name, you pay nothing. If you don't want to pay for a reserved name, you deal with (a) your name not available, (b) your name accepted then rejected later - but you pay nothing (extra) and it's handeled by blizard/SOE/whomever.
a war on terrorism? How can we end a war on a method?
Yeah, that's a bum deal, alright. I've seen it with WoW before, and it certainly does suck.
But, aside from WoW, the idea of keeping ones virtual identity is very personal. I've been 'Lionman' for 18 years, but even in the worthwhile places we want to go, to take our virtual identity, we have to compromise, and use something different.
I think when we do that, find that someone else has taken our name on a system, what shocks us most, is that the name we've used for years, turns out to be a name someone else has choosen to represent themselves with, and makes us a little less unique. There's someone else out there who could be mistaken for us.
I've had friends ask me if various websites were mine, because they appeared to sport my virtual name. They weren't me, of course.
Most of it comes down to, IMHO, that we find we're not unique, that someone else has the same idea we had, or worse, saw ours and stole it. It's the slings and arrows of wanting to be someone that stands apart in the vast world that is cyberspace today.
Awk! Pieces of eight. Pieces of eight. Pieces of seven... ERROR: General Protection Fault. [Paroty Error.]
I've been using my gorbachev nickname for over 15 years now. First used it in an online multiplayer realtime war strategy game specifically cause I knew it'd piss off the people I wanted to piss off. No matter how overboard I went with my soviet alter ego, no matter how self deprecating satire I would write, people still believed I was a communist outside of my alter ego. They flamed me for it, they hated me for it, and I laughed.
I don't know what I should've felt about the Emails I got from people after Raisa Gorbachev passed away 1999. I received about a dozen or so Emails from people sending me condolences on her passing. I did feel flattered one of them said I'm the greatest person alive. Come to think of it, it's like The Greatest President. Evar.
Halo 2 is an interesting experience with my gamertag. Every 10 games or so I get the 15-year old redneck from Nuclear Shelter Bunker Town, Bumfuck, who thinks he's going to insult me by calling me a commie bastard bitch homo f***. They also like to kill me a lot, like in "I'm going to come and kill you, commie bastard" not like in "I'ma pwn you n00b".
In Soviet Russia, I ruled you
Nobody ever thinks that *they* need to be held accountable for how their actions affect others. It's always *other people*, people with "real power", who need to be challengeable or redressable.
Accountability is an inconvenience, and a threat to the target's power. Few people *want* to be accountable; it means that you can be penalized for doing something wrong, and people always do wrong things, so its inevitable that accountability will lead to penalty of some sort (however minor); the fear is that an irrationally vigorous redressing will over-penalize you (and this does happen).
The point is... Everyone says that those with power need to be accountable for it, except when it comes to the power *they themselves* hold. GMs aren't powerful -- not *really* powerful -- so they don't see any need to be accountable. Of course, they *do* have *some* power, but it's never "enough" to require accountability. (I'm using GM here as a relevant example, but it's hardly the only valid one -- insert the term of the agent of power you most love to hate here -- site admins, police, CSRs, etc.)
There's an annoying norm of disproportionate contraries, particularly in the online world. A GM making a bad, misapplied, or abused decision on another player will retort to complaints with "it's only game"; in the grander scheme of things (and there is *always* a grander scheme of things, in everything, which most people forget when they apply this adage) it "doesn't really matter". Well, if the actions of a GM aren't such a big deal, then accountability of the GM shouldn't be a big deal, either. But clearly, it *is* such a big deal, to the GM. The use of their power is not important -- but the fear over the questioning of that use *is*.
There's always a touchy-feely reason not to challenge the admins, either. They're volunteers, or they work really hard, or they are really good people, or they "could have done worse". All of these are provided as reasons why the individual should not be able to challenge the people who exert power over them. What this implies, of course, is that being a volunteer, or working hard, or being lenient (while still being wrong) all become licenses to abuse or misapply power.
I guess I can't entirely blame the unfortunate empowered individuals for treating accountability as a personal insult or unfair restriction on them; they for whatever reason don't recognize that they have power and that any power should come with appropriately proportional checks on it. Of course, the people above them, both within the paradigm and within society, are always looking to avoid accountability as well. Sometimes the people succeed in compelling accountability upon them; but sometimes they don't. And rarely does it work in your favor to wilfully invite accountability. You have to do it due to principle and selfless benevolence, not entitlement and self-aggrandizement.
What really is disappointing is that even intelligent geeks can't be expected to believe in the universal application of principles like accountability of power. They're just as susceptible to the allure of power, however minor, as the common masses. So much for geeks inheriting the earth.
Terrorists can attack freedom, but only Congress can destroy it.
If only to get parent modded up, yaknow, 'cause parent, you really should be, but I suppose many people might just go "bah, no link? That's no use" and just walk away, but a quick google search confirms that this little script rather directly takes on the problem CmdrTaco was noting with people not knowing who one is . . . so, here's the script for prefixing comments in WoW so people know what character you're an alt of; technically not the situation here, but obviously the solution would work exactly the same.
In other words, mod parent up. I mean, he may be wrong about Curse Gaming being down, but anyone reading parent and feeling like getting the mod will find it pretty much immediately through all-knowing (oh, if only that were true, one wouldn't even have to type the search parameters!) google, so again I reiterate, mod parent up!
I remember sigs. Oh, a simpler time!
Don't make me stop the car, kids.
Mind the Gap
Second, some things are old. Know how many times I deleted 'funny' posts submitted with Bill Gates' mugshot? Probably at least two-thousand.
Third, some things are boring. I don't mean that they're obscure or uninteresting, I mean that they are boring in the sense that they aren't interesting or fun to talk about or discuss. There's not a whole lot to talk about when the subject is something like, 'Gosh, Microsoft Outlook really blows, and a study says so.' While it may create a lot of funny schadenfreude, it's pretty obvious to a whole lot of people. The people that it's not obvious to probably aren't reading Slashdot anyway.
Fourth, you might have a history of being a pain in the ass, and I might have rejected your story because you called me a jerk one time on IRC.
There are a lot of other reasons, but the primary reasons that people complain about getting stories rejected are usually untrue. There were conspiracy theories all over the place that somehow we were gaining financially through the spread of Linux (ha!), through adoption of perl over python, pretty much everything including phase of the moon. Totally unfounded. See points 1-4 above.
I would venture to guess that the reason Rob doesn't discuss why stories are rejected is because it's more than just him. I got very little top-down direction when it came to picking stories from Slashdot from Rob or Jeff. Rob and Jeff are totally different people, I'm very different than CowboyNeal and Jamie, and anyone who knows my politics knows that I am very different than Pudge (though Pudge and I seem to get along fine).
I think Rob's not trying to be secretive or coy, he's just being aware that there are more people behind Slashdot than just himself. Do you really think Rob wants to be in the position of having to chase down Slashdot authors every single time someone wants to know why their story was rejected? He'd have to send an E-mail, ask why, get a response, and then reply to the submitter. Also, he might have to do this two-hundred times a day. Not fun, and totally fruitless.
Anyway, there you go. Hope this helps, etc.
Emmett
It's just like the DMV, getting a passport, credit reports, 401k rollovers and traffic tickets. You're not special. Figure it out and take responsibility for the consequences of your actions. This is what it means to participate in an egalitarian community and belongs to the real-life world. This aspect of the game is not the "fun" part.
Now, for the real issue at hand: I think you've run into a dichotomy between your desire for an on-line identity and the WoW game concept. You want an ID which represents a general, online persona, WoW wants its participants to immerse themselves in their fantasy narrative. You want to express an externally consistent individualism at the price of breaking the game metaphor.
You can probably appreciate how I may be glad WoW made you change your name, and impatient with your pleading with them to tolerate it. WoW is an escapist construction. I play expecting to get away (at least as much as I can) from Chr1st_LUVZ_U and N8_IZ_GR8. I see some dude running around named Taco, a "Cmdr" no less, and I am suddenly in some stupid chat room all over again.
As a thought experiment, consider going to see a production of Othello. Halfway through some dude runs on the stage shouting "I am SlackArtist!!!" and runs off. I'm not saying that WoW is the same, but it is: a) something I pay for, b) escapist, c) depending for its effect on the suspension of disbelief, and d) an artistic expression.
One possible compromise may be for WoW to have an interface option which hides the names which violate the policy. This way, you can be CmdrTaco, but I don't have to look at you or know you're there. This would mean Bliz implementing another poster's suggestion: a database of violating names. Already, though, this technical solution is kinda creepy and suggests to me that if it's necessary, then maybe WoW isn't the place for you to blow off steam.
:P