If this is really their best idea to reduce trolls/morons posting on the forums, they're not trying hard enough.

For one thing, I know some employers are prejudiced against gaming. Being that these people may take a few seconds to google my name, having my real name associated with a gaming forum is not something I'd want. 

Some degree of privacy should be expected from websites and forums. Yes, any moderator here can determine what city I actually live in, my ISP, etc. But average users don't know my name or where I live and I'd like to keep it that way. Having gamer identities revealed could lead to more incidents like this, being that it would be easier to link gamers to who they really are.

Video games are way too personal for some people. Think of some of the morons who use services like Xbox Live and PSN and take gaming way too seriously. Would you want them to have your real name, and be able to look up your phone number or address if they wanted to? Or how about girls who game and would have to contend with stalkers?

Ridiculous idea. People shouldn't have to compromise their privacy because of a troll problem. Fix it through proper moderation, it's not like they can't afford it.

I'm done posting on that site...this is a completely stupid move, and they are probably going to change it.

They've seen sense and canned it- http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/th...68987278&sid=1

I was gonna update it , thanks.

Hopefully people defended it see sense now XD

I wonder if this helped at all- http://asnowstormbyanyothername.blogspot.com/

Considering no one has really put forth any great points against it I would say that is unlikely.

The internet is becoming retarded, I miss the early days.

I've never registered under my real name for anything that doesn't involve direct finances (e.g. paypal) or physical delivery of items (ebay, other online orders etc), with the only exception of registering domains and I've always picked the privacy option even when it cost extra.

Eh? Are you seriously still saying that potentially having your privacy compromised is a good idea because it would improve a frigging game forum? Even the people who proposed it have turned against the idea.

Apart from what I've already mentioned, I have read enough stories about some chans and other internet sites finding out the identities of certain people online and collectively making their lives a living hell for one reason or another. Quite often these groups are able to find out real identities from information given out by that particular user. But forcing people to divulge first and last name for a purpose as trivial as posting on an internet gaming forum is simply a terrible idea, and could make it easier to harass people in real life.

Here is a recent example that I found pretty disgusting: http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/ba5t0/iama_person_who_has_been_badly_harassed_by_4chan/

worth looking at as well is how much information one blogger dug up on a number of Blizzard employees with only a first and last name: http://asnowstormbyanyothername.blogspot.com/