Can we ask for more privacy features in forums to feel more secure?

Community General Discussion
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Ongoing trend in forums: People check players’ profiles, armory and link other characters before “validating” a player’s opinion. If these players do not meet their requirements, they start ridiculing people, trashing topics, and derailing them without fear for any consequences.

The purpose of discussion in forums is to exchange ideas, share experiences and engage in meaningful conversations. Unfortunately, some players misuse these forums by trolling, posting nonsense gifs, mass flagging and derailing topics into 404.

It’s disheartening when discussions devolve into chaos due to such behavior. Ideally, discussions should foster understanding, encourage diverse viewpoints and lead to constructive outcomes.

Here are my suggestions:

  1. Partly “anonymous” posting or hide my name function.

The absence of an option to post anonymously can be frustrating for users. Anonymity allows people to express themselves freely without fear of judgment or retaliation. It can also protect vulnerable individuals who might hesitate to share personal experiences and thoughts openly. Implementing a partly anonymous posting feature could encourage more genuine participation and reduce the impact of trolls.

Hide my name function which was already implemented by Blizzard in Overwatch2 as streamers feature, could take place in World of Warcraft forums as well.

Randomly generated character names or race-specific aliases would provide a layer of privacy. Players could express themselves freely without fear of judgment or retaliation.
Names could be randomly generated and relfect your characters race specific in-game names or just your race and class. For e.g. if such feature would be implemented, i would be -Night Elf Hunter- not Nelfas.

  1. Fully hide your armory

Having the ability to fully hide one’s armory from repeat stalkers would enhance user privacy and security. Armory information reveals a player’s gear, achievements, playstyle etc. While some players appreciate the transparency, others may prefer to keep certain details PRIVATE. Implementing an option to fully hide the armory from the public would empower players to control their own information and stop stalking.

Currently, players can make their forum profiles private by navigating to their profile preferences and choosing to hide their public profile and presence features. However, the character page itself cannot be hidden and third party sites using battle pet slots to link players alts.

Those two suggestions would greatly enhance privacy and security and that would make me and many other players more secure and happy.

Thoughts?

Thank You. :four_leaf_clover:

I am deeply thankful and grateful that this topic is allowed to by created and discussed again, Vrakthris. :four_leaf_clover:

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i would agree with this suggestion, implementing features that enhance a user’s privacy would help make people feel comfortable enough to freely engage in conversation which would result in much more productive dialogues.

i support this 100% :slight_smile:

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You still already have this by creating a lvl 10 character.

Trolls. Not users.

All this is covered through forum alts.

all covered through you hiding on a forum alt

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The question I am asking, is why you think you need to be anonymous when posting on the forums? Are you so worried of what you are saying is gonna cause blowback and follow you ingame?

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Anonymous posting is a terrible idea that will open the flood gates up for trolls and harassers who feel they can say whatever they want under the blanket of “freedom of speech” without any consequence.

You do not own your character, your armory or your profile. It’s not private information, it’s owned by blizzard. You are already anonymous by posting on a made up fantasy character that doesn’t exist in reality.

If you want to be anonymous that badly, just go to reddit or 4chan. See how long you last before you’re being harassed or abused there because I promise you, it won’t take long, especially with how you act.

In the world of anonymous posting, you can tell someone to end their life, tell them they don’t deserve to live and threaten them to your heart’s content without getting in trouble for it.

And before you go and say, “just report and move on,” the mods are underpaid and overworked. They can’t read every single post, every single flag and things WILL fly under the radar. I’ve seen it happen several times.

Your private information is not at stake because your character is not private information.

The fact that you keep repeating the same nonsense over and over is just sad and I have no idea why it’s allowed to continue. Especially when you have such terrible takes as “being told to off yourself is an opinion and you’re rude to block them.”

I’ve seen the dark side of anonymous posting. I’ve dealt with it for many years and I know friends who are still dealing with it now. People feel empowered to say whatever they want behind an anonymous account. It’s a breeding ground for toxicity and negativity.

You’ve been shown proof several times, but you called me a liar, saying I photoshopped the images. Even when someone who’s job it is to work with photoshop inspected the image and said it wasn’t photoshopped, you still said it was fake.

You seem to have this weird delusion that everyone wants to stalk you and actively does so just by looking at your armory which, shocker, is NOT private information nor is it hidden. It’s easily accessible because it’s PUBLIC information, not private. The same goes for your posting history.

If you can’t handle people seeing what you post, don’t post.

Anonymous posting is DANGEROUS and the cons far outweigh the pros. There have been studies done that SHOWS how toxic people become when they are fully anonymous.

Instead, you should consider what you say to people and not be rude and call everyone who disagrees a liar, harasser or stalker. If you’re willing to go this far now, I would HATE to see how far you take it when you’re fully anonymous.

Battle tags are 100000% needed because they are just a username. It’s not personal information unless you used your real name which is on you. It can be changed anyway, so problem solved.

You keep making these threads saying anonymous posting will make you feel safe, yet you don’t seem to feel too unsafe given the fact that you’ve made MULTIPLE threads on this topic and you’re constantly repeating the same stuff over and over without providing any evidence as to WHY anonymous posting is beneficial.

It is clear you don’t care about this issue, you just want to troll and cause drama which, honestly, has worked.

However, I care deeply about this subject because I’ve been told to off myself many times in the past through anonymous posting. They weren’t held accountable, they didn’t get in trouble, and I couldn’t block them. And you know what? I almost listened because I was in a dark place back then.

Thankfully, I didn’t go through with it, but others may not be so lucky. So I will continue to fight for them by arguing AGAINST anonymous posting, to protect people who are vulnerable and can’t protect themselves.

Vongola#1794 wants battle tags for the WoW forums, just like every other blizzard forum.

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i disagree with battletags.

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People will do that regardless.

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I don’t care what many people say on these forums when they instantly start ridiculing me or my ideas. I really don’t care. I can immediately tell they’re looking to boost ego from the shadows which is actually weak minded. My favorites are people with a gang of forum trolls/bots who mark a topic or comment and it’s hidden from the public. As they did with this topic.

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you look awfully familiar.

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Be advised that it is actionable to make claims that so and so is someones alt.

Just don’t read click on the threads you don’t want to read, but if you do then just don’t read them, and if you do accidentally read them then don’t comment on them.

On this forum this isn’t true at all. Why do you keep making up stuff that doesn’t have anything to do with this forum? Saying something like this would result in an account action here.

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Continuing the discussion from Can we have more privacy in forums to feel more safe?:

the moderator said nelfas can make another thread on this topic.

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If you have to go anonymous to say something then you probably shouldn’t be saying it. Also says a lot about the type of person you are.

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Let me start by this:

Point #1:

You do not start a thread with this. The entire purpose of the forums is to have discussions. If you feel that someone is trolling the forums, or you feel that someone is violating the Forum Code of Conduct, you should report it. Including something like this is more than likely is going to cause unrest on the forums, and is going to get the thread locked.

Point #2:

You do not include the part of accusing people of being “stalkers” when looking at someone’s armories. People who tend to look at someones armories usually looks for all different reasons, some for transmog ideas, some to have a look at the cool mounts you may have collected, etc.

These sort of things are not productive, and will lead to arguments.

These sort of things in ways to open up a thread is going to cause a lot of back-and-forths within the community, and by doing this, you’re just making it hard on moderation to deal with the forums.

As Vrak has said to you specifically:

Some things you do not start opening a thread with, especially the starting of the name calling and accusations. These sort of things are not productive to the forums, and will cause more drama, and will get your threads locked/deleted.

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here to always add daily support for implementing more features to enhance privacy here on the forums :slight_smile:

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never said they couldnt
But if you look above this post you’ll see someone literally doing what that mod said NOT to do in those notes.
(edit…unless they literally just edited lol)

So this ISNT going to go any better than the last thread.

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if someone is posting something that the moderator said we shouldn’t do, just ignore it and report it.

then we can have a civil discussion regarding this topic.

OP is not breaking any rules whatsoever here

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We rarely agree but on this we do.

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Be advised that the moderator in the other thread has already made it clear that making claims of peoples alts is actionable. So, you might want to stop this practice unless you want a vacation.

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Where are my stalker’s? I know I run my mouth all the time, and yet no one has messaged me in game. I even posted my Battlenet ID in previous threads.

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  • but any such call outs, accusations of trolling, sock-puppeting,
  • Accusations of Trolling
  • X is Y’s alt
  • Accusing each other of reporting posts, mass reporting, false reporting,
  • who may be alts or switching characters to report or otherwise sock-puppet

When someone is asking to be more safe in here, they HAVE TO STATE WHY they dont feel safe.
That leaves them HAVING to discuss the above to explain WHY they want more security measures.
All of those are now under threat of being actioned according to the notes as a whole.

Additional penalties possible, but I’d rather not.

edit…and this affects BOTH sides of this because BOTH sides have something they do/accuse on that list.