The World of Warcraft Forums should use BattleTags as well

[Arfbishop-moon-guard]

@Wreckingbull-wyrmrest-accord

This is my main chuckles.

No, it is not.

https://worldofwarcraft.com/en-GB/character/us/blackwater-raiders/ravenhawk

https://worldofwarcraft.blizzard.com/en-gb/character/us/blackwater-raiders/stormfury

[Yzermañ-proudmoore]

@Bravik-argent-dawn

Which is why many in this thread have thanked them, and others like them, for their ongoing support. There are so many examples of why a change is needed in this thread alone, thanks to that group of posters.

Unlike the group of posters erroneously accusing someone of switching to alts because they can’t argue their points?

[Nui-ursin]

I think it’s hilarious too.

So much salt.

[Ayukama-frostmourne]

@Nui-ursin

So much salt.

Salt is a way of life

[Kalcifur-eldrethalas (Kalcifur)]

Show no respect and get none in return. The common denominator in all of Your social interactions is You.

[Norinila-moon-guard]

here once again in support of btags on the wow forums
/end the insanity now plz

[Adilith-barthilas]

@Kiper-sentinels

I’ve never seen this person.

probably because he’s always silenced

Bumping for btags

[Ayukama-frostmourne]

BTag Party

Saracalia#1520

Lets party for BTags.

[Perl-anetheron (Perl)]

@Arfbishop-moon-guard

No, it is not.

Prove it’s not their main account. You implied that people were not using their main accounts, not that they didn’t have alts that they’ve also posted on.

Wreckingbull is a regular over in the CS forums too. They have no reason to lie and are very forthcoming when switching from one posting character to another. But since that wasn’t the accusation that you originally made, your comment, “No, it is not.” is entirely wrong, and you even proved yourself wrong, so thanks for that

Not that I’m surprised. You’re simply trying to derail the thread with made-up “proof”.

Once again, Arf providing more support for b-tags Much appreciated!

[Chickasha-sisters-of-elune]

Afternoon support for battletags and worgen tails.

[Ayukama-frostmourne]

Morning support for BTags, and I’m heading to bed

[Jalanili-moon-guard]

@Perl-anetheron

Once again, Arf providing more support for b-tags

And is also showing how easy it is to find people’s alts through CheckPVP even without Btags, so having Btags in posts is even less of a big scary deal.

I will say, though, people are getting a little out there with the accusing people of being alts. It’s reaaaallly pretty easy to verify, most of the time. As long as you have two retail characters to compare, pet collections will out retail alts in all cases except in the rare instances when someone has multiple Bnets, and you lose out on so much by not having the same one that it’s not common.

[Katarose-saurfang]

so you tie people up in the real world if they have had enough of you? Thats basically what you are saying. If people want to get away you will actively detain them and refuse to “let them go”? Basically you are advocating for the electronic version of false inprisonment. It doesnt matter in the slightest what you feel. If someone doesnt want to deal with you they have absolutely every single right to make that so.

Its a bit hard to take what you type on these forums any other way. Its not something that one can “read between the lines on” as others have said in this thread. Its text on a screen and what you typed there reads exactly as - you feel that you should be entitled to force others to have you in their presence all the time without pause and without any escape or relief and its an affront to you personally if others want anything otherwise.

@Yzermañ-proudmoore

We’ve already had this discussion a few days ago lol. The Mods have all the tools necessary to do exactly what you say Btags will allow them to do. There is no gain for mods. As far as community members - there’s a rule almost as old as the internet: “Don’t feed the trolls!” Y’all claim ignore is ineffective - yet sit here and go back and forth with people supposedly on your ignore list. Or you jump into topics created by a level 55 classic DK spamming them to show their main.

I dont really do those things, but last year when there was half a dozen or more daily “T squad” threads up (or even a month or so ago when a person posting from an alt they willingly declared was “just for forums” just after 5pm knowing that the moderation team had signed off for the night) It was evident that the moderation itself was not up to the task. It doesnt matter how many people were “feeding” because the trolls and garbage posters werent content just making a thread, they were making tons of them.

They were dominating the top of the forums with junk and there was no stopping them because they’d bin the alts and create new ones for the next day. Moderation was swamped and the rest of us just had to deal with waves of rubbish sitting at the top of the forums and it went on for months.

@Yzermañ-proudmoore

If you just reported troll posts, ignored them, and moved on.

basically see what i just said, and what others have said countless times over the past months. How does one ignore a user who deletes the allied race alt they used for that last spam thread only to create a new one and put up another spam thread 5 minutes later? Without a means to stop THE WHOLE ACCOUNT from being visible it just means the rest of us have to block block block block block block block block block block block block block block block block block block block block block block block block block block block block block block untill whatever limit is hit, meanwhile theres NO limit on create/delete of allied race alts. So they have the power, the rest of us just have to spend our lives “dealing” with them? Thats not a good system.

Besides once i report a post, who is going to come in and “moderate” it once the forum team has gone home for the day?

@Yzermañ-proudmoore

But hey, I’m just a level 40 priest. What do I know?

your dude arf called me a forum alt, yet i havent called you anything. You going to get all in on his case or its fine for “your side” to name call but anything from the other is end of the world stuff?

[Cdog-stormrage]

@Ayukama-frostmourne

I think it is about time Blizzard introduces BattleTags for the WoW Forums. Honestly, the current list of problems with the forums are the reasoning to why the forums need BattleTags.

So now instead of making throw away characters for the forums people will just make throw away bnet accounts lol.

[Dojacàt-moon-guard]

@Ayukama-frostmourne

I think it is about time Blizzard introduces BattleTags for the WoW Forums. Honestly, the current list of problems with the forums are the reasoning to why the forums need BattleTags.

So what are BTags?
A BattleTag™ is a player-chosen nickname that identifies your Battle.net account in our games, websites, community forums, and more. Only one BattleTag can be associated with a Battle.net account.

BattleTags do not need to be unique. You can use any name you want, as long as it follows our Naming Policy. Each BattleTag is assigned a numeric ID to create a unique identifier (for example, FallenSlayer#3592).

Source

Why does the forum need BTags?
As mentioned earlier, there is so many problems with the current system that well, enables trolling and harassment within the community. Take for example:

• People can continue to switch between alts to mass like there own or someones post over and over, or mass flag the same post over and over.
• People can switch alts to bypass the forum ignore.
• People can switch between alts to troll the forums to act like multiple different people.
• People can switch between alts to even name and impersonate as someone.

These are just a few examples, but these are what does tend to happen on the forums. Understandably though, these do break the Code of Conduct and not everything can just be “reported”, although Blizzard moderation does tend to pick up on somethings that players can’t.

Where with BTags, it stops from switching between alts do stuff like:

• Bypassing the forum ignore of another user
• Stops from mass liking or mass flagging the same post.
• Limits people from trolling (If they are being ignored, there is less bites for them, which might decrease it over time.)
• Can even stop people from impersonating others.

For full details on what is wrong and what BTags will solve, here is a list from Mirasol.

@Mirasol-mannoroth

• Trust level, post history, post count, likes/flags, are all tied to the forum account which is currently charname-server. Every time someone transfers or has a name change, it wipes their forum account to the start. Any new char they use, starts at zero. That gets a fair amount of tickets/complaints to CS.
• Treating char-server as forum accounts means Ignore is only for that one char instead of all the chars on that Bnet account. It means people can, and do, make more chars to evade ignores and keep bothering individuals.
• Char-server allows people to add you in-game without your permission, message you, find where you are, mail you, etc. Even see if you get a name change. Btags don’t. They keep anyone from talking to you without you giving them permission to add you as a friend.
• Using multiple characters to abuse the reporting system. Each char has a set of flags, so when someone runs out on one char, they use the other chars to report the same person. Yes, it is against the forum rules and some people do get suspended, but it makes more work for the mods and they don’t catch it all. One Bnet with one set of flags greatly reduces false flagging. Same with a more minor issue of “fake likes”, although that is not really damaging.
• Last, sock puppets and people switching chars to just make trolling threads. Those do cause a lot of disruption and extra mod work. It costs Blizz money to clean it up and it can interfere with attempts at honest discourse.

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So, basically, the idea is to allow people to still post from there characters, but have the total post count, the likes, flags, and every other forum feature bound to the Battle.NET account. Something like similar to this image

https://i.imgur.com/M0EWbuh.png

So basically, some fun threads like “Rate the Transmog” still can exist, but it can eliminate somethings which are easily abused and takes a while to be dealt with.

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Blizzard tried this before, it didn’t work within the community.
Blizzard tried this with RealID, and the community backlashed against this. If anyone doesn’t know what RealID is, I recommend reading this Blizzard artical.

https://us.battle.net/support/en/article/23686

Enabling BTags on the forums will increase harassment and stalking.
Technically, this is entirely false. In order to send a message first through the BattleTag, you must actually be friends with them, and it is easier to decline a friends request than counting to 10. And you can not actually stalk anyone at all with BTags. Let me put it this way, lets say I was in Stormwind, people on my friends list, will see the server I’m on, the character, and Stormwind. That is it. You can be anywhere in the world, inside a Bank in Stormwind, it will still say Stormwind. Plus, with the system today, You’d highly unlikely will bump into a friend or someone you know in the world, not unless your in the same shard as them or in a party.

If you want to see where BTags doesn’t increase or enable harassment and stalking, just look at the other Blizzard forums. They all use BattleTags.

What if people set there real names to there BTag?
Honestly, this should’ve been the first thing people should’ve thought off before chosing there BattleTag. It isn’t recommended to set your real name to your BTag. But the solution is simple. Just offer people another free BTag change if they don’t want to pay the $10 AUD for the BTag change.

People will just send random BattleTags request from the forums…
Maybe, maybe not. I can’t not say for the behaviour of individuals. However, if you don’t like BTag request, Baridorielor created this thread with a nice guide on how to avoid unwanted BNet request.

Okay, so i was writing down this huge thread here about pro-btags, going over the reasons why it’s good, the counter arguments for the anti-btag arguments, and then go on to help users on how to avoid unwanted Bnet requests, since it’s pretty easy to do. But i figured (i still have the original stuff saved so, if needed, i got it) helping people out would be more beneficial for everybody involved instead. Not just for everybody, but for me to archive here and use in the future. And let’s face i…

i ain’t reading all that.

i’m happy for you though.

or sorry that happened.

[Cäpslöck-proudmoore]

@Cdog-stormrage

So now instead of making throw away characters for the forums people will just make throw away bnet accounts

Which cost $15, instead of being free.

[Jalanili-moon-guard]

@Cdog-stormrage

So now instead of making throw away characters for the forums people will just make throw away bnet accounts

Considering that you need to have an active subscription to post to the WoW forums and at least one character at level 10 (aside from the Customer Support forum) that’s a pricey and time-consuming need to troll.

[Wreckingbull-wyrmrest-accord]

Oh noez… he found some of my old toonz. What should I do?

[Cdog-stormrage]

@Jalanili-moon-guard

Considering that you need to have an active subscription to post to the WoW forums and at least one character at level 10 (aside from the Customer Support forum) that’s a pricey

Not when you consider people make new wow accounts and pay for two for the recruit a friend rewards, id say the vast majority do that via actually bringing new people to the game. So to be fair that’s already happening

[Adilith-barthilas]

@Cdog-stormrage

So now instead of making throw away characters for the forums people will just make throw away bnet accounts lol.

Win-win for blizzard. Said account need to subscribe to post in the forum. So how many people can actually afford making more than 1 account just to troll. That’s $15 each time out of pocket