Is Anonymity Really Necessary?

I'm not saying that they don't have the right. I'm saying it's extreme. But it's necessary because of the way Second Life has been designed.

If we all have our own sims then we'll be able to prevent the people we dislike from entering. We shouldn't have to be running to Linden Lab telling tales. We shouldn't need to be banning people from Second Life because they happen to like shooting people with their pop gun. The banning should be done only at a sim level.

I don't have problems with the obvious griefers. The worst griefers are the next door neighbours that build monstrous fluorescent houses. Unfortunately we can't abuse report people for having bad taste!.

Wow, what a funny thread.

Just a fast question:

If our illustrious leaders had never instituted open registration, thus providing complete anonymity for all, would this thread have had to be so ridiculously long?

Linden Lab (Research, whatever) has my RL information on file as a premium account holder. They have my name, address and credit card information. I am therefore completely accountable for my actions here insofar as violating any TOS, CS, or randomly handed out notecards of Policy change might be concerned.

I actually DID join a world where RL identities were required four years ago. (In fact, my very first account in Oct of 2003 I had to let get canceled because I wasnt able to access the world very well from my dial-up at home, and I wasn't allowed to keep the account for longer then a week or so without paying for the service by providing credit card information.) I thought at that time that it was a damn fine idea because I was most interested in a world where I didnt have to wonder if I was interacting with or talking to some 12 year old about things one ought not to talk to a 12 year old about.

I didn't need my RL name floating over my head, because my profile says "Payment Info on File" which to me means, "the company I am doing business with is aware of my identity". Do I know teenagers can still steal their mommy's credit card out of mommy's wallet to create an account... yes, I do, but that's on mommy and not me.

Prior to Open Registration, this thread would have been a mute point. Who the hell cares what your real name is anyway?

I am NOT anonymous to Linden Lab.

That Linden Lab now has several million accounts that ARE anonymous is completely their own fault.

Good point Pie,

we never would have had this discussion prior to Open Registration.

And I don't think I ever heard anyone back then actually advocate people having to make their RL accessible to other Residents.

Good points indeed.

Is anybody really advocating that though? I may have missed a few posts in this thread, but it sounds like everyone pretty universally agrees that private information should only be required to be shared with Linden Lab, not other residents.

I think some of the confusion comes in because we've been freely interchanging the words Anonymity and Privacy in this thread - and they're really two seperate concepts.

The only reasonable exception I can think of, is perhaps two residents entering into some sort of contractual or financial arrangement with one another. But even then, its not a requirement but a choice to be made.

*nods* Yes, they are two very separate concepts. Anonymity is what you'd have on say, 4chan or other places, where registration is not required in order to visit. But private would mean you'd register and the only information about you that goes beyond the company is what you choose to give to others. For me, a simple 'verified,' and 'not verified' would be perfectly fine in the profiles. I don't CARE where my fellow residents live and what they do for an RL living. None of my business.

Your last point would be exactly why Linden Labs does not get involved with user/user disputes. They cannot give out personal information from one user to another.. only to the appropriate authorities if need be.

Reread the very first post.

Both Cocoa and I (as well as others) took it to mean the OP advocated exactly that,

and his later posts didn't seem to disagree.


Cocoa is a writer, and I used to be employed in that capacity as well.

I think its a reasonable interpretation of his post. So yes, I think some are advocating it. I definitely do know that some want it for businesses.

I just re-read the OP, and sifted through his other posts in this thread. I don't think he advocated that at all. In fact, his original post closed with:



In his later posts, the only advocating I'm seeing is of the Devil's Advocate flavor.

Also - there's a huge difference between sharing Private information with Linden, and sharing Private information with other residents. The OP didn't make that distinction either, and left us to assume and debate. What's worse - instead of using the word "Privacy", he used "Anonymity" - which sent us down a tangent that probably contributed to the high post count of this thread

To clarify my own personal opinion:

Residents should have every right to *Privacy*. This means that they should not be compelled to provide private RL information to other residents unless they choose to do so. Its this idea I'm not seeing anyone disagree with in this thread.

Residents should have no right to *Anonymity* - This means that they should be compelled to provide *Linden Labs* with some sort of private information that identifies them in RL. Agreed that the particulars of what that information should be, and how its collected - is up for debate.

Free Accounts have nothing to do with Privacy and everything to do with Anonymity.

For people who mention stalkers...
Emm.. do you honestly think it's "more likely" that you'll meet stalkers in a virtual world than the real world??

i mean. Waitresses in RL... give out at least their first name. You give your first name to sales people at stores... you physically hand over your credit card to strangers at stores and restaurants daily...

At most RL casual meetings you give out your first name... or even often.. first and last.

i don't get why people are "more paranoid" online. It tends to lead me to believe some people are very naive about the actual genuinely "bigger" dangers in RL.

((this comes from a person who was stalked by someone she met online. And i mean RL stalked.. this person found my RL house... came to it... and used to leave creepy things in my driveway.. in RL... and in my mailbox and i had to go to the police over it ~~ but even after that... i still recognize the chance of being 'stalked' or 'hunted down and killed' by some psycho is far more apt to happen by me meeting some psycho at a grocery store.. or at the mall.. or... at my hair dressers... than online))

Beyond the implied tone of the post -

He doesn't say a virtual environment that demands Real Life identities to JOIN
He says demands they be USED.

This is quite a difference.

Does anyone have an unverified account?

Is it true they do not ask your RL name at all?


I thought they did, thus coloring how I read the post as well perhaps.

Since I "knew" no one signs up without at least claiming to be so and so Real Life person, then the Original post had to be about using the name in world was my view.

Additionally, everyone reading this has given payment information, thus if the OP is as Travis (and others) interpret, its a rather dumb question to ask, since everyone reading this DID provide their Real Life information to Linden Labs.

I just tested, and they do ask your RL name, right after you choose your base avatar.

Therefore if the OP is aware of this ...

Then this thread is either about using your RL name in world somehow.

Or its about requiring some sort of verification.

Of those two it sure sounded to me that it was the former.

That's getting into pretty extreme nuanced territory. If the OP was a seasoned debater around here, I'd probably hold them accountable for specific words too.

But most folks post pretty casually. I'm not sure that he put as much thought into the specific words he used as you are. Then again, we're both making assumptions about a post that was pretty vague in the first place. The only one who can truly settle the intended meaning is the OP

Don't get me wrong - overall, I'm not disagreeing with the points you & others are making. It just seems like the 'opponent' we're debating against is a phantom one. What has me a little uncomfortable, is how the issue of anonymity is getting swept up along with issues over Privacy, which are two completely seperate issues that I dont have the same opinion on.

Yeah I see your point and all.

But its a dumb question to ask a people who are payment info on file if they would join a world where they had to provide their personal information to Linden labs.

I wonder what percentage of active accounts have payment info on file. It's sure to be a minority I'd think.

Yes Im sure it is.

But not a minority of people here.


----------------

If that was the OP's point -

Its like going to a rock concert and asking

"Hey how many people like rock music?"

Any question that inspires 23 pages of intelligent, civil, and on-topic posts I consider a pretty good question

I would guess a fair number of people lied about their names on some no -payment-on- file accounts because there seemed to be some concern over that when verification was being discussed.

The name I signed up for Okiphia Rayna with is different from both the credit card info name, and the age verification info name. Hmmmm....

I can say with 100% certainty that the individual who created the account "ClapOnClapOffThe Clapper" did not use his RL name or info when creating that account

Good. Let them have fun somewhere else.

If someone can't play by the rules, they might get ejected from the game. Seems reasonable to me.

coco

I do and no they don't.

They DO now require a screen name, and that is a heck of a lot more than they required at first, and I was quite scornful of that at the time, considering practically everything else in the world requires a screen name.

As to the original poster:

"Would you join a virtual environment which demanded RL identities to be used?"

Although, with a stretch (and a lot of generosity, since the same post mentioned people being "desperate" for anonymity), one MIGHT read that as "required to be divulged to the owners."

But if so, it would more likely be worded something like: "Would you join a virtual environment that required you to give them your real name in order to sign up?"

Well, that isn't very grammatical, but you get what I mean.

In which case, we wouldn't be talking about anonymity on the game, and practically everybody would say sure, I'd give them my real name. (And I believe everyone posting on these forums already has, right? Doesn't everyone posting here have to be payment-verified or something?)

The OP said would you join one that demands your real life identities be used.

I think that is pretty clear.

I don't use my real-life identity. If I had to, I'd quit.

Moreover, there is a sort of movement afoot among some - and I really can't fathom why - that we should all always be required to identify ourselves to all other players, residents, or participants in a virtual space.

coco

Edit: Just noticed Colette already pointed out that everyone who posts here has already given LL their names.

Also - I don't recall having to give my real name when I created my alts, but I could be wrong.

This is not so good... here in italy we have a really fast optical fiber internet provider who hide an entire street under a single ip address by masquerading us... if you ip-ban me and half of a city with me, this would not be really good...

(the same problem we had on IRC...)

I only be interested if business had to share their real life information with their customers.
The thing is most places that are using credit cards do have our real life personal information of their consumers but not usually the other way around for business on the internet.
There are ways for internet business to hide or put out fake identity of who runs their business on the internet..

All you would have to do is go through a proxy and you would get right around any IP ban LL put into effect. That's why IP banning is worthless. You either cut out a whole block of people who are innocent or you just make a griefer go through one extra step to get back online.

There are hardware bans, which would be more expensive to get around, but I don't know how they work. I think services like Punkbuster use them when they ban cheaters from online games. Steam uses a hardware ban system too, I think. Somehow it recognizes your computer equipment. That's the extent of my knowledge of those.

When I was an admin at another site, we tried everything we could think of to ban people who deserved it. Anyone who was really determined could get through if they wanted.