The Ultimate Troll Debate Guide

(Disclaimer: The following post is...oh, forget it. I've got nothing to apologize for. Enjoy!)


Teacher: What is a Troll?

Student #1: (Raising hand) A Troll is a mythological creature, believed to live in mountains, caves, or rocks. They are big, ugly, and stupid, and believed to turn to stone from contact with direct sunlight. Trolls can be man eaters, but they will usually go for any sort of meat, including Dwarf & Hobbit meat (the best way to cook them, however, is still up for debate).

Student #2: Pfft, student #1 is a real kiss-butt lol!

Student #3: As student #2 nicely describes, a Troll, sometimes known as an Internet Troll, is somebody who makes inflammatory comments on internet discussion forums, chat rooms or blogs. The primary goal of the Internet Troll is to provoke an emotional response from other readers.

Student #2: LOL noob #1, you just got pwnd!

Teacher: Thank you class, very well put #3. #1, you are correct also, but that is not the kind of troll we will be discussing today. I would like to take the opportunity to teach you, class, how to best formulate the most effective and logical responses to a Troll in an attempt to once and for all win the debate against them.

Student #2: This is so gay!

Teacher: On that note, shall we begin?

I. IDENTIFICATION & NOTIFICATION

a. The first step in the process is to identify a Troll. Currently, WoW allows users to /Ignore people for whatever reason they choose. Another player could be an ex-girlfriend, a bookie always asking you when you are going to pay him back, your 6th grade teacher (eew!), or in some cases Trolls, whose posts in trade chat are abhorrent to the point that you refuse to read the refuse the Troll is spewing. What we’re going to implement is another list, in addition to Friends and Ignore, it will be a Troll list.

b. A Troll List will help you separate people into categories, you know, just like segregation used to do. The point that 20% of the accounts on any given realm have placed any toon of another, singular account on their Troll list, that account, including all his/her toons, will be branded with a huge Scarlet T – for Troll. When they post in any in-game chat (trade, party, raid, etc) their name and post will appear in bright Scarlet. In this manner, any consistent trolls can be easily identified, no matter which toon they play on because it will be able to distinguish the originating account.

II. INFORMATION OVERLOAD
a. Branding a Troll is the first and most important step into effectively debating them. The second step is to gather information on the Troll. Starting with Enhanced RealID. Anyone branded with a Scarlet T will be required to purchase the Enhanced RealID tool in order to continue playing on an active account.

i. NOTE: Here we must note that Trolls are infamous for getting around silly things like “paid accounts”, so Blizzard has created the best authentication tool to date to cope with this issue. The Cyborg Genesis project was launched in the year 2007, unknown to the public. It’s goal, to infiltrate a person’s home with nanobots capable of infecting any human in the world who plays a Blizzard game with an electronic tracer. This tracer activates when the person speaks into a microphone or types on a computer. Any where in the world a Troll can attempt to login, under any free trial account, and he will be recognized. The nanobots will only be activated when a player is branded as a Troll. Thus solving the issue of Trolls using other people’s accounts or switching accounts or using free trial accounts to harass the playing public. This project, now unveiled, will allow us to further our discussion on the Enhanced RealID.

b. Enhanced RealID gathers all personal information on the Troll. Name, age, home and cell phone, address, height, weight, hair color, eye color, personality traits, family members and all their personal info, credit card information, social security # info, education, etc, etc, etc. All this information will be viewable to those who have placed this Troll on their Troll list. Knowledge is Power. And handed the keys to the knowledge of the personal information of the Troll, you are now in a far more powerful position to debate with Trolls than ever before.

III. THE SECRET POLICE
a. One of the great inventions of our age was the implementation by many governments of secret police, perfected by the Soviet Union in the 1970’s and 80’s. Now out of a job, former members of the secret police are available to you, the WoW player, at no cost except your soul. These secret police men and women (because women can be evil too) will be sent to the home of the Troll and can engage in a myriad of activities per your orders. See the following list:

i. Kidnapping
ii. Blackmail
iii. Torture
iv. Impersonating your favorite federal agency (IRS, SEC, Homeland Security, etc)
v. Brainwashing
vi. Singing show tunes on the front lawn of the Troll night and day
vii. Repossessing of home or vehicle
viii. Infiltrating the Trolls place of work, becoming their boss, firing them then black-balling the Troll in his/her community to deny them further employment opportunities
ix. Blogging (which falls under torture and brainwashing)

b. These secret police will do what Blizzard has never done, punish those guilty of Trolling. Just don’t ask them about their specific tactics, it’s a legal thing.

IV. ENTER THE DEBATE
a. By following the above steps, you have now placed yourself in a powerful position to debate the trolls in your chosen chat channel. You will see guaranteed results in the form of…no more Trolling, Trolling with apologies attached, Trolling with unfinished sentences (See Secret Police), and Trolling with beautiful, poetic language that fills your heart with such joy that you take that branded Troll off your Troll list.

b. You have now guaranteed yourself a victory over all Trolls. If you find that your success is accompanied by a never-ending guilt for having ruined the personal lives of one or dozens of otherwise innocent people, just remember that you are having more fun than you ever were before, and all that water-boarding was TOTALLY WORTH IT!

Friday Frivolity Indeed!...No Real ID on Forums!

In a shocking move just a short time ago, Mike Morhaime, co-founder and CEO of Blizzard has announced that we won't have to use our real names to post on the forums.

"...real names will not be required for posting on official forums."

Full text here:

Mike Morhaime
Hello everyone, I'd like to take some time to speak with all of you regarding our desire to make the Blizzard forums a better place for players to discuss our games. We've been constantly monitoring the feedback you've given us, as well as internally discussing your concerns about the use of real names on our forums. As a result of those discussions, we've decided at this time that real names will not be required for posting on official Blizzard forums. It's important to note that we still remain committed to improving our forums. Our efforts are driven 100% by the desire to find ways to make our community areas more welcoming for players and encourage more constructive conversations about our games. We will still move forward with new forum features such as conversation threading, the ability to rate posts up or down, improved search functionality, and more. However, when we launch the new StarCraft II forums that include these new features, you will be posting by your StarCraft II Battle.net character name + character code, not your real name. The upgraded World of Warcraft forums with these new features will launch close to the release of Cataclysm, and also will not require your real name. I want to make sure it's clear that our plans for the forums are completely separate from our plans for the optional in-game Real ID system now live with World of Warcraft and launching soon with StarCraft II. We believe that the powerful communications functionality enabled by Real ID, such as cross-game and cross-realm chat, make Battle.net a great place for players to stay connected to real-life friends and family while playing Blizzard games. And of course, you'll still be able to keep your relationships at the anonymous, character level if you so choose when you communicate with other players in game. Over time, we will continue to evolve Real ID on Battle.net to add new and exciting functionality within our games for players who decide to use the feature. In closing, I want to point out that our connection with our community has always been and will always be extremely important to us. We strongly believe that Every Voice Matters, ( http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/company/about/mission.html ) and we feel fortunate to have a community that cares so passionately about our games. We will always appreciate the feedback and support of our players, which has been a key to Blizzard's success from the beginning.

Mike Morhaime
CEO & Cofounder
Blizzard Entertainment

I, for one, am jumping for joy! My weekend is wonderful and it hasn't even started yet. Over 60,000 dissenting opinions, press coverage from the BBC and Washington Post, the vocal "minority" as some believe (because barely anyone uses the forums, eh) has spoken up and our voices heard.

Whew! I guess I'll be able to return my rocket launchers and F-16's to the air force base this afternoon. A big fight on Blizzard's doorstep won't be required.

Don't think that I or every other concerned wow player won't be watching Blizzard more closely from now on, because I know I will be. We'll have to watch very closely indeed in case they try to push this or similar features at us again. But let's allow our long memories to serve us in the fight for privacy rights. At the same time, don't fret about enjoying yourself with the game that we all play. It can still be fun and exciting!

But this is a victory worth celebrating...unexpected and awesome!

Friday Frivolity and Wet Towels!

Bit of a downer week, eh? But it's Friday (night for some, morning for me) and it's time to rejoice for what could possibly go wrong on a Friday (except for getting a parking ticket on my last day of work of my last job when I had a handicap placard in my car but the cop didn't see it). For those working professionals who strive to bring home the bacon in time to log in for a few hours of prime-time raiding, I say well done! You've made it through a week without being fired for playing WoW, so good for you!

I've got big-bad mother-in-law coming into town this weekend. Believe it or not the event is more distressing to me than it would if I were FORCED to participate in the RealID idiocy that's been spreading like the ebola virus. Yes, I just compared my mother-in-law to the ebola virus, I am sorry I couldn't think of anything worse.

When you take a napkin or paper towel and get it wet, it shrinks and even sometimes tears easily. Take a washcloth and wet it down and you have a sufficient tool to clean your counter tops. Now take a bath towel and soak it, what happens? It gets really heavy. I've never done the math, but it's got to be like 5x as heavy, maybe 10x.

Did you ever play "Tent City" as a kid? You may not have called it that, but essentially you take sheets, blankets, whatever, pull in some chairs and heavy books and proceed to cover the chairs with those sheets and blankets effectively making a giant tent city in your room? The books are to hold down the edges of the sheets/blankets. Substitute those soft sheets with wet towels and your fairly-tale city comes crashing down, soaking your perfectly ironed clothes in the process.

That's kinda been my (and other's) mood this week. The RealID wet towel syndrome spoiling our make-believe, fantasy tent city fun and games.

But they ain't gonna spoil my weekend, that's the job of my mother-in-law. I'm taking this weekend and I'm gonna pour my heart into all the fun I can have. My boy's B-Day, potential LK victory, maybe a date with my wife, and a shopping trip to the office chair store. I just server transered my level 80 DK to a realm my kids play on so we can share BoA stuff and I can help them out more and have more fun with them.

My frivolity will be epic and I'm taking my kids with me. I love that they have not been weighed down by the wet towels this week, they don't really understand the seriousness of the issues I've tried to inform them about. But they're still innocent, something I wish I could still claim of myself.

Alas, innocence is usually reserved for the young, whilst the old linger under the ausmus of wet towels everywhere. Don't get trapped under wet towels this weekend, clean those sheets and use plenty of fabric softener. Make your room smelling fresh and sweet, and enjoy a weekend of frivolity without the weight of the issues at hand. Two days off of everything won't hurt anything.

Unperson

Perhaps not as well known as Big Brother, Thought Police, Newspeak or Doublething, Unperson is a term coined by George Orwell in his famous novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984).

Unpersons
What is an "Unperson"? "It is a person who has been 'vaporized'; who has not only been killed by the state, but effectively erased from existence." -Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unperson#Unperson)

I can say without a doubt that Blizzard is NOT in the business of killing people. There are some who, during this Real ID business, want to guilt Blizzard into retracting their plans by assuming that by posting real names on their forums it will inevitably lead to the stalking and assault (or killing) of another human being and fellow WoW enthusiast. These sort of arguments are in bad taste and should be avoided.

I will say, however, that Blizzard is creating Unpersons by forcing us to use our real names IF we choose to post on their official forums. How is that? By devising a means whereby a large group of people "feel obligated" to stop posting, they are silencing those voices, erasing them from existence. Sort of. Obviously these people can talk on other forums, but Blizzard says they don't use other forums to achieve the feedback they seek. They want good discussions on their official forums. So it's an Effective, not literal, creation of Unpersons.

Doublethink
According to Orwell's novel, Doublethink can be a complex theory:

The power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them....To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies — all this is indispensably necessary. Even in using the word doublethink it is necessary to exercise doublethink. For by using the word one admits that one is tampering with reality; by a fresh act of doublethink one erases this knowledge; and so on indefinitely, with the lie always one leap ahead of the truth.

We have been told that the reason for displaying real names on the official forums is to essentially scare or shame people into being nice. To eliminate and reduce trolling. This is THE reason being sold to us. I am sure that Blizzard genuinely believes it. They also believe that their parntership with Facebook will be a profitable one, but that fact is inconviently omitted when posting their arguments for the new feature to the end user. By standing firm in their resolve Blizzard is effectively denying the existence of objective realtiy, i.e. the protests from the community, while at the same time vocally stating that they are listening to that reality. In truth they do listen, but since there are more motives than just "reduce trolling and improve conversations" present they must acknowledge both realities at the same time while supplies us with only those words that will allow them to proceed.

Blizzard seems to get the hang of Doublethink and Doublespeak pretty well.

Anonymity
Raise your hand if you think that the opinion of a Supreme Court Justice carries some weight. I don't care if you think that they are political or activists, they are incredibly intelligent people that have worked long and hard to get where they are. Sure, some politics are involved in their decisions, but their knowledge of the law is significant and their wisdom shouldn't be shunned without listening to it first. That said, Vixsin over at Life in Group 5 posted a little quote from a Supremen Court Justice regarding the right of anonymity of an author:

“Despite readers’ curiosity and the public’s interest … an author generally is free to decide whether or not to disclose her true identity. The decision in favor of anonymity may be motivated by fear of economic or official retaliation, by concern about social ostracism, or merely by a desire to preserve as much of one’s privacy as possible. Whatever the motivation may be, at least in the field of literary endeavor, the interest in having anonymous works enter the marketplace of ideas unquestionably outweighs any public interest in requiring disclosure as a condition of entry. (n.5) Accordingly, an author’s decision to remain anonymous, like other decisions concerning omissions or additions to the content of a publication, is an aspect of the freedom of speech protected by the First Amendment.

The right to remain anonymous may be abused when it shields fraudulent conduct. But … in general, our society accords greater weight to the value of free speech than to the dangers of its misuse.” (As referenced in: McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Comm’n (93-986), 514 U.S. 334 (1995) )

Anonymity may allow for some individuals to speak freely about some really stupid things, or in a really stupid manner. But the lack of anonymity allows for people to be judged not on the merits of their arugments but additionally on the person themselves (be it race, gender, nationality, sexual preference, etc). Anonymity helps further good discussion, it does not hinder it. What hinders it is the choices people make to say offensive things because they are a bigot or a totalinarian, or whatever. It's in the person's moral structure that they decide how to act and speak, and that is what allows them to choose to be a troll. Anonymity gives them some freedoms, but what is gained by the trolls through anonymity is less than what can be gained from those who truly intend to further a discussion in a productive manner.

Orwell spoke of many devices implemented by Big Brother to destroy all anonymity. Nobody was safe from their spying eyes. Information of all people were held by the State and they decided who was a person and who was an Unperson.

The Original Real ID
Don't take all these arguments literally, they are meant to shine light on a singular issue, Privacy. In the US in 2005 a little thing called Real ID was inserted into a "must-pass" Iraqi War/Tsunami relief bill. There was no democratic debate on the issue by the people or their representatives. There was not a single congressional hearing on its merits. But it passed, and much to the disdain of the States. What it essentially does is standardize driver's licences cards accross the nation into a single national identity card and database. Think of that, the Government attempting to mandate a National ID card where all your most personal information was centrally located.

Imagine if your an identity thief. Currently information is spread out, so it takes hacking into multiple systems to get a lot of information. This would centralize all personal information into one database. As an indentity thief this is good because you just need to hack the national ID security and you're good to go...for life!

My point is that whether it's centralizing personal information or revealing personal information in a centralized location both endanger personal identity security. There are so many good arguments opposing the Real ID that Blizzard is proposing, it's ironic how similar this Real ID is to the Real ID shooved down the throats of the American people by their own Governemnt. It's release was "insignificant" and optional. But slowly each Real ID is continued to be pressed by those in power.

Blizzard, I doubt, will truly listen to their customer. But that doesn't mean that we stop fighting. In 1984 the main character Winston Smith, who questioned Big Brother and their Teamspeak, ultimately was tortured into acceptance and love of State. He stopped questioning, he stopped fighting.

I hope that any others who run a blog understand that I do not and will not judge them or their motives if they wish to not talk about Real ID anymore and the resulting privacy implications. I have my motives for continuing to speak out and they are mine only. I apply these arguments to myself, I hope you can believe that.

My motives for playing have been well documented here on this blog. (Check out my archives, they were some of the first posts I ever made.) It is because of these motives that I will not stop playing. It means too much to me and my family, it's been a relief in a life of much pain. I see this as an opportunity to teach my kids that you can stand up and fight for something you believe in.

I guess that just about everyone is against murder, but not everyone is a Policeman or Judge. We can care about something but not spend a lot of time combatting it. That's my reasoning for asking other bloggers to understand why I will not judge them. This is something that I personally feel that I need to fight against. And I will...to the very end. You will remember me, I will not become and Unperson.

I will still talk about the game I love and all it's wonderful features and it's flaws. It's just that I'll keep fighting against Real ID any way I know how. Thank you, as always, for stopping by and reading my words. I appreciate your attendence.

Real ID Fiasco

Yesterday I saw the announcement on mmo-champion of the intention to reveal the real names of people who post of the official wow forums. I then wrote a post on Dalaran. Why? As I glanced around the internet I saw a number of people take up this Real ID subject, and even as I perused various blogs I didn't really think about posting my own views on it.

Until this morning. The thread on the official forums is growing every second, approaching 24K responses and growing. I guess it's time to see if Blizzard actually listens to their customer and appreciates the feedback from its playerbase.

But a blog post here and there will do nothing. And, I am afraid, neither will a few thousand dissenting replies on the official forums. Only by making this a mainstream issue will our voices be heard. In Canada and the US privacy is of paramount importance. We cannot assume, just because somebody who has a Facebook page that that person WANTS to make their identity know to the whole world without their consent. But by forcing us to post on their official forums with our real names, they have given us the ultimatum: Post or Don't Post.

Here are a list of email address of prominent news outlets in the US. Powerful media players who, if they see this as an issue, will take it up with furvor.

newswatch@foxnews.com, oreilly@foxnews.com, jer@foxnews.com, americasnewsroom@foxnews.com, netaudr@abc.com, evening@cbsnews.com, earlyshow@cbs.com, info@cnbc.com, comments@foxnews.com, hardball@msnbc.com, today@nbc.com, newshour@pbs.org, ombudsman@npr.org, wsjcontact@dowjones.com, letters@washpost.com, letters@time.com, fair@fair.org

For names, addresses, and other email addresses of high powered media outlets, see the post on the official forums by Striderx, the page keeps changing so I'll copy it here:

ABC News 147 Columbus Ave., New York, NY 10023 Phone: 212-456-7777
General e-mail: netaudr@abc.com
Nightline: nightline@abcnews.com
20/20: 2020@abc.com

CBS News 524 W. 57 St., New York, NY 10019 Phone: 212-975-4321 Fax: 212-975-1893 Email forms for all CBS news programs CBS Evening News: evening@cbsnews.com
The Early Show: earlyshow@cbs.com
60 Minutes II: 60m@cbsnews.com 48 Hours: 48hours@cbsnews.com
Face The Nation: ftn@cbsnews.com CNBC 900 Sylvan Avenue, Englewood Cliffs, NJ 07632 Phone: (201) 735-2622 Fax: (201) 583-5453 Email: info@cnbc.com

CNN One CNN Center, Box 105366, Atlanta, GA 30303-5366 Phone: 404-827-1500 Fax: 404-827-1784 Email forms for all CNN news programs
Fox News Channel 1211 Ave. of the Americas, New York, NY 10036 Phone: (212) 301-3000 Fax: (212) 301-4229 comments@foxnews.com

List of Email addresses for all Fox News Channel programs Special Report with Bret Baier: Special@foxnews.com FOX Report with Shepard Smith: Foxreport@foxnews.com The O'Reilly Factor: Oreilly@foxnews.com Hannity: Hannity@foxnews.com, On the Record with Greta: Ontherecord@foxnews.com Glenn Beck: GlennBeck@foxnews.com

MSNBC/NBC 30 Rockefeller Plaza, New York, NY 10112 Phone: (212) 664-4444 Fax: (212) 664-4426 List of Email addresses for all MSNBC/NBC news programs Dateline NBC: dateline@nbcuni.com Hardball with Chris Matthews: hardball@msnbc.com MSNBC Reports with Joe Scarborough: joe@msnbc.com NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams: nightly@nbc.com

NBC News Today: today@nbc.com PBS 2100 Crystal Drive, Arlington VA 22202 Phone: 703-739-5000 Fax: 703-739-5777

The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer: newshour@pbs.org National Radio Programs National Public Radio 635 Massachusetts Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20001-3753 Phone: 202-513-2000 Fax: 202-513-3329 E-mail: Alicia Shephard, Ombudsman ombudsman@npr.org

List of Email addresses for all NPR news programs The Rush Limbaugh Show 1270 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020 Phone (on air): 800-282-2882 Fax: 212-445-3963 E-mail: ElRushbo@eibnet.com

Sean Hannity Show Phone (on air): 800-941-7326 Sean Hannity:212-613-3800 James Grisham, Producer: 212-613-3832 E-mail: Phil Boyce, Program Director phil.boyce@citcomm.com

National Newspapers The Los Angeles Times 202 West First Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012 Phone: 800-528-4637 or 213-237-5000 Fax: 213-237-4712 L.A. Times Contact Information by Department Letters to the Editor: letters@latimes.com Readers' Representative: readers.rep@latimes.com

The New York Times 620 8th Ave., New York, NY 10018 Phone: 212-556-1234 D.C. Bureau phone: 202-862-0300 Fax: 212-556-3690 Letters to the Editor (for publication): letters@nytimes.com Write to the news editors: news-tips@nytimes.com Corrections: senioreditor@nytimes.com New York Times Contact Information by Department How to Contact New York Times Reporters and Editors USA Today 7950 Jones Branch Dr., McLean, VA 22108 Phone: 703-854-3400 Fax: 703-854-2078 Letters to the Editor: editor@usatoday.com

Give feedback to USA Today The Wall Street Journal 1211 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10036 Phone: 212-416-2000 Fax: 212-416-2658 Letters to the Editor: wsj.ltrs@wsj.com Comment on News Articles: wsjcontact@dowjones.com

The Washington Post 1150 15th St., NW, Washington, DC 20071 Phone: 202-334-6000 Fax: 202-334-5075 Letters to the Editor: letters@washpost.com Ombudsman: ombudsman@washpost.com Contact Washington Post Writers and Editors Magazines

Newsweek 251 W 57th Street, New York, NY 10019 Phone: 212-445-4000 Fax: 212-445-5068 Letters to the Editor: letters@newsweek.com Time Time & Life Bldg., Rockefeller Center, 1271 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020 Phone: 212-522-1212 Fax: 212-522-0003 Letters to the Editor letters@time.com U.S. News & World Report 1050 Thomas Jefferson St., NW, Washington, DC 20007 Phone: 202-955-2000 Fax: 202-955-2049 Letters to the Editor letters@usnews.com News Services / Wires Associated Press 450 West 33rd St., New York, NY 10001 Phone: 212-621-1500 Fax: 212-621-1723

General Questions and Comments: info@ap.org Partial Contact Information for the Associated Press by Department and Bureau Reuters Three Times Square, New York, NY 10036 Telephone: 646-223-4000 Reuters Editorial Feedback United Press International 1133 19th Street, NW, Suite 800, Washington, DC 20036 Telephone: 202-898-8000 FAX: 202-898-8048

Comments and Tips: tips@upi.com FAIR wants to hear about your media activism. Please send copies of your letters to journalists to FAIR 104 W. 27th St. 10th Floor New York, NY 10001 fair@fair.org

Just copy paste the top part and send to all the media. Maybe this will change Blizzards mind =)

I will not take the time to post the reasons why this is a bad idea, I believe this has been covered around the blogosphere with great intelligence and detail. What I am here to do is to encourage people to stand up for themselves. To make this a REAL ISSUE for Activision Blizzard and Facebook. They need to see that this will not be a one week rant by the community, but a concerted effort to make them retract their ideas and implementation plans.

It will not be easy, for certain there are contractual agreements between Activision and Facebook for their mutual profit. But just because a contract exists between two companies to make more money does not mean that the voice of the people cannot be heard in order to either make laws to prohibit such an action or to apply the necessary social pressure to dissuade them from furthering their contractual designs.

Being in business I know this: This decision is money-based, period. If you actually believe it is for the benefit of a more mature and sensible interaction between developers and gamers you are wrong. How do I know? Because they have entered into a contractual partnership with another corporation, that's how. Any time agreements are made between companies it is NOT for the benifit of just one, it's for the mutual profit that results in divulging identities.

Speak up now, don't let this issue die. I love to play this game, it's a refuge for me and my family. I don't want to quit, but if they don't listen I must consider the option. I believe in privacy, it's important to me, to you, and to many others in this world who only wish to live in a fantasy world a few hours a week. We're not asking much, but this, for once, a slippery slope that I will not slide down for long.

I hope other bloggers will join in the charge to never let this issue die. I am sure this is what the powers that be want from us, to soften our voices and lessen our dissent. I shall NEVER stand quiet on this point. Never again!