The Blizzard Forums are growing up...

Blizzard has just announced that the new forums rolling out with an expansion to World of Warcraft: Cataclysm and Starcraft II will require users to post with their own name.

About time.

The internet as a popular device (which I date to September 1993, when AOL launched) is soon to turn 18. If you want to date it to the launch of the world wide web, then the internet is a little older. In any case, it's high time that the internet, writ large, outgrows its childhood of false names.

My personal observations have been that the internet featured "screen names," like Blobux, Controllerver, Redstate93, Kos, and Atrius. These names represented real people, but they came to be avatars - fake representations of a person. Thus a Wikipedia administrator and his encyclopedia were embarrassed when it came out that the advanced education belonging to the avatar was a lie invented by the real person. These fake names are everywhere, and they draw a line between "internet life" and "real life."

In many ways, I value those names. They offer a way for me to share stories, print ideas, and generally put content out there without my words dragging me behind. But those benefits and that culture of anonymity should be specialized.

The norm on the Internet should be our real names. The more we are ourselves - our whole selves, the more this new medium will grow up. That's why "poblano" became Nate Silver - not because the internet required it, but because the real world wasn't going to deal with a chili pepper.

I'll keep my anonymous accounts, and I will enjoy them, but if there's a widespread cultural change afoot, I will applaud it wholeheartedly.

EDIT: Some good points made about stereotypes/name confusion/harassment of women have convinced me that more thought is needed, and that Blizzard is probably not doing the right thing here for its customers, who need the forums post post suggestions or discussion game mechanics.