[Dynamics]

what I'd like to know here is, what makes these forums such a sacred place as compared to talking ingame for example? both are publicly available. people "name names" all the time ingame (and on the officials, btw.) and to me it seems to cause no problems.

people seem to like "flaming" (god I hate that word how it's used now.) no problem ingame, or behind the flamed person's back, but they're terrified when everyone can see their real opinion?

afraid of the site's reputation? how does that work? if someone comes on to a forum and sees some person making a post about them, are they going to think "oh, damn that forum"? they are most likely going to look at the poster. as it should be. you say something, you take responsibility for it. not some mod, let alone a whole site.

to me, the whole idea of a forum is to have the convenience of passing along info or otherwise conversing with people when you cannot do it in realtime. the job of moderators in this is to keep things in order. in order means things like moving threads, closing them when requested by thread starter, and so on... not bossing the posters around.

also, I find it rather questionable that you bring up the validity of this "rule" after a person has already been banned for it. nice one.

My point with the site isn't a strong one, and I just added it in for the dumb one liner LOL. But yeah back to the discussion.

I believe that naming name's isn't constructive with public ranting. Doing it on a personal level is a little more acceptable then doing it on a public scale, because it's personal. People talk to their friends to either gain perspective or to just feel better about themselves. It's not right to talk behind someone's back, it isn't right to be dishonest to them, but it happens. Yeah, people are afraid to confront at times, and for their own reason. Confrontations can stir a lot of emotions. People naturally avoid that kind of thing, even if it might not always be for the best.

We can't control what happens in-game or on the officials, but we do get a say in what happens on this fansite. Whilst in-game and on the officials stating names might seem to have no effect in terms of how both function, I personally cringe whenever I see someone publicly mentioning a name. If someone in-game or on the officials shouts "so and so" is a bad person for scamming or anything, I genuinely ask to myself "what do you gain out of doing that?"

I still think the rule of not naming name's is overall okay. It might be too strict here and there, particularly with obvious scammers and such - and I suppose that's the key here, finding that compromise between when it's okay to mention names' and when it isn't. I personally reckon it's better not to name people when all you're looking for is to rant, which is essentially what All the Rage is for.

If a good medium can be found between the two then all the better.