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Real names


Real names yes or no?  

146 members have voted

  1. 1. Would you stop posting to our forums if we ask you to sign your posts with your real name click > yes. If you do not mind real names click > no.



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  • Deputy Sheriffs
5 hours ago, John Kunde said:

I think, as long as Mopperle and TomA320 are registered with these names, you can keep your sign-in name FWAviation. Should be no problem for anybody.

A good sign that some people simply do not open their eyes. Yes I'm registered as "Mopperle", but since many years I have my real name in the signature. And thats what we are talking about: signing with the real name. The login name doesnt matter and IMHO using the real name as login name could be difficult, as there are al lot of combinations of first and last name being very common.

So next time read carefully before posting. ;)

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For I am 10 years older you may be a young dinosaur! But i think, you are absolutely right. Maybe we older ones are a little bit cooler. We say what we are thinking and we don´t have to be ashamed about. So what?

Have a nice day,

Matthias

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  • Aerosoft

In this discussion, it seems age and nationality do play a role. 

 

  • In age it is simple, the older the customer the more they are likely to have no problems with using their own name and not hiding behind a nick.
  • In nationality, it is clear, as was expected, that our German speaking customers are far less willing to use their own names. That why we started this in English and yesterday added it to the German sections of the forum. It gives me some insight into how the solidly German part of the forum feels. To be honest I never understood why so many of our German customers feel their name should be hidden (and why so few are willing to explain why) but it is a fact I need to take into account. I have never heard a good explanation for this. I understand the Second World war and the DDR play a role but still.

 

And okay, you are a middle-aged dinosaur and I an adolescent dino. 

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@mopperle Good evening, Otto! Hope you are perfectly well.

 

vor 2 Stunden , mopperle sagte:

A good sign that some people simply do not open their eyes. [...]

So next time read carefully before posting. ;)

 

Otto, what is your problem?
You, Mr.Kok and I have the same opinion in this case. I only wanted to clarify something, Mr. Kok and you confirm that my assumption is correct, but you end with the words "So next time read carefully before posting. ;)"
Thank you for giving this perfect example. I think that a lot of people don't like that the discussions go like this.

 

As members of the community the users here want to help each other, they want to tell their opinion as a customer to give feedback to Aerosoft and it often, nearly always ends that somebody, for example you or TomA320, is telling that they are stupid "So next time read carefully before posting. ;-)".
As long as this is the style of discussion in this forum, I must give everybody the advice not to tell his real name.
Either we want to keep the freedom to write open our opinion, so we better write under a pseudonyme. Or if we give our real name, then we have to write what Aerosoft wants us to write, otherwise they tell us in public that we are stupid "So next time read carefully before posting. ;)"

 

So it's obvious that some Aerosoft staff is treating the users to write under a pseudonyme and now Aerosoft is complaining about this.  ???
Strange world!

???

 

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vor 12 Minuten, Mathijs Kok sagte:

In this discussion, it seems age and nationality do play a role.

I would say that far more intelligence and experience in this forum do play a role. That's _my_ opinion.

 

John

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Sorry but you can easily have conversations with anyone on a forum regardless of what their username is. Even though my name technically follows any new rules regarding "Real Names" - I would understand if people who wanted to sign up to this forum would not want to use their real name. I don't understand this obsession in the FS community where full names are needed. What if someone didn't want you searching them on Google and coming across their social media or linkedin or where they work for example? It really should be up to the user if they want to use their full name or not. 

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24 minutes ago, John Kunde said:

they want to tell their opinion as a customer to give feedback to Aerosoft and it often, nearly always ends that somebody, for example you or TomA320, is telling that they are stupid "So next time read carefully before posting. ;-)".

 

I absolutely reject your statement as being accurate, and on behalf of the moderation team here i strongly object to your statement.  Over 5 or 6 years, there have only been three or four people who were anonymous (or they thought they were) and were nothing but troublemakers - in fact one was later found to be using a pirated copy of the Airbus X and he had the nerve not only to show up and seek support in our forums, he then trashed the product and Aerosoft because his pirated copy was both out of date (not the latest version) and it was likely that some files the cracked copy of the Airbus X were either missing or corrupt). Other than these 3 or 4 people, I have had nothing but excellent rapport with our customers and I've received countless notes of appreciation over that time.

 

TomA320 is one of the most experienced FSX/P3D Tech Support people that I know in flight simulation, and he is likewise highly respected and appreciated by our customers and flight simmers elsewhere.  He has helped hundreds if not thousands of flight simmers over many years in tech support. On top of that, he has a heart of gold and a deep personal desire to help people.  Let us not forget he is also human, as are the rest of the team here.

 

When someone reads a post in a forum (any forum), we all need to keep in mind that a post or a thread rarely tells the entire story from a moderators perspective, there are often other posts/threads from someone or other things that a moderator or tech support person will take account of.  If we were to explain all those things in a post then users/customers would be VERY unhappy about it and it would take so long to respond to posts that we'd never get anything done.  Nope. You need to have confidence that we know what we're doing, and we do.

 

We need to keep this matter on track, and not get diverted off in other conversations, so let's please end any side discussion and simply do what Mathij's requested... Vote, and if you vote "Yes" please provide a reason.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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vor 11 Minuten, DaveCT2003 sagte:

Over 5 or 6 years, there have only been three or four people who were anonymous (or they thought they were) ...

So I really don't understand where is Mathijs' and Oliver's problem . . .

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Vor 1 Stunde, Mathijs Kok sagte:
  • In nationality, it is clear, as was expected, that our German speaking customers are far less willing to use their own names. That why we started this in English and yesterday added it to the German sections of the forum. It gives me some insight into how the solidly German part of the forum feels. To be honest I never understood why so many of our German customers feel their name should be hidden (and why so few are willing to explain why) but it is a fact I need to take into account. I have never heard a good explanation for this. I understand the Second World war and the DDR play a role but still.

 

I have voted no because I wouldn't stop posting because of that but I would like to say what I think about being german regarding this matter.
I have the feeling that germans are a bit more concerned about safety and privacy than other nationalities.It may be just a personal feeling but I recognise this on many occasions.
If I take me as an example...although I'm pretty sure that my data is already spread all over the world I'm refusing to use Whatsapp just because I can't accept that the data of my friends is uploaded without their permission.
When I started in Flightsim I used an Avatar showing a picture of me which I thought was very nice and funny but then I thought...wait a minute...I'm posting when I shouldn't have time for it and someone won't like it if he finds out.
So I changed my avatar. Sometimes the reasons are that simple why people don't want it

 

Grüße Klaus

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9 minutes ago, MattGarner said:

Sorry but you can easily have conversations with anyone on a forum regardless of what their username is. Even though my name technically follows any new rules regarding "Real Names" - I would understand if people who wanted to sign up to this forum would not want to use their real name. I don't understand this obsession in the FS community where full names are needed. What if someone didn't want you searching them on Google and coming across their social media or linkedin or where they work for example? It really should be up to the user if they want to use their full name or not. 

 

Matt,

 

Thank you for your feedback. 

 

So that you don't have to go back and read three pages of discussions,  I'll address your concerns here while imparting some information that has already been shared in this thread.

 

A heavy percentage of people in our community behave differently when they (mistakenly) believe they are anonymous, it's just a fact.  The same phenomena occurs when when get behind the wheel of their car, and they will do and say things that they might not do  face to face.  It's the same dynamic at work. Again, this has been formally studied by professionals and it is accepted as fact. 

 

Our community has a huge age band, ranging from very young to people even older than I am.  We also have a truly International Community, so our forum users come from an impressive array of different languages and cultures, many of which other people are unfamiliar with.  Then there is the massive difference in experience levels in flight sim, and of course no two flight sim computers are the same not to mention the vast differences in hardware and software that we come across. I could go on and on with the differences we have to contend with, and I haven't even mentioned personalities. Finally, there are people who simply cannot or will not be civil, and those who utterly fail to understand these are our corporate forums rather than an open board.  With all these differences in our community, moderation and technical support is a true challenge.

 

Anonymity (which is actually is a fallacy) might be favorable to a particular individual, but for managing a community it goes a long way to solving some of the issues we have to field (handle).  For instance, it often puts an end to bullying and the type of comments that some might find enteraining or amusing, but can wreck an online community.

 

Beyond the experts in human behavior already providing any level of justification required, we have some direct experiece and feedback from PMDG on how things have been since they implemented the full real name requirement and their advice goes right along with what the experts in human behavior hold as fact.

 

Beyond all the above... if someone is willing to write something and put their real name to it then it's more apt to not only be civil, but worth reading as well.

 

Lastly, all one has to do is great a signature banner (or use the many different signature banners that already exist in our community) and add their name to the graphic.  This will ensure that their name linked to posts in our forum will not show up under an Internet Search looking for someone's name.

 

 

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15 minutes ago, John Kunde said:

So I really don't understand where is Mathijs' and Oliver's problem . . .

 

If you will re-read what I wrote, you'll find that part of my post was about MY personal experience.

 

And, you just did what I asked you not to do... so again, please, let's stick purely to doing what Mathijs asked.

 

Many thanks.

 

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On 27.2.2019 at 20:39, Farlis sagte:

I have no problem with dropping my anonymity per se. I already do that in the PMDG part of the AVSIM Forum because they demand you do. I already reveal my first name here.

The problem I have though is that I use only a handful of nicknames on the internet and revealing my identity makes it easier to connect me across the board to other activities. And I don't want to be that transparent to other people.

 

really GOOD point!!  👍

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16 minutes ago, data63 said:

 

really GOOD point!!  👍

 

To avoid this, simply use a Signature Banner with your name, as a graphic people won't be able to search for your name and find your forum posts.

 

16 minutes ago, data63 said:

The problem I have though is that I use only a handful of nicknames on the internet and revealing my identity makes it easier to connect me across the board to other activities. And I don't want to be that transparent to other people.

 

For regular users, that's true.  But again, just use a graphic instead of text and you're all set.

 

 

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I would like to add my 2 cents to this. Your answer to somebody that's concerned about revealing his identity is to use his name in a graphic but I don't feel that this solves the problem. Sure it would prevent someone finding your account if he tried searching for your full name but not the other way around. For example: a user is using the same username on multiple websites/forums and someone decides for whatever reason he wants to find out more about this person. He googles the username, finds the link to this forum, opens it and has the full name whether it's typed out in a graphic or plain text. 

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33 minutes ago, thenewbpilot said:

I would like to add my 2 cents to this. Your answer to somebody that's concerned about revealing his identity is to use his name in a graphic but I don't feel that this solves the problem. Sure it would prevent someone finding your account if he tried searching for your full name but not the other way around. For example: a user is using the same username on multiple websites/forums and someone decides for whatever reason he wants to find out more about this person. He googles the username, finds the link to this forum, opens it and has the full name whether it's typed out in a graphic or plain text. 

 

That is correct. Or you could say thst people in the existing forum wouldknow who someone really is. This is actually the point, no, more, anonymity.

 

 

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That's true but just using a graphic still doesn't address this concern which (at least in my opinion) is a very valid argument to why someone wouldn't want to use full name on a forum.

 

On 2/27/2019 at 8:39 PM, Farlis said:

I have no problem with dropping my anonymity per se. I already do that in the PMDG part of the AVSIM Forum because they demand you do. I already reveal my first name here.

The problem I have though is that I use only a handful of nicknames on the internet and revealing my identity makes it easier to connect me across the board to other activities. And I don't want to be that transparent to other people.

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  • Deputy Sheriffs

Just my 2 cents here. I have changed my forum name to my real one some two years ago. I can not say that it was an happy experience sofar. The reason I did change it was because of all the arguments listed above. In an ideal world it would be ok but using your real name makes you also vulnerable to a lot of unwanted stuff.

 

I have seen my name being dragged through the mud in Reddit and FB groups for example. I know that only a small group of people here go to these lenghts but they are present in these forums. Ofcourse as a deputy you get another level of exposure and it comes with the territory and it may not be valid for the standard user. I am contemplating using my old nick again and put my name in a signature banner. This will not eliminate the mentioned negatives but atleast they will not pop up as easily during an internet search of my name.

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29 minutes ago, Frank Docter said:

Just my 2 cents here. I have changed my forum name to my real one some two years ago. I can not say that it was an happy experience sofar. The reason I did change it was because of all the arguments listed above. In an ideal world it would be ok but using your real name makes you also vulnerable to a lot of unwanted stuff.

 

I have seen my name being dragged through the mud in Reddit and FB groups for example. I know that only a small group of people here go to these lenghts but they are present in these forums. Ofcourse as a deputy you get another level of exposure and it comes with the territory and it may not be valid for the standard user. I am contemplating using my old nick again and put my name in a signature banner. This will not eliminate the mentioned negatives but atleast they will not pop up as easily during an internet search of my name.

 

Same for me actually, googling for my name some reddit insults about posts I made here are among the first things coming up. If any future employer would actually do that it could turn out pretty bad for me.

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Thanks for adding your personal experiences, Frank and Emi.

I can only add that according to my own experience (for the last nine years, I have been working as a community manager myself), using real names, sadly, is absolutely no protection against toxic comments - or even a way to minimise the risk of getting toxic comments. Each day I see highly aggressive and/or destructive tweets and other kinds of comments even against or from people who state their full name including their job description, employer and other personal information on their profile. As a matter of fact, I even see serious cases of personal harrassment increased due to the lack of anonymity. So I make the sombering experience that something has shifted in the overall discourse since the advent of social media and especially since the surge of populist movements. There's a significant lack of respect for people with differing opinions and a lack of fear of writing something self-destructive even under one's own real name. In times where people seem to be proud of posting xenophobic or other discriminatory comments under their real name, a real name sadly offers hardly any protection anymore.

Again, these are only my 2 cents and maybe (also depending on the branch or the topic she or he has to deal with) another community manager makes other experiences with real names. But I sadly cannot confirm Robert Randazzo's positive experience with real names from my own experience.

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6 hours ago, Emanuel Hagen said:

 

Same for me actually, googling for my name some reddit insults about posts I made here are among the first things coming up. If any future employer would actually do that it could turn out pretty bad for me.

 

3 hours ago, FWAviation said:

Thanks for adding your personal experiences, Frank and Emi.

I can only add that according to my own experience (for the last nine years, I have been working as a community manager myself), using real names, sadly, is absolutely no protection against toxic comments - or even a way to minimise the risk of getting toxic comments. Each day I see highly aggressive and/or destructive tweets and other kinds of comments even against or from people who state their full name including their job description, employer and other personal information on their profile. As a matter of fact, I even see serious cases of personal harrassment increased due to the lack of anonymity. So I make the sombering experience that something has shifted in the overall discourse since the advent of social media and especially since the surge of populist movements. There's a significant lack of respect for people with differing opinions and a lack of fear of writing something self-destructive even under one's own real name. In times where people seem to be proud of posting xenophobic or other discriminatory comments under their real name, a real name sadly offers hardly any protection anymore.

Again, these are only my 2 cents and maybe (also depending on the branch or the topic she or he has to deal with) another community manager makes other experiences with real names. But I sadly cannot confirm Robert Randazzo's positive experience with real names from my own experience.


Although I voted No, simply for the fact that I would still want to be able to post even if a real name was required, I have the same concerns as Frank, Emanuel and FWAviation. Also, it seems to me that this is the wrong way to encourage/enforce civility. Isn't it the role of the moderators to police these forums and take appropriate actions where necessary?

 

Mathijs, you stated in the 'Talk to the Management' post "I am still very reluctant to take further steps like PMDG does and force people out of their anonymous status. 99% of our customers are just nice people who believe the hobby is about flying aircraft and not posting messages that are hurtful to other people who work their ass of to get a product done." I think you are correct, but perhaps need to be a bit more ruthless with the moderation of those bad apples.

 

Randy

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i ve been a long time defender of showing your real name but lately i thought that even on PMDG forum it did not stop idiots ....

 

for those that have been part of the simming communauty for a very long time there is no secret about who is who for sure but Mathijs you have open a can of worm that may not be stopped ...

 

maybe next step is to prove who has buy which products on the signature .... so i vote against but im not german .... so to be precise i voted yes.

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Just to give you some perspective on my stance on this:

Now that PMDG support has left AVSIM and with them the need to sign your posts with your real name, I have removed my name from there again.

I do however keep my real first name in my signature here because I think it is easier when talking to support here that I can be adressed with my real first name and not some strange monicker.

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