@Sam: Thank you, thank you, thank you. I'm glad someone posted those statistics.

@MW: I'm so sorry that happened to you. I was stalked online for a very long time by an unstable ex, and I wouldn't wish that kind of experience on my worst enemy. This is potentially dangerous for everyone, but I'm especially concerned for women, and gamers of color whose names are identifiably ethnic (especially people with Arabic names, in today's environment). I have a very feminine first name, and even beyond the concerns about harassment, I'd rather not have to deal with "get in the kitchen" bullshit. And while racists would never get my true ethnicity right by looking at my name, I feel for all the people who are going to get harassed because of that. People who are dismissing these concerns out of hand are either up to their eyeballs in privilege, or seriously underestimating the amount of harassment women and PoC can go through online when we're identified as either/both. The question isn't if it will happen, it's when and how often it will.

Basically, with this move, Blizzard is telling me they don't ever want people with identifiably female or ethnic names posting on the forums. And as someone with the former, I most definitely won't be. This change isn't going to do anything but dissuade the good, intelligent people from posting on the forums. Trolls will always find a way to troll. There really needs to be a happy medium between enforcing some kind of civility on the forums, and making everyone expose themselves like that.