Impersonating members

[Avesther]

Impersonating other members is not a laughing matter. People can maliciously or unintentionally ruin relationships, freindships and peoples repuation. It is equivalent to online identity theft and it is against Blizzards terms of service. It also destroys trust relationships. It is far from any definition of a harmless joke I have heard about. To call it such is an insult to the person who you have hurt.

I was the victim last night, by three seperate people. This harmless joke may not have hurt the people pulling this crank, it hurt me, the victim of it. You risked my reputation for your enjoyment, you risk my relationships for your pleasure and you jeapordize my trust so you can get a laugh.

This is simply not funny, I am not laughing.

Do not think I do not know who was invlolved, or what was said by whom. My refusal to name names, or to lay down consequences should not be taken to be ignorance of what happened. Rather, I would prefer to protect the relationships and rebuild them where, if, possible. Put the situation behind me like water under the bridger.

To Evi I apologize. In my anger, I hastly and inappropriatly confronted you. I want to make it clear to you, that my intention was never to leave you with the impression that I wanted you to leave. It is my prayer and hope that you can understand why I was angry.

Any further using the chat wrapping to impersonate other members of the guild will result in disciplinary action. That can include having chat privelages removed, removal from the guild for a period of time and permanent removal from the guild.

If what we are doing does not lift our members up, support them in respect and love, then it is most certainly not something we should even think about doing. Impersonating guild members, or anybody for that matter, is disrespectful.

 

[Weazel]

Different people take offense to different things. I've seen it done before and have even seen it with my name next to it, but I haven't seen anyone take offense to it. Quite frankly, this is the first time I have heard of it offending anyone.

If you feel that it depricates the growth of the guild and should be banned, that's fine. In fact, I'd probably agree with that decision. However, I also feel that you are being unnecessarily harsh to those individuals who felt differently. Don't let your emotions and prejudices get in the way of your leadership.

I admit I did not witness what was said, so if what was said was indeed hurtful to certain parties, then disregard my above statements. This is just my opinion from an outsider's view.

 

[.se3ker.]

its simply itendity theft... though people may mean no harm at all, jokingly things could be said or done that might give a bad rep or hurt the real person.

 

[jazmina]

I agree with seeker. In my opinion it is a very serious thing when someone impersonates a guild leader. A guild leader is looked up to and respected and decisions they make have a great importance in the guild. People also often share confidential information with guild leaders. If they have to worry that someone is pretending to be them that breaks trust. Not to mention with the ability to impersonate someone the person doing the impersonating can cause unrepairable damage to a persons name and reputation, along with hurting other people. Not everyone knows about this ability to do this. I myself was unaware untill it occured in guild the other day and at first had believed that Bannard was online when he wasnt. I do not believe Bannard is being to harsh. Common sense would alert a person to the wrongness of impersonating anyone much less a guild leader. It takes swift action to prevent foolishness from hurting others and I think Bannard is being a good leader and doing the right thing.

 

[Plankeye]

I personally, especially as the Counter-Strike server operator, have been impersonated more times then I care to recount. What really bothers me is when members do it. It is not funny. It only sows confusion and discord which takes away from our ability to come together and fellowship. Several people are hurt over this already because someone thought it would be funny. How come no one is laughing?

What is really scairy is that a professing Christian would even attempt it. For those that don't quite see why this is bad, would any of you impersonate your church's pastor? Say you call up your pastor wanting to get something off your chest. Would you publicly confess your trangressions if by chance the person on the other end of the phone was the guy down the street? Or how about impersonating a police officer? Both are in authority and rely on trust built by that authority to be able to do what they do. If every other police officer was just a person in a costume, would you feel safe?

I would honestly hope that the person(s) involved with this matter would step up and apologize for their actions and get this behind us. Lets get back to having fun (and help Sandric get his last 13 levels).

 

[Proeliator]

I am not saying that impersonating is right, and I too think that people shouldn't do it, but about sharing confidential information with someone impersonating the GL, you wouldn't be able to whisper then if Bannard isn't on. Also if Bannard is on the whisper would go straight to him and noone else. But it still is serious. If your ever suspicious that someone is impersonating another then go over the person's name who is being impersonated and alt + left click. If it says they aren't on, then you know it's not them, and can tell everyone that. If they are on they will already be saying that it's not them.

 

[Weazel]

Yeah, Proeliator is right. It's pretty much impossible to "steal" information by this method of impersonation, and there are ways to easily get around it which certainly puts it in the "prank" category and not so extreme as to be labled as "grand theft" or the like.

I am not condoning this behavior; quite the contrary actually. After being informed by someone of what actually happened, I realize what did happen makes it a little more serious than a simple prank. That is comparing two different things, however: The act itself and what actually happened.

If you double click a name it would automatically do /w [person's name] for you (By that I mean the actual name displayed when that person is speaking, not any subsequent text that follows it). Or even better, if you shift click that name it automatically does a /who listing on that person. If the name were fake (eg. impersonation) then it would not use the /w or /who commands. In other words, a simple double click or shift click can determine whether someone is attempting to impersonate or not.