Got this in an email for posting up my picture of Phormtaiqr on Spock.com: 

“Spock users have flagged and deleted a picture which you contributed to Tim Renshaw’s search result. Flagging and deletion occurs for a number of reasons. Sometimes it is because information is factually incorrect, sometimes it is because contributions are inappropriate. For more information please visit our community guidelines.”

I have reviewed the community guidelines and am not sure why my picture was removed.  It was not a picture involving nudity, it was not copyrighted (indeed Blizzard is quite happy too have me promote World of Warcraft by spreading my in-game image hither and yon) and is indeed a picture of me that many of my friends will know as me.  The “me” is from an online game, actually the online game / community World of Warcraft, through which I have met many people and this picture is the only “me” they have ever seen.

I suggest that Spock review their own community guidelines to ascertain what they are going to define as “me” and “my identity”.  This will of course have non-trivial impacts on what reputation of “mine” they are defining.  If the site is only going to work on purely “real me” identities, that’s fine, but I believe that really sells the site’s reputation possibilities short.  Reputation matters a great deal to me in virtual spaces.  One of the core ideas behind forming Clans and Guilds in virtual worlds is around the idea of reputation.  Anyone who has put on a headset and ventured into Halo on Xbox 360 knows that you don’t want to just hang out and play with just any schlub online.

I continue to watch Spock with a level of interest, but I don’t believe their allowing themselves enough breadth and interconnectivity to all that defines “me” online such that my reputation can really be meaningful across all the various entities representing me online.