Some kind of fun news from The Officials is that The Official Sounders Site now has a forum. Or -- excuse me -- an "Integrated Online Community."
(Sorry. Forgot we were in Seattle for a second.)
It's on the Official Site. Which is awesome. Except for one thing.
In order to participate, you have to register. And in order to register, you have to use a real first name, real last name, and email address.
Of course, they link you to their "privacy policy" and all that. Meaning they apparently won't spam you. But...
I've already registered as my real self to buy season tickets. I already get all of the promo stuff, and I'm already committed to the team. What more do they want? If I don't want to register as my true self for the forums, then what? I can't participate.
(If you don't want/value/need anonymity, you probably don't understand. But this -- wanting to comment of topics relating to the team without it tracking back to my real life -- is an issue for me. I can't imagine I'm the only one.)
Here at The Offside, you can participate in our forums if you provide a real email address. This is to prevent things like spam and offensive posting. Seems this would work perfectly well for any site.
So why do they need to know our real identities and contact info?