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[Annahya]

Everyone who thinks this is a good idea needs to put their home address on an index card and affix it to every dollar they give to a homeless person.

This is one of the most ridiculous leaps of logic I have read in quite some time. Thank you for the laugh.

Ultimately, this information belongs to SE - and if they feel that, overall, the experience is enriched by its implementation then they will put it in place. If a significant number of players leave en masse because of it, then they will hopefully get the message that they were incorrect. It is all a numbers game, really. If it does not affect 97%, negatively impacts 1%, but 2% like it, then the 1% loses.

Has SE stated "why" this is? There have been a lot of assertions regarding the reasoning - and I have not seen an offcial statement by SE explaining such; not saying it doesn't exist, I am just curious if these assertions are more than conjecture.

Personally, I am in the hypothetical 97% (or whatever % you want to arbitrarily assign to those who don't care), but I understand that others could feel differently.

And they're not violating anything except maybe this new thing called "human rights"; but who pays attention to those anyway?

I seriously hope this was sarcasm - the rest of your post was so reasonable...