Duly noted.
Does it bother them for security/personal space reasons? Or is it just weird to them to ask that information.
Mostly due to security/personal space. People are uncomfortable providing that kind of personal information when we first "meet" in an online environment. Things like Steam name or Xbox Live/PSN names are much more innocuous.
People are just uncomfortable giving out "real world" information for a video game website. I think it's a bit silly at times. People in my guild have even been uncomfortable looking at themselves on the Guild Map after voluntarily providing their location, which I think is a bit silly. The Guild Map feature is actually one of my favorite parts of our site, and I wish it showed more than just a few (seemingly random) people.
The reason for Phone number being on there (from the very beginning, even before DKPSystem.com existed), was to have a backup means to contact members for raiding purposes. No doubt that can be solved with a forum thread, but it was a nice convenient option to include.
In most cases, raiding isn't quite a difficult to put together as the old 40-man WoW raids, so phone number might not be necessary, but I see it as a valuable option in those rare scenarios when they're needed.
That said, I could see it be added as an "user-defined field" comparable to their use in the character.
I agree with all of these points. I require a phone number or other reliable means of communication outside of the games we play for my officers so we can always get in touch with each other. At that point, we're no longer strangers to each other and feel much more comfortable providing that type of information. It's just not something that I would usually ask for right off the bat, and people have definitely been put off by it.
Some of the more interesting responses to the telephone/location field have included "Yeah right" "Not on your life" "stalk much" "umm no"
Things like ICQ number are just a bit obsolete at this point.
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Ieyasu - Organizer,
Ex Cineribus
