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Blizzard Responds To Gay Guild Debate
Edge Online reports that Blizzard has responded to the issues raised by a gay guild trying to recruit in public chat. From the article: "We encourage community building among our players with others of similar interests, and we understand that guilds are one of the primary ways to forge these communities. However, topics related to sensitive real-world subjects -- such as religious, sexual, or political preference, for example -- have had a tendency to result in communication between players that often breaks down into harassment." We discussed this story when it first came up last week.
", we prohibit mention of topics related to sensitive real-world subjects in open chat within the game, and we do our best to take action whenever we see such topics being broadcast. This includes openly advertising a guild friendly to players based on a particular political, sexual, or religious preference,"
You decide upon your political allegiances
You decide upon your religion beliefs
You do not Choose your sexual preference .
I no more chose to be straight than a gay person chose to be gay
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
I see tons of pro-Christian conversations and Guild named all night long when I play. Blizzard never shuts them the hell up or takes action to remove these offensive-to-me names.
Blizazard's perception is that of homophobes. I can't see them any other way with this type of behavior.
- Posting anonymously so their GMs don't *find* some reason to kick me out of the game.
This argument is sometimes used to justify prejudicial behavior. In this case, it's being used to try to prevent it, and it's still wrong. Basically, "she was dressed like a whore, so she deserved to get assaulted" is the line of reasoning being used.
If the guild's recruiting has the -potential- to incite prejudicial comments among the immature and clueless, then they shouldn't be allowed at all? No. It's always the transgressor's fault. Always.
ACs are modded -6. I don't read you, I don't mod you, I don't see you. Don't like it? Don't be a coward.
It's really a sensitive topic. It'd be like having a guild comprised of black or black-friendly people. It would prompt political debate on whether or not black people should be able to live without asshole rednecks declaring jihads on their asses. Same thing with gays.
And, really, who wants an argument?
And anyway... I can understand Blizzard's positon. I mean, you wouldn't be able to use 'camping fag' as an insult anymore, and that could cause the world of online gaming to grind to a halt.
With that small bit of clarification - "religious, sexual, or political preference" - I wonder if they actually enforce this policy uniformly for all of the above. Do they shut down guilds that align themselves with Christians, Jews, Islam, libs/dems, left/right, etc? If not, then you've gone from potential harassment and being singled out by other players to definite harassment and being singled out by Blizzard.
Long signatures suck.
... sensitive real-world subjects -- such as religious, sexual, or political preference, for example -- have had a tendency to result in communication between players that often breaks down into harassment.
So my question is, why haven't they taken any action against the Christian guilds? Nothing against Christian guilds, but they obviously exist and it seems no action has previously been taken regarding their existence before this GLBT debacle. Personally, I think Blizzard is blowing this issue since they never took action on 'sensitive real-world subjects' before this point, atleast with religious guilds, so it definitely seems that they are applying a double-standard here. Given the immature atmosphere of any online game, having a guild of like-minded folk whos first reaction to any intelligent piece of personal information is NOT to curse and mock the individual, well, that seems like something that should be encouraged rather than dismissed. Otherwise, Blizzard should start the Great Guild Purge of 2006 and get cracking on those religious guilds (and if they exist, political guilds, never seen any though) as well as any other 'sensitive real world topics' instead of their current method of selective enforcement.
"What can a thoughtful man hope for mankind on Earth, given the experience of the past million years? Nothing." -Bokonon
It's a game - the reason you're playing it is to escape reality. Why would you try and bring real world issues into it? Just shutup, and enjoy the game. Blizzard certainly has two feet to stand on regarding this issue. Do you really want to see a guild war between the Pro Lifes and the Pro Choices?
Just making sure . . . you realize that that website is a satire, right? I think the polemicized Slashdot population might not realize that. It's not a real church. Not that there aren't Christians who really think like that, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say that they are a minority.
"The knights of the White Dragon are looking for new members, we are a guild centered around white christian gamers of conservative viewpoints with strong sense of racial pride"
Then when someone protests shut down all arguement with:
"We're already taking down Rag and don't mind letting you leech tier 1 epics on the weekly runs as we're all decked"
I'm a fiscal conservative, it's a pity we don't have a political party anymore
I know that "Aww Gay!" "Dude thats so gay!" is running rampant in the online gaming community. After being accosted by a few friends of mine(RL&IG)of differing sexual orientation, we've gone back to the old days of just saying "Ah fuck" and "Dude! You got fucked!" Cause in essence thats what "Gay!" has become, a replacement "Fuck!".(Wow what a strange sentence)
Why not just go back to saying "Fuck" and not caring if someone thinks you have a lesser command of the english language?
If they harrass you for that, just tell them that... You[I] have taken up the cause to use "Fuck" in order to minimize the negativity and abuse of someone's sexual orientation by using the word "Gay" as an explitive in order to foster a better virtual reality for all manner of gamer.
That should catch them off guard.
I'll probably get modded as flamebait, but this argument smacks entirely of the whole 'Fear of Girls' video kind of situation, but in reverse.
Instead of a bunch of people deciding to yank role-playing into their lives, the decided to spend their time in MMORPGs and inject their real lives into role-playing.
Last I checked, WoW didn't have sexual orientation, and Christian beliefs weren't part of the fundamental makeup of multiverse created by Blizzard. If you want to role-play, then role-play and enjoy. If you need to socialise and engage in some kind of group therapy, then seek out a professional.
There is nothing more frustrating, IMHO, that people who usurp a perfectly good RPG to substitute for their real-life needs. Your real personality will of course affect your choices in the game, but it's still a game. If you can't handle that, log off, and go seek some help.
Linux - because it doesn't leave that Steve Ballmer aftertaste.
Questions:
Are there currently guilds that only recruit heterosexuals? What's Blizzard's policy on this? What should it be?
Are there currently guilds that only recruit African-Americans? How about guilds that only recruit whites?
Reality has a conservative bias: it conserves mass, energy, momentum...
I play warcraft with my wife. Our guildmates know that we're married, and thus they implicitly know that we're heterosexual. In fact, by so much as mentioning my wife, I'm revealing my sexuality. Of course, even if I were reported for that, I highly doubt I'd receive any sort of warning.
On the other hand, if god forbid a male player mentions that he has a boyfriend, he can get a warning for revealing that he's gay... not to mention getting flamed in forum discussions for "throwing his sexuality into people's faces."
I'm not clear on why someone being gay is an affront to other people's existance. Wingnuts, care to respond to this? Sin or not, why does it bother you so much if someone else is gay? Why does someone else's decision about their own sexuality have to be contraversial? Why choose to be offended when you could shrug it off as none of your business?
Blizzard really only has three options in this situation:
1. Freedom of Expression,
If you say that these people have the freedom to collect together and openly espouse the values/personal choices/lifestyle similarities, than you must open this standard to all "virtual citizens" in WoW. The verbal harassment system becomes moot because Blizzard has given a basic set of freedoms to all its players. This is the, "If Jewish pride groups can march near city hall then so can the Neo-Nazi's" because freedom can fully be offensive," example.
2.Allocate generous resources to monitoring harassment issues and make thousands of daily decisions in a timely manner,
This is the only way Blizzard could decide which groups can come together and advertise and which can't. Leaving behind how in the world they could develope a fair and far-reaching policy standard, the workload for this "Quality of Experience" issue would be enourmous and vastly overload the current less-than-pervasive GM staff. They would set a standard that the Executives agree with and enforce it around the clock. Unless they had the intellect of Solomon, I'm guessing that they would still take a ton of crap.
3. Cut of the problem with a "blanket" ban of things that might incite harassment,
This is the cheapest and least time consuming of the three, as they can just say, "Nope, we don't want this and its ours game so you can't do it." It is fully within their rights. We can always yell and scream about the fairness of our virtual social experience, but they are the one's in control. If you want to punish them, stop giving them money. That's what they are after in the first place. I personally am not all that up in arms about this decision. If you really wanted to do a Guild that espoused a certain value-set or lifestyle, its easy to do so in a way that is on a "person-to-person" level. And you'll probably end up with better guildmates that way anyway.
I am and always will be a stereotype, because who in their right mind prefers mono?
Everyone is missing the point. The real concern is that a group of WoW'ers will form a lesbian guild. In a few months when they discover that every member is actually a man playing with a female avatar, they will become enraged and destroy Blizzard HQ for making them face their deep-seated fear of being gay.
The Blizzard text is copy pasted from a post on the WoW Forums.
g ht/christian/Jew/Muslim/doglover/catlover/chronica llyillwithcancer) bashing centers.
What is missing is the second half of the post. They are not banning these guilds, they are just against advertising them in open chat in the game. They have said that the best avenue of recruitment is through their own Guild Recruitment Forums. What they are trying to stop is Orgrimmar and Ironforge (Main capital cities for non-Azerothians) turning into huge (gay/republican/black/white/purple/democrat/strai
In game bashing should properly be restricted to the opposing faction, n00bs, gold farmers, overpowered classes, and the hardcore guys who have no life and stand around showing all the 1337lewts you'll never get but still want.
If this signature is witty enough, maybe somebody will like me.
This does really highlight a difference between the population in EQ2 and WoW, in my opinion. A guild advertised exactly the same thing in EQ2. A couple players questioned their agenda, though only a select few were hostile. After this initial phase of discovering they're legit, they're willing to accept anyone, and they're not evil ghey folks out to convert your children, people stopped bothering them and the guild got formed. I kept seeing 'em around, so I guess they were doing okay.
Another thing that happened on a chat channel was that someone start making borderline racist jokes (being both drunk and stupid), and the guy's friends immediately did the right thing and told him to get some sleep and come back tomorrow. It was one of the most amazing things I've ever seen on the internet - no flame war, no cursing, no angry posts on the forums, it just ended.
As to WoW, if they want to handle everything real world by banning its discussion, I have no problem (though I'm curious if it's equally applied -- their policy might actually get them into legal trouble if it's not). I don't know, maybe they have a point with the kiddies, but I think most people in WoW have seen enough elves strip teasing and people talking about teh cybarsechs that it's not an issue. If we really need to head in this direction, I would absolutely love to see 18+ servers so that we could stop having to worry about offending the kiddies constantly.
13-17 year olds. I'm not saying that this is the sole age range of the WoW players, but the main majority are. What else are we to expect with a bunch of people that have not made it through what we call an education? They have no real concept of society at this point, and sadly one of those reasons is that our government is not trying to teach that any longer. Most of our good social programs have disappeared, we no longer teach basic laws in school (as far as the government law is concerned,) and in general we're slowly dumbing down our population by lowering the standards. What we're going to end up with is an ignorant society that has no brains, and very soon Webster's Dictionary WILL have a definition for 'sheeple.' That scares the shit out of me.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.