Cleaning up Thunder Bluff

An anonymous reader writes "Colleen Hannon at Gamers With Jobs is mad as hell, and she's not going to take it anymore. 'Unless you're playing Neopets, online servers are full of foul-mouthed, racist junk-monkeys. The hate-filled miasma they spatter around them has reached the point where many people who could be on those services won't go, and those who do brave it won't go without a posse and riot gear.' She plays out every side of the argument: why things have gotten as bad as they've become, what publishers have and haven't done about it, and why she thinks things are now at unacceptable levels of incivility. She's calling on us gamers to get together and figure this out, because: 'If we wait for the new sheriff in town to fight this battle for us we might not like the town we're left with.' Is it as bad as she says?"

Comments

They are just words.

[loafula]

Thats how I feel about profanity. Words. Nothing more, nothing less. Why the fuck do people get so upset when other people say fuck?

Stop right there!

[halycon404]

There is nothing wrong with the system. Don't like general chat? don't read it! Don't like Dumb-b***ard's views, ignore him. It is not Blizzard's job to make sure we all feel warm and fuzzy about how different people discuss things in game. Nor is it our jobs as gamers to censor other gamers simply because they are being assholes, I'm personally busy playing the game. If you have a problem with it, yet the mass majority of players playing the game(wow is 7million now right?) don't have a problem with it. Then maybe, just going out on a limb here, maybe the problem is you?

Really, how did this article end up in slashdot of all places? I expect this to be an "breaking news story" on one of the major stations. "Oh no, little Timmy could learn the word "Fuck" from playing wow, news at 11"

Grow thicker skin!

[DoctaWatson]

Come on. It seems like everyone is posting "solutions" to the problem that recommend banning bad language or punishing offensive users. Am I really going to be the only person to say that maybe the author needs to grow thicker skin and not let these things get to her so much?

Are we really so easily offended by people playing a game?

Get a thicker skin

[brkello]

And I mean that to people on general. With the over-reaction we are getting to shock jocks on the radio...to the morons who say things in games...the easiest thing to do is just let it go. You aren't going to change them. Most games give you mechanisms to ignore the most obnoxious. Otherwise...just relax and try to see the humor. Yeah, to some people the guild name "A Naga Stole My Bicycle" is offensive. But it is meant in humor and should be interpreted as such. People are too sensitive about words lately. In general, most people aren't racist...these words have become slang to mean something else. I think people should watch what they say more and others shouldn't be so sensitive. But it isn't a problem that is going to go away. So either learn to deal with it or log off.