Or, more accurately, I don't think it is the anonymity that drives it. I think it is the general lack of repercussions at all from this sort of behavior.
I've seen people post terrible things, under their own names, on Facebook pages for movies, news stories, and the like
It is a tricky area- I'm not sure how I would enforce repercussions. We have had a few threads in D&D devoted to things like the fallout from the Mozilla CEO's public statements and I came down pretty hard in favor of the stance that "if you say awful shit, no matter how privately you think it is, you should be held accountable for those words."
However, this raises the obvious question of who defines what is or isn't awful, and who mediates punishment.
I just don't know, but I'm almost certain that a lack of anonymity would solve the problem.
Who defines what is or isn't awful? The person you're saying the things to.
Who mediates punishment? The Justice system.
If you sent some of the crap these people have via the postal system, they'd have a team of FBI agents already looking into it.
The postal system is a lot more traceable
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
One of our writers had a very specific directive where she made sure every area had at least half of the speaking characters as women.
Yesterday I crunched 14 hours to diversify the incidental characters in a bunch of scenes so that there were women and PoC.
We also did a pass a while back to make a bunch of speaking characters PoC as well, including literally the handsomest guy in our game. Little things, but a bunch of positive characters are black! A bunch of our voice actors are PoC. It makes no difference to our combat or to our game mechanics or anything that the average person involved in all of this claims to care about.
This is the kind of stuff people are pushing against. It blows my mind.
See, you saying this kind of stuff about DA:I makes me way more excited for it than any gameplay trailer could.
Because all a gameplay trailer will tell me is which specific way I will push buttons to kill monsters. But what you said? That tells me that the people making it gave a shit about the world they're making and story they're telling.
One of our writers had a very specific directive where she made sure every area had at least half of the speaking characters as women.
Yesterday I crunched 14 hours to diversify the incidental characters in a bunch of scenes so that there were women and PoC.
We also did a pass a while back to make a bunch of speaking characters PoC as well, including literally the handsomest guy in our game. Little things, but a bunch of positive characters are black! A bunch of our voice actors are PoC. It makes no difference to our combat or to our game mechanics or anything that the average person involved in all of this claims to care about.
This is the kind of stuff people are pushing against. It blows my mind.
You know how Call of Duty now has playable female soldiers in multiplayer? I had so many arguments about doing that, with considerable pushback from the "lol realism" crowd and others going "Who cares if women are in the game?". Now that the game is out and has female soldiers as playable characters in multiplayer, nobody gave a shit. It wasn't even noticed by these same people anyway.
It's amazing how they think these things will ruin games forever in a conversation with them, but in actual practice we still get mostly the same games we would have in the first place.
Edit: Not to mention how I've played rounds where everyone is playing as a woman.
...Wait...people argued realism?
In Call of Duty multiplayer?
The multiplayer where you can jump 50ft without dying, heal like Wolverine, and summon jets by killing people?
I am confused.
I'm waiting for someone to do a female Soviet sniper FPS campaign in WW2.
Jephery on
}
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
+2
Dhalphirdon't you open that trapdooryou're a fool if you dareRegistered Userregular
Or, more accurately, I don't think it is the anonymity that drives it. I think it is the general lack of repercussions at all from this sort of behavior.
I've seen people post terrible things, under their own names, on Facebook pages for movies, news stories, and the like
It is a tricky area- I'm not sure how I would enforce repercussions. We have had a few threads in D&D devoted to things like the fallout from the Mozilla CEO's public statements and I came down pretty hard in favor of the stance that "if you say awful shit, no matter how privately you think it is, you should be held accountable for those words."
However, this raises the obvious question of who defines what is or isn't awful, and who mediates punishment.
I just don't know, but I'm almost certain that a lack of anonymity would solve the problem.
And would introduce a whole set of new problems that far outweigh the old.
I just got done reading a 50-comment facebook thread where Real People With Real Names were talking about how they truly believe 90% gay people are "faking it" to act as a subversive counterculture agency in America and give Barack Obama enough reason to declare, and I quote "Gay Martial Law"
Making people flash their ID to join a forum ain't gonna fix shit.
One of our writers had a very specific directive where she made sure every area had at least half of the speaking characters as women.
Yesterday I crunched 14 hours to diversify the incidental characters in a bunch of scenes so that there were women and PoC.
We also did a pass a while back to make a bunch of speaking characters PoC as well, including literally the handsomest guy in our game. Little things, but a bunch of positive characters are black! A bunch of our voice actors are PoC. It makes no difference to our combat or to our game mechanics or anything that the average person involved in all of this claims to care about.
This is the kind of stuff people are pushing against. It blows my mind.
You know how Call of Duty now has playable female soldiers in multiplayer? I had so many arguments about doing that, with considerable pushback from the "lol realism" crowd and others going "Who cares if women are in the game?". Now that the game is out and has female soldiers as playable characters in multiplayer, nobody gave a shit. It wasn't even noticed by these same people anyway.
It's amazing how they think these things will ruin games forever in a conversation with them, but in actual practice we still get mostly the same games we would have in the first place.
Edit: Not to mention how I've played rounds where everyone is playing as a woman.
...Wait...people argued realism?
In Call of Duty multiplayer?
The multiplayer where you can jump 50ft without dying, heal like Wolverine, and summon jets by killing people?
I am confused.
Yes. I've literally had to argue the point with people who think including women in a shoot mans simulator like Call of Duty or Battlefield is a terrible breach of realism.
One of our writers had a very specific directive where she made sure every area had at least half of the speaking characters as women.
Yesterday I crunched 14 hours to diversify the incidental characters in a bunch of scenes so that there were women and PoC.
We also did a pass a while back to make a bunch of speaking characters PoC as well, including literally the handsomest guy in our game. Little things, but a bunch of positive characters are black! A bunch of our voice actors are PoC. It makes no difference to our combat or to our game mechanics or anything that the average person involved in all of this claims to care about.
This is the kind of stuff people are pushing against. It blows my mind.
You know how Call of Duty now has playable female soldiers in multiplayer? I had so many arguments about doing that, with considerable pushback from the "lol realism" crowd and others going "Who cares if women are in the game?". Now that the game is out and has female soldiers as playable characters in multiplayer, nobody gave a shit. It wasn't even noticed by these same people anyway.
It's amazing how they think these things will ruin games forever in a conversation with them, but in actual practice we still get mostly the same games we would have in the first place.
Edit: Not to mention how I've played rounds where everyone is playing as a woman.
...Wait...people argued realism?
In Call of Duty multiplayer?
The multiplayer where you can jump 50ft without dying, heal like Wolverine, and summon jets by killing people?
I am confused.
I'm waiting for someone to do a female Soviet sniper FPS campaign in WW2.
Pavlichenko was sent to Canada and the United States for a publicity visit and became the first Soviet citizen to be received by a US President when Franklin Roosevelt welcomed her to the White House. Pavlichenko was later invited by Eleanor Roosevelt to tour America relating her experiences. While meeting with reporters in Washington, D.C. she was dumbfounded about the kind of questions put to her. "One reporter even criticized the length of the skirt of my uniform, saying that in America women wear shorter skirts and besides my uniform made me look fat"
They'd probably avoid sending child pornography, or you know any other blatantly illegal actions.
This is probably true. But without severe moderation(which, ultimately, I think is the only reasonable fix--on the clock mods like this forum's for every website), the vitriol won't go away.
Either nuke all comments sections on all enthusiast websites from orbit, which I wouldn't miss, or make DAMN SURE you have a squad of people dedicated to tearing out anything past terse disagreement by the roots.
Basically, if people wanna act like children, then treat them that way. When a kid kicks and screams and yells, you put them into a situation where they have no alternative but to stew. Unfortunately, internet warrens like 4chan will probably never go away, so at worst you'd be sending heels into an echo chamber, but I dunno what else you could possibly do.
The multiplayer where you can jump 50ft without dying, heal like Wolverine, and summon jets by killing people?
I am confused.
Yes. I've literally had to argue the point with people who think including women in a shoot mans simulator like Call of Duty or Battlefield is a terrible breach of realism.
Aside from CoD not being the most realistic game ever made, there are actually quite a few female commandos in certain militaries around the world. So those people are just wrong at this point.
They'd probably avoid sending child pornography, or you know any other blatantly illegal actions.
This is probably true. But without severe moderation(which, ultimately, I think is the only reasonable fix--on the clock mods like this forum's for every website), the vitriol won't go away.
Either nuke all comments sections on all enthusiast websites from orbit, which I wouldn't miss, or make DAMN SURE you have a squad of people dedicated to tearing out anything past terse disagreement by the roots.
Basically, if people wanna act like children, then treat them that way. When a kid kicks and screams and yells, you put them into a situation where they have no alternative but to stew. Unfortunately, internet warrens like 4chan will probably never go away, so at worst you'd be sending heels into an echo chamber, but I dunno what else you could possibly do.
Global Internet police force
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
One of our writers had a very specific directive where she made sure every area had at least half of the speaking characters as women.
Yesterday I crunched 14 hours to diversify the incidental characters in a bunch of scenes so that there were women and PoC.
We also did a pass a while back to make a bunch of speaking characters PoC as well, including literally the handsomest guy in our game. Little things, but a bunch of positive characters are black! A bunch of our voice actors are PoC. It makes no difference to our combat or to our game mechanics or anything that the average person involved in all of this claims to care about.
This is the kind of stuff people are pushing against. It blows my mind.
Now I'm happy that I preordered your game, all buyer's remorse is gone. I'll gladly throw money at any company that actively pushes against the more caustic aspects of gaming and makes diversity a priority.
"I see everything twice!"
+5
MorninglordI'm tired of being Batman,so today I'll be Owl.Registered Userregular
The multiplayer where you can jump 50ft without dying, heal like Wolverine, and summon jets by killing people?
I am confused.
Yes. I've literally had to argue the point with people who think including women in a shoot mans simulator like Call of Duty or Battlefield is a terrible breach of realism.
Aside from CoD not being the most realistic game ever made, there are actually quite a few female commandos in certain militaries around the world. So those people are just wrong at this point.
"Realism" is rarely about reality and mostly about the narrative stories we tell ourselves.
Morninglord on
(PSN: Morninglord) (Steam: Morninglord) (WiiU: Morninglord22) I like to record and toss up a lot of random gaming videos here.
Why is it that trolling with extreme insults, such as this (you want Royce to fuck off and die? for that post? really?) considered acceptable?
And I don't mean "on other forums," and I'm not trying to downplay our moderation staff.
I mean why is this the seemingly standard response to, well, most anything in the games industry?
I don't think the "Internet Fuckwad" theory is strong enough to explain this.
I'm honestly interested in this as well.
It's been especially educational to watch a few intuitive measures for curbing toxic behavior fail - the incredibly harsh and relatively fast-acting Tribunal in League of Legends, the Riot Games PSA videos, the no-tolerance policy in Blizzard games (people still explode with obscenities in Starcraft II, even though there is a high risk of losing their 60 dollar CD key & having a permanent association with toxic behavior and the ID they had to tie to their Blizzard account), attempting to adjust game mechanics to make players less frustrated (Strife), easy to use muting features, etc.
The only thing I've seen work, and it;s true of these forums as well, is real-time moderation. The not only credible, but guaranteed threat of disciplinary action, more or less as soon as a report is issued.
It's kind of fascinating to see that people weigh risk in that manner, where the timing of consequences for poor behavior is apparently weighed even more highly than the severity of those consequences.
With Love and Courage
0
MorninglordI'm tired of being Batman,so today I'll be Owl.Registered Userregular
Why is it that trolling with extreme insults, such as this (you want Royce to fuck off and die? for that post? really?) considered acceptable?
And I don't mean "on other forums," and I'm not trying to downplay our moderation staff.
I mean why is this the seemingly standard response to, well, most anything in the games industry?
I don't think the "Internet Fuckwad" theory is strong enough to explain this.
I'm honestly interested in this as well.
It's been especially educational to watch a few intuitive measures for curbing toxic behavior fail - the incredibly harsh and relatively fast-acting Tribunal in League of Legends, the Riot Games PSA videos, the no-tolerance policy in Blizzard games (people still explode with obscenities in Starcraft II, even though there is a high risk of losing their 60 dollar CD key & having a permanent association with toxic behavior and the ID they had to tie to their Blizzard account), attempting to adjust game mechanics to make players less frustrated (Strife), easy to use muting features, etc.
The only thing I've seen work, and it;s true of these forums as well, is real-time moderation. The not only credible, but guaranteed threat of disciplinary action, more or less as soon as a report is issued.
It's kind of fascinating to see that people weigh risk in that manner, where the timing of consequences for poor behavior is apparently weighed even more highly than the severity of those consequences.
That's how learning works though.
You know how you need to time the reward (or the punishment) very closely to the behaviour when training an animal?
Humans are the same. The most effective learning involves immediate feedback.
Morninglord on
(PSN: Morninglord) (Steam: Morninglord) (WiiU: Morninglord22) I like to record and toss up a lot of random gaming videos here.
One of our writers had a very specific directive where she made sure every area had at least half of the speaking characters as women.
Yesterday I crunched 14 hours to diversify the incidental characters in a bunch of scenes so that there were women and PoC.
We also did a pass a while back to make a bunch of speaking characters PoC as well, including literally the handsomest guy in our game. Little things, but a bunch of positive characters are black! A bunch of our voice actors are PoC. It makes no difference to our combat or to our game mechanics or anything that the average person involved in all of this claims to care about.
This is the kind of stuff people are pushing against. It blows my mind.
You know how Call of Duty now has playable female soldiers in multiplayer? I had so many arguments about doing that, with considerable pushback from the "lol realism" crowd and others going "Who cares if women are in the game?". Now that the game is out and has female soldiers as playable characters in multiplayer, nobody gave a shit. It wasn't even noticed by these same people anyway.
It's amazing how they think these things will ruin games forever in a conversation with them, but in actual practice we still get mostly the same games we would have in the first place.
Edit: Not to mention how I've played rounds where everyone is playing as a woman.
...Wait...people argued realism?
In Call of Duty multiplayer?
The multiplayer where you can jump 50ft without dying, heal like Wolverine, and summon jets by killing people?
I am confused.
I'm waiting for someone to do a female Soviet sniper FPS campaign in WW2.
Pavlichenko was sent to Canada and the United States for a publicity visit and became the first Soviet citizen to be received by a US President when Franklin Roosevelt welcomed her to the White House. Pavlichenko was later invited by Eleanor Roosevelt to tour America relating her experiences. While meeting with reporters in Washington, D.C. she was dumbfounded about the kind of questions put to her. "One reporter even criticized the length of the skirt of my uniform, saying that in America women wear shorter skirts and besides my uniform made me look fat"
the profanity moderation blizzard does is kind of annoying. like you can get modded for saying profanity on their forums that is in the very game of the forum you are posting on
I like being able to say fuck on these forums, you know?
+7
MorninglordI'm tired of being Batman,so today I'll be Owl.Registered Userregular
edited September 2014
I was born and raised for the first decade and a bit of my life on a farm surrounded by male farmers for whom the word fuck was just a useful variable. It's just a word for me. Filler word, emphasis word, rarely an insulting word because it was never really used that way ie "Fuck you". I do actually find that use mildly shocking because it is out of context for how I grew up with the word.
What I'm trying to say is that if this forum was like Bioware I'd have been tossed out on my fucking ear yonks ago.
Morninglord on
(PSN: Morninglord) (Steam: Morninglord) (WiiU: Morninglord22) I like to record and toss up a lot of random gaming videos here.
Why is it that trolling with extreme insults, such as this (you want Royce to fuck off and die? for that post? really?) considered acceptable?
And I don't mean "on other forums," and I'm not trying to downplay our moderation staff.
I mean why is this the seemingly standard response to, well, most anything in the games industry?
I don't think the "Internet Fuckwad" theory is strong enough to explain this.
I'm honestly interested in this as well.
It's been especially educational to watch a few intuitive measures for curbing toxic behavior fail - the incredibly harsh and relatively fast-acting Tribunal in League of Legends, the Riot Games PSA videos, the no-tolerance policy in Blizzard games (people still explode with obscenities in Starcraft II, even though there is a high risk of losing their 60 dollar CD key & having a permanent association with toxic behavior and the ID they had to tie to their Blizzard account), attempting to adjust game mechanics to make players less frustrated (Strife), easy to use muting features, etc.
The only thing I've seen work, and it;s true of these forums as well, is real-time moderation. The not only credible, but guaranteed threat of disciplinary action, more or less as soon as a report is issued.
It's kind of fascinating to see that people weigh risk in that manner, where the timing of consequences for poor behavior is apparently weighed even more highly than the severity of those consequences.
I don't know about that. Real time moderation reduces the total amount of time spent for each violation, but does it reduce the incidence of violations? It might be an illusion of the fact that cutting short disruption buys interval peace, rather than unmitigated havoc overlapping and causing a continuous nightmare.
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
It's weird to think folk are so terrified of this thread and it's community.
I wonder how the other large forums are doing.
I googled "Penny Arcade forums sjw" and it's interesting to see the love / hate relationship they've had with the site over the years. They post lists of SJW webcomics. Also folk huddling around, insulting specific mods? Who does that? That said, it's not interesting enough to subject yourself to folk using sjws sincerely. I am done gazing at this abyss.
0
MorninglordI'm tired of being Batman,so today I'll be Owl.Registered Userregular
I genuinely prefer the firm hand of our overlords. I can honestly say they've made me a better person.
I mean I haven't stopped being a geeky little know it all but you know what I mean.
(PSN: Morninglord) (Steam: Morninglord) (WiiU: Morninglord22) I like to record and toss up a lot of random gaming videos here.
It's funny because the definition of "SJW" that is often meant to be an insult is not at all the sort of thing I would be ashamed about being labelled as.
Like...good job! You found a term to call me that is even LESS insulting than calling me a hippie!~
So edgy!
Neco on
0
AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
The multiplayer where you can jump 50ft without dying, heal like Wolverine, and summon jets by killing people?
I am confused.
Yes. I've literally had to argue the point with people who think including women in a shoot mans simulator like Call of Duty or Battlefield is a terrible breach of realism.
Aside from CoD not being the most realistic game ever made, there are actually quite a few female commandos in certain militaries around the world. So those people are just wrong at this point.
One of our writers had a very specific directive where she made sure every area had at least half of the speaking characters as women.
Yesterday I crunched 14 hours to diversify the incidental characters in a bunch of scenes so that there were women and PoC.
We also did a pass a while back to make a bunch of speaking characters PoC as well, including literally the handsomest guy in our game. Little things, but a bunch of positive characters are black! A bunch of our voice actors are PoC. It makes no difference to our combat or to our game mechanics or anything that the average person involved in all of this claims to care about.
This is the kind of stuff people are pushing against. It blows my mind.
Now I'm happy that I preordered your game, all buyer's remorse is gone. I'll gladly throw money at any company that actively pushes against the more caustic aspects of gaming and makes diversity a priority.
I was a pretty big critic of Dragon Age 2, but every single thing I keep hearing about DA3 makes me so happy I preordered it.
I have this vague recollection of a PA comic about the history of video games where they talk about the great suckening, when video games started catering to the bros. May have been a multi-parter. Is this ringing any bells?
It's been especially educational to watch a few intuitive measures for curbing toxic behavior fail - the incredibly harsh and relatively fast-acting Tribunal in League of Legends, the Riot Games PSA videos, the no-tolerance policy in Blizzard games (people still explode with obscenities in Starcraft II, even though there is a high risk of losing their 60 dollar CD key & having a permanent association with toxic behavior and the ID they had to tie to their Blizzard account), attempting to adjust game mechanics to make players less frustrated (Strife), easy to use muting features, etc.
The only thing I've seen work, and it;s true of these forums as well, is real-time moderation. The not only credible, but guaranteed threat of disciplinary action, more or less as soon as a report is issued.
It's kind of fascinating to see that people weigh risk in that manner, where the timing of consequences for poor behavior is apparently weighed even more highly than the severity of those consequences.
I think you can probably explain it, at least in terms of abusive posting. Subconsciously, people are weighing up the likelihood of their post achieving what they want it to - i.e., be seen.
On a forum with active and ever present moderators like PA, the chances of very many people reading a toxic or abusive post before it gets deleted or infracted publicly are very low. Maybe a dozen people might see it, only those involved in a specific thread. For most, it's not worth it.
But in a game of LoL, or DotA, where even a rapid punishment comes hours or days after the act, the action has long since had its effect.
+1
MorninglordI'm tired of being Batman,so today I'll be Owl.Registered Userregular
edited September 2014
If facts mattered here this thread wouldn't exist.
Morninglord on
(PSN: Morninglord) (Steam: Morninglord) (WiiU: Morninglord22) I like to record and toss up a lot of random gaming videos here.
I have this vague recollection of a PA comic about the history of video games where they talk about the great suckening, when video games started catering to the bros. May have been a multi-parter. Is this ringing any bells?
Aren't women allowed to serve in open combat in the US military now anyway?
But can they realistically eject from their jet, kill a man with their LAW, then land back in their jet's cockpit?
Battletag BYToady#1454
+1
ceresWhen the last moon is cast over the last star of morningAnd the future has past without even a last desperate warningRegistered User, Moderatormod
On a forum with active and ever present moderators like PA, the chances of very many people reading a toxic or abusive post before it gets deleted or infracted publicly are very low. Maybe a dozen people might see it, only those involved in a specific thread. For most, it's not worth it.
I have to say I'm glad to be involved with a forum staff that makes it just plain not worthwhile for people like that to come and post that kind of garbage, every bit as much as I am glad to put so much time into a community and have the fact that I am female very rarely come up as an issue for anyone at all. It really says something pretty positive about this place.
And it seems like all is dying, and would leave the world to mourn
+26
BethrynUnhappiness is MandatoryRegistered Userregular
Removing anonymity may not stop the airing of opinions that displease people, but they do give an avenue of recourse for someone actually harassing or sending death threats.
Sure, FaceBook has just as many horrible opinions posted on it, but if someone says "I'm going to come to your house and murder you", you have enough details on them to send to the police.
...and of course, as always, Kill Hitler.
0
MorninglordI'm tired of being Batman,so today I'll be Owl.Registered Userregular
Removing anonymity may not stop the airing of opinions that displease people, but they do give an avenue of recourse for someone actually harassing or sending death threats.
Sure, FaceBook has just as many horrible opinions posted on it, but if someone says "I'm going to come to your house and murder you", you have enough details on them to send to the police.
They'll just find some way to do it anonymously.
(PSN: Morninglord) (Steam: Morninglord) (WiiU: Morninglord22) I like to record and toss up a lot of random gaming videos here.
+6
MorninglordI'm tired of being Batman,so today I'll be Owl.Registered Userregular
And just to make it even better they'll have all your details too.
(PSN: Morninglord) (Steam: Morninglord) (WiiU: Morninglord22) I like to record and toss up a lot of random gaming videos here.
Removing anonymity may not stop the airing of opinions that displease people, but they do give an avenue of recourse for someone actually harassing or sending death threats.
Sure, FaceBook has just as many horrible opinions posted on it, but if someone says "I'm going to come to your house and murder you", you have enough details on them to send to the police.
They'll just find some way to do it anonymously.
Or use stolen accounts. You send the police to the completely wrong person's house, now the bastard ruined two lives instead of one.
Jephery on
}
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
+1
MorninglordI'm tired of being Batman,so today I'll be Owl.Registered Userregular
It's akin to preventing sneak attacks by getting everyone to shout I AM ATTACKING before they do so.
Now the only time you get sneak attacked is when somebody doesn't shout first. A masterful solution!
Do you get why that logic doesn't work?
(PSN: Morninglord) (Steam: Morninglord) (WiiU: Morninglord22) I like to record and toss up a lot of random gaming videos here.
On a forum with active and ever present moderators like PA, the chances of very many people reading a toxic or abusive post before it gets deleted or infracted publicly are very low. Maybe a dozen people might see it, only those involved in a specific thread. For most, it's not worth it.
I have to say I'm glad to be involved with a forum staff that makes it just plain not worthwhile for people like that to come and post that kind of garbage, every bit as much as I am glad to put so much time into a community and have the fact that I am female very rarely come up as an issue for anyone at all. It really says something pretty positive about this place.
You're a g-g-g-g-g-girl?!?!
0
AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
But removing anonymity paints targets on people. Look at the women successfully harassed out of gaming by #GamerGate. All of whom had real names and they knew where they were and who they wrote for. They used this information in their campaign to drive them out. In addition to this, anonymity protects minorities and people with smaller viewpoints more so than enables dipshits.
You only have to look at Facebook comments or even people using their real names on YouTube to see "Real name = improved behavior" isn't true in the least. Hell, many people on twitter are equally awful and have their real names on their profiles.
MorninglordI'm tired of being Batman,so today I'll be Owl.Registered Userregular
Deeply integrated social sites like Facebook and Twitter are more likely to produce a kind of diffused responsibility effect, where people are less inhibited because they feel like everyone is doing it.
In other words.
Twitter and Facebook can very easily become the online equivalent of mobs.
(PSN: Morninglord) (Steam: Morninglord) (WiiU: Morninglord22) I like to record and toss up a lot of random gaming videos here.
Why is it that trolling with extreme insults, such as this (you want Royce to fuck off and die? for that post? really?) considered acceptable?
And I don't mean "on other forums," and I'm not trying to downplay our moderation staff.
I mean why is this the seemingly standard response to, well, most anything in the games industry?
I don't think the "Internet Fuckwad" theory is strong enough to explain this.
I'm honestly interested in this as well.
It's been especially educational to watch a few intuitive measures for curbing toxic behavior fail - the incredibly harsh and relatively fast-acting Tribunal in League of Legends, the Riot Games PSA videos, the no-tolerance policy in Blizzard games (people still explode with obscenities in Starcraft II, even though there is a high risk of losing their 60 dollar CD key & having a permanent association with toxic behavior and the ID they had to tie to their Blizzard account), attempting to adjust game mechanics to make players less frustrated (Strife), easy to use muting features, etc.
The only thing I've seen work, and it;s true of these forums as well, is real-time moderation. The not only credible, but guaranteed threat of disciplinary action, more or less as soon as a report is issued.
It's kind of fascinating to see that people weigh risk in that manner, where the timing of consequences for poor behavior is apparently weighed even more highly than the severity of those consequences.
I don't know about that. Real time moderation reduces the total amount of time spent for each violation, but does it reduce the incidence of violations? It might be an illusion of the fact that cutting short disruption buys interval peace, rather than unmitigated havoc overlapping and causing a continuous nightmare.
Anecdotally, I have to say that I'm pretty sure the impact is real.
I mean, I'll compare my experience with League of Legends to my experience with Magic: the Gathering Online:
League: One of every 2 games, at the very least, will have someone fly into an incoherent rage and start telling everyone how they should go commit suicide, how they should all go get AIDS, how they're all a bunch of [minority slur], etc. Even games where we are winning, a 'teammate' will go ahead and do this if they feel so inclined for whatever reason.
It's so toxic that I've almost stopped playing. It's one of my most favorite games of all time in terms of mechanics, and one that I feel like I've grown a lot in as a competitive ladder player, but some nights I just cannot deal with toxicity. I've even slipped in terms of sticking around in the lobby to report people, because i never get any feedback on whether or not a report was read & it just feels like, as someone playing the game on a daily basis, that improvement is either too small to be of consequence or actually non-existent.
Magic: I have never had a toxic experience. Never. The closest was an angry opponent deciding to sidestep the swear filter by typing f.u.c.k. you at the end of a match; this immediately triggered a game pause, after which a moderator appeared, disciplined the player & forced them to apologize.
I'm bored with Magic these days, and the Magic Online client is still as garbage as ever, but I will still pop on every now & then to play with people I know I can have a good-natured chat with while gaming.
Posts
The postal system is a lot more traceable
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
See, you saying this kind of stuff about DA:I makes me way more excited for it than any gameplay trailer could.
Because all a gameplay trailer will tell me is which specific way I will push buttons to kill monsters. But what you said? That tells me that the people making it gave a shit about the world they're making and story they're telling.
I'm waiting for someone to do a female Soviet sniper FPS campaign in WW2.
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
And would introduce a whole set of new problems that far outweigh the old.
I just got done reading a 50-comment facebook thread where Real People With Real Names were talking about how they truly believe 90% gay people are "faking it" to act as a subversive counterculture agency in America and give Barack Obama enough reason to declare, and I quote "Gay Martial Law"
Making people flash their ID to join a forum ain't gonna fix shit.
Yes. I've literally had to argue the point with people who think including women in a shoot mans simulator like Call of Duty or Battlefield is a terrible breach of realism.
EDIT: Best quote from that article -
This is probably true. But without severe moderation(which, ultimately, I think is the only reasonable fix--on the clock mods like this forum's for every website), the vitriol won't go away.
Either nuke all comments sections on all enthusiast websites from orbit, which I wouldn't miss, or make DAMN SURE you have a squad of people dedicated to tearing out anything past terse disagreement by the roots.
Basically, if people wanna act like children, then treat them that way. When a kid kicks and screams and yells, you put them into a situation where they have no alternative but to stew. Unfortunately, internet warrens like 4chan will probably never go away, so at worst you'd be sending heels into an echo chamber, but I dunno what else you could possibly do.
Aside from CoD not being the most realistic game ever made, there are actually quite a few female commandos in certain militaries around the world. So those people are just wrong at this point.
Global Internet police force
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
"Realism" is rarely about reality and mostly about the narrative stories we tell ourselves.
I'm honestly interested in this as well.
It's been especially educational to watch a few intuitive measures for curbing toxic behavior fail - the incredibly harsh and relatively fast-acting Tribunal in League of Legends, the Riot Games PSA videos, the no-tolerance policy in Blizzard games (people still explode with obscenities in Starcraft II, even though there is a high risk of losing their 60 dollar CD key & having a permanent association with toxic behavior and the ID they had to tie to their Blizzard account), attempting to adjust game mechanics to make players less frustrated (Strife), easy to use muting features, etc.
The only thing I've seen work, and it;s true of these forums as well, is real-time moderation. The not only credible, but guaranteed threat of disciplinary action, more or less as soon as a report is issued.
It's kind of fascinating to see that people weigh risk in that manner, where the timing of consequences for poor behavior is apparently weighed even more highly than the severity of those consequences.
That's how learning works though.
You know how you need to time the reward (or the punishment) very closely to the behaviour when training an animal?
Humans are the same. The most effective learning involves immediate feedback.
USA! USA!
I like being able to say fuck on these forums, you know?
What I'm trying to say is that if this forum was like Bioware I'd have been tossed out on my fucking ear yonks ago.
I don't know about that. Real time moderation reduces the total amount of time spent for each violation, but does it reduce the incidence of violations? It might be an illusion of the fact that cutting short disruption buys interval peace, rather than unmitigated havoc overlapping and causing a continuous nightmare.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Sorry T**mas, but because people are terrible, ya gotta have some asterisks. And people still get through the filter.
I googled "Penny Arcade forums sjw" and it's interesting to see the love / hate relationship they've had with the site over the years. They post lists of SJW webcomics. Also folk huddling around, insulting specific mods? Who does that? That said, it's not interesting enough to subject yourself to folk using sjws sincerely. I am done gazing at this abyss.
I mean I haven't stopped being a geeky little know it all but you know what I mean.
Like...good job! You found a term to call me that is even LESS insulting than calling me a hippie!~
So edgy!
It's more in reference to things like this:
And yet, "Realism" is why we shouldn't have female soldiers. The entire basis of excluding people just never makes any sense.
I was a pretty big critic of Dragon Age 2, but every single thing I keep hearing about DA3 makes me so happy I preordered it.
I think you can probably explain it, at least in terms of abusive posting. Subconsciously, people are weighing up the likelihood of their post achieving what they want it to - i.e., be seen.
On a forum with active and ever present moderators like PA, the chances of very many people reading a toxic or abusive post before it gets deleted or infracted publicly are very low. Maybe a dozen people might see it, only those involved in a specific thread. For most, it's not worth it.
But in a game of LoL, or DotA, where even a rapid punishment comes hours or days after the act, the action has long since had its effect.
Yo! http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2001/06/04/the-sucking-introduction
EDIT: Luckily the phrase "Garcon! More genres!" is seared into my memory
But can they realistically eject from their jet, kill a man with their LAW, then land back in their jet's cockpit?
I have to say I'm glad to be involved with a forum staff that makes it just plain not worthwhile for people like that to come and post that kind of garbage, every bit as much as I am glad to put so much time into a community and have the fact that I am female very rarely come up as an issue for anyone at all. It really says something pretty positive about this place.
Sure, FaceBook has just as many horrible opinions posted on it, but if someone says "I'm going to come to your house and murder you", you have enough details on them to send to the police.
They'll just find some way to do it anonymously.
Or use stolen accounts. You send the police to the completely wrong person's house, now the bastard ruined two lives instead of one.
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
Now the only time you get sneak attacked is when somebody doesn't shout first. A masterful solution!
Do you get why that logic doesn't work?
You're a g-g-g-g-g-girl?!?!
You only have to look at Facebook comments or even people using their real names on YouTube to see "Real name = improved behavior" isn't true in the least. Hell, many people on twitter are equally awful and have their real names on their profiles.
In other words.
Twitter and Facebook can very easily become the online equivalent of mobs.
Anecdotally, I have to say that I'm pretty sure the impact is real.
I mean, I'll compare my experience with League of Legends to my experience with Magic: the Gathering Online:
League: One of every 2 games, at the very least, will have someone fly into an incoherent rage and start telling everyone how they should go commit suicide, how they should all go get AIDS, how they're all a bunch of [minority slur], etc. Even games where we are winning, a 'teammate' will go ahead and do this if they feel so inclined for whatever reason.
It's so toxic that I've almost stopped playing. It's one of my most favorite games of all time in terms of mechanics, and one that I feel like I've grown a lot in as a competitive ladder player, but some nights I just cannot deal with toxicity. I've even slipped in terms of sticking around in the lobby to report people, because i never get any feedback on whether or not a report was read & it just feels like, as someone playing the game on a daily basis, that improvement is either too small to be of consequence or actually non-existent.
Magic: I have never had a toxic experience. Never. The closest was an angry opponent deciding to sidestep the swear filter by typing f.u.c.k. you at the end of a match; this immediately triggered a game pause, after which a moderator appeared, disciplined the player & forced them to apologize.
I'm bored with Magic these days, and the Magic Online client is still as garbage as ever, but I will still pop on every now & then to play with people I know I can have a good-natured chat with while gaming.