You know, the best solution is likely what Henroid already suggested.
You threaten a staff member or another customer? Banned for life.
Every other place I worked responded that way if a customer threatened to murder one of the staff. Why are developers excused from protecting their staff from abuse by customers?
I suspect it's kind of hard to ban people from buying your games when they don't have to personally come to your building to buy them.
But in the day and age where you have to have an online account to play the game, you can lose that account in the same fashion.
... OH MY GOD WHAT HAVE I BECOME.
Well, yeah. Imagine the price of threatening someone at Valve is your entire Steam account is banned.
People will think twice... then the smart ones will realize they can whip up a junk e-mail address and user name and continue doing what they do.
Stuff like Persona Non Grata, shaming, and the ilk work wonderfully in the real and personal world. In the land of anonymity called the Internet? Not so much. And every step that has ever been taken to attempt to curb said anonymity has been met with overwhelming hostility from almost everyone.
It's a serious problem, and something should be done about it. I just don't know what you realistically can do about it.
"The sausage of Green Earth explodes with flavor like the cannon of culinary delight."
You know, the best solution is likely what Henroid already suggested.
You threaten a staff member or another customer? Banned for life.
Every other place I worked responded that way if a customer threatened to murder one of the staff. Why are developers excused from protecting their staff from abuse by customers?
I suspect it's kind of hard to ban people from buying your games when they don't have to personally come to your building to buy them.
But in the day and age where you have to have an online account to play the game, you can lose that account in the same fashion.
... OH MY GOD WHAT HAVE I BECOME.
Well, yeah. Imagine the price of threatening someone at Valve is your entire Steam account is banned.
People will think twice.
That should be the case, and Valve could do that if they chose. People too often think they have rights they don't, and corporations are too pathetically scared to lose $1 to take any action.
The way to handle this is to do what most actors do. Ignore the comments section.
The key thing allot of the people in the industry don't understand is that they are actually more relevant than the fans. They are the ones making the product.
This is the equivalent of heckling in comedy. If it is a direct attack. Burn them. Get a lawyer to torment them. Also, like other people have said, ban their account. If it is just text. Ignore them.
They need to add an anti-bullying clause to the game license.
It is hilarious how stupid this kind of thing has become. It is just entertainment.
People will think twice... then the smart ones will realize they can whip up a junk e-mail address and user name and continue doing what they do.
Stuff like Persona Non Grata, shaming, and the ilk work wonderfully in the real and personal world. In the land of anonymity called the Internet? Not so much. And every step that has ever been taken to attempt to curb said anonymity has been met with overwhelming hostility from almost everyone.
It's a serious problem, and something should be done about it. I just don't know what you realistically can do about it.
Whipping up a junk e-mail address / user name works when it's easy and free, and it gets you right to people's faces.
It'll still happen, but not so much if it's not quite so easy. I've played MMO's that require you to reach level X before you can do /tells or global chat. Hell, this board requires five posts before a new user can create a thread. Require users to log X playtime, etc. Require a credit card to be on file.
Now, they can still be dicks, but as soon as they get banned / their account yanked it's a lot more of a pain to get back on and troll more. They'll end up over on 4Chan or some other unmoderated cesspool where they don't care who posts what garbage.
Whitelists also work pretty well. That's basically what all social media sites require with circles / friends / etc. You can also do some sort of an 'upvote / downvote' system with infractions, and you can prevent accounts with a rating below X% to join your server.
I mean, there is absolutely nothing you can do to prevent some asshole from sending you an e-mail or tweeting garbage or calling your home if they get your number, but ignore functions and spam filters take care of a lot of the issues you'll ever have to deal with directly.
As for threatening staff / employees who are obligated to interact with the general public? PNG. Your name / address / e-mail is now on our blacklist, you are IP blocked if necessary, etc. You just ate a Live membership or your new 'online only' game is useless? Well, go fuck yourself. Maybe $60 will teach you.
+10
MalReynoldsThe Hunter S Thompson of incredibly mild medicinesRegistered Userregular
The way to handle this is to do what most actors do. Ignore the comments section.
They were calling her house.
Which is hard to ignore.
"A new take on the epic fantasy genre... Darkly comic, relatable characters... twisted storyline."
"Readers who prefer tension and romance, Maledictions: The Offering, delivers... As serious YA fiction, I’ll give it five stars out of five. As a novel? Four and a half." - Liz Ellor My new novel: Maledictions: The Offering. Now in Paperback!
This is a pretty interesting system imo, and it seems to be working at least in part.
I noticed a very appreciable difference in player attitudes a few weeks after the Tribunal really got up and running. People will still rage occasionally, but I haven't heard a single racist or homophobic slur since... geez, I can't even think of when. I hope Riot Games publishes the details of it's moderation practices as they relate to the Tribunal someday; I think we'd gain valuable insight into what works to improve what has traditionally been thought of as a toxic community (and rightly so for quite a while. Before the Tribunal was doing work, I would hear all kinds of crap every 2nd or 3rd game - whether my team was winning or losing).
Anyone who reads D&D threads probably would guess that I'd just like to have the persons engaged in the harassment arrested; given that this is not going to become a real option anytime soon, I'll throw my hat in the ring for encouraging the creation of support groups. 'Banning' and ostracization don't seem like they could reasonably even apply here, given that the developers in question are being harassed by e-mail, phone, etc. What are you going to 'ban' them from? Using the phones?
The way to handle this is to do what most actors do. Ignore the comments section.
They were calling her house.
Which is hard to ignore.
Get the numbers you are getting called from and notify the police. Drop the land line or change the number.
Man, why didn't you just let her know it was that simple? Could have saved a lot of people a headache. Or really, anyone suffering from verbal threats or harassment. Maybe put out a flier. This is good information. The people need to know
"A new take on the epic fantasy genre... Darkly comic, relatable characters... twisted storyline."
"Readers who prefer tension and romance, Maledictions: The Offering, delivers... As serious YA fiction, I’ll give it five stars out of five. As a novel? Four and a half." - Liz Ellor My new novel: Maledictions: The Offering. Now in Paperback!
This is the absolute worst way to handle this. She just empowered the sort of chucklefucks that like to make anonymous threats on the internet.
Good Job.
If you are in the public eye in any capacity, you are going to get impotent threats from faceless nobodies, and no amount of "social engineering" will ever change the fact that a small number of people just flat out suck. The responsible thing to do is to treat them like streakers, turn the cameras off and direct them to the authorities.
While I certainly feel for this person - no one should be harassed - this was most definitely not the way to handle this. How does her leaving BioWare address the problem for herself? BioWare should have handled the harassment on their end - forwarding the most graphic bits to local authorities.
And I'm not sure how much of a "dirty lil secret. . ." this really is. There are immature nutjobs in all walks of life. Folks really can't be all that surprised that this is going on. What about "video game fans" would make someone say "Now there's a well behaved lot - "
The way to handle this is to do what most actors do. Ignore the comments section.
They were calling her house.
Which is hard to ignore.
Get the numbers you are getting called from and notify the police. Drop the land line or change the number.
Man, why didn't you just let her know it was that simple? Could have saved a lot of people a headache. Or really, anyone suffering from verbal threats or harassment. Maybe put out a flier. This is good information. The people need to know
I know it is not that simple. The idea is to make it difficult to be contacted except for friends and family.
The way to handle this is to do what most actors do. Ignore the comments section.
They were calling her house.
Which is hard to ignore.
Get the numbers you are getting called from and notify the police. Drop the land line or change the number.
As a listener of the Howard Stern Show I'm here to tell you that it is way too easy to block caller ID of this fashion.
Still, that is the first thing to try. The harasser may be too stupid to know how to block caller ID.
Wouldn't the phone company still be able to get that number and put it on the bill?
The number wouldn't (i believe) show up on the bill, but it can still be traced back to the caller. For death threats against a person and their family? Yeah, they can find the person who made the call and take that shit seriously.
Most providers also have some kind of whitelist / blacklist / anonymous call black features.
The way to handle this is to do what most actors do. Ignore the comments section.
They were calling her house.
Which is hard to ignore.
Get the numbers you are getting called from and notify the police. Drop the land line or change the number.
Man, why didn't you just let her know it was that simple? Could have saved a lot of people a headache. Or really, anyone suffering from verbal threats or harassment. Maybe put out a flier. This is good information. The people need to know
I know it is not that simple. The idea is to make it difficult to be contacted except for friends and family.
Wanna know a great way to empower trolls, shitheads, stalkers, and their ilk?
Force their victims to bear the cost of their actions.
Good job showing that anonymous caller who hates you what's what, all telling everyone you know to use a new number to contact you, spending time and money updating all your social contacts, and making yourself generally unavailable to society at large.
The way to handle this is to do what most actors do. Ignore the comments section.
They were calling her house.
Which is hard to ignore.
Get the numbers you are getting called from and notify the police. Drop the land line or change the number.
Man, why didn't you just let her know it was that simple? Could have saved a lot of people a headache. Or really, anyone suffering from verbal threats or harassment. Maybe put out a flier. This is good information. The people need to know
I know it is not that simple. The idea is to make it difficult to be contacted except for friends and family.
Wanna know a great way to empower trolls, shitheads, stalkers, and their ilk?
Force their victims to bear the cost of their actions.
Good job showing that anonymous caller who hates you what's what, all telling everyone you know to use a new number to contact you, spending time and money updating all your social contacts, and making yourself generally unavailable to society at large.
Sure showed that anonymous caller. Yup.
Not really. It is just protecting yourself. I am not talking about drastically rearranging your life here. Really, you can have a policy of screening all unfamiliar calls.
I am still amazed at the sheer amount of venom and harassment thrown at those who have any sort of public face on the Net. Even people with relatively small audiences on Youtube, Twitch or blogs have these folks who have made it their mission in life to bring them down. It's just weird obsessive behavior.
I don't even thinks it's necessarily "kids," just lots of crazy people who have become empowered by anonymity and these electronic tools.
It's only a matter of time before another Robert John Bardo shows up at someone's door because of a Paldin nerf or something.
0
MalReynoldsThe Hunter S Thompson of incredibly mild medicinesRegistered Userregular
The way to handle this is to do what most actors do. Ignore the comments section.
They were calling her house.
Which is hard to ignore.
Get the numbers you are getting called from and notify the police. Drop the land line or change the number.
Man, why didn't you just let her know it was that simple? Could have saved a lot of people a headache. Or really, anyone suffering from verbal threats or harassment. Maybe put out a flier. This is good information. The people need to know
I know it is not that simple. The idea is to make it difficult to be contacted except for friends and family.
Wanna know a great way to empower trolls, shitheads, stalkers, and their ilk?
Force their victims to bear the cost of their actions.
Good job showing that anonymous caller who hates you what's what, all telling everyone you know to use a new number to contact you, spending time and money updating all your social contacts, and making yourself generally unavailable to society at large.
Sure showed that anonymous caller. Yup.
Not really. It is just protecting yourself. I am not talking about drastically rearranging your life here. Really, you can have a policy of screening all unfamiliar calls.
And shutting off your voicemail? Because voicemail exists for the very reason of maybe someone not answering their phone.
"A new take on the epic fantasy genre... Darkly comic, relatable characters... twisted storyline."
"Readers who prefer tension and romance, Maledictions: The Offering, delivers... As serious YA fiction, I’ll give it five stars out of five. As a novel? Four and a half." - Liz Ellor My new novel: Maledictions: The Offering. Now in Paperback!
It is not the responsibility of video game developers to erect a barricade against harassment. The job is stressful enough without having to deal with people threatening to murder your children. Have you even read the Polygon article? Do you think devs haven't tried all this super-obvious stuff you're suggesting? The problem is the shit keeps flowing. And too often it gets to a point where they just give up and quit, because who the fuck wants to deal with constantly calling the cops and blocking phone numbers and screening calls all the time? All for what, because you slightly changed the stats of a gun in a video game? How do you think prospective developers feel when they hear stories of this shit? Does this sound like an industry you want to work in?
It's time to stop putting the onus on the victims and instead on the harassers.
*gets on PA, sees thread has already been created*
i love this community
i'm mostly a PC gamer, so i don't often come across the type of abuse and general asshattery mentioned. but, when i do come across it, i challenge it.
I can't stop laughing
Why can't I stop laughing
...okay, better.
I don't mean any disrespect, but are you BLIND? The most toxic communities I've heard of are DOTA and LoL, along with most MMOs; these are, in my experience/opinion, just as bad, if not worse, than anything that occurs on the consoles. I mean, I run into it in Payday, even; people who explode into expletives at the drop of a hat.
It's just.. nnngh. I'd put money on the venom percentages being equal or near to, with respect to platform.
The offensive language crap is the key reason I avoid multiplayer. The only multiplayer I ever do are the PUG dungeons in WoW and maybe, someday, a PUG raid.
*gets on PA, sees thread has already been created*
i love this community
i'm mostly a PC gamer, so i don't often come across the type of abuse and general asshattery mentioned. but, when i do come across it, i challenge it.
I can't stop laughing
Why can't I stop laughing
...okay, better.
I don't mean any disrespect, but are you BLIND? The most toxic communities I've heard of are DOTA and LoL, along with most MMOs; these are, in my experience/opinion, just as bad, if not worse, than anything that occurs on the consoles. I mean, I run into it in Payday, even; people who explode into expletives at the drop of a hat.
It's just.. nnngh. I'd put money on the venom percentages being equal or near to, with respect to platform.
well to be fair i don't play dota-type games; mostly payday/ME3 multi/borderlands/etc.
it's entirely possible that i'm dodging a lot of the abuse in PC gaming, and i should have better qualified my initial statement.
Registered just for the Mass Effect threads | Steam: click ^^^ | Origin: curlyhairedboy
I actually avoid online communities and communication methods widely because of the poison that runs through so much of web. It wasn't until I found this forum that I saw that some internet based communities can indeed exist that don't fester with...not even abuse, but just rampant low level cruelty. I think this forum and places like it are the only reason why I have any hope for the internet and by extention, the human race connected to it. All moderators are free to take that as one of the highest compliments I've paid another person, because you guys are awesome. Even Geth, bless his inhuman little heart.
Nintendo Network ID: Oniros
3DS Friend Code: 1461-7489-3097
This is the absolute worst way to handle this. She just empowered the sort of chucklefucks that like to make anonymous threats on the internet.
Good Job.
If you are in the public eye in any capacity, you are going to get impotent threats from faceless nobodies, and no amount of "social engineering" will ever change the fact that a small number of people just flat out suck. The responsible thing to do is to treat them like streakers, turn the cameras off and direct them to the authorities.
While I certainly feel for this person - no one should be harassed - this was most definitely not the way to handle this. How does her leaving BioWare address the problem for herself? BioWare should have handled the harassment on their end - forwarding the most graphic bits to local authorities.
And I'm not sure how much of a "dirty lil secret. . ." this really is. There are immature nutjobs in all walks of life. Folks really can't be all that surprised that this is going on. What about "video game fans" would make someone say "Now there's a well behaved lot - "
I'm not trying to be rude, but please read the polygon article. It is much worse than just twitter posts and emails. Also, she did not leave due to the harrassment, she mentioned it was a factor indirectly and a news article jumped the gun and said she did.
Another issue I think with calling the authorities is the authorities lack of drive to do anything at times:
And those are just some of the more public cases of harassment. Stephen Toulouse, who for six years headed up Xbox Live's policy and enforcement, says the problem is omnipresent in gaming.
"I'm going to kill you"
"I have approximately 70 messages on Xbox Live right now and half of them are, 'I'm going to kill you' and 'I'm going to find you and destroy you' and I haven't worked (at Microsoft) in two years. Even to this day people who don't know I left Microsoft still come after me."
But Toulouse seems more amused than annoyed by the messages. It comes with being the head banhammer at Xbox Live for so many years. It's to be expected, he says.
"The root cause of the problem isn't in what we do, making games, it's that there are so little consequences to this wildly violent approach of communication that we are simply one audience of many that are subject to this type of focus," he said. "There's no real penalty right now."
For Toulouse that consequence-free harassment even included swatting, essentially tricking a law enforcement agency to respond to a person's house for what they think is a violent confrontation.
"Even the swatting thing, only now that Justin Bieber gets swatted, do prosecutors go, 'Oh, we should probably do something about this'," he said. "I couldn't get the Seattle police interested to save their lives, in prosecuting the kids who were doing this. I'm like, 'Come on, guys, they're sending your SWAT team out. What if you shot somebody. Don't you have an interest in going after these kids?' And they're like, 'No, because they are kids and at the end of the day it will be a juvenile sentence in juvenile court and that doesn't give prosecutors headlines.'"
Which is of course bullshit. If someone is harrassing you, kids or no, something should be done about it.
I also agree with the feelings people have about changing it on our end, and companies making it more difficult to be a goose. If you are abusive on an online game, I think you should lose your privileges to play that game. Its the same thing in real life competitive sports to an extent: the spirit fouls or technical fouls or whatever they may be called that can get you kicked out of a game and has lead to public shamings of players such as Kobe Bryant. Trolling, or as is known in the real world being an asshole, can be curtailed if parts of the internet stop allowing that behavior. If you can get your accounts removed or have some real punishment for from websites, online gaming companies, etc. for your behavior then it will cut down on the behavior. Even something as simple as banning an account made by someone works a good portion of the time, even if there is no investment, as few people have the incentive to create multiple accounts to continue harrassment, and it gives the message to current members that the behavior will not be tolerated. Think what might happen if the majority of hosts of COD sessions or Halo sessions etc. would kick people out if they are were being abusive or racist or sexist? In short time the people who behaved that way might flock to or host their own games, but it would clear out the amount of abuse people have.
And at the end of the day leads to a better playing environment. I don't own a head-set, but most of my online playing is motivated by the group I'm in being the best it can, and positively encouraging those I'm playing with while trying to beat the other team. Maybe I let out a "dammit" or something when someone kills me, and certainly get frustrated, but I let it go and continue. I think that's what, even as players, we should encourage out of ourselves, while encouraging/pushing for companies to be more responsible towards people on their website promoting behavior that is clearly unacceptable.
Edit: I have to agree with Oniros. I continue to go to Penny-Arcade because it is a place where I can find interesting, constructive conversations with other people on the internet about all sorts of things, the first forum I have found in years that has done so (sadly, most of the forums I frequented have shut down over the years as well).
People will think twice... then the smart ones will realize they can whip up a junk e-mail address and user name and continue doing what they do.
Stuff like Persona Non Grata, shaming, and the ilk work wonderfully in the real and personal world. In the land of anonymity called the Internet? Not so much. And every step that has ever been taken to attempt to curb said anonymity has been met with overwhelming hostility from almost everyone.
It's a serious problem, and something should be done about it. I just don't know what you realistically can do about it.
Anonymity makes traditional social means of dealing with this problematic. How do you shame an invisible, disposable account?
Better to sic the FBI on a few of these idiots. When they start going to prison for making terroristic threats it might dampen the general enthusiasm for "make death threats on the internet" as the go to way for idiots to express displeasure at such terrible burdens as enemy waves and lack of companion equipment.
*gets on PA, sees thread has already been created*
i love this community
i'm mostly a PC gamer, so i don't often come across the type of abuse and general asshattery mentioned. but, when i do come across it, i challenge it.
I can't stop laughing
Why can't I stop laughing
...okay, better.
I don't mean any disrespect, but are you BLIND? The most toxic communities I've heard of are DOTA and LoL, along with most MMOs; these are, in my experience/opinion, just as bad, if not worse, than anything that occurs on the consoles. I mean, I run into it in Payday, even; people who explode into expletives at the drop of a hat.
It's just.. nnngh. I'd put money on the venom percentages being equal or near to, with respect to platform.
Hi. This kind of shit doesn't help.
Yes there is something to be said of particular games / genres on the PC - the same thing that can be said of console online gaming. Please don't turn this into a "which platform is worse" thing.
Yeah; I've had toxic experiences on anything from Rainbow Six on the old XBox to fucking Risk games on both PC and platforms. We even occasionally get trolls with sound boards in the PA Vent server (or used to , anyway). It's definitely not something platform-dependent.
@spool32 : I'm honestly curious, how many times have you had success when calling someone out on their behavior, presumably over voice chat? Generally I'd agree with that approach, just because I think it's right to do it, but I can't say I've ever witnessed it being effective in deterring the behavior. Most of the time the other person just keeps trolling or choosing to try and escalate the confrontation - and if you don't have mod privileges, all you can really do to cut them off is hit the Mute button.
*gets on PA, sees thread has already been created*
i love this community
i'm mostly a PC gamer, so i don't often come across the type of abuse and general asshattery mentioned. but, when i do come across it, i challenge it.
I can't stop laughing
Why can't I stop laughing
...okay, better.
I don't mean any disrespect, but are you BLIND? The most toxic communities I've heard of are DOTA and LoL, along with most MMOs; these are, in my experience/opinion, just as bad, if not worse, than anything that occurs on the consoles. I mean, I run into it in Payday, even; people who explode into expletives at the drop of a hat.
It's just.. nnngh. I'd put money on the venom percentages being equal or near to, with respect to platform.
Hi. This kind of shit doesn't help.
Yes there is something to be said of particular games / genres on the PC - the same thing that can be said of console online gaming. Please don't turn this into a "which platform is worse" thing.
i'm sorry, i was the one who brought it up
Registered just for the Mass Effect threads | Steam: click ^^^ | Origin: curlyhairedboy
Yeah; I've had toxic experiences on anything from Rainbow Six on the old XBox to fucking Risk games on both PC and platforms. We even occasionally get trolls with sound boards in the PA Vent server (or used to , anyway). It's definitely not something platform-dependent.
@ spool32 : I'm honestly curious, how many times have you had success when calling someone out on their behavior, presumably over voice chat? Generally I'd agree with that approach, just because I think it's right to do it, but I can't say I've ever witnessed it being effective in deterring the behavior. Most of the time the other person just keeps trolling or choosing to try and escalate the confrontation - and if you don't have mod privileges, all you can really do to cut them off is hit the Mute button.
Speaking from a MOBA point of view telling someone to chill out or manning up and admitting fault when you make a bad play rather than getting defensive (the latter being infinitely harder in the heat of a game) one of two things happens:
1: The dude actually calms the fuck down
2: Everyone else on your team realises the guys over reacting and continues playing while muting/ignoring him
You still get people who cause the whole game to spiral out but for the most part actually reminding people that they're playing a game and that them being angry isn't going to help them win sorts them out.
Yeah; I've had toxic experiences on anything from Rainbow Six on the old XBox to fucking Risk games on both PC and platforms. We even occasionally get trolls with sound boards in the PA Vent server (or used to , anyway). It's definitely not something platform-dependent.
@spool32 : I'm honestly curious, how many times have you had success when calling someone out on their behavior, presumably over voice chat? Generally I'd agree with that approach, just because I think it's right to do it, but I can't say I've ever witnessed it being effective in deterring the behavior. Most of the time the other person just keeps trolling or choosing to try and escalate the confrontation - and if you don't have mod privileges, all you can really do to cut them off is hit the Mute button.
Working from a position of power (mod, world leader, raid leader, DM, etc), it's extremely effective. Works quite well even just as "the person who started the xbox live party" or "person who invited the problem guy".
In a more peer-to-peer setting, it really depends a lot on whether others in the group are going to agree or not. If the social dynamic means that you'll be the other, you'll have to mute or step away. I find in my LoL games that it's quite effective for getting people to settle down and focus, but part of that is how I'm echoing communications from Riot. They are changing the culture of LoL, by punishing bad behavior and by promoting good behavior in ways the players can act out in their games.
In a more peer-to-peer setting, it really depends a lot on whether others in the group are going to agree or not. If the social dynamic means that you'll be the other, you'll have to mute or step away. I find in my LoL games that it's quite effective for getting people to settle down and focus, but part of that is how I'm echoing communications from Riot. They are changing the culture of LoL, by punishing bad behavior and by promoting good behavior in ways the players can act out in their games.
That's not an easy position to be in. You would hope that leaving the group behind to find more like-minded people would have some impact on them, again if the community bonding is tight, but... feh, I dunno.
I read the Polygon article; to me the larger issue boils down to the gaming community being unprepared for the type of access they've allowed "the fan" to have. Movie, music, sports, literature. . .etc. They have the deep pockets to make sure that any and all threats are not only responded to, but future-proofed (to some extent). Someone like a staff writer probably doesn't have those resources. So at some point, game developers (who are absolutely making money off of celebritizing their staff in certain cases) need to reconcile this by either putting the full weight of the company behind their staff (as the former MS employee suggested), or just drawing back and letting the games speak for themselves. The solution of ". . .or we could all be not dicks" is obviously not a solution but some pie in the sky wish for a world that might exist 100K universes to the side of us.
In a more peer-to-peer setting, it really depends a lot on whether others in the group are going to agree or not. If the social dynamic means that you'll be the other, you'll have to mute or step away. I find in my LoL games that it's quite effective for getting people to settle down and focus, but part of that is how I'm echoing communications from Riot. They are changing the culture of LoL, by punishing bad behavior and by promoting good behavior in ways the players can act out in their games.
That's not an easy position to be in. You would hope that leaving the group behind to find more like-minded people would have some impact on them, again if the community bonding is tight, but... feh, I dunno.
Agreed, but at some point you have to balance your own needs against your desire to effect change. Sure, leaving the group might just mean the rest of the group talks shit about you for a while, but you can't force people to do better unless you have the power to force them. At that point it's up to you to decide how much you feel like tolerating before your desire to interact with better people overrides your desire to play CoD right now.
The important thing is to be clear on the consequence and follow through. If you're not willing to drop party because of bad behavior, don't threaten to do so. If you do threaten to do so, calmly say " you won't change your behavior, so I am leaving" and bail without drama.
It makes a far stronger statement to be calm, be firm, and follow through than it does to make a stink.
spool32 on
0
Lord Palingtonhe.him.hisHistory-loving pal!Registered Userregular
It's hard enough for celebrities who are trained to be in the public spotlight to deal with this stuff. I can't imagine what it must be like for people who think they are behind the scenes. There is probably something deep in human nature about it though given how it crosses all media. You get noticed and you are a hero or a target or both. Add anonymity into the mix. More Greater Internet Greater Fuckwad Theory.
“Reject your sense of injury and the injury itself disappears.”
― Marcus Aurelius
There seems to be some kind of underlying disrespect in this country that seems to be getting worse over the years. Maybe it is bitterness from the recession. I don't know.
It's hard enough for celebrities who are trained to be in the public spotlight to deal with this stuff. I can't imagine what it must be like for people who think they are behind the scenes. There is probably something deep in human nature about it though given how it crosses all media. You get noticed and you are a hero or a target or both. Add anonymity into the mix. More Greater Internet Greater Fuckwad Theory.
People will think twice... then the smart ones will realize they can whip up a junk e-mail address and user name and continue doing what they do.
Stuff like Persona Non Grata, shaming, and the ilk work wonderfully in the real and personal world. In the land of anonymity called the Internet? Not so much. And every step that has ever been taken to attempt to curb said anonymity has been met with overwhelming hostility from almost everyone.
It's a serious problem, and something should be done about it. I just don't know what you realistically can do about it.
While this is true, having experience with this directly with people who post stupid or troll bait comments on 2kgames while they will come back, it is much less effort for me to keep spam banning them than it is for them to keep making new emails. In many cases, they don't even get their ranting seen by a single other person I can be that fast.
I mean this community works pretty much because the mods here infract and subsequently ban these kinds of posters constantly. Not to mention that PA has a clear rule that if they find you posting with multiple accounts they ban all of your accounts.
Your post is bizarre to me because you are posting on a forum that literally proves the model you claim won't work does.
Posts
Well, yeah. Imagine the price of threatening someone at Valve is your entire Steam account is banned.
People will think twice.
Stuff like Persona Non Grata, shaming, and the ilk work wonderfully in the real and personal world. In the land of anonymity called the Internet? Not so much. And every step that has ever been taken to attempt to curb said anonymity has been met with overwhelming hostility from almost everyone.
It's a serious problem, and something should be done about it. I just don't know what you realistically can do about it.
That should be the case, and Valve could do that if they chose. People too often think they have rights they don't, and corporations are too pathetically scared to lose $1 to take any action.
The key thing allot of the people in the industry don't understand is that they are actually more relevant than the fans. They are the ones making the product.
This is the equivalent of heckling in comedy. If it is a direct attack. Burn them. Get a lawyer to torment them. Also, like other people have said, ban their account. If it is just text. Ignore them.
They need to add an anti-bullying clause to the game license.
It is hilarious how stupid this kind of thing has become. It is just entertainment.
Whipping up a junk e-mail address / user name works when it's easy and free, and it gets you right to people's faces.
It'll still happen, but not so much if it's not quite so easy. I've played MMO's that require you to reach level X before you can do /tells or global chat. Hell, this board requires five posts before a new user can create a thread. Require users to log X playtime, etc. Require a credit card to be on file.
Now, they can still be dicks, but as soon as they get banned / their account yanked it's a lot more of a pain to get back on and troll more. They'll end up over on 4Chan or some other unmoderated cesspool where they don't care who posts what garbage.
Whitelists also work pretty well. That's basically what all social media sites require with circles / friends / etc. You can also do some sort of an 'upvote / downvote' system with infractions, and you can prevent accounts with a rating below X% to join your server.
I mean, there is absolutely nothing you can do to prevent some asshole from sending you an e-mail or tweeting garbage or calling your home if they get your number, but ignore functions and spam filters take care of a lot of the issues you'll ever have to deal with directly.
As for threatening staff / employees who are obligated to interact with the general public? PNG. Your name / address / e-mail is now on our blacklist, you are IP blocked if necessary, etc. You just ate a Live membership or your new 'online only' game is useless? Well, go fuck yourself. Maybe $60 will teach you.
They were calling her house.
Which is hard to ignore.
"Readers who prefer tension and romance, Maledictions: The Offering, delivers... As serious YA fiction, I’ll give it five stars out of five. As a novel? Four and a half." - Liz Ellor
My new novel: Maledictions: The Offering. Now in Paperback!
I noticed a very appreciable difference in player attitudes a few weeks after the Tribunal really got up and running. People will still rage occasionally, but I haven't heard a single racist or homophobic slur since... geez, I can't even think of when. I hope Riot Games publishes the details of it's moderation practices as they relate to the Tribunal someday; I think we'd gain valuable insight into what works to improve what has traditionally been thought of as a toxic community (and rightly so for quite a while. Before the Tribunal was doing work, I would hear all kinds of crap every 2nd or 3rd game - whether my team was winning or losing).
Anyone who reads D&D threads probably would guess that I'd just like to have the persons engaged in the harassment arrested; given that this is not going to become a real option anytime soon, I'll throw my hat in the ring for encouraging the creation of support groups. 'Banning' and ostracization don't seem like they could reasonably even apply here, given that the developers in question are being harassed by e-mail, phone, etc. What are you going to 'ban' them from? Using the phones?
Get the numbers you are getting called from and notify the police. Drop the land line or change the number.
*sees polygon article*
*gets on PA, sees thread has already been created*
i love this community
i'm mostly a PC gamer, so i don't often come across the type of abuse and general asshattery mentioned. but, when i do come across it, i challenge it.
Registered just for the Mass Effect threads | Steam: click ^^^ | Origin: curlyhairedboy
As a listener of the Howard Stern Show I'm here to tell you that it is way too easy to block caller ID of this fashion.
Still, that is the first thing to try. The harasser may be too stupid to know how to block caller ID.
I wonder if the phone company could still be able to get that number and put it on the bill.
Man, why didn't you just let her know it was that simple? Could have saved a lot of people a headache. Or really, anyone suffering from verbal threats or harassment. Maybe put out a flier. This is good information. The people need to know
"Readers who prefer tension and romance, Maledictions: The Offering, delivers... As serious YA fiction, I’ll give it five stars out of five. As a novel? Four and a half." - Liz Ellor
My new novel: Maledictions: The Offering. Now in Paperback!
While I certainly feel for this person - no one should be harassed - this was most definitely not the way to handle this. How does her leaving BioWare address the problem for herself? BioWare should have handled the harassment on their end - forwarding the most graphic bits to local authorities.
And I'm not sure how much of a "dirty lil secret. . ." this really is. There are immature nutjobs in all walks of life. Folks really can't be all that surprised that this is going on. What about "video game fans" would make someone say "Now there's a well behaved lot - "
I know it is not that simple. The idea is to make it difficult to be contacted except for friends and family.
The number wouldn't (i believe) show up on the bill, but it can still be traced back to the caller. For death threats against a person and their family? Yeah, they can find the person who made the call and take that shit seriously.
Most providers also have some kind of whitelist / blacklist / anonymous call black features.
Wanna know a great way to empower trolls, shitheads, stalkers, and their ilk?
Force their victims to bear the cost of their actions.
Good job showing that anonymous caller who hates you what's what, all telling everyone you know to use a new number to contact you, spending time and money updating all your social contacts, and making yourself generally unavailable to society at large.
Sure showed that anonymous caller. Yup.
Not really. It is just protecting yourself. I am not talking about drastically rearranging your life here. Really, you can have a policy of screening all unfamiliar calls.
I don't even thinks it's necessarily "kids," just lots of crazy people who have become empowered by anonymity and these electronic tools.
It's only a matter of time before another Robert John Bardo shows up at someone's door because of a Paldin nerf or something.
And shutting off your voicemail? Because voicemail exists for the very reason of maybe someone not answering their phone.
"Readers who prefer tension and romance, Maledictions: The Offering, delivers... As serious YA fiction, I’ll give it five stars out of five. As a novel? Four and a half." - Liz Ellor
My new novel: Maledictions: The Offering. Now in Paperback!
It's time to stop putting the onus on the victims and instead on the harassers.
I can't stop laughing
Why can't I stop laughing
...okay, better.
I don't mean any disrespect, but are you BLIND? The most toxic communities I've heard of are DOTA and LoL, along with most MMOs; these are, in my experience/opinion, just as bad, if not worse, than anything that occurs on the consoles. I mean, I run into it in Payday, even; people who explode into expletives at the drop of a hat.
It's just.. nnngh. I'd put money on the venom percentages being equal or near to, with respect to platform.
DS Friend code: 3840-6605-3406
well to be fair i don't play dota-type games; mostly payday/ME3 multi/borderlands/etc.
it's entirely possible that i'm dodging a lot of the abuse in PC gaming, and i should have better qualified my initial statement.
Registered just for the Mass Effect threads | Steam: click ^^^ | Origin: curlyhairedboy
3DS Friend Code: 1461-7489-3097
I'm not trying to be rude, but please read the polygon article. It is much worse than just twitter posts and emails. Also, she did not leave due to the harrassment, she mentioned it was a factor indirectly and a news article jumped the gun and said she did.
Another issue I think with calling the authorities is the authorities lack of drive to do anything at times:
Which is of course bullshit. If someone is harrassing you, kids or no, something should be done about it.
I also agree with the feelings people have about changing it on our end, and companies making it more difficult to be a goose. If you are abusive on an online game, I think you should lose your privileges to play that game. Its the same thing in real life competitive sports to an extent: the spirit fouls or technical fouls or whatever they may be called that can get you kicked out of a game and has lead to public shamings of players such as Kobe Bryant. Trolling, or as is known in the real world being an asshole, can be curtailed if parts of the internet stop allowing that behavior. If you can get your accounts removed or have some real punishment for from websites, online gaming companies, etc. for your behavior then it will cut down on the behavior. Even something as simple as banning an account made by someone works a good portion of the time, even if there is no investment, as few people have the incentive to create multiple accounts to continue harrassment, and it gives the message to current members that the behavior will not be tolerated. Think what might happen if the majority of hosts of COD sessions or Halo sessions etc. would kick people out if they are were being abusive or racist or sexist? In short time the people who behaved that way might flock to or host their own games, but it would clear out the amount of abuse people have.
And at the end of the day leads to a better playing environment. I don't own a head-set, but most of my online playing is motivated by the group I'm in being the best it can, and positively encouraging those I'm playing with while trying to beat the other team. Maybe I let out a "dammit" or something when someone kills me, and certainly get frustrated, but I let it go and continue. I think that's what, even as players, we should encourage out of ourselves, while encouraging/pushing for companies to be more responsible towards people on their website promoting behavior that is clearly unacceptable.
Edit: I have to agree with Oniros. I continue to go to Penny-Arcade because it is a place where I can find interesting, constructive conversations with other people on the internet about all sorts of things, the first forum I have found in years that has done so (sadly, most of the forums I frequented have shut down over the years as well).
Anonymity makes traditional social means of dealing with this problematic. How do you shame an invisible, disposable account?
Better to sic the FBI on a few of these idiots. When they start going to prison for making terroristic threats it might dampen the general enthusiasm for "make death threats on the internet" as the go to way for idiots to express displeasure at such terrible burdens as enemy waves and lack of companion equipment.
Hi. This kind of shit doesn't help.
Yes there is something to be said of particular games / genres on the PC - the same thing that can be said of console online gaming. Please don't turn this into a "which platform is worse" thing.
@spool32 : I'm honestly curious, how many times have you had success when calling someone out on their behavior, presumably over voice chat? Generally I'd agree with that approach, just because I think it's right to do it, but I can't say I've ever witnessed it being effective in deterring the behavior. Most of the time the other person just keeps trolling or choosing to try and escalate the confrontation - and if you don't have mod privileges, all you can really do to cut them off is hit the Mute button.
i'm sorry, i was the one who brought it up
Registered just for the Mass Effect threads | Steam: click ^^^ | Origin: curlyhairedboy
Speaking from a MOBA point of view telling someone to chill out or manning up and admitting fault when you make a bad play rather than getting defensive (the latter being infinitely harder in the heat of a game) one of two things happens:
1: The dude actually calms the fuck down
2: Everyone else on your team realises the guys over reacting and continues playing while muting/ignoring him
You still get people who cause the whole game to spiral out but for the most part actually reminding people that they're playing a game and that them being angry isn't going to help them win sorts them out.
Working from a position of power (mod, world leader, raid leader, DM, etc), it's extremely effective. Works quite well even just as "the person who started the xbox live party" or "person who invited the problem guy".
In a more peer-to-peer setting, it really depends a lot on whether others in the group are going to agree or not. If the social dynamic means that you'll be the other, you'll have to mute or step away. I find in my LoL games that it's quite effective for getting people to settle down and focus, but part of that is how I'm echoing communications from Riot. They are changing the culture of LoL, by punishing bad behavior and by promoting good behavior in ways the players can act out in their games.
I get sales-calls. I don't even answer. Still fucking annoying.
That's not an easy position to be in. You would hope that leaving the group behind to find more like-minded people would have some impact on them, again if the community bonding is tight, but... feh, I dunno.
Agreed, but at some point you have to balance your own needs against your desire to effect change. Sure, leaving the group might just mean the rest of the group talks shit about you for a while, but you can't force people to do better unless you have the power to force them. At that point it's up to you to decide how much you feel like tolerating before your desire to interact with better people overrides your desire to play CoD right now.
The important thing is to be clear on the consequence and follow through. If you're not willing to drop party because of bad behavior, don't threaten to do so. If you do threaten to do so, calmly say " you won't change your behavior, so I am leaving" and bail without drama.
It makes a far stronger statement to be calm, be firm, and follow through than it does to make a stink.
That's ... not exactly the same thing.
― Marcus Aurelius
Path of Exile: themightypuck
Okay so
What do we do about it?
While this is true, having experience with this directly with people who post stupid or troll bait comments on 2kgames while they will come back, it is much less effort for me to keep spam banning them than it is for them to keep making new emails. In many cases, they don't even get their ranting seen by a single other person I can be that fast.
I mean this community works pretty much because the mods here infract and subsequently ban these kinds of posters constantly. Not to mention that PA has a clear rule that if they find you posting with multiple accounts they ban all of your accounts.
Your post is bizarre to me because you are posting on a forum that literally proves the model you claim won't work does.