Guns Of Icarus Online
Main => General Discussion => Topic started by: Lydia Litvyak on September 18, 2014, 09:16:23 pm
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Like everybody else who's been playing for more than a few weeks, I really love goio's community. I love how things are structured (for now) such that getting to know all the other regular players is inevitable, and how social the game is while remaining a serious competitive game. But I feel like the community has an overblown opinion of how inclusive it is, particularly when it comes to women.
I'm going to be blunt here: I get catcalled, told to suck various parts of people's anatomy, and have graphic things said about my body more in goio than I do in dota. You know, the game full of racist, misogynistic 14 year olds? Yeah, that dota. And while it pains me to say this, no one here seems at all interested in fixing this. As far as I can tell, making sure female players feel safe is secondary to making sure toxic, aggressive male players feel welcomed. I've had people threaten to rape me or other female players with mods or even muse employees literally in the lobby listening to it happen and to my knowledge nothing was ever done about it. If it was, it was only after it was way too late anyway.
The backlash to the girls of icarus event is just another aspect of this. One of the ideas behind it is to give female players a chance to play without having to worry about that stuff happening, and to connect with other people who they can talk about these issues with. But the community as a whole has reacted by lampooning it, decrying it as sexist, and making fun of it in lobby chat. Female-only events or subgroups are not unheard of, and many other communities have collectively acknowledged that they're a pretty reasonable thing to have. Why not goio?
It's like half the guys in this community are more upset at the idea of me wanting to be able to play without getting threatened or catcalled than they are at the reality of me getting threatened and catcalled.
I guess what I'm saying here is that I'm really disappointed. I like you guys, and I want to believe you're better than this.
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Unfortunately moderation is nowhere near as prevalent as it should be. If a mod ever see this, or you contact a mod or Muse member, we'll take it very seriously. Reports are the best tool we have right now to track this sort of behavior. If you get yourself and others to report it, it might not make the problem go away immediately, but it will help prevent that person from doing it in the future. If we don't see it, there isn't too much we can do. I'll do what I can to keep our CAs and Mods aware of it and more pro-active about moderating this type of behavior. If you have any issues in game with players, CAs, Mods, or Muse feel free to email abuse@musegames.com. We take any emails sent there very seriously.
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It is as easy for a male player to be offended by being compared or even put into the same group of people by referring to them as a whole unit. Like it is offending some female players with sexual slander and other negative comments. If you are refferring to the morg post in the pit. It is a joke on the separation of the sexeaand a spoof on how misandric that idea actually is. Like being called men as a whole group and being referred to as being exhausting to play with, you know the girla before boys idea in it. Tbh we dont care if you play woth the girls. However like i am offended from bebeing insinuated to being called misoganistic. Some female players are also offended by other female players doing that.
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queso: I know. I try to report everyone who does this. But there have been times when a mod or a muse employee was in the lobby or was brought in while it was happening and still nothing was done. I have every faith that you are doing your best but clearly things are not working as they should.
skrim: this is exactly what I am talking about. when we talk about this stuff, you guys react with "it's so mean of you to imply that /my/ community could be misogynistic!" instead of acknowledging that we have a problem and that you need to be a part of the solution. I have a lot of respect for you but I am sure you can imagine how depressing it is to make a post about how the community seems more open to misogynists than to people who complain about them and have a moderator respond with "well, it's offensive of you to imply that some men here are misogynistic". Is "some people here you share superficial traits with are bad people" really comparable to graphic threats and harassment? I did not even refer to male players as a whole, so why are you so eager to identify with and defend the bad apples?
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Being in this community for a year I have tried posting on this forum 3 times:
- Rape Jokes (https://gunsoficarus.com/community/forum/index.php/topic,2583.msg44318.html)
A simple reminder not to use the word "rape" to equate sexual violence with someone's achievement
Male Players were attacking me, threatening me, contemplating the ways I may or may not have been sexually abused to take such offence and mocking the very point I was trying to make.
- October 08, 2013, 05:30:45 pm : posted
- October 09, 2013, 05:50:01 pm : locked
The cause for which this topic was started was good, but the discussion has turned in the wrong direction entirely.
This thread is locked, and the offending posts have been removed.
24 hours
- Girls of Icarus Online (https://gunsoficarus.com/community/forum/index.php/topic,3315.0.html)
A suggestion to have a better network for women to connect to other female gamers of this community.
The 3 kind of comments men made:
a) "LOL if I wear a skirt do I count :)"
b) "That's sexist, why is it always about gender with you :("
c) "Aaaaaaw are the women emancipating themselves? that's sho cuuuute"
The rest held a council amongst each other contemplating weather or not they were approving.
Not counting the worst comments that were removed, filled with accusations, insults and sexist slurs.
Women stopped responding in the threat and started approaching me about it in private, to avoid the argument or not to out themselves
This threat was made for women to reach out, and the responses to it didn't invite women, it scared them off.
- January 23, 2014, 01:39:36 pm : posted.
- January 24, 2014, 12:02:01 am : CA had to get involved, comments were removed
Is this the point at which I state we should keep this civil?
Yes it is, please keep this thread civilized, if you want to have an argument about gender equality then take it to the pm's. I'd rather not have this thread be full of argument and counter-argument.
- January 24, 2014, 04:00:13 am : CA threatened to lock the threat, comments were removed
Please don't make us lock this thread. It's a great idea as stated by others but the few are going to ruin it.
You realize by your negativity you're only killing the community you're all pledging stating to enjoy.
- January 24, 2014, 12:51:44 pm : developers involved themselves, comments were removed.
This is not a thread to discuss sexism. This is a call to players who would like to play together. In this case, it is a call to female gamers who want to play together.
Show your support (no matter what sex you identify with), sign up with them, make friends. This is all acceptable behavior in this thread. Please keep the discussion focused to the topic at hand.
If you have problems about this group existing, don't discuss it here in this thread, do it in your own time and outside of Guns. Muse does not discriminate and we do not tolerate inappropriate behavior (bigotry, sexism, bullying, just to name a few). In fact, this is a great initiative since it's promoting groups of people making friends. We're all about making friends. Never impede on someone's ability to make friends. Please think twice about posting your comments here.
When in doubt, don't post at all.
Thank you
10 hours to be threatened to be shut down, 18 hours for a dev to have to voice MUSE's approval for the harassments to stop.
- BORG Gaming Nights. (https://gunsoficarus.com/community/forum/index.php/topic,4824.new.html)
Since my initial friendly invite post was so swamped with boys contemplating sexism for the first time in their lives because this time it was affecting them, and women were actively avoiding it, I posted an open invite to one night a month where I'd be up for playing games anyway for fellow women to join me in my misery.
I KNEW there would be backlash, and I chose my words very carefully.
After longer consideration I chose to address this invite only to the people it was ment to be for, and not apologise and justify, yet I left you with an image with an adorable fat little B'Elanna explaining to you:
"Please try to respect that online games are still a very male dominated environment and although men are our friends, women also need their own space"
Since I learn form my mistakes this time I locked the conversation making it a silent invite.
There was nothing to comment on. I was gonna play that time and women were invited to join me.
So I thought...
- September 16, 2014, 07:54:06 pm : posted
- September 17, 2014, 07:00:55 am : Mezhu's MORG (http://) post was made.
12 hours
This Post was supposed to mock my efforts of offering a safe space for women, by jokingly offering and therefore creating an environment to perpetuate sexist stereotypes.
In itself it tried to copy me and then make fun of my unnecessary "misandric" exclusivity.
While the "B" in BORG stands for "bunch" I have yet to wonder what the "M" stands for, but my guess is as good as anyone's.
Furthermore it describes a list of things fellow men need to live up to to prove their worthiness:
Only people with an average hair body density of 10 hair/cm2 allowed.
Must yell a lot, punch stuff in anger whenever losing and make forced sex jokes at least once a minute.
Must be confident in own genitalia size and possibly brag about it in public.
Must be into sports. (tennis, volley, chess and the like do not count).
Must drink scotch and smoke cigars on a daily basis and preferably during events.
Muscles are not a must but are definitely a plus. Moustache can work as an alternative, bonus points for full-grown beards.
Must enjoy pornographic material.
Strictly straight-only. If not, at least act like it.
Any word of cooking and shopping (exuding arms) will result to an irrevocable permanent ban from our little community.
While my invitation made it clear all women were included.
Using words like "female socialised" and "female identified" to make sure trans*women knew they were included, not only that but also without the need to out themselves. women are women.
And the only positive thing I can say about that is that AT LEAST no one ruined this silent trust to not abuse this discretion, because I have no idea how to deal with that and I would never ask anyone to PROVE their gender to me, besides it being impossible because gender is a concept and construct.
It's sad enough that men only give a shit about sexism when they feel excluded.
It's worse when they destroy every harmless effort I have to reach out to other female gamers.
Why would you do that? I don't understand.
What actually makes it the worst is that this is known as one of the best gaming communities out there.
This is as good as it gets...
Yet my airship- engineering days are filled with dialogues like:
"Oh you're new. While your Hwacha reloads you can use the Gat on the side. Just count to 14, by the end of it you should be back in the gun to reload the rounds. Heavy for less recoil, burst for mid to short range disable."
a) - "Nice voice changer" disbelieve
b) - "OMG YOU SOUND SO CUTE" objectification
- EITHER WAY: ONE EAR IN THE OTHER OUT
What baffles me is how you care more about the reputation of "not all men" than to just understand that it's a fucking pain in the ass to be objectified, second guessed and sexually harassed all day, and craving female company, which is hard to come by casually.
It's nice to spend time with fellow women who actually see you as a human being.
and yes. I know. /not all men!/
Yet enough. So here we are..
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Isn't there always a problem like this with certain parts of the male community online and even outside the internet? I do not belive one can get rid of these problems by addressing them only in this game since it is a rather general problem. As long as such a general social problem exists there will always be players in GoIO that follow the schema you have described.
Mods and CAs can only do so much (or can they?).
I'm going to be blunt here: I get catcalled, told to suck various parts of people's anatomy, and have graphic things said about my body more in goio than I do in dota.
Perhaps GoIO simply attracts players that happen to do these things a bit more often than the dota people, just like it attracts players that simply don't do these things at all.
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- September 16, 2014, 07:54:06 pm : posted
- September 17, 2014, 07:00:55 am : Mezhu's MORG post was made.
12 hours
Wait that was actually a thing?
Oh ffs, the hell is wrong with people, that's pretty goddamn pathetic.
Well, all I can say is that I'd like to think that while most dudes are alright, the problem is the vocal minority is will pretty much ruin if for everyone else. Sadly, John Gabriel's Greater Internet Theory will still hold true:
(http://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.roosterteeth.com/images/ide3243672d6887132.jpg)
Zero consequences (and, honestly, being banned from a game is still pretty much a zero consequence) means some will be at their absolute worst because they can get away with... well basically anything. I think we do a pretty good job of self policing, people who are overly terrible are generally shunned and don't return. There's no... quick fix for this though, so I'm not quite sure what can be done about it in the immediate.
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Having played the game for a number of hours I can honestly say that this community is very nasty to one another. If a girl speaks up in lobby chat they are usually harassed in a matter of moments. This normally ends with the girl not talking anymore, or yelling back at them to shut up. If you win the match than the harassment gets a little more personal.
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ok I want to make an apology for how confusing my post was.
Im sorry lydia, i just read it again and i can see how i am not really answering anything.
I am not a woman (just checked ;)) so I dont know what kind of harrassment you are going through.
however I found these topics in your statement:
1. the male part of the community is misoganists.
2. devs and mods not handling the problem.
3. the response to girl gamers in goio.
to the first topic I want to say this:
the people you talk about you call 14 year old misoganists might be true, i dont know. But I know this: these 14 year old trolls/misoganists is not what I like to call part of our community. This forum is the absolute elite of the community, the users here are people who invest time in the game, share ideas etc. We have a very little amount of verbal slander going on here. Now Im not denying that things are diffrent in the game and not saying that people outside of the forum cant be part of the community. However the trolls ingame the people that are harassing you, will never be respected as part of the community, words spread quickly and Im sure if we had a name calling list of trolls etc. everyone would be careful around these people.
2.
this topic is in relevans to the first one.
before we go further with this I want to make some things clear about devs. There are community devs, and there are programming devs/art devs whatever you call it. the latter is working goio fulltime, programming etc. which is why we rarely see them on their dev accounts, I know they are using other accounts but that is not relevant. These dev do not have the time to deal with player to player problems. this is why we have keyvias and a group of interns, which often switch around. - these are the people that can deal with ingame problems.
however of those devs maybe 3 have the authority or ability to actually handle long term bans... This is a longer process where all reports, direct evidence etc. is taken into account. I can tell you this, its not an easy job for them.
under the devs we have the other interns and the moderators. me being part of both groups can say that it is very limited to what we can do. about 2 months ago we had a large group of ca´s without any ingame powers to enforce code of conduct, but we are currently getting more moderators to handle these situations. However giving a player this sort of power needs to be handled very carefully, you cannot give it to any ca without trust and experience.
But back to the topic. Us moderators are not kick/ban happy, not at all. We are very very careful about every situation and time after time these are the problems I find with ingame player relation problems:
one player is getting trolled, asks for help but has no evidence, or is willing to get it. -not much we can do without seeing what actually happened.
a player is calling a mod to deal with a troll, but is also himself being unreasonable or trolling the other player. -we usually tell both parts to stop, which they do more than often. all i can say here is dont argue back. A simple principal about internet trolling is "never argue with an idiot, he will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience."
When we finally deal with these situations as mods we do a simple. warn, warn, kick, ban procedure. In extreme cases where an entire lobby is at it, we close the lobby. but my point here is simple, nothing is going to happen after we warn or kick. and the reason for that is simple, we can only report them so far, and you have to report them and send screens of what they wrote to back up your evidence. If you dont do these things the handling of the situation doesnt go further after a mod warns or bans. - you can ask Schwerbelastung how many troll players etc. he has talked into behaving better, or ask keyvias how a email written warning effects players to behave better and apologize. It does help if you help us report these players, WITHOUT shouting back at them and giving them reasons to report yourself.
3.
the morg post is a joke.
guys are guys, girls are girls. It is natural for us to band together, because we have more common interests with our own sex than with the other sex. I´m sorry if it offended you, but it´s just a joke about making a group for "real men". We arent against any girls wanting to play with eachother, we just thought it was witty to comment on it and make a satiric joke about it. I cannot say anything than smile at it and start joking with some of us. I know you rydr people like to joke about me forexample.
anyways in the end here I want to say a last thing. Groups of people are usually reffered to as a single individual, like someone saying girl gamers suck, meaning every girl gamer as a whole. This hurts the any persons feelings about being an individual and not being seen as such. goes all ways.
your comment about: "I guess what I'm saying here is that I'm really disappointed. I like you guys, and I want to believe you're better than this." is what I see as such. maybe 99% of the people here on the forum would never harass you ingame, and although you are rightfully entitled to be disappointed in some people, that does not apply to everyone else. Don´t blame all male gamers for doing this, blame the asshole 14 year old misoganists. - its just not nice to be blamed for other peoples mistakes.
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a quick elaboration to what i wrote.
People buy this game, they have the right to play it, we cannot ban everyone breaking the code of conduct.
I forgot to mention that you need to block people who are harassing you. Blocking helps use it.
So always, report and block, and then let it go, not much more you or ca´s can do before a mod handles the problem, if it even needs handling.
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I'm sorry skrim, I think you misread--the 14 year old misogynists bit is about dota's community, not goio's. And when I say I am disappointed I mean in the people I like who have decided to start ranting about how stupid BORG gaming night is in front of me, and in the people who have nodded along while they did so. If you have not done that, then I am not talking about you.
While I understand that moderation is difficult and I don't want mods to start being trigger-happy all the time, I do not understand what the purpose of having mods marked in-game is if they do not even have the power to kick a player who is loudly attacking women in front of them. Maybe there is just some lack of clarity in how and when reports are dealt with, but most of the time it feels like everything I send muse just goes off into the void and when I see the offending players again a few days later I have no idea if they have been warned or not.
One thing I will say is that I have had male players step in and tell harassers that their behavior is not acceptable a few times, and that is something I really appreciate.
Isn't there always a problem like this with certain parts of the male community online and even outside the internet? I do not belive one can get rid of these problems by addressing them only in this game since it is a rather general problem. As long as such a general social problem exists there will always be players in GoIO that follow the schema you have described.
Mods and CAs can only do so much (or can they?).
I'm going to be blunt here: I get catcalled, told to suck various parts of people's anatomy, and have graphic things said about my body more in goio than I do in dota.
Perhaps GoIO simply attracts players that happen to do these things a bit more often than the dota people, just like it attracts players that simply don't do these things at all.
Yes, this is a problem in general, and of course there will always be level ones hopping in from CoD to shout abuse after every sale. But that doesn't mean the community in general has to turn a blind eye to everything short of outright threats. When established players send rude PMs and publicly badmouth something as harmless as BORG gaming night it is very hard to trust a community that says nothing to them.
And if GoIO attracts sexists, then that is something we can and should try to fix.
To conclude: of course there will always be some awful level ones, and of course some people will always have ugly opinions. That is exactly what BORG gaming night is for. Making the entire community safe and respectful overnight is not possible, which is why we want an event where we can rely on safety and respect.
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I'm going to share this comic, because I think it's a helpful and positive description of how sexism manifests itself and what everyone can do to help prevent it.
http://www.robot-hugs.com/harassment/
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Wait hold on. Goio is not attracting sexists. Like quesos comment most of us just dony see it happen. And we are not denying that it does. However i have seen countless of situations where a player somehow provokes another player. Who responds with racial or sexist slander. Im not saying that is ok, and im not saying that you are doing this However as a mod usually this is the situation i meet. A whole lobby ganging up on some player to protect their clan mate or friend, usually by offending him aswell. Its everyone who has to behave. We have all done this and arent proud of it. Its just the easiest way to defend yourself is by attacking others feelings. I think the only option here is to strenghten the mod - muse relations so it gets handled Quick and efficient.
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Hey Guys,
Just wanted to jump in. I know this is a sensitive subject so if at any time I put my foot in my mouth feel free to call me out and let me know if you believe I'm looking at something the wrong way.
There are a few things I'm massively passionate about and harassment based on gender easily falls into that category.
What a lot of guys are saying has merit, it's the internet, people suck, ect ect, but that's something I've never been comfortable accepting. Reports based on unwanted sexual attention are given a lot focus since I truly want Guns of Icarus to be safe for all players (other than the explosions and destruction.)
I know that it is impossible to completely stop jerks from finding their way into the game and it's an unfortunate side effect that any positive press and player growth will also contain its fair share of assholes, but please block and report these guys. Most of them get one warning because they either leave or never get reported again. Trust me every report is manually handled so if you're reporting a human being is reading and investigating it.
As far as jerks on the forum, again reporting is the best way to get our eyes on it.
As a final note, I don't believe guys are monsters, I don't think Guns attract sexists, I think we attract people. Some people are great, some are terrible, some focus on how issues affect others, some focus on how issues affect only themselves. I do believe we can always do more to make the skies feel more safe and I think a discussion on the topic is not crazy nor unwarranted.
I also believe forums make people defensive and the best way to really talk to a person is through PM's and such, which I and any of the dev team are open to as well if there's something you think we should be doing more/less of.
That isn't to say don't chat about it on forums, just remember when you're writing that the other person probably is writing for an "audience" and not you directly. (Such as some of what I'm writing here)
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Quick suggestion for some ladies in trouble while no true gentlemen around.
- Suck my pepperoni.
- I prefer them sliced.
- Aren't you supposed to be on kitchen?
- I am. Have they invented wifi in your country yet?
The art of punching away wooing idiots is sophisticated, but very rewarding. Took me ages to realise, but now I am really happier then before. As long as I stopped treating myself a victim, the harassment stopped. (I know my statements kinda smell with Tom Hobbes theories.) I love insulting back. I love men, who protect me from harassment, and I am not going to put "white knight" label on anyone who is just friendly to me.
Seriosly, the gender problem is giving such a tasty spice to boring engine repairs, do we really have to get rid of it?
Community - the actual community, constant players, - are quite nice guys indeed. None of those people who dared insulting female players in my presence are still playing on regular basis. It is not because I killed them, I promise.
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3.
the morg post is a joke.
guys are guys, girls are girls. It is natural for us to band together, because we have more common interests with our own sex than with the other sex. I´m sorry if it offended you, but it´s just a joke about making a group for "real men". We arent against any girls wanting to play with eachother, we just thought it was witty to comment on it and make a satiric joke about it. I cannot say anything than smile at it and start joking with some of us. I know you rydr people like to joke about me forexample
Sorry Skrim, but that's a load of crap. That was made in obvious retaliation to some strangely perceived slight, something created to basically disrespect a group trying to do do something together, and has no place on these forums, Pit material or not. I do hope there, at the least, was an apology for posting it.
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I would be lying if I said I never heard this harassment of female players ingame, but to be negatively compared to DotA in this regard is pretty harsh. When I do hear it in GOI it is usually when a woman uses voice chat for the first time in a lobby, which is usually responded to by "there are no women on the internet" and various other insults. I accept it can be hard to open your mouth when you know it is going to invite trolling, but if people don't get used to hearing female voices in their games the novelty of harassing the one or that popup will not go away.
I am not an expert on the matter, so take that advice with a grain of salt. Also if we can't get the trolls to identify themselves how can the community band together to run them out of town? I do love flying as the munker ally to a troll ship.
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However i have seen countless of situations where a player somehow provokes another player. Who responds with racial or sexist slander.
The most I have ever done is told people to change their loadouts. If using voice chat and telling crew members what they need to bring while female is so rude that it warrants this sort of attack then I do not know what to say.
I would be lying if I said I never heard this harassment of female players ingame, but to be negatively compared to DotA in this regard is pretty harsh.
And yet my experiences here have been worse than my experiences in dota. I do not know what am I supposed to do here. Should I just keep quiet and not voice my discomfort because it would make us look bad, or because it would hurt the community's ego?
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Also if we can't get the trolls to identify themselves how can the community band together to run them out of town? I do love flying as the munker ally to a troll ship.
People say mining your ally is trolling, but most of the time it is vigilante justice.
On the topic at hand, it's awful that you ladies still have to experience this kind of treatment. I really want to believe that the goi community is better than this, or at least better than other games. I personally have rarely witnessed it, but that doesn't mean it doesn't happen. However i don't think the people that exhibit this kind of behavior are not really part of our community, and in goi community really means something, we act like one, it isn't just a word to describe the people that play the game. I hope the mods having powers will be enough to deal with these issues, as it will be a long long time before we can change human tendencies to be terrible to each other.
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It was mentioned earlier, but all reports are handled by a human and taken very seriously. We do have a protocol to follow, so in most cases you won't see players banned immediately. We like to give players a chance to correct their behavior and become good members of the community. If issues occur again, punishments are likely to follow dependent on the severity and number of occurrences.
If you are having issues and need it taken care of immediately, especially incidents involving voice chat, contact a moderator or CA. Only Mods can take action, but CA's are able to get in contact with Mods easier to bring them into the game when possible. They can also act as an unbiased observer to an incident and help clarify what has happened. To be fair to everyone involved, Moderators need to have a good understanding of the situation before taking action; so be patient and help them understand if they arrive after it occurred. If a CA, Mod, or Dev is present during an incident and not doing anything, make sure they're actually paying attention to the incident. Many times players tab out, leave their computer, etc. Sometimes they're just zoned out and focusing on something else (teamspeak, skype, muble, music, etc)
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@Lydia,
I can't speak for the community, but I can speak for the dev staff. We would never ask you to be quiet and I'll be honest how we look takes such a far back seat to how our players feel. As I said I welcome any discussion on the topic.
Interesting side note: you have one of the highest report to capture ratios. (Basically how many of your reports turn into warnings and/or bans.) So thank you for the effective reports.
@Topic
Also everyone has had a different experience in the game. Some people haven't seen much sexism, some have seen way too much, some have seen provoked trolling and others have seen psychotic attacks as soon as the mic goes on. This doesn't mean anyone's experiences are right/wrong, but it is important to note due to different playtimes, styles, and personalities we find ourselves in different situations and with different experiences.
If someone is offering what they have seen that isn't to say what you've seen is incorrect and vice versa.
If I said I don't see a lot of sexism, that doesn't mean it doesn't exist, it probably means my green name makes a lot of jerks shut up.
So when talking about your own experiences or someone else's let's keep in mind that we all have lived amazing different lives and had amazingly different game experiences.
If you haven't experienced sexism, that's great! But how many female players have you interacted with, were they forced to do something special to avoid sexist comments, did you do anything special to stop someone who start making sexist comments. Let's focus on the fact that everyone here at their base does not want people's feelings to be hurt.
No one in here is voting for more sexist comments and if you are feel free to raise your hand so I can give a swift kick.
So lets take a look at the most important facts:
People are experiencing sexism. We are not saying everyone is doing sexism, but if someone they have experienced it, then it exists.
What options do we have that we are not taking advantage of. From a dev, mod, and few kind members of the community standpoint.
No I do not propose that we solve all sexism and gender issues on the internet, but if there is something I, the team, or us having this discussion can do better, I would be happy to hear it.
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I have issue with brushing things like this off by calling it trolling and it's not the anonymity that makes people say these things either, and I have a very good video about it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KHEkR5yb9A (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KHEkR5yb9A)
Most of you won't watch but it's really well explained.
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And yet my experiences here have been worse than my experiences in dota. I do not know what am I supposed to do here. Should I just keep quiet and not voice my discomfort because it would make us look bad, or because it would hurt the community's ego?
You should speak your mind and be harsh when you feel it is justified. My ego is bruised by the comparison but it will recover. I am proud to be part of this community, I proudly tell people it is one of the nicest places on the internet. I spend more time here than I do on some of my other hobby forums because it is so nice. I got a little defensive when I read your words, but they are as valid as my own. Perhaps a little more so since I have never played DotA and know it only by reputation. For any offense I have given, I am sorry.
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What I honestly don't get is why, whenever female players decide to start up a female-focused group or clan, it always turns into such an ISSUE in the community (in any game i've been in so far), whereas if male players come up with a male-focused clan or group, everyone simply wishes them good luck and lets them be and have fun together. Nobody starts discussions about sexism in those threads, nobody makes fun of those male-perspective groups/clans, and nobody needs to lock those threads in the end.
In fact it is so much of a custom in the world of the internet to create male-focused groups based on male ideals and carrying male names that we do not even anymore recognize them as gendered. Just think about all the popular clan names that start like "sons of blah blah", "brothers of blah blah", "men of whatever", "kings of this and that" and so on. You might say that those groups are neutral in the sense that they welcome female players too, but in fact most female players find it hard to identify with a group whose very name excludes them by definition.
Note that I am not criticizing these group names, I am aware of how customary they are and I am also aware that those who founded them had no intentions of excluding women, they were simply following a widely accepted tradition.
What I want to point out is that having a gaming group like "girls of icarus" is not, in any way, different from calling a clan "boys of icarus". Both are gendered in a way, and both exclude a group of people at least in their names, though neither would be totally exclusive if someone was willing and able to adopt the perspective of the group. Yet, the difference is that a "boys of icarus" forum thread would never have generated this kind of backlash that people experienced after suggesting a "girls of icarus" gaming group. So then why not treat a female-focused gaming group in the same neutral, customary way as we are treating all of the millions of male-focused ones? Wish them good luck, welcome their group to the community, and that's it all.
Also, I am one of those players who have simply stopped using microphone even though I have one and could use it in most cases. Even with all the support and neutral treatment female players nowadays receive from many guys in games, it is actually still better to be the all-time forever "silent dude with the female character" than the occasionally, once or twice harrassed "stupid b*tch". There is simply a tangible difference in how people treat you, what offences they tell you, how much they listen to your opinion and so on. In simple terms, it is usually fun to be the silent dude, and it is often not fun to be the talking female player. I wanna have fun when I play computer games. And I don't mind guys calling me a "dude". It so doesn't matter to me.
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This is a really confusing/complicated issue, make sure you think about it before you post.
First off, It's pretty sad seeing a double standard like this. Like, nobody complained when Polaris announced they were only recruiting russian-speaking people. Nobody barged into the recruitment thread making dumb jokes about vodka and bears, or angry rants about Putin's foreign policy. It was just a group of people wanting to play together.
1. Anyway, regarding everyday garden-variety in-game harassment, i.e. unwelcome references to any player's gender, threats, etc. It's good to keep reporting that stuff. However, silent bans are a bad deterrent to assholes who haven't spoken up yet, and when it comes to catcalls... one is too many. So we really need to stop the harassment proactively, instead of just with retroactive invisible bans.
This might be a bad idea, but IMO it's also super important to call out harassment as the BS it is, loudly and publicly. This is directed at everyone, mostly dudes because face it, we're the majority here. If we, the (hopefully decent) majority make it clear that harassing people for any reason (including the sound of their perecived gender) is bad, it will create a chilling effect and stop the harassment before it is said. More fun for everyone except the harassers.
Again, there needs to be more work done here, to PROACTIVELY prevent bad stuff from happening. Skrim mentioned a wall of shame idea, that could maybe work, we'd have to talk about it more.
2. Forum denizens. Mezhu's a great guy. He also thought that "borg" was bad enough that it deserved its own satirical parody "morg". That's a little weird, because I don't see anything in "borg" bad enough to be worth mocking, but evidently mezhu disagrees. I'd like to know why. He doesn't deserve to be yelled at like that. I really don't get the joke either, but that's no excuse for making graphic references to mezhu's genitals. Not cool.
To people saying "trolling/harassment/sexism is a bigger problem than GOI", I say that's BS. Torrential rain is also a bigger problem than my house, but it doesn't keep me from having a roof and staying dry and cozy despite it. We have power to change this community for the better, and we should use it. The MUSE team seem to be onboard with the general purpose, certainly.
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@Lydia,
I can't speak for the community, but I can speak for the dev staff. We would never ask you to be quiet and I'll be honest how we look takes such a far back seat to how our players feel. As I said I welcome any discussion on the topic.
Interesting side note: you have one of the highest report to capture ratios. (Basically how many of your reports turn into warnings and/or bans.) So thank you for the effective reports.
I have every faith that you the rest of muse are doing your best to prevent harassment and keep it under control. I do think a notification or something when reports get handled could be nice, though: it would remove the illusion that nothing ever happens once people are reported.
As a side note, I am not completely happy with the recent changes to the report system. In my experience reporting someone for something tends to provoke an outburst, and what's more if I am reporting them for something they said to me more often than not they can tell it is me reporting them. But I will defer to other people's judgement on that.
This might be a bad idea, but IMO it's also super important to call out harassment as the BS it is, loudly and publicly. This is directed at everyone, mostly dudes because face it, we're the majority here. If we, the (hopefully decent) majority make it clear that harassing people for any reason (including the sound of their perecived gender) is bad, it will create a chilling effect and stop the harassment before it is said. More fun for everyone except the harassers.
This is really important. Many men are doubtful when I tell them that harassers will listen to random men telling them to stop over the woman they are harassing, but trust me, it is true. I mean, if somebody disrespects women so much that they feel entitled to make obscene comments about us, do you really expect them to care when we tell them we don't like it? On top of that, when a man attacks a woman and the other men in the lobby don't say anything about it, he takes it as tacit approval. He feels safe engaging in that kind of behavior, while the woman feels (rightfully) that she cannot rely on anyone around her to stop these things from happening.
And even aside from that, speaking up when you see this sort of thing happen tells the victim that they are not alone and that the people around them have their back.
There are people in the goio community who are good about speaking up when this happens, and I really appreciate it. But it needs to be everyone, not just some.
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2. Forum denizens. Mezhu's a great guy. He also thought that "borg" was bad enough that it deserved its own satirical parody "morg". That's a little weird, because I don't see anything in "borg" bad enough to be worth mocking, but evidently mezhu disagrees. I'd like to know why. He doesn't deserve to be yelled at like that. I really don't get the joke either, but that's no excuse for making graphic references to mezhu's genitals. Not cool.
I've made this known a few people, but might as well state it here: Until that is resolved, I'm going to do the only thing I can, which is refuse to cast any match Mezhu's in.
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There was a brief period of time when I didn't have a microphone, and honestly it was sort of a relief because I was spared the "OMG YOU'RE A GIRL????" and the ensuing harassment/patronizing remarks. It definitely is a problem with being a girl on the internet, and especially in gaming communities, in general, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try to tackle the problem here or that such attempts are futile. I don't really know what the solution is other than reporting/blocking, though...
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Mezhu's a great guy.
The first time I noticed him was when he appeared in a lobby I was getting harassed in.
I don't want to go into the details but it wasn't just the usual (YES. sadly there is a "usual"), it was particularly sexually aggressive and I was at the brink of tears, and thank god Mezhu was there.
He was kind enough to tell me that it was my fault for behaving the way I did and that my "cuteness" invited this abuse.
And man did I learn form it, who would have thought.
What a guy.
I'm not out to hurt him, but god I don't care about his feeling getting hurt when his "über ironic" 3deep5you joke didn't get the response he wished for.
If you try to be "socially critical" you invite a discussion.
I didn't. I just invited people into a mumble server one day a month.
All I need to do to invite all this debate is challenge your delusion about equality.
And patriarchy has a very fragile ego it seems when even suggesting I want female company feels like a threat.
(even though I quoted Omniraptor, this is just an elaboration of ONE aspect he mentioned.
NOT answering him, attacking him or correcting him. It's not a personal interaction.
I hope you understand that Omniraptor. I do appreciate a lot you say! I really mean that.
This is the only thing you said so far that I disagree with.)
As a side note, I am not completely happy with the recent changes to the report system. In my experience reporting someone for something tends to provoke an outburst, and what's more if I am reporting them for something they said to me more often than not they can tell it is me reporting them. But I will defer to other people's judgement on that.
I really agree actually!
The problem with reporting people:
The UI makes me oblivious to the match starting.
I've been interrupted by starting matches and had to start over from scratch a lot.
Sometimes I didn't attempt a second time and that is a shame.
Could there be a "drafts" folder, or could at least reopening the report UI show the last typed not-sent message? That would really change the ratio of my harassment/report ratio.
As Lydia mentioned, since we're often the only ones taking offence (except for when we play with friends in the same lobby that support us) it's often really obvious that the only report filed is from us, and even if it's not just one they still know it's because of us and it makes them become really uncomfortable towards us, and often it's worse than just "getting over it" meaning, brush it off, feel like shit and just try to forget it happened.
Solutions to his could be a few: showing up that you have been reported only when relogging, making it an e-mail notice only, etc.
But I REALLY would appreciate it being changed. In any way really.
Again Lydia already mentioned that.
Some notice, even a default mail would be better than nothing. Not automated. Sent really whenever some issue has been addressed in ANY way.
The "discretion" law you enforce, protects the abuser and silent discipline to the point of not even admitting something has been done about a problem that was reported, deleting forum posts that perpetuate sexism, telling women to just block people. That all doesn't make it go away.
It hides the fact that it happens.
[/list]
Additionally!!!
The reason I rarely block:
I want to know. I can't just ignore it.
I am not the only one they are gonna be horrible towards.
It's important to that I know if they are attacking other women. And ignoring them doesn't make them go away. It makes them wander off with not a care in the world, because they achieved what they wanted. They made the bitch shut up.
[/list]
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It's completely possible for two people to form different impressions of mezhu, and both could well be true. For example usually (sort of) friendly, but on some days (and with some people) I snap. Mezhu was like that once, perhaps he's like that all the time and I didn't notice (I probably wouldn't notice anyway because I'm not a target for this).
I really don't want to discuss mezhu like this, would rather let him speak for himself.
Also, iirc the devs have mentioned in a fireside they're planning to implement a randomized delay between report and notification, so people won't lash out against the perceived reporter.
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2. Forum denizens. Mezhu's a great guy. He also thought that "borg" was bad enough that it deserved its own satirical parody "morg". That's a little weird, because I don't see anything in "borg" bad enough to be worth mocking, but evidently mezhu disagrees. I'd like to know why. He doesn't deserve to be yelled at like that. I really don't get the joke either, but that's no excuse for making graphic references to mezhu's genitals. Not cool.
I've made this known a few people, but might as well state it here: Until that is resolved, I'm going to do the only thing I can, which is refuse to cast any match Mezhu's in.
Just as an update, I've been asked to not participate in SCS casting because of my refusal to work with someone from non-competitive reasons. I accept that reasoning, but do have to mention that the organizers of the event have sided with the originator of the posting pretty adamantly.
So, make of it what you will.
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2. Forum denizens. Mezhu's a great guy. He also thought that "borg" was bad enough that it deserved its own satirical parody "morg". That's a little weird, because I don't see anything in "borg" bad enough to be worth mocking, but evidently mezhu disagrees. I'd like to know why. He doesn't deserve to be yelled at like that. I really don't get the joke either, but that's no excuse for making graphic references to mezhu's genitals. Not cool.
I've made this known a few people, but might as well state it here: Until that is resolved, I'm going to do the only thing I can, which is refuse to cast any match Mezhu's in.
Just as an update, I've been asked to not participate in SCS casting because of my refusal to work with someone from non-competitive reasons. I accept that reasoning, but do have to mention that the organizers of the event have sided with the originator of the posting pretty adamantly.
So, make of it what you will.
while I have expressed the opinion that Mezhu was making a joke rather than an attack, I wouldn't go so far as to say my stance is "adamant".
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@Velvet and Imagine.
Friendly notice to keep the discussion civil or take it to PMs.
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@Velvet and Imagine.
Friendly notice to keep the discussion civil or take it to PMs.
Wasn't a discussion. Simple statement of what happened.
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Like everybody else who's been playing for more than a few weeks, I really love goio's community. I love how things are structured (for now) such that getting to know all the other regular players is inevitable, and how social the game is while remaining a serious competitive game. But I feel like the community has an overblown opinion of how inclusive it is, particularly when it comes to women.
I'm going to be blunt here: I get catcalled, told to suck various parts of people's anatomy, and have graphic things said about my body more in goio than I do in dota. You know, the game full of racist, misogynistic 14 year olds? Yeah, that dota. And while it pains me to say this, no one here seems at all interested in fixing this. As far as I can tell, making sure female players feel safe is secondary to making sure toxic, aggressive male players feel welcomed. I've had people threaten to rape me or other female players with mods or even muse employees literally in the lobby listening to it happen and to my knowledge nothing was ever done about it. If it was, it was only after it was way too late anyway.
The backlash to the girls of icarus event is just another aspect of this. One of the ideas behind it is to give female players a chance to play without having to worry about that stuff happening, and to connect with other people who they can talk about these issues with. But the community as a whole has reacted by lampooning it, decrying it as sexist, and making fun of it in lobby chat. Female-only events or subgroups are not unheard of, and many other communities have collectively acknowledged that they're a pretty reasonable thing to have. Why not goio?
It's like half the guys in this community are more upset at the idea of me wanting to be able to play without getting threatened or catcalled than they are at the reality of me getting threatened and catcalled.
I guess what I'm saying here is that I'm really disappointed. I like you guys, and I want to believe you're better than this.
(http://media2.giphy.com/media/b9aScKLxdv0Y0/giphy.gif)
That is not a joke, I really am applauding right now.
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b) - "OMG YOU SOUND SO CUTE" objectification
oh. I recall that I had said something like that to you before. If you've gotten upset about that, I'm really sorry, I just wanted to made a compliment, not a harrasment. So I'm sorry.
As for the topic. It's a shame that this happens. I've never seen something like this, but if I ever do, I'd try to stop it as soon as possible - and everyone should, I think. I believe that this people can be persuaded, if you talk to them... if you're man, it's ashame.
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b) - "OMG YOU SOUND SO CUTE" objectification
oh. I recall that I had said something like that to you before. If you've gotten upset about that, I'm really sorry, I just wanted to made a compliment, not a harrasment. So I'm sorry.
As for the topic. It's a shame that this happens. I've never seen something like this, but if I ever do, I'd try to stop it as soon as possible - and everyone should, I think. I believe that this people can be persuaded, if you talk to them... if you're man, it's ashame.
Well not quite, it happens so often I don't remember single people who did it on what day.
However you took my statement out of context see...
Yet my airship- engineering days are filled with dialogues like:
"Oh you're new. While your Hwacha reloads you can use the Gat on the side. Just count to 14, by the end of it you should be back in the gun to reload the rounds. Heavy for less recoil, burst for mid to short range disable."
a) - "Nice voice changer" disbelieve
b) - "OMG YOU SOUND SO CUTE" objectification
- EITHER WAY: ONE EAR IN THE OTHER OUT
It's okay if you consider me cute. I mean, of course it's very flattering!
But there is always a series of considerations to make to tell if it's appropriate to confront me with.
* DOES IT HAVE TO BE SAID?
* DOES IT HAVE TO BE SAID - BY ME?
* DOES IT HAVE TO BE SAID - BY ME - NOW?
When I ask someone what rounds you want me to take, or explain you your load out, i want them to interact with me like a human being and don't just disregard everything I said, because they couldn't concentrate on what I said, because they just waited for my mouth to shut because these absolute strangers have to rate my voice and assign my worth before we can continue.
If you know someone already, maybe ask them first before you make them a compliment.
It's not so hard, try to not make the question in itself sound too pressuring, else it's counter-productive. Have an example:
"Ohai. Is it very weird if I randomly compliment you?"
- nothing? : don't do it!
- "oh we're in the middle of a game" : don't do it!
- "sure?" : proceed!
"I just think you sound really cute! I hope that didn't make you uncomfortable"
ACTUALLY the most sensible thing to do is doing that in a PM and not across a lobby...
To sum up:
* Don't interrupt women with "compliments" (commenting on them)
* Don't comment on women's voices publicly in a lobby chat without their consent.
* First approaches discreetly and personally, don't pressure them, don't embarrass them.
AND YES ALL THOSE THINGS ARE VALID EVEN IF YOU KNOW THE WOMEN!
If you're dating them: ASK THEM HOW THEY WANT TO BE TREATED BEFOREHAND!
This was an elaboration on your comment Archi Rook. I don't remember you offending me.
But it's a good opportunity to explain in general why commenting on women is often seen as a validation space and being taken seriously. :)
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b) - "OMG YOU SOUND SO CUTE" objectification
oh. I recall that I had said something like that to you before. If you've gotten upset about that, I'm really sorry, I just wanted to made a compliment, not a harrasment. So I'm sorry.
As for the topic. It's a shame that this happens. I've never seen something like this, but if I ever do, I'd try to stop it as soon as possible - and everyone should, I think. I believe that this people can be persuaded, if you talk to them... if you're man, it's ashame.
Well not quite, it happens so often I don't remember single people who did it on what day.
However you took my statement out of context see...
Yet my airship- engineering days are filled with dialogues like:
"Oh you're new. While your Hwacha reloads you can use the Gat on the side. Just count to 14, by the end of it you should be back in the gun to reload the rounds. Heavy for less recoil, burst for mid to short range disable."
a) - "Nice voice changer" disbelieve
b) - "OMG YOU SOUND SO CUTE" objectification
- EITHER WAY: ONE EAR IN THE OTHER OUT
It's okay if you consider me cute. I mean, of course it's very flattering!
But there is always a series of considerations to make to tell if it's appropriate to confront me with.
* DOES IT HAVE TO BE SAID?
* DOES IT HAVE TO BE SAID - BY ME?
* DOES IT HAVE TO BE SAID - BY ME - NOW?
When I ask someone what rounds you want me to take, or explain you your load out, i want them to interact with me like a human being and don't just disregard everything I said, because they couldn't concentrate on what I said, because they just waited for my mouth to shut because these absolute strangers have to rate my voice and assign my worth before we can continue.
If you know someone already, maybe ask them first before you make them a compliment.
It's not so hard, try to not make the question in itself sound too pressuring, else it's counter-productive. Have an example:
"Ohai. Is it very weird if I randomly compliment you?"
- nothing? : don't do it!
- "oh we're in the middle of a game" : don't do it!
- "sure?" : proceed!
"I just think you sound really cute! I hope that didn't make you uncomfortable"
ACTUALLY the most sensible thing to do is doing that in a PM and not across a lobby...
To sum up:
* Don't interrupt women with "compliments" (commenting on them)
* Don't comment on women's voices publicly in a lobby chat without their consent.
* First approaches discreetly and personally, don't pressure them, don't embarrass them.
AND YES ALL THOSE THINGS ARE VALID EVEN IF YOU KNOW THE WOMEN!
If you're dating them: ASK THEM HOW THEY WANT TO BE TREATED BEFOREHAND!
This was an elaboration on your comment Archi Rook. I don't remember you offending me.
But it's a good opportunity to explain in general why commenting on women is often seen as a validation space and being taken seriously. :)
are you speaking for yourself, or for every female gamer?
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what? that you should know it's okay to comment publicly on someone's voice before doing so?
well, that's called being a decent human being and communicating with someone, instead of commenting about someone...
that's a general thing i didn't invent.
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Yesterday I was in a lobby and someone on the opposing team complimented our gunner on "his mining skills". When they discovered I am not a he, the lobby collapsed into the chaos, immaturity, and offensive remarks that always come along with being a woman on the internet and especially in an online game. I try to stick to flying with friends so that this occurs less often, but it is really frustrating to see that this is still so commonplace in a community that prides itself on being friendlier and better than other online games.
Women who play games are just people who play games. Stop freaking out. And no, you can't have my phone number.
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I feel like I want to reply to various things in this thread and threads related to this one.
1. First of all, as has been written here, you simply can´t count 12 years old trolls that have to boost their little ego by insulting and harrassing people as a part of the community. Harassement is pathetic, annoying and humaliating, no normal adult person can agree with it. But trolls were always here, and always will be. Accept the fact. "Female gamer" is not a rarity anymore, but in is not anyone´s fault that some people can´t see it yet and behave accordingly.
2. Deal with it. Fight back, ignore, block, report, your choice. But don´t feed them. And it is the fact that fighting back would be in most cases just feeding more. I think ignoring is the best option here. They will get tired eventually if they won´t have the attention. This is literally all you can do. Report people, describe the problem, make evidence, if necessary and let mods and devs deal with the problem, nothing else can be done here. Posting it on the forum maybe make people pay more attention to it but it won´t solve the problem. It also opens a big discussion full of arguments and offensive posts, like can be seen here and in related threads.
3. It works both ways. I witnessed a lot of random female individuals in lobbies, that were basically taunting the trolls. Absolutely attention who....seeking, provoking them and then whining and complaining about harassement, trying to get support from other people in the lobby, to save their dignity. But again, I don´t consider these players a part of community either. They are rare, but that doesn´t mean they don´t exist. The point I am trying to make here is, that there are black sheeps on both sides, that are making all the others in the group (in this case female and male group) look bad. The female ones are just more noticable.
4. BORG. I can clearly see the point they are trying to make. And by all means, go for it. Make it work, have fun. Honestly, it would be a great achievement if you managed to make it work. But don´t be surprised that some individuals don´t want to participate.
Personally, the idea of separating myself from the others and playing with random girls I don´t even know, just because we have the same genitals, instead of playing with friends, seems a bit silly to me. But that is just my opinion. And I think it is more than understandable that not all people share other people´s opinions and points of view. I can see it clearly, I understand, but I don´t share it, sorry.
Also maybe if you stopped making us all look like a little birds, fragile creatures that need to be shielded under BORG (I know this not the primary idea of BORG, but some things that I saw in that post and also here are sending this exact message), that need to be approached carefully, that need to be protected by others, and instead of that try to deal with the situation, it would help. If you want all that respect and "equality". I am aware that I am being really straight forward here, but like you are bothered with certain things, this is bothering me. I know it sounds pretty offensive, but I don´t really know how to write it in a more sensitive way, and honestly, I wouldn´t, because I am not making this post to write meaningless sentences and not actually saying what I want to say. I hope you can see my point.
Nevertheless, I am not against the idea as a whole, and I hope you will make it work. I am just sad that it became such a big deal and a subject of unnecessary discussions. It is just a group of people that happen to be females, that wants to play together, let it go. It can be considered sexist, but just...let it go. Do people really need to argue about everything?
5. MORG. It is a joke. Good or bad, that is up to everyone individually to consider. It is clear that it was a response to BORG post, everyone can see it. But I still think it was pretty hilarious, with or without the context. Although I can see how offesive it must be for some people, and it is understandable. It is basically mocking the idea of BORG, which is not nice, but again, do we have to take these things so seriously?
Also, B´Elanna, giving people orders (yes orders, these are not suggestions or advices) how to behave towards women? Really? You are talking to the community here, not the trolls.
My last thought is that it is actually really nice to see people considering this as a real problem, and willing to make the situation at least slightly better, that is what makes this community great to be part of.
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+1
I agree with Aayra. So many personalities, it gets easy to confuse or misinterpret, while the main matter gets bypassed.
Especially on a forum or chat.
Anyone can get harassed, insulted or offended. I have been that ingame, done some reports, ignored them or spoke my mind. In the prime goio time i think it's less of an issue with more CAs on and people that would not let this happen. At least not seen it happen at that time that much. That we owe thanks to CAs and people who want to keep the community clean. How to battle the times prior and after that prime time is more difficult.
Help and more work is needed to keep things civil, fun and fair. Overreacting or underreacting makes things worse. Making a minor matter a huge issue or vice versa eludes the whole point of the matter. Discussing it constructively is a good step forward. Stereotyping the majority, patronising or discriminating is a big step backward.
EDIT: I kinda miss the list of CAs under the social tab ingame. Made it much easier to contact when needed. I even thought it was removed completely until someone just now told me it's under the community tab page on that wide button, which i noticed for the first time. :o A bit too discreet imho. Also when you write a long report and the match starts and you have to do it all over again. >.<
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I keep coming back to this thread not quite knowing what to say or do. I'm not going to go into my experiences here; that's not going to help solve anything. we've already established this is a problem. it's a problem that's going to come up over and over again. as this community grows, there will always be different kinds of gamers who will start playing - and that'll include people that think it's okay to objectify and harass women. it does sound like the system has so low visibility that someone having the issue over and over again just feels like they're talking to the atmosphere and getting nowhere with it. I don't think it's a bad idea to know that our reports have been handled, at the bare minimum. I doubt it'd be wise to add details to them; that's a bit of a catch 22. if we know how our reports are being handled, and we don't like how they were handled, it could mean the system is broke or it could mean perspective or bias may be getting in the way - and that could open up a new can of worms. either could, and they're on opposite ends of the productivity scale.
but knowing that the situation is being handled I believe is the key here, since we can't otherwise handle it ourselves. knowing our voice is being heard is important. frankly, it makes it easier to keep fighting.
of course, we need a way for a "your report has been handled" message to get to us. I do think the PM system within the game could be better. if there were some sort of an inbox system in-game where your offline PMs and PMs you otherwise choose to save would go, even if just up to a certain limit of messages, that'd enable us to get a notification when our reports were handled. otherwise...not everyone looks at the forums; how would we get the message? I guess the better question to ask here is, when someone is reported and action is taken, how is the person that the action is taken against notified? could the reporter get a notification the same way, and will that be adequate?
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It is really sad that asking that my efforts to make a safe and fun space be respected and not ridiculed are seen as "patronising and discriminating".
And Aayra, I understand what you are saying but asking for support is not asking to be treated like a fragile thing that needs protection. Harassers rely on the silence of the people around them to continue preying on people, and if bystanders are not silent then they cannot continue. This is a good thing.
Not wanting to participate is a very different thing from openly badmouthing the entire idea in lobby chat. I am not interested in participating in lots of things, but I do not go up to the people organizing them to tell them their ideas are stupid because they do not cater to me. It would be nice if other goio players could show the same respect to me and B'Elanna.
PS: genitals have and always have had nothing to do with any of this.
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I mentioned that generally speaking. Not directed at anyone specific. If i see harassment or disrespecting of someone in a lobby i have acted and will do so in the future. Going too far is going too far no matter who or against who. But like said before anyone can appear into this game and break the conduct rules. It is an open game. But i am sorry to hear that it has been as serious as you have posted.
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Yesterday I was in a lobby and someone on the opposing team complimented our gunner on "his mining skills". When they discovered I am not a he, the lobby collapsed into the chaos, immaturity, and offensive remarks that always come along with being a woman on the internet and especially in an online game. I try to stick to flying with friends so that this occurs less often, but it is really frustrating to see that this is still so commonplace in a community that prides itself on being friendlier and better than other online games.
Women who play games are just people who play games. Stop freaking out. And no, you can't have my phone number.
Reminds me of women I used to run with back in WoW years ago. Did not even know they were female till finally they spoke. Absolutely terrified of being found out after experiences like this. When they found out we weren't psychos, they finally opened up.
Caught a little bit of it myself when I started in WoW. Had been recommended to start as a female toon since getting help was easier as one, or so I was told. I wasn't sure it was true till I saw it first hand. The sad part was, along with it came a lot of "Are you a girl?", "do you have a picture?", and even a few "do you cyber?" questions. Few people I quested with early on kept asking till I told them. When they found out I was a guy, they never quested with me again. Was one kid who was literally infatuated with my toon and after he discovered the truth, I never saw him log in again. The problems got less as time went but I learned to quickly state,"<guy not girl." Think the playerbase also over time realized that MMORPG sometimes means "Many Men Online Role Playing Girls." :D
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I've seen this stuff pop up a couple times and I always want to contribute, but I'm not sure how. As this is a discussion, maybe now is the best time to take a shot.
First, I'll say: Ladies, men, and anyone who identifies by anything else, if someone offends you - especially someone you know or spend time around more regularly - please let them know. Hopefully they will take it in stride an do their best to censor themselves around you. Eventually this would become second nature and start carrying over into other areas of their life. Then you reach the point where the offensive behavior is instinct and the person can instinctively pass it on to their children and, in the long run, help eliminate something.
Even if it doesn't go that far, knowing is half of the battle. If something doesn't compute as offensive for me, I won't realize that it is for someone else. Which ties into my next point, the discussion bit.
Regarding the OP (part 1), that is messed up. Maybe I don't pay attention enough since I haven't seen things as bad as you mention. But what you've experienced is not something that should ever be the case. I'm ashamed that it happens on GoIO enough for you to even have to post here.
Regarding the OP (part 2) and Andika's post, that is equally messed up, but I can delve a little deeper in to that.
Concept-wise, the idea of an exclusive group grates against what it is to be a social human. If you say you have a group and I can't participate, it bothers me, whether it is something I even need to be in or not. Conceptually I would feel mollified if there was an alternative group that was equally exclusive in the opposite direction.
Conceptually, there are no male exclusive groups. There are no male exclusive events. Your average guy, upon seeing a female exclusive event, would feel insulted. Certainly no reason to make a scene, but why are you being excluded? You are nice to people. You don't do or say anything offensive. Some of your female friends are going to be in it. But you can't.
Realistically you also have to look at the female perspective, and actually comprehend. Go in to a lobby and try to make a group. If you are successful, odds are you just made a male-exclusive group. You didn't try to. If a female was there you would have taken her too. But they weren't. Now imagine you are female looking for a group (and correct me if/when I'm wrong, please). Every group is inherently almost male exclusive. Not in name. Not in rule. But here you are trying to break in on the guy's club. Are you really welcome? Are you really welcomed, or just tolerated because female?
Genders do exist, and are especially noticeable in video games which are so predominately male. It is inevitable that a statistically significant percentage of females to play may at some point find the pre-existing groups to be equivalent to male-exclusive. In this light, making a female-exclusive group makes sense for relief. Explicitly making it exclusive makes sense. But it clashes with the male perspective that the male groups are not exclusive, so a female exclusive group seems like nonsense to some guys.
Long story short, guys don't understand the need for the group, and don't understand that they don't understand. Shame on us.
In the larger context, getting in to the ideas of yes-all-women and not-all-men, and the way men treat women in casual encounters in person and online.
From the male perspective. I feel safe walking alone. I never get random compliments on my appearance from strangers, but I would enjoy them. I am not a small man, and I'm pretty confident that if attacked I could probably fend off an attacker even without training. I never feel threatened.
"You complain about being complimented by strangers? What??"
From my perception of the female perspective from speaking with friends (please please please take this with a grain of salt. May be dramatized since I don't actually know). In general statistical terms, women are weaker/smaller than men physically. You are told stories from the news, the internet, from friends and family about attacks, sexual assault, rape, etc. Walking alone, the person giving you a smile and a compliment while passing by could be friendly, or could be wondering how best to get you alone. In person and online, comments could be either kind or threatening. You want to give someone the benefit of the doubt, but if you are wrong, it costs you so much.
"Of course I complain about getting complimented by strangers."
For guys, imagine that everyone has a gun - except you. People on the street. People in your work office. People online. Everyone. But you don't. Everyone else carries this around with them. Maybe they never use it in their life. But they could. Everyone always has this power except for you. And everyone knows it. Someone smiles at you on the street. Is that a friendly smile or a threatening smile? Someone actively threatens to shoot you. When can you feel safe? You can't live a life in fear. But you also can't be stupid. You go home to have some fun time online, but everyone there has guns. If you let them know you don't have one, everyone makes fun of you and threatens you. You try to make a group only for a few people you've met without guns and everyone with a gun gets up in arms (get it?) about being excluded.
Does that start to make sense?
I don't have an answer. Here or in the world as a bigger place. Girls, I'm sorry. Guys, acknowledge and try to understand.
We can't control anyone but ourselves, and if we aren't around when bad things happen we can't help that either. But we can do our best to be observant when we are around and defend what is right.
TL;DR: Guys, we don't even understand how much we don't understand. Read my analogy. Find a girl and talk to them about it with absolutely no condescending or insulting treatment of the girl who tries to explain.
Girls, we don't even realize how much we don't understand. It isn't an excuse, but if a guy asks you to explain and you can, please try to help us understand better.
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Men getting upset about a female gamer group is like white people getting upset that there's no "White History Month".
Male gamers inherently enjoy privileges that female gamers do not, even if you aren't conscious of them and aren't actually sexist yourself. Here's a pretty well-articulated list (not written by me):
http://www.polygon.com/2014/4/23/5640678/playing-with-privilege-the-invisible-benefits-of-gaming-while-male
Nobody is trying to play the victim or beg for "protection" or be fragile damsels in distress that need strong men to rescue us. Just bringing issues to light that are a big problem in the gaming community in general that also affect the community of Guns of Icarus, and asking that you do not be dismissive of issues that do disproportionately affect women. Yes, anyone can be bullied or harassed, and no one is saying that isn't a problem as well, but women are subject to harassment merely for being women and subjected to harassment that targets their femaleness specifically.
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Realistically you also have to look at the female perspective, and actually comprehend. Go in to a lobby and try to make a group. If you are successful, odds are you just made a male-exclusive group. You didn't try to. If a female was there you would have taken her too. But they weren't. Now imagine you are female looking for a group (and correct me if/when I'm wrong, please). Every group is inherently almost male exclusive. Not in name. Not in rule. But here you are trying to break in on the guy's club. Are you really welcome? Are you really welcomed, or just tolerated because female?
Genders do exist, and are especially noticeable in video games which are so predominately male. It is inevitable that a statistically significant percentage of females to play may at some point find the pre-existing groups to be equivalent to male-exclusive. In this light, making a female-exclusive group makes sense for relief. Explicitly making it exclusive makes sense. But it clashes with the male perspective that the male groups are not exclusive, so a female exclusive group seems like nonsense to some guys.
Long story short, guys don't understand the need for the group, and don't understand that they don't understand. Shame on us.
Please read everything redria wrote, especially this part.
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Please read everything redria wrote, especially this part.
It's hard, because I'll read some things that girls write on here and elsewhere and, even knowing and comprehending, it will really bother me until I take a moment to step back and take a second look. It is a hard subject to discuss with guys because our first instinct is indignation. I treat women well, so why is this something that is excluding me, or singling me out as a male? The point is that it both is and isn't, but simply because we aren't experiencing a lifetime of being treated even ever so slightly differently, our natural inclination is rejection of the problem.
As a guy probably the most important things you can do are:
- Understand and make sure you take a second look at situations whenever you feel slighted. The fact that you feel slighted indicates that you are probably rejecting the greater problem to focus on your own situation. This hurts the other party, keeps you in the dark, and does nothing to help the problem at large.
- Talk to your other male friends about it. Probably do it one-on-one if you can. You can probably expect annoyed responses. Use an analogy. Ask them to talk to their closest female friend, their mom, their sister, anyone. Ask them to do it seriously, with the intent to learn.
I can't prevent a troll if I'm not there. I don't think Lydia is asking me to go online and watch for trolls. Better reporting would help from everyone.
My responsibility in this time and this point in society is to be aware of my circumstances and the the circumstances of women in general. My responsibility is to listen for cues from my friends and family. If I hear something, the key is to not just let it slide. I fully admit, I'm not sure what I expect to hear, or how obvious it will be. But if I can have a heart-to-heart with at least one person and make them understand, then I will be contributing, a part of the path to a solution.
I realize I'm going a bit off on a much more broad tangent than the OP, but I think maybe that is the point. The problems here stem from the real world. If we better educate this community on how to respect a human as a human at all times, and to understand that they grew up in entirely different circumstances from ourselves, then the community will improve itself both online and in the real world.
If you've read all of these 2 posts, thank you. I hope it helped teach you something, male or female, or at least gave you a question to go ask somebody. The best answer you can have for yourself is honest, open, and respectful communication with the relevant gender. I'm not perfect. Nobody is. But we can only improve ourselves by expanding the horizons of our understanding of each other (god that sounds cheesy).
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I'm reminded of this cartoon
(http://betternature.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/what-if-its-a-hoax11.jpg)
Working to be accountable to a greater standard is worthwhile to do even if you don't think the standards are too low. Either the harassment isn't a problem therefore actions taken to raise our standards are easy and in no way hard to do or the harassment is a problem and bettering ourselves solves an issue that needs to be solved.
Can't hurt. You hear something objectionable, just say something. Community peer pressure can be a force for good.
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I feel like this has destroyed the fun that was the community, it's not fun to sit there and watch people fight and bicker in lobbies or in the middle of matches because, something that shouldn't have happened, happened, however as a person, I would really like the community to just move on before it ends up shattering itself and further people get upset, I understand certain sects of the community are upset right now, but the arguments and fights are spilling over into the parts of the community who haven't even touched this, and have tried their best to stay neutral. We just need to pick up the pieces and move on gals/guys, its in the past and if we keep living in the past how can we live in present and think of the future?
"Life is one big road with lots of signs. So when you riding through the ruts, don't complicate your mind. Flee from hate, mischief and jealousy. Don't bury your thoughts, put your vision to reality. Wake Up and Live! - Bob Marley"
"Holding anger is a poison. It eats you from inside. We think that hating is a weapon that attacks the person who harmed us. But hatred is a curved blade. And the harms we do, we do to ourselves. - Mitch Albom"
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I feel like this has destroyed the fun that was the community, it's not fun to sit there and watch people fight and bicker in lobbies or in the middle of matches because, something that shouldn't have happened, happened, however as a person, I would really like the community to just move on before it ends up shattering itself and further people get upset, I understand certain sects of the community are upset right now, but the arguments and fights are spilling over into the parts of the community who haven't even touched this, and have tried their best to stay neutral. We just need to pick up the pieces and move on gals/guys, its in the past and if we keep living in the past how can we live in present and think of the future?
"Life is one big road with lots of signs. So when you riding through the ruts, don't complicate your mind. Flee from hate, mischief and jealousy. Don't bury your thoughts, put your vision to reality. Wake Up and Live! - Bob Marley"
"Holding anger is a poison. It eats you from inside. We think that hating is a weapon that attacks the person who harmed us. But hatred is a curved blade. And the harms we do, we do to ourselves. - Mitch Albom"
yep its having a big impact on the community. it's time to just leave the conversation as it is. Muse cannot change the fact that asshole misoganists harass female player. They can however handle reports and issue warnings and bans, but international social injustice they cannot handle.
It's unfortunate that this happens, and I get that it is an unpleasant feeling that it is happening but this is what it is.
if you feel harassed ingame, block - report and stay away from that person, it goes all ways and that is what can be done about it in the first instance. but lydia mentioned something about her friends starting to become insulting towards women, take it up with them personally, true friends listen and respect eachothers lines.
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yep its having a big impact on the community. it's time to just leave the conversation as it is. Muse cannot change the fact that asshole misoganists harass female player. They can however handle reports and issue warnings and bans, but international social injustice they cannot handle.
It's unfortunate that this happens, and I get that it is an unpleasant feeling that it is happening but this is what it is.
if you feel harassed ingame, block - report and stay away from that person, it goes all ways and that is what can be done about it in the first instance. but lydia mentioned something about her friends starting to become insulting towards women, take it up with them personally, true friends listen and respect eachothers lines.
Then I guess I do not have many true friends on here, because for the most part when I have brought this up I have been blown off and told I'm silly for being uncomfortable with it. In a community where this kind of behavior is treated as just a joke and totally okay or not a big enough issue for other people to step in and support the people who are alienated by it no one feels the need to change their behavior just because one person was upset and decided to talk to them about it.
It looks like that is that, then. If a mod says it is time to stop talking then it is time to stop talking. I suppose the moderation team has concluded that this is not an issue that is worth doing anything more about and that the onus should remain on female players to report, block, and move on every time they are harassed, and that is what it is. I had hoped we could arrive at something different but I understand that if making players like me feel safe is not a top priority then it is not a top priority and your time is better spent on other things. I'm sorry for bringing this up.
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Hey Guys,
Want to jump in again. Just wanted to explain why Skrimskraw's post here is gone in case you saw it.
Skrimskraw was speaking from a player perspective and did not represent any views that Muse has. Due to any confusion especially with the CA tag the comment was removed.
As far as moderation goes the Muse Developers that go through every player report by hand. We take every issue seriously, from gender to race, to player privacy, any and all reports of player harassment are treated with the severity a war crimes trial. We treat everyone in the game equally and we don't care who, what, where you are, if you're in our skies and abide by our community standards you are important to us and worthy of protection, attention and service.
Please block and report those who are harassing players for any reason. We act on these reports and it is amazingly important to us that we keep catching, punishing, and removing players who want to make our skies emotionally unsafe for any person to be in.
If we could push back to the main topic (in my opinion, and correct me if I'm wrong) which is not is harassment happening or to what severity, but how can I, the dev team, or the people in this thread help. What ideas does anyone have that we can implement.
The reason I have taken such special interest in this thread is I want to know what the best way I can help those dealing with harassment.
To paraphrase Redria:
There are things we don't know that we don't know about.
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I wrote the following before Keyvias posted. Feel free to read it.
I think the discussion, whether it is here or somewhere else on the forums, needs to take place. I think it needs to be somewhere visible.
From my perspective, and Lydia can feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, the point of this thread is to call attention to an imbalance and look for recognition of it. To raise awareness and invite a friendly conversation for explanation and learning. This isn't just about the Girls of Icarus event, though it is an excellent example. This isn't just an event or two that can be put in the past, no matter how easy that path might be.
This also isn't looking for Muse to fix a social imbalance on their own. It isn't accusing every male of treating women poorly.
In every situation where a group of people is discriminated against by society, there will be a range of treatments for each person involved. Some people will have little to no history of mistreatment. Some people will have a lifetime of being wronged. Those on the other side are mostly only aware of the history of those with little to no history, along with knowing a couple examples of the worse abuses.
Where we are here is a point where men and women both need to recognize and acknowledge that women are being mistreated regularly. Not every woman equally. Your experiences will differ from every other person's. But it is a problem, and by acknowledging that it is a problem, we can create an environment where the problem can be discussed safely. Where we can think of solutions and help each other.
You don't have to do much. You can still play the game like you always have. Just recognize that every person you meet comes from somewhere different from yourself, and anything you say, even the small things, can have an impact on another person. If we see a blatant abuse we can address it, but the much more insidious problem is that so many people don't recognize the prevalence of mistreatment, in game and IRL.
Here, and anywhere else you go in life, if someone comes to you with a problem, the most important first step is to recognize that there is a problem.
More importantly, in case you miss Keyvias's post since mine is directly after, read his too:
Hey Guys,
Want to jump in again. Just wanted to explain why Skrimskraw's post here is gone in case you saw it.
Skrimskraw was speaking from a player perspective and did not represent any views that Muse has. Due to any confusion especially with the CA tag the comment was removed.
As far as moderation goes the Muse Developers that go through every player report by hand. We take every issue seriously, from gender to race, to player privacy, any and all reports of player harassment are treated with the severity a war crimes trial. We treat everyone in the game equally and we don't care who, what, where you are, if you're in our skies and abide by our community standards you are important to us and worthy of protection, attention and service.
Please block and report those who are harassing players for any reason. We act on these reports and it is amazingly important to us that we keep catching, punishing, and removing players who want to make our skies emotionally unsafe for any person to be in.
If we could push back to the main topic (in my opinion, and correct me if I'm wrong) which is not is harassment happening or to what severity, but how can I, the dev team, or the people in this thread help. What ideas does anyone have that we can implement.
The reason I have taken such special interest in this thread is I want to know what the best way I can help those dealing with harassment.
To paraphrase Redria:
There are things we don't know that we don't know about.
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I feel like this has destroyed the fun that was the community, it's not fun to sit there and watch people fight and bicker in lobbies or in the middle of matches because, something that shouldn't have happened, happened, however as a person, I would really like the community to just move on before it ends up shattering itself and further people get upset,
I feel this conversation proves the strength of the community. We care enough about our standing and reputation here not to troll or bully people who have a different point of view. I don't agree with all that Lydia has said, but she has the right to say it and others have the right to disagree in a respectful manner. This is a heavy topic but I think it can be discussed without it turning nasty. If you are looking for fun check out the "Codex Zuka (https://gunsoficarus.com/community/forum/index.php/topic,1252.0.html)" or "Ban the user above you (https://gunsoficarus.com/community/forum/index.php/topic,2668.0.html)" threads.
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I feel like this has destroyed the fun that was the community, it's not fun to sit there and watch people fight and bicker in lobbies or in the middle of matches because, something that shouldn't have happened, happened, however as a person, I would really like the community to just move on before it ends up shattering itself and further people get upset,
I feel this conversation proves the strength of the community. We care enough about our standing and reputation here not to troll or bully people who have a different point of view. I don't agree with all that Lydia has said, but she has the right to say it and others have the right to disagree in a respectful manner. This is a heavy topic but I think it can be discussed without it turning nasty. If you are looking for fun check out the "Codex Zuka (https://gunsoficarus.com/community/forum/index.php/topic,1252.0.html)" or "Ban the user above you (https://gunsoficarus.com/community/forum/index.php/topic,2668.0.html)" threads.
Sadly it has turned nasty, people are fighting all the time, this isn't being handled like mature adults it's being handled like kids in High school.
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Hi everyone,
Let me weigh in on the topic at hand as well as some of the suggestions made for us to perform moderation better.
So far, the tangible suggestions for us are two:
1) To obscure the notification to reported player so that they don't speculate who reported them. This was an byproduct that we did not anticipate, and currently, our solution is to add a delay to receipt of notification of being reported. The timer I'm recommending is 30min. Of course, there is a chance that the reported person may not receive the report due to the delay. However, we do take notice of every single report that comes through as you know, so we can still act on the report asap.
2) More status updates for the reporter to know status of report filed. Our solution for this is to add notification via email of 2 states of progress - when we received and view the report, and when an action is taken. Please note that we also need to protect individuals' privacy and protect the community against reporters who may not be well intended. Thus, we can only say that we have viewed or have taken some form of action. In other words, we will not be disclosing the specifics of our actions taken. I think the reasoning is obvious here, so hope this is understandable.
We will try our best to implement these for the next update.
Now, for the issue of gender discrimination, let me add to and expand on Matt's comments above. We as a dev team do not condone sexual harassment or gender discrimination in the same way that we do not condone discrimination period. This is how we are as a team, and this is how we aim for for our community. We kill ourselves to go through all the reports, and to distinguish severity and take action. Perhaps we don't always respond instantly or in the time you expect, and we understand that for you, these issues can't wait a minute longer than immediately, but do note this. We have to sleep sometimes to keep our sanity. I would ask for a tiny bit of latitude and understanding, before reaching the conclusion that we are lazy or don't care.
About forming groups for different interests, my position is, anyone is free to form whatever group or clan they so choose. And we support the formation of all interest groups as long as people enjoy the game and abide by our community standards and terms of use. We aim to treat everyone equally. Everyone is our customer, and we try to do our best to make sure everyone enjoy the game. I sincerely hope we can treat everyone with respect and judge us by the strength of our personality, character, intellect, and citizenship, and not by our appearances.
Thanks everyone, Howard
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I feel like this has destroyed the fun that was the community, it's not fun to sit there and watch people fight and bicker in lobbies or in the middle of matches because, something that shouldn't have happened, happened, however as a person, I would really like the community to just move on before it ends up shattering itself and further people get upset, I understand certain sects of the community are upset right now, but the arguments and fights are spilling over into the parts of the community who haven't even touched this, and have tried their best to stay neutral. We just need to pick up the pieces and move on gals/guys, its in the past and if we keep living in the past how can we live in present and think of the future?
"Life is one big road with lots of signs. So when you riding through the ruts, don't complicate your mind. Flee from hate, mischief and jealousy. Don't bury your thoughts, put your vision to reality. Wake Up and Live! - Bob Marley"
"Holding anger is a poison. It eats you from inside. We think that hating is a weapon that attacks the person who harmed us. But hatred is a curved blade. And the harms we do, we do to ourselves. - Mitch Albom"
Destroyed fun community? Well, I'm sorry, but I don't think trolls and harassers are fun and by the looks of it, problem is big enough that OP decided to make a thread about it. And she probably didn't make this topic to get a consoling comments, she hopes something can be done about it. Now, I don't have any ideas, but at least I wouldn't go as far to say, "Hey, this topic is making me feel bad".
People are simply discussing how to fix this and exchanging their opinions, I feel sorry for you if you find this as "destroying fun of community".
What if you will need help in the future and you will ask devs, mods or community for help and they would reply with a comment like: "Eh, I'm afraid this could affect other people that will read this forum". If you don't like the thread, you can simply ignore it. No offense.
No wonder this stuff is getting more and more common. Because every single day world is getting more dirty, greedy, unfair, cruel etc.
We are at the point where bad stuff happens everyday and no one wants to do anything about it. They rather ignore it, because it's easier. Or some people even see it as "normal". Like some crazy idiot beating his dog to death and then police comes and ask his neighbour about info and he says "well, i think this is normal, it happens every day." - happened few days ago not for the first time. Or also not long ago dude beat up a pregnant woman and there were about 10 random people standing ten feet away and watching with their hands literally crossed. Like they are on some show. And no, this stuff doesn't happen "only in America".
I know these are more extreme cases, but hey, everything has it's begging. One day someone will harass a girl online, next week he will find a victim in real life and god knows what to do with her...
I know men are thinking differently and can overlook things, or don't understand things, I know, I'm also a dude and I would be lying if I's say I understand females more then anyone here, but I can imagine how tough it is for them. It's sad they can't enjoy themselves and relax even in a fucking game where we all come to relax and get away from real life problems. It really is sad.
I've seen enough bullying and harassing in school and I'll be honest I didn't always do my best to stop it. I could probably stop it, but I didn't. I was a kid. I was stupid. But now, I couldn't sleep if I'd just simply ignore someone who really needs help.
Anyway, like I said, I don't really have any good ideas to fix this, but I just wanted to say that it's good to see that people are actually discussing about it. Unfortunately the best advice I could give is same as pretty much everyone else said, report and block, but I do hope someone gets better idea how to deal with those people. :)
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Hi everyone,
Let me weigh in on the topic at hand as well as some of the suggestions made for us to perform moderation better.
So far, the tangible suggestions for us are two:
1) To obscure the notification to reported player so that they don't speculate who reported them. This was an byproduct that we did not anticipate, and currently, our solution is to add a delay to receipt of notification of being reported. The timer I'm recommending is 30min. Of course, there is a chance that the reported person may not receive the report due to the delay. However, we do take notice of every single report that comes through as you know, so we can still act on the report asap.
2) More status updates for the reporter to know status of report filed. Our solution for this is to add notification via email of 2 states of progress - when we received and view the report, and when an action is taken. Please note that we also need to protect individuals' privacy and protect the community against reporters who may not be well intended. Thus, we can only say that we have viewed or have taken some form of action. In other words, we will not be disclosing the specifics of our actions taken. I think the reasoning is obvious here, so hope this is understandable.
We will try our best to implement these for the next update.
Thanks for this, Howard. It's the solutions that I'm after. I realize this thing can't really have a complete resolution, but I'm glad you guys are taking steps to close the gap a little.
I'm down with the discussion itself as well; I do believe there's something to be said about awareness, and a thread like this is a great place for it. brain is too fried from the continuing sitcom that is Shae and Daemacil's Great Move 2014 to contribute anything more worthwhile, though.
so otherwise, thanks Lydia for making this thread and taking a stand.
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The delay in report notifications would be a great start. If you're harassing someone and get reported and immediately get a notification, it's gonna be pretty obvious who reported you. I often get counter-reported in such a circumstance, which is pretty ridiculous -- are they reporting me for reporting them? :P
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Interesting side note: you have one of the highest report to capture ratios. (Basically how many of your reports turn into warnings and/or bans.) So thank you for the effective reports.
I think a high report-to-capture ratio would mean the reports are ineffective, wouldn't it? </pedantic>
Assorted comments that came to mind while reading this thread:
- I've seen a fair amount of undesirable behavior in this game. I try to ask people not to do it when I see it, and if that fails I try to report. I actually started a discussion on another forum (http://www.fantasystrike.com/forums/index.php?threads/how-to-deal-with-creepy-stalker-people.9881/) about a situation I had seen in this game. Basically: when the inappropriateness is targeted at a specific individual, should I try to comment on it publically, in addition to GoIO's handy report feature? I'm still not sure, although I think I lean towards "yes, tell that person to stop it."
- Is there a way to differentiate between "I don't want to listen to this person RIGHT NOW" and "I don't want to listen to this person EVER AGAIN"? Sometimes in big lobbies there will be ten or twenty people talking at once and I can't hear what ammo my captain told me to bring, and I just want to temporarily mute everyone who's not on my ship. I don't want to have to go through and block everybody, because if I forget to unblock someone, then a week later when I run into that person again, I might think ze's one of the trolls I've blocked, and that'd just be unfortunate
- I think I might have found a bug: a few times when I've been in the process of typing up a report, the match will start, and then I'll get a popup telling me that I've been reported, even though I haven't done anything (not even reported someone else!).
- obviously, reporting on specific complaints isn't going to be a thing. But would it be possible for MUSE to report statistics on complaints in aggregate? For example, in the month of September, X complaints for harassment were filed, with Y warnings and Z bans applied; W accounts were banned for cheating, etc.
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We need a Mute feature (Like blocking) for those people who you are annoyed with or just don't want to listen to verbally at the moment. It could only mute their voice chat for you, and you could (maybe?) un mute them from the social tab afterwards...
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We need a Mute feature (Like blocking) for those people who you are annoyed with or just don't want to listen to verbally at the moment. It could only mute their voice chat for you, and you could (maybe?) un mute them from the social tab afterwards...
...and maybe mutes should reset after you log too, while blocks don't?
I could see this potentially getting confusing, though.
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Interesting side note: you have one of the highest report to capture ratios. (Basically how many of your reports turn into warnings and/or bans.) So thank you for the effective reports.
I think a high report-to-capture ratio would mean the reports are ineffective, wouldn't it? </pedantic>
If she was reporting the same players, I'd agree, but they are different players. We are always selling copies so that means always new players. Some new players are not good matches for the Guns of Icarus community.
Most players who get reported only get reported once. Either because they leave after the warning or change their behavior.
We'll definitely investigate that bug you reported on reporting. We'll see if we can reproduce it/ fix it
@Blocking
Blocking does mute players for you both in voice and in text. So if you can block someone speaking how you don't like.
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@Blocking
Blocking does mute players for you both in voice and in text. So if you can block someone speaking how you don't like.
yes, but I believe the idea was to have something to distinguish between players you want to block permanently VS just muting temporarily and un-muting later, for situations when five conversations are happening in voice chat at once and you just want to hear one.
instead of adding an additional mute function, it may be a thing to have something within the current system to just indicate if you want to block permanently or not. a button next to each name? a pop-up window when you block asking if you want it to be a permanent block? lots of ways to do this.
...or, in the interim or if it won't be changed, use text chat for those situations and leave people unblocked?
sorry if the thread's derailing a bit...
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Last night I encountered a particularly egregious example of sexism in a lobby which was persistent, distracting, and repetitive. For others to avoid it, everyone would have had to have left the lobby and restarted a new one, and seeing how hard it is to get a bunch of high level players together for a semi-competitive game in a public lobby, everyone was understandably upset at the prospect.
When several of us asked the offender to stop, he persisted to the point of being blocked and reported. However, as noted by others, because he could see the reports he and his friend persisted in their harassment by repeatedly reporting both the target of their comments and those of us who had reported them. Ergo, I can see the need for some delay before reports are processed.
As for any analysis I can offer as to this story, I think that one of the problems arises from the small and pretty insular nature of GoI's community. Generally, we take it on face value that we don't need to have super active moderators ready at the drop of a hat to resolve a crisis or an argument, especially on off-hours. For a number of reasons that redria and others have addressed, this assumption tends to cater towards the experience of male gamers, but I do think that I can fairly assume that most of the players I regularly encounter in lobbies do not engage in overtly sexist comments or behaviour. Therefore, when someone outside of this community engages in behaviour we find reprehensible, it is jarring and seriously disrupts the community feeling of the game.
I'm not sure if there's really much that can be done about it beyond Muse's individual handling of reports, which is appreciated. There's little to no restorative justice available for incidences of harassment, and that is disappointing if understandable given the online environment. At the very least, I intend to continue to engage with those who make offhand sexist comments in GoIO in order to see if I can't get them to recognize what they're doing wrong, as opposed to simply blocking them. Hopefully that is at least one thing I can offer to try and make the community better in an anti-oppressive manner.
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Night time moderator here ^^ sorry I was in the process of moving to Florida but i'm back and will be in game more often in those late night hours ^^ Feel free to contact me on steam as needed should you not find me in the game :)
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Man, I was in a lobby yesterday that was having a really positive discussion about feminism until it somehow turned to be about female pubic hair.
"A conversation about women as people? OH NO, QUICK, BETTER TURN IT TO BE ABOUT SEX!"
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Man, I was in a lobby yesterday that was having a really positive discussion about feminism until it somehow turned to be about female pubic hair.
"A conversation about women as people? OH NO, QUICK, BETTER TURN IT TO BE ABOUT SEX!"
honey, you know that...
women aren't supposed to grow hair, take shits and fart, or smell of anything other than rose paddles and rain on a clear summer day.
that's just not okay.
women are supposed to be soft and beautiful to look at, easy for the eyes AND nose. you don't want to bother your man now, do you? or any other for that sake.
always be gentle and understanding, make them feel heard and considered! as a woman it is your job to make sure men feel that they matter. and what better way to do that then making them decide what body hair you can admit to growing and what is just disgusting and you should hide your shame. :)
oh and Aayra, i don't really care if people want to come or not, lydia and me would be fine playing alone but by giving it a broad title like "girl gaming night" or similar things it made it clear that we do want female company and NO we do not have to know you first. and it worked. we had a really lovely evening and it was kinda nice. we played in the iron fork and then we split up into L4D2 and TF2. and then i left and they continued playing. people got to know one another, and now also casually want to hit each other up for a game here and there. exactly what i wanted out of this.
and what i mentioned about being respectful and mindful of making sure you as a male player don't make women uncomfortable only counts if those men don't have the consent of those women to treat them a certain way. if you are fine with public flirting all the power to you, but it obviously means you have talked to people about it and it was okay for you to be treated like that right? as for random strangers. it only counts if they want to be decent human beings respectfully approaching a situation. hey if not then that's fine too. they're just gonna be called out on the disrespectful boundary crossing individual they are.
cat-calling and disgusting behaviour is not always done to hit on us sorely.
sometimes it's like a dog pissing on his territory. they feel we're not supposed to feel comfortable here and they try to enforce that. "not feeding the troll" is shutting up and letting them piss all over this community. this is why CAs shouldn't block people right? to not be oblivious to abuse and not letting it happen continuously but honestly i lost all my believe in this CA system. they have no power to do anything anyway. some are more scared to stand up to abuse than before they got their yellow name. it's kinda sad.
(this is more to everyone)
look i don't really care if you think i'm an over-reactive over-sensitive feminist killjoy that takes away your innocent fun. i don't.
i just wanted to invite other girls to play video games with me.
and those who want to come can just show up any time.
that's. it. ^^
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honey, you know that...
women aren't supposed to grow hair, take shits and fart, or smell of anything other than rose paddles and rain on a clear summer day.
that's just not okay.
women are supposed to be soft and beautiful to look at, easy for the eyes AND nose. you don't want to bother your man now, do you? or any other for that sake.
always be gentle and understanding, make them feel heard and considered! as a woman it is your job to make sure men feel that they matter. and what better way to do that then making them decide what body hair you can admit to growing and what is just disgusting and you should hide your shame. :)
oh and Aayra, i don't really care if people want to come or not, lydia and me would be fine playing alone but by giving it a broad title like "girl gaming night" or similar things it made it clear that we do want female company and NO we do not have to know you first. and it worked. we had a really lovely evening and it was kinda nice. we played in the iron fork and then we split up into L4D2 and TF2. and then i left and they continued playing. people got to know one another, and now also casually want to hit each other up for a game here and there. exactly what i wanted out of this.
and what i mentioned about being respectful and mindful of making sure you as a male player don't make women uncomfortable only counts if those men don't have the consent of those women to treat them a certain way. if you are fine with public flirting all the power to you, but it obviously means you have talked to people about it and it was okay for you to be treated like that right? as for random strangers. it only counts if they want to be decent human beings respectfully approaching a situation. hey if not then that's fine too. they're just gonna be called out on the disrespectful boundary crossing individual they are.
cat-calling and disgusting behaviour is not always done to hit on us sorely.
sometimes it's like a dog pissing on his territory. they feel we're not supposed to feel comfortable here and they try to enforce that. "not feeding the troll" is shutting up and letting them piss all over this community. this is why CAs shouldn't block people right? to not be oblivious to abuse and not letting it happen continuously but honestly i lost all my believe in this CA system. they have no power to do anything anyway. some are more scared to stand up to abuse than before they got their yellow name. it's kinda sad.
(this is more to everyone)
look i don't really care if you think i'm an over-reactive over-sensitive feminist killjoy that takes away your innocent fun. i don't.
i just wanted to invite other girls to play video games with me.
and those who want to come can just show up any time.
that's. it. ^^
(http://stream1.gifsoup.com/view5/2224977/standing-ovation-o.gif)
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I, for one, stand up to trolls. See a troll and i'm online, just summon me. (I have my methods of dealing with trolls.)
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If you see a troll on the internet, don't feed the troll, let the troll feed you.
Whenever I see a douchebag on the internet, I take a "Enlightened gentleman" approach with the most exquisite insults ever.
Retard: WHY THE SHIT ARE YOU LETTING A GIRL ON YOUR TEAM!?!?111!?
Me: Excuse me good sir, but I am not allowing a girl on my team, but rather a valuable team player unlike yourself. In addition, I find that assistants who do not scream are much more valuable than those who use binary code to express their anger instead of proper punctuation.
Retard: Dafuq?
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I don't Tolerate trolls.
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Why would you want to waste any more than 5 seconds (for block/report) of your time for trolls?
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Sparkler you have me on steam You can call me in whenever you need me... That goes for everyone :)
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The same with GoldenGlade, anyone may contact me, either via steam or skype or smoke signals and I'll come and resolve any situation or help