One use of a word like “Kike” or “nigger” or “chink” or “cracker” or “spic” or et al doesn’t constitute “in your face” either but if I say any of those words in WoW public chat and get reported for it I stand a very good chance of being suspended or even banned.
Same goes for faggot by the way, the reason people don’t get in a whole lot of trouble for it is 1) Blizzard only really cares about “speech” issues when it comes to public channels and tells, while a lot of these “faggot” instances may be going on inside guilds or party chat, and 2) people are less likely to report someone to Blizzard for saying faggot than they are for saying nigger, but that’s a reflection of the WoW society not of Blizzard’s rule-enforcing (which relies on user reports for stuff that happens in chat channels.)
I think the problem here is that this is the only active policy that Blizzard has to reduce homophobic actions on WoW. If, for example, they made more an effort to stop people using “fag” and similar terms (and from what i’ve seen, that is indeed the insult/expletive of choice for a lot of players), or had a few npcs be shown to be gay or bisexual, then maybe this would be an ok decision. Maybe.
But this is the only thing they’re doing - stopping people forming GLBT-friendly (not GLBT only, friendly) guilds. A guild in which, likely, the only outward sign of their GLBT-friendliness would be a note in their guild name or charter anyway. FFS. This policy seems to me like Blizzard is saying “Ok, we don’t want people to make fun of you, so we’re going to hide you - oh, and don’t talk about your orientation, either.” Inclusion by hiding those who are different is in this case no different from a government saying to black people that in order to curb racism towards them they have to paint themselves white. It’s a foolish policy.
I don’t think it’s out of line to want to keep potentially explosive things out of the public channels of the game. That includes talk of sexual identity, politics, abortion, religion, etc. as long as it’s done generically and does not single out any one group. IE, if they ask someone to not use public channels to advertise their GLB friendly guild, they better also be restrictiong people who want to advertise a Christian guild or a Republican guild or a Pro-life guild.
They should take a more active stance at monitoring/restricting all the “fag” and “gay” talk that gets used in public channels. I’m willing to bet that if someone started screaming “nigger” or other insults based on race, a GM would be right there. They need to get better at this.
I don’t believe it. It seems to me that it’d be extraordinarily easy to write a script that sends a flag of any chat containing the word “faggot” to a monitor to evaluate. Already they have profanity filters, indicating that the game engine can detect certain words; having those words send a flag would not be prohibitively difficult.
Monitoring it would be difficult for a little bit, of course. But after word got out that you’d get suspended for using “faggot” in chat channels, the enforcement costs would plummet.
Subscriptions might drop, too. I suspect that’s why Blizzard hasn’t done it.
I think that treating “sexual identity” (gender preference) as a political issue is the problem, frankly. (And I see your :rolleyes: , and raise you a ;j - I was being tongue-in-cheek, but I’m sorry if I mischaracterized your argument).
It’s not something on which opinions count, just like race, to be triple double straight up frank. If you think all Chinese people should die, you are wrong. If you think it is wrong or bad or weird to be gay, you are wrong. That’s it. I know some people disagree…and I think they’re wrong.
Religion, politics, and abortion are all things with which there are valid arguments on either side of the debate. There is no valid argument for excluding visible queer people because there is no valid argument for excluding visible straight people. Heterosexuality saturates the culture, especially at a place like WoW, and what this policy does is put queer players there permanently on the defensive and in the underground, and that is wrong.
Wow has a profanity filter for end-users, certain text wil come in garbled if it can’t ge through the filter, the filter is pretty restrictive too, encompassing all of the big swear words and even most of the pseudo-swear words.
As far as I’m aware most of these filters are on the client-side, not the server side.
I think it’d be harder than you guys think to have a system in place that flags a real-life person (GM) everytime a certain word is used.
There’s a perfectly valid argument for excluding visible displays of homosexuality (not using the word queer as it feels antiquated to me) is because it causes a brouhaha, and this is Blizzard’s world and they have a right to set the tone in it, especially since it is a fantasy universe.
Also, there’s nothing saying that it’s an absolute “right” that being gay is okay, that’s a whole other ethical debate, though, but to present anything as not having “any valid argument” is in itself an invalid argument.
All this policy does is tell homosexuals to not flagrantly flout their sexuality in THIS SPECIFIC MANNER. I truly think that if there was a guild that advertised itself as a “Heterosexual friendly guild” it wouldn’t be accepted.
It’s in the presentation, really.
Heterosexuality may be “in your face” but Blizzard isn’t concerned with the composition of WoW guilds, it is concerned with public chat and such and public perception within the servers, that is why I think Blizzard would quash any guild that advertised itself as being supportive of ANY sexuality.
The only reason you’re seeing this through the lens you’re seeing it through is because homosexuals are a lot more likely to advertise a guild for themselves than heterosexuals since most people will just assume that most people are straight anyways.
Maybe some servers are really bad, but I don’t see this everywhere, either. I’ve been playing for six months and I might see people call something “Gay” once every month, and I’ve never seen the word “faggot” used publicly. And I’d notice, 'cause I don’t mind /ignore-ing people.
Isn’t this the same company that changed “Maine Coon Cat” to “Black Tabby” because they were afraid some idiots would see the coon in Maine coon cat as racist?
There is the option to install a profanity filter on your own game interface. It’s up to the user.
The point here is that sexuality has nothing to do with the game. Yet Blizzard have to acknowledge it’s a controvercial and tricky subject. They have to also make their game an enviroment that’s not going to upset either minors or their parents.
Only sure way of doing this? Declare that sexual references are not welcome. Whether pro or con. It’s not part of the game. Keep them out of the public areas of the game.
I encountered a character once canvasing to start a ‘Lesbian Guild’. Problem was I didn’t for a second believe this idiot to be either female or lesbian. And I doubted if any of his recruits would be either. Straight forward case, don’t you think? I never saw anything come of this because Blizzard probably killed the guild as soon as it was started. So no risk of little Johnny having to explain to Dad why his online pal has ‘Lesbian’ floating over his/her head.
But the problem arises in determining what’s the straight-forward case and what’s not. Where’s the line drawn? Only place for it is zero tolerance on public chat. This decision may seem unfair, but the fact is that this guild crossed that line.
Please explain the valid arguments for genocide, baby rape, slavery, torturing animals for fun, the success of Adam Corrola, and terrorism.
Which is it, baby? You said nobody said the queers were trying to flout sexuality - btw, your dirty mind is totally turning me on. You seemed to agree that one word and an acronym was not a gay pride parade. Yet here you are humping this strawman again. You’re so pretty when you’re flustered.
This is a ridiculous argument. Have you seen the character designs? That alone will show you pretty damn clearly that there is absolutely an undercurrent of sexuality in WoW all the time.
That said, again, this is not about queer people demanding the right to have sex in the town square. It’s not about the right to troll for sodomy on the public channels, or even dates, though straight guys certainly do. It’s about one word and an acronym in a Guild ad: LGBT friendly. That’s it. What is so earth-shatteringly threatening and sexual about that?
I just showed a hardcore player (whose guest account is expired) this thread. He replied:
“btw, i’ve personally reported any number of incidents of “gay” “fag” and such, and never had a response, or any indication that anything was done.** i’ve never had a gm respond to me for anything ever.** and certainly, the argument that if they wanted to stop that behavior, it would be trivial to scan and boot people using those terms, is pretty strong”
My bolded part shows that reporting is not effective for preventing this, if they don’t respond to any issues at all.
Just wondering, is it anything like Halo2 online? You can communicate with other players by having a screen name or by using the controller mic, are there homo-phobic guild names to go with the homo-phobic players?
OK, correct me if I’m wrong, but are you saying that the issue of homosexuality is not a political debate where people have strong feelings on both sides? I have to disagree with you on that. There are plenty of people who feel that homosexuality is a sin or a mental disease or a social problem, and that it is wrong, bad, or weird to be gay (your words), and will defend that arguement to the nth degree.
I happen to agree with you cthiax, and I don’t think there should be discrimination based on gender choices. But to say that it’s not a debate and that there’s not a large group of people who are against homosexuality is putting your head in the sand. Right or wrong, they exist, and we’re far from the point where we can ignore that there’s two sides to this debate.
I wonder, Martin, if you think that GLBT people trying to find an environment where they can socialize with one another without their very nature being considered “insulting” is one of those “political bullshit issues” that you need to escape from.
Nope. I’m saying people who think their feelings about whether queerness is right or wrong or gross matter are themselves wrong. Those people have ‘arguments’, but not a single one of their arguments is valid. That’s what I’m saying. I’m not here to wring my hands and pretend like I think everybody’s opinion is fucking sacred. (Harlan Ellison said “Everybody’s entitled to an *educated * opinion.” )
The opinion that because some people think gayness is wrong or gross they should be protected from all mentions of it no matter how slight and insignificant, which is what we are discussing, is dead fucking wrong, wrong, wrong.
There are two sides, but one is wrong. Have I made my position clear now?
