ArenaNet Suspends Players For Lack Of Common Decency

[Thorin]

So if a guy was smearing his poo all over the handles on the LRT, would you prefer everyone gives him the evil eye or even a verbal scolding until he stops, or would you prefer that the LRT cops come in, grab him under each arm, and eject him from the train?

In truth, I'd prefer to see _both_ happening - the crowd representing society should make it clear he's stepping over the bounds and the cops should come in and remove him from the situation if he hasn't already stopped.

And from the things I've read people complain about in WoW chat, yes, it sounds like the verbal equivalent of smearing poo on frequently-touched surfaces - hate speech meant purely to get a reaction, for the fun of seeing said reaction.

[Thorin]

I guess what I'm kind of getting at is people online who have much more direct and constant influx of a wildly extreme spectrum of content learn to tolerate and use self discretion rather than fear things they don't understand.

Then again there are odd ducks that wander the internet with the Sword of Righteousness^TM trying to "clean up all this horrible freedom", but who are they, and what gives them this right?

Common Trolls will often go away if you ignore them. But some will keep on keepin on no matter what you do.

Bullying is for sure something that is a problem but ISN'T solved by banning accounts (new account, continued bullying).

This sounds like, "This is how it's always been, so why try to change it?".  ArenaNet isn't trying to clean the whole internet of it's "horrible freedom", they're trying to provide a more friendly play environment in their massively-online game by giving those who aren't friendly a reason to rethink their stance.  They're also saying that to partake in the game they run servers for, you have to act online like what a reasonable person would expect you to act like in a real-world situation.

As far as not using the Sword of Righteousness, I have to ask, if you don't believe in banning, why have you ever locked a thread on these forums?  Isn't that basically the same as the 72 hour suspensions ArenaNet has been handing out to people for insulting other players, i.e. a form of playing mommy-cop?

[Mr. Analog]

but who are they, and what gives them this right?

They own the servers?

Nope talking about people who operate outside a given system and lobby for changes even though they aren't a contributing part of it.

Common Trolls will often go away if you ignore them. But some will keep on keepin on no matter what you do.

Bullying is for sure something that is a problem but ISN'T solved by banning accounts (new account, continued bullying).

I dunno. I just hate having to put up with ass-hats these days. I used to think it was better to just put up with them. But fsck that. I have better things to do. As to the new account thing, they would have to re-buy the game. How often do you think they would buy another copy just to be a dick to someone? And do it over and over as they continue to get banned?

This is where it all comes down though. When people say they want someone else to look out for their best interests, those interests are assumed to be the same when they may not be, but that's what those people have given up.

In the case of internet bullying it usually goes far beyond a single vector, but still, a dedicated bully is prepared for account termination on something like an MMO and will certainly continue the battle no matter how many times they are banned.

So if a guy was smearing his poo all over the handles on the LRT, would you prefer everyone gives him the evil eye or even a verbal scolding until he stops, or would you prefer that the LRT cops come in, grab him under each arm, and eject him from the train?

In truth, I'd prefer to see _both_ happening - the crowd representing society should make it clear he's stepping over the bounds and the cops should come in and remove him from the situation if he hasn't already stopped.

And from the things I've read people complain about in WoW chat, yes, it sounds like the verbal equivalent of smearing poo on frequently-touched surfaces - hate speech meant purely to get a reaction, for the fun of seeing said reaction.

Actually yes, I'd REALLY REALLY prefer if people spoke out about other doing stuff like that because right now most people turn a blind eye and assume it's someone else's problem. That person gets caught by the transit cops and fined and maybe even banned but that person is back in there doing the same thing again the next day, maybe they get caught again and again but the system is so open you can't fully stop someone.

To take a better example from the real world take Prohibition vs Anti-Smoking campaigns. In the span of 15 years violence and crime escalated and didn't actually stop many people from getting alcohol even though there was EXTREME enforcement by police and government. Conversely anti-smoking has actually made smoking become a socially unacceptable activity in public within the span of about 25 years. No crackdowns from the Feds, no guns a blazin', just a slow and steady procession of careful engineering to make it something the average person doesn't want to do. It got to the point where most people were okay with the banning of smoking from public areas at a civic level (and probably soon enough at a Provincial one, maybe even Federal eventually).

So yes, I'd rather people take the subtle approach and make it as "not cool" as possible for people to be jerks in video games than to have some external force actively suppress it, all that does is sweep it under the carpet it doesn't change behaviour.

[Mr. Analog]

I guess what I'm kind of getting at is people online who have much more direct and constant influx of a wildly extreme spectrum of content learn to tolerate and use self discretion rather than fear things they don't understand.

Then again there are odd ducks that wander the internet with the Sword of Righteousness^TM trying to "clean up all this horrible freedom", but who are they, and what gives them this right?

Common Trolls will often go away if you ignore them. But some will keep on keepin on no matter what you do.

Bullying is for sure something that is a problem but ISN'T solved by banning accounts (new account, continued bullying).

This sounds like, "This is how it's always been, so why try to change it?".  ArenaNet isn't trying to clean the whole internet of it's "horrible freedom", they're trying to provide a more friendly play environment in their massively-online game by giving those who aren't friendly a reason to rethink their stance.  They're also saying that to partake in the game they run servers for, you have to act online like what a reasonable person would expect you to act like in a real-world situation.

As far as not using the Sword of Righteousness, I have to ask, if you don't believe in banning, why have you ever locked a thread on these forums?  Isn't that basically the same as the 72 hour suspensions ArenaNet has been handing out to people for insulting other players, i.e. a form of playing mommy-cop?

1. That's not what I'm saying, MMOs have always had filters on user names and chat, what I'm wondering is how transparent their system is or what's wrong with it that so many people are already screaming about it.

2. Locking threads is completely different than banning, you can still use the forums, you can start a new thread, you can keep talking...

Do I feel that any one user should be permanently banned? No.

Do I feel that a user should be banned for picking a jerk-ass user name? No.

Do I feel that a user should be banned for cussing? No.

Do I feel that other users should sort out their relationships without me having to ban someone? Yes.

Does Papa love Mambo? Yes.

[Tom]

I guess what I'm kind of getting at is people online who have much more direct and constant influx of a wildly extreme spectrum of content learn to tolerate and use self discretion rather than fear things they don't understand.

Then again there are odd ducks that wander the internet with the Sword of Righteousness^TM trying to "clean up all this horrible freedom", but who are they, and what gives them this right?

Common Trolls will often go away if you ignore them. But some will keep on keepin on no matter what you do.

Bullying is for sure something that is a problem but ISN'T solved by banning accounts (new account, continued bullying).

This sounds like, "This is how it's always been, so why try to change it?".  ArenaNet isn't trying to clean the whole internet of it's "horrible freedom", they're trying to provide a more friendly play environment in their massively-online game by giving those who aren't friendly a reason to rethink their stance.  They're also saying that to partake in the game they run servers for, you have to act online like what a reasonable person would expect you to act like in a real-world situation.

As far as not using the Sword of Righteousness, I have to ask, if you don't believe in banning, why have you ever locked a thread on these forums?  Isn't that basically the same as the 72 hour suspensions ArenaNet has been handing out to people for insulting other players, i.e. a form of playing mommy-cop?

1. That's not what I'm saying, MMOs have always had filters on user names and chat, what I'm wondering is how transparent their system is or what's wrong with it that so many people are already screaming about it.

See whywasibanned.com

Do I feel that any one user should be permanently banned? No.

Even if that user is being incredibly inflammatory in-game, and on the forums? using incredibly hate filled speech, and doesn't stop when asked by people and mods?

[Mr. Analog]

See whywasibanned.com

You understand that's a humour site right? That there may be people getting banned over trivialities right?

Do I feel that any one user should be permanently banned? No.

Even if that user is being incredibly inflammatory in-game, and on the forums? using incredibly hate filled speech, and doesn't stop when asked by people and mods?

Yes because it doesn't solve anything. I feel I've said this a number of times now, maybe I'm not being clear:

Banning does not solve bad behaviour, it delays it.

[Tom]

See whywasibanned.com

You understand that's a humour site right? That there may be people getting banned over trivialities right?

Sure, but its examples of stupid trolls actually getting upset about being banned for doing stuff they knew they would get banned for.

That's the reason its funny.

Do I feel that any one user should be permanently banned? No.

Even if that user is being incredibly inflammatory in-game, and on the forums? using incredibly hate filled speech, and doesn't stop when asked by people and mods?

Yes because it doesn't solve anything. I feel I've said this a number of times now, maybe I'm not being clear:

Banning does not solve bad behaviour, it delays it.

More like it moves the bad people off onto other games. Bad people will be bad yo.

[Darren Dirt]

There is no such thing as common decency as it turns out that everyone is an individual.

I guess what I'm kind of getting at is people online who have much more direct and constant influx of a wildly extreme spectrum of content learn to tolerate and use self discretion rather than fear things they don't understand.

When I play live poker there is definitely a wide diversity in the "class/culture/decency" level of my tablemates, I have certainly learned to tolerate ... "differences of opinion/personality".

Just sometimes a dbag is a dbag, ain't nothing subjective about it.

[Mr. Analog]

Sure, but its examples of stupid trolls actually getting upset about being banned for doing stuff they knew they would get banned for.

And the function of this site is to shame trolls, which is something I support BUT it has nothing to do with the transparency of the system or the people who manipulate it which is what I was talking about.

More like it moves the bad people off onto other games. Bad people will be bad yo.

I think that's a sweeping generalization not based on actual experience. I've played a lot of games online, mostly pub servers or random matchmaking on consoles when someone is being a jerk it's because they want attention nearly 100% of the time. If you don't give it to them they disconnect because they get bored.

Of course some people get their jimmies rustled easily online and generally make things worse by reciprocating.

If someone gets really annoying and/or disruptive ban their ass from the local server or put them on your block list, why bother running to Valve or Microsoft to get that user banned from the network? For the record I find those type of people are in the extreme minority.

When I play live poker there is definitely a wide diversity in the "class/culture/decency" level of my tablemates, I have certainly learned to tolerate ... "differences of opinion/personality".

Just sometimes a dbag is a dbag, ain't nothing subjective about it.

Exactly, but you wouldn't ban them from playing poker at all casinos. Maybe there's a table with nothing but the same kind of dbag and that's the place where they're happy and out of the way.

[Tom]

Sure, but its examples of stupid trolls actually getting upset about being banned for doing stuff they knew they would get banned for.

And the function of this site is to shame trolls, which is something I support BUT it has nothing to do with the transparency of the system or the people who manipulate it which is what I was talking about.

More like it moves the bad people off onto other games. Bad people will be bad yo.

I think that's a sweeping generalization not based on actual experience. I've played a lot of games online, mostly pub servers or random matchmaking on consoles when someone is being a jerk it's because they want attention nearly 100% of the time. If you don't give it to them they disconnect because they get bored.

I used to think the same thing. And now I really don't want to have to do that anymore. Why is it up to me to put up with their garbage? Why should I have my day ruined for their sake? Rights of their fist and all that jazz.

Want to be a constant prick? Better be ready to get banned for it.

[Thorin]

Okay, I see this as more smoking than drinking, i.e. spouting bigoted hate-speech is not something that the general public desperately wants access to but the coppers are standin' in the way of (a la drinking and Prohibition), but rather it's something that the general public desperately wants pushed to the fringes so they don't have to deal with it in their face all the time (a la smoking).

There are both societal pressures for not smoking as well as a bunch of laws about where you are / are not allowed to smoke now.  If you smoke in your car with kids in your back seat, yes, you can be arrested (more likely to get ticketed).  If you light up in a hospital, you can get ticketed, and you can get picked up and shoved out the door.  In my view, this is very analogous to what ArenaNet is doing - most people don't want bigoted hate-speech spouted at them, ArenaNet has rules about it, ArenaNet is enforcing those rules.

I also want to point out these are 72 hour suspensions, not permanent bans.  I'm sure permanent bans will eventually follow for those people who don't alter their behaviour.  Of course, those people who are getting suspended are making huge noise, but then generally won't say what their username is because they know they will be publicly shamed when everyone finds out why they were suspended.  Most likely the reports and noise about the suspensions are much exaggerated past what's actually been handed out (the internet occasionally blows things out of proportion).  I point out the difference because in this thread we're swaying back and forth between temporary suspension and permanent bans as we talk, and these are definitely two different things.

As for banning the problem user from the local server, we can't do that because these are ArenaNets servers; but aren't you advocating here to do exactly what ArenaNet is doing?  Have the server admin ban/suspend the user?

As for blocking the problem user, is that possible in an MMO?  Can you tell your client to not show user xXReamYourAzzXx in the view window?  How would that resolve during a combat?  Could they hurt you?  Could you hurt them?

As for "all the dbags at one poker table", ArenaNet has explained that they work based on reports (same as most MMOs, I presume), so if at some point a server springs up that says, "all your hate-filled bigoted speech, bring it, we won't report it", you could expect not to get suspended as you could expect no one to report you there.

I've also read several posts from people who play / played WoW wishing that Blizzard would enforce the same rules of conduct in WoW.  Note that WoW has pretty much the same code of conduct that players are supposed to abide by, but Blizzard mostly doesn't bother enforcing them, at least according to these posts.  That's not surprising - enforcement is a lot of work.  One of the interesting points raised in these posts were that some of the people getting suspended probably don't even realize the language they're using, they're so used to it from WoW, so they're genuinely surprised that when they call someone a "gag faggot" or suggest someone is lower than a mental patient if they can't accomplish task X that anyone would take offense.  But c'mon, that's not something you'd say with your mom in the room.

Anyway, if it's so easy to influence douchebags online to get them to play nice, why are we moving to a whitelist on our minecraft server?  In my case, I'm requesting it because I know it's not easy to make people act decent and civil when online unless you can show there's a clear consequence to not acting decent and civil, and it's easier to just not allow people on until someone vouches for them.

[Tom]

Anyway, if it's so easy to influence douchebags online to get them to play nice, why are we moving to a whitelist on our minecraft server?  In my case, I'm requesting it because I know it's not easy to make people act decent and civil when online unless you can show there's a clear consequence to not acting decent and civil, and it's easier to just not allow people on until someone vouches for them.

A bit offtopic, but I noticed the problems first after some of your brood came on. Maybe one of their friends mentioned the server to someone?

[Mr. Analog]

Going back to my original statement; Who makes these decency rules and how are they enforced. Where are the checks and balances. How does suspending players actually serve the community?

From the sounds of things NCSoft are being fairly heavy handed suspending people for even slight infractions during the pre-release in the hope that it will make things friendly by force, I've yet to see this be a sustainable pattern anywhere and it does nothing to address the real problems.

Sure I believe in banning/suspending people if they deserve it for actions they commit like cheating, damaging the game or griefing (or what have you), but for @%&# they say over group chat? User names? Ridiculous!

I know NCSoft has the right to do this, again, their sandbox their rules. But at the same time there is something distinctly hollow about a community that relies on morality police to keep things in line for them rather than maintaining their own level of dignity.

[Darren Dirt]

When I play live poker there is definitely a wide diversity in the "class/culture/decency" level of my tablemates, I have certainly learned to tolerate ... "differences of opinion/personality".

Just sometimes a dbag is a dbag, ain't nothing subjective about it.

Exactly, but you wouldn't ban them from playing poker at all casinos. Maybe there's a table with nothing but the same kind of dbag and that's the place where they're happy and out of the way.

As for "all the dbags at one poker table", ArenaNet has explained that they work based on reports (same as most MMOs, I presume), so if at some point a server springs up that says, "all your hate-filled bigoted speech, bring it, we won't report it", you could expect not to get suspended as you could expect no one to report you there.

In a public card room there are rules, and consequences of violating those rules. When dbaggery turns into abusive vitriole or threats of abuse, the houseman steps in and temp-bans are warned and eventually handed out. When the dbaggery is less obvious, the players will often do the Scarlet Letter type of thing, verbal shunning, continuing conversations with the players to the left and right of the dbag, heck I've seen an entire table decide to take a "smoke break" at the same time because of one drunk a-hole who was also slowing down the game -- the houseman walked up when the dealer pointed out the "third man walking" rule, and the dealer finally spoke up about the dbag's behavior and the houseman had a Chat which resulted in a change of behavior. (Some of these dbags have perma-bans from other poker rooms and so don't want to burn their last bridge )

If it was a private home game, I'm sure something similar would happen -- in pretty much any group activity, it's usually a group consensus about what communication style or direct behavior is unacceptable in the current community of participants, with some person in a position of authority who makes the final call. Whoever is "in charge" usually implements a punishment of some kind against the violator, instead of making it so the victims of the violator are forced to end their fun (or continue in the midst of the dbaggery).

More smoking than drinking, for sure.

[Thorin]

Going back to my original statement; Who makes these decency rules and how are they enforced. Where are the checks and balances. How does suspending players actually serve the community?

They've been written into the Code of Conduct that players agree to; clearly they've been made by ArenaNet.  They're enforced by having ArenaNet employees investigate reports and then deciding whether to do nothing, warn, or suspend players.  Suspending players sends a clear message that ArenaNet does not intend to allow GuildWars' public chat to be free-for-all where bigoted hate-speech, name-calling, and personal attacks and insults are tolerated.  This serves the community by reducing the aggravation felt by its members whenever they need to use public chat.

From the sounds of things NCSoft are being fairly heavy handed suspending people for even slight infractions during the pre-release in the hope that it will make things friendly by force, I've yet to see this be a sustainable pattern anywhere and it does nothing to address the real problems.

Read the Reddit link; a few people actually did ask what they did wrong and were answered, and in all those cases I would say that they were spouting hate that they would never have spouted in a real-life situation.

Sure I believe in banning/suspending people if they deserve it for actions they commit like cheating, damaging the game or griefing (or what have you), but for @%&# they say over group chat? User names? Ridiculous!

This isn't for group chat, this is for public (server-wide) chat or for private messages directed at users who were not interested in being berated or insulted.  And in an MMO, your username is visible wherever you go, so something like "nuckyoufigger" is going to stand out like a sore thumb.

I know NCSoft has the right to do this, again, their sandbox their rules. But at the same time there is something distinctly hollow about a community that relies on morality police to keep things in line for them rather than maintaining their own level of dignity.

I have quite the opposite view; I think a community that does nothing to keep itself adhered to some set of standards is no community at all.  Sure, the question of what the standards are and who sets them comes into play, but that exact same question can be asked of any law we live under in the real world.  Seriously, try defining what "murder" is and the words "reasonable person" _will_ be part of that definition; and who decides what a "reasonable person" is?