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Now that this thread contains many thought provoking posts looking at the situation from different viewpoints we felt it would be interesting to add a poll to see what the overall consensus is.
The poll is anonymous so feel free to vote as you really feel.
"Are Blizzard right to restrict all recruitment activities of guilds friendly to legal lifestyle choices?"
<b>The GLBT Debate</b>
We've been watching the development of the GLBT (Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender) debate over the past 48 hours on Blizzard's boards, which have predictably turned into a cesspit of abuse towards many 'minority' groups. If you haven't been watching this yourself, the whole situation has arisen after Blizzard issued a warning to a player (<span class="blue">Sara Andrews)</span> after they advertised guild recruiting in the game chat for a GLBT friendly guild (Oz). The player was then issued with a warning by Blizzard under their "Harassment - Sexual Orientation" policy. The player was dismayed by the response from Blizzard and probed deeper to clarify the violation.* The story has since been picked up by* <a href="http://www.innewsweekly.com/innews/?class_code=Ga&article_code=1172&PHPSESSID=7bb82d1b0a34fcb872bd3d75a55d2caf">In Newsweekly</a>.<p>Blizzard has posted an interim response to the issues in their forums...</p><blockquote><p><span class="blue">Apologies for the length of time it took to get this information out to you. We encourage community building among our players with others of similar interests, and we understand that guilds are one of the primary ways to forge these communities. However, topics related to sensitive real-world subjects -- such as religious, sexual, or political preference, for example -- have had a tendency to result in communication between players that often breaks down into harassment. To promote a positive game environment for everyone and help prevent such harassment from taking place as best we can, we prohibit mention of topics related to sensitive real-world subjects in open chat within the game, and we do our best to take action whenever we see such topics being broadcast. This includes openly advertising a guild friendly to players based on a particular political, sexual, or religious preference, to list a few examples. For guilds that wish to use such topics as part of their recruiting efforts, our Guild Recruitment forum, located at our community Web site, serves as one open avenue for doing so. We will be clarifying some of the language in our game policies in order to help avoid such confusion in the future.</span></p></blockquote><p><span class="blue">Sara has made all correspondence with Blizzard public and you can locate the <b>emails between her and Blizzard <a href="http://www.worldofwar.net/articles/glbt.php">here</a></b>.</span></p><p><span class="blue">This is certainly an interesting predicament if you can see it from both sides. Oz guild are violating no rules by having a guild that welcomes GLBT but they are prohibited from advertising it in-game because "</span>it may incite certain responses in other players that will allow for discussion that we feel has no place in our game."<span class="blue">. Much of the harassment and abuse will be in public chat and before you know it you have an atmosphere as appealing as some of Blizzard's forums for everyone within earshot. They don't want that. This term of condition goes some way to protecting those intolerant of "minorities" and in doing so smothers the sense of one-world community by alienating portions of it thorough no fault of their own. It's a terribly sad state of affairs that certain portions of the community have to be gagged (apparently legally) to keep the peace but that's the cold hard fact of our time.</span></p><p><span class="blue">If you have views on this issue you can <a href="http://forums.worldofwar.net/showthread.php?threadid=361780">join in the conversation</a> in our forums and please, whatever your opinion keep it mature and civil. Thanks.</span></p>
meh i dont see why its such a big deal, maybe she shouldnt have advertised it and i do agree with blizzard to a point, my guild has no problem with my orientation and its openly spoken about so yeah, i think blizzard might have the right idea about to simply cause its bunching minority groups together
I think blizzard are right. If someone gets abused of their sexuality its obviously out of order. But to purposefully advertise a GBLT "friendly" (what - is every other guild unfriendly, or is it just they can't be bothered to make it, or don't think it is, an issue??). It could be felt, that because of the nature of the advertising that it would be hetrosexually unfriendly.
I mean, I would expect the same response if I advertised a "Hetrosexual Friendly" Guild - and totally understandably so as well.
I've never been asked by a guildmate if I like Girls or Boys yet.. and I'd be fairly confused if they ever did!!
Oh for the love of Mystra, Blizzard really needs to lay off the cut and paste e-mails and actually read what she is saying. I see enough of this crud at work with the companies that we have to oversee to ensure that they're treating the consumer's properly, when the latter are complaining (9 out of 10 with legitimate reasons btw) about something.
She did not violate the restriction they are quoting (referring to that minority in an insulting fashion), and covering their backsides for their own over-reaction by lowering her suspension to a warning in no way makes up for that. She didn't do the crime, so she shouldn't have to do the time.
In addition, we already hashed through all of this during the time when WoW was still in Alpha, folks were already recruiting for a GLBT-friendly guild, precisely because they feared for the type of abuse that is so common in WoW.
Heck, CoH, has a GLBT-friendly guild, and they do not promote the type of activities that Blizzard is claiming would be the result. Course, WoW is a lot bigger than CoH, but that also means that Blizzard's GMs need to be more on the ball with actual infractions.
The very fact that these folks feel that they need such a guild says enough imo. Blizzard is not enforcing their own rules enough with regards to sexual preference/identity discimination, and for them to turn around and then try to claim that such a guild would create problems..
The problems are already there, to try and put the squeeze on that guild is like trying to close the barn doors, when the horses have already escaped. Too little, too late, and just insulting to boot.
I think it's fairly obvious why this hasn't hit as big here as it did on the official forums. We don't care about what your gender, race, religion, or sexual preference is. It's part of learning your place in a larger world.
My personal feelings on your personal situation should have no bearing on how I play the game. Bringing it up only begs for unwanted attention from less mature players - it's a given. Suggesting that other players stifle their opinions so you can express yours is as juvenile as harassing someone because of their life choices in-game.
Now, if it were a group of people making a guild for male gnomes only, or The League of Studly Druids, it might have a place in WoW. The fact that people are attempting to pull our world into theirs and make our social problems social problems in WoW irritates me. I don't want to see this stuff anywhere, let alone in a game I play to get away from life ;)
I haven't seen anything sexually offensive, on my server anyhow. Unless people are really bothered about the "huhu your gay" comments when you mess up (not knowing if your gay or not..).. and if your really hurt by that I've no idea how you cope in the big bad world!
And if people are so worried about being made a target and being abused because of their sexuality - why display it through a "Look at US!" guild; when your sexuality is no-ones business apart from your own.
This is a really tuff debate when it comes to 'online' games, on the one side blizzard are correct in not wanted people to create Harassment for other people, but then again i see why people can't use "GLBT friendly" if it isn't any form of harassment towards others.
that fact that sara was promoting to let people know that the OZ guild is "glbt friendly" is a good thing, as although it is only 'just a game' people can still be afraid of being who they are, just because they are worried of what people may think.
I mean, it may be a game, but it doesn't mean people are not ignorant, and from time to time we do need reassurance, that not everyone is a jack-ass.
Why drag their sexual preference into it to begin with? I dont even tell people if I'm a girl or a boy, much less which gender I want to sleep with. And I cant help wondering if GLBT friendly means hetereosexual unfriendly... I dont want to be in any kind of guild who wont accept any sort of people, and I'm pretty sure the same goes for most Oz-members (at least I hope so). So why bring it up, if not to provoke someone and then blaming _them_ for narrowmindness? It's utterly insane in my opinion.
Last edited by SweVoyager; 29-01-2006 at 02:46 AM..
Why drag their sexual preference into it to begin with? I dont even tell people if I'm a girl or a boy, much less which gender I want to sleep with. And I cant help wondering if GLBT friendly means hetereosexual unfriendly... I dont want to be in any kind of guild who wont accept any sort of people, and I'm pretty sure the same goes for most Oz-members (at least I hope so). So why bring it up, if not to provoke someone and then blaming _them_ for narrowmindness? It's utterly insane in my opinion.
If, they're anything like those chaps in CoH, then GLBT friendly means just that, they don't care what your sexual preference is, what your sexual identity is etc. They just want to play and have fun, and that also includes not hassling fellow guildies over these types of things and also watching the language a bit in guild chat.
So not going on about how hot actress X in movie YZ is and what you'd like to do with her, and by that same token talking about how hot actor A in movie BC is and what you'd like to do with them isn't allowed either. Why?? Because you're needlessly making someone else uncomfortable, save that talk for whispers between yourself and whoever you're talking to. (I for one don't want to hear another chap talking about fancying Heith Ledger or Jake Gyllenhaal, and I can fully understand such a chap not wanting to hear me rave about say Kate Beckinsale or Catherine Zeta-Jones. Thus, it's fully acceptable to me anyway, that such conversations are left out of guild chat.)
Person doesn't show up for a raid and gets asked why, and they answer that they had to take the BF to the hospital, due to an accident, and folks know that the player is male. Said person doesn't get hassled over having a BF. By that same token, a chap who drives his GF to the hospital or a gal who drives her BF to the hospital won't get hassled over that.
It's about mutual respect and getting the job done as a guild. I don't see anything wrong with that. The very fact that folks apparently need such a guild says plenty about how well enforced Blizzard's rules are with regards to refering to certain groups in an insulting and negative fashion and/or harrassment.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Prasius
. Unless people are really bothered about the "huhu your gay" comments when you mess up (not knowing if your gay or not..).. and if your really hurt by that I've no idea how you cope in the big bad world!
.
Well, the definition of gay = bad or inept isn't exactly complimentary to say the least. And, I can fully understand folks getting annoyed with. Regardless of how much worse it is in the big bad world, that type of talk really isn't that much better than the type of behaviour displayed by a bunch of Forsaken players, which lead to said race having their ability to talk common removed in the beta. Or for that matter to referring to other players after defeating them in PvP, either male or female, with a term normally used to describe female dogs, in the age old: I pwn y0u *******. Or however you spell that in script kiddie talk.
It just gets annoying after a while. I find the whole: that's gay bla bla bla, stuff you see in chat annoying, and I'm not even a homosexual or bisexual. So, I can only imagine how annoying it is to them.
Last edited by Valas Azuviir; 29-01-2006 at 03:47 AM..
The GLBT Debate
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