Blizzard adopts 'don't ask, don't tell'

[lederhosen]

Via a f-locked post (emphasis mine):

Blizzard says: declaring a WoW guild 'GLBT friendly' violates their sexual harassment policies.

Sara Andrews thought it was a big misunderstanding when she received an e-mail from a game master in Blizzard Entertainment's popular online role playing game "World of Warcraft" citing her for "Harassment - Sexual Orientation." Andrews had posted that she was recruiting for a "GLBT friendly" guild in a general chat channel within the game...

Blizzard's policy on "Harassment - Sexual Orientation," which is set forth in the games' "Terms of Use" and cited in the e-mail to Andrews reads, "This category includes both clear and masked language which insultingly refers to any aspect of sexual orientation pertaining to themselves or other players."...

Andrews' original posting read: "OZ [the name of her guild] is recruiting all levels ¦ We are not 'GLBT only,' but we are 'GLBT friendly'! (guilduniverse.com/oz)"...

Blizzard's stance was clear that recruiting for a guild using "GLBT" was inappropriate as, the company said, it may "incite certain responses in other players that will allow for discussion that we feel has no place in our game."

While we're at it, maybe we could give the female characters burqahs to prevent males from responding inappropriately to them?

Comments

[tyggerjai.livejournal.com]

The official Blizzard forum response ( http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-general&t=6847462&tmp=1#post6847462
) is in line with that, and points out that:

a) The ban is not on the guild per se, it's on the advertising of the guild in general chat.

b) The same prohibition on recruitment in general chat applies to any guild with an overt political, religious or sexual nature.

( 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.)

Caydiem has a point - WoW general chat is barely tolerable at the best of times, and I'm not sure *I* want anything in it that incites a fresh round of "omg r u a fag?". Is that pandering to the lowest common denominator? Possibly. Is that 70% of the user base? Pretty much.

sol.
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[tyggerjai.livejournal.com]

My favourite response to the response so far:

Thanks for the response, Cay. I get the feeling I'd like you.

Still, I have to play devil's advocate. Does this mean I should report people who mention their wives and children? That kind convo flaunts their heterosexual lifestyle, and could be construed as a "family values" plug, which is a very sensitive issue.



Absolutely. Any reference which implies sexual activity of any kind, however detachted, such as marriage, girlfriends, boyfriends, children, etc. must be reported, and Blizzard will respond.

Also, don't forget, any political affiliation, nationality, ethnicity, belief in a deity, lack of belief in a deity, or anything else that might possibly upset someone somewhere in the world.

Send it all to the GMs, and they'll sort it out.

sol.
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[tyggerjai.livejournal.com]

No, wait, maybe this one's my favourite:

Since their "GLBT" policy was such a success, these meeting notes have been leaked to the general public to improve other areas of the Blizzard TOS:


Q u o t e:
-African-American players who say they're "black" shall be given a warning, since that terminology is racist.
-Women who report sexual harassment in-game shall be given 72-hour bans so that they can stop inviting harrassment upon themselves
-Men or women who are attacked in game for their attire will be given a 1 week ban because "they were asking for it."
-Blizzard employees who demand fair pay will be fired and replaced with Strike Breakers, at $2.00/hour.
-Players living in poorer sections of Azeroth are genetically inferior, and get what they deserve.




This was just to clear up any discrepancy players might have about the recent interpretations of the TOS.

[lederhosen.livejournal.com]

I would love to see those guidelines enforced :-) The response may have been in jest, but I've run into way too many people of the "I'm not homophobic, I just get annoyed when gays flaunt their sexuality, like by ever mentioning the people they share their lives with" stripe.

[lederhosen.livejournal.com]

The same prohibition on recruitment in general chat applies to any guild with an overt political, religious or sexual nature.

I'm not comfortable with the implication that 'GLBT friendly' is an 'overt sexual nature'. IMHO, that amounts to little more than "eschewing insults and abuse on the basis of sexuality", which people are supposed to be doing anyway, right?

WoW general chat is barely tolerable at the best of times, and I'm not sure *I* want anything in it that incites a fresh round of "omg r u a fag?"

I sympathise - one of the reasons I don't WoW* is that I find that sort of talk obnoxious. If I did play it, I'd be looking for a group that didn't encourage homophobic talk... like, maybe, a 'GLBT-friendly' guild.

As you note, that sort of talk is already rife. There's no way that making GLBT players less visible is going to stop the rest from calling one another 'fags', or even cut down on the incidence much. If Blizzard want to stop that, they need to crack down on the people who are using that language, not on their targets.

*Other being that my time-management is already poor when it comes to the Shiny Electric Box, and WoW would be bad for me.

[tyggerjai.livejournal.com]

I'm not comfortable with the implication that 'GLBT friendly' is an 'overt sexual nature'. IMHO, that amounts to little more than "eschewing insults and abuse on the basis of sexuality", which people are supposed to be doing anyway, right?
It's declaring a specialist affiliation or criteria based on sexuality or tolerance thereof. "Overt sexual nature" is my phrase, not theirs. If the criteria expressed in general chat are based on sexuality (even if only tolerance of a particular sexuality), it's verboten. And no - in guild chat there's absolutely no "supposed to" at all outside the rules of a specific guild. That's rather the point - you can say what you like in guild chat and Blizzard won't care.

But yes, my objection, and the most common objection is that the policy restricts the freedom of the very people "inviting" harassment.

sol.
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[cornute.livejournal.com]

"WoW general chat is barely tolerable at the best of times..."

1. Get out of the newbie areas. Once you're past level 15 and don't have to spend time there anymore, you'll notice that the intelligence level rises quickly.

2. If need be, do /leave 1 to leave general chat.

For the record, my guild was never unfriendly to me or anyone in my family; my guild leader was kind of intrigued and asked a couple of pertinent questions, and everyone else either asked enough to clarify to themselves, or ignored it (while I don't flaunt "being poly"-- there's still the question of "why do you play with that one guy all the time, and who's that other guy you play with too"). So it's possible to play, talk with lots of other people (130+ people) and not have to deal with a single harsh term.

[tyggerjai.livejournal.com]

1. Get out of the newbie areas. Once you're past level 15 and don't have to spend time there anymore, you'll notice that the intelligence level rises quickly.
While I appreciate the advice, I have an L60 toon. I notice no such improvement, except inasmuch as WPL is very *quiet*, but the signal/noise ratio remains approximately the same. Ironforge remains ... Ironforge, whatever level. Nothing is as bad as the Barrens, sure, but STV comes pretty close.

2. If need be, do /leave 1 to leave general chat. Oh, I'm perfectly capable of ignoring general chat without actually switching it off, unlike some of my friends. Trouble is, when it's fun, it's really fun. Even when I have to make it fun myself :)

sol (swedenborg on Proudmoore, Swedenborgia on Cenarion Circle.)

[cornute.livejournal.com]

IF is IF, but Org is better, though.

[tyggerjai.livejournal.com]

The funny thing is, there's at least one quest (Quae and Kinelory, for your WoW friends) that has a lot of people (and not just those of us attuned to such things) saying "Uh ... is it just me, or are they ... you know, *really* good friends?".

The less funny thing is that that's one quest in 60 levels of reuniting heterosexual couples.

sol.
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[malada.livejournal.com]

"Many people are insulted just at the word 'homosexual' or any other word referring to sexual orientation," Blizzard responded to Blatzheim in an e-mail. "Also to discriminate against other players, such as not allowing any heterosexuals into the guild simply because of their sexual orientation, could cause extreme offense to a large percentage of our players and should be avoided."

A somewhat twisted way to say "Get back in the closet, queer."

-m