Interesting article about bigotry

[Snuffleupagus]

I say we make it a law that nobody in an online setting discusses their gender ever, and that over voice communications, all women are required to get voice-changing software so that they sound like men. /obvious sarcasm

Yeah, some women do it for attention, but most don't and guys just like to think they do. That's the very definition of sexism, thinking poorly of a gender just because a few do something in a negative way.

The term whiteknighting is used by betas that like to pretend that disrespecting not just women but everyone makes them dominant, when they in all actuality couldn't get by with being respectful to people.

What utter crap. Whiteknighting is what bottomfeeding pond scum do when they are pretending that women are all delicate flowers who must be protected at all costs in the hopes of sexual favors in return (because let's face it, they have no other hope).

The fact that you'd try and use "beta" in this conversation speaks volumes about the kind of person you are.

---------- Post added 2012-09-07 at 07:41 PM ----------

Yea that's completely ignoring the problem. And I know you may not think its a problem but there are some deeply troubled individuals in the online gaming community. Perhaps you've never played a female character with a genuine female name (not XxhottsluttxX) but on my female toons I've gotten whispers out of the blue while doing instances in wow along the lines of "I want to eat your pussy" and this has happened without any discussion of what gender I am.

That's the real problem is that people with no grasp of decency and their behavior can run wild online. You'd get the police called on you if you said that to a random woman walking down the street.

I'm not saying the sexism is a giant problem but it DOES exist and saying ignore it and shrug it off only exacerbates the problem. We have politicians in the country debating what constitutes legitimate rape for gods sake.

Honestly I think the real problem as far as online gaming is the racial stuff being thrown around. Once again though there are people that say it just to shock someone and then there's those that have a genuine knot of pure hatred and contempt within them. And if given free roam in an online community it only gets worse. Better at least to shut it down anyway we can rather than let it flourish.

I've used a female name on several toons. Never had the whispers you claim you've had.

Sensationalism does nothing to help the problem.

---------- Post added 2012-09-07 at 07:42 PM ----------

Either you can't read or your just attempting to agitate an argument.

My point is that being a virgin is not considered to be manly at all yet this man did more for humanity than chuck Norris, or Clint Eastwood ever could, I was trying to establish that there are people who contribute far more to society than these people who perpetuate their self worth based on some derp de derp method of control.

So yes it was completely and absolutely relevant.

A virgin who can't get laid is assumed to not be manly.

Tesla had all the bitches after him, maybe you should read a book.

So... irrelevant.

---------- Post added 2012-09-07 at 07:46 PM ----------

That gets them to stop trolling, but it doesn't stop them from starting to troll - I'm not even particularly talking about trolls anyways. Because they get away with it, with nobody even trying to do anything about it, they just go on thinking that it's okay to do it, and more people think it's okay simply because they seem him getting away with it, so why don't they also do it?

Starting to troll? You can't possibly be serious here? You are in no way going to stop people from starting to troll.

I hope for your sake you are still a teenager, because if not, you are in for a very nasty shock.

---------- Post added 2012-09-07 at 07:53 PM ----------

This is about putting a stop to a rampant and unnecessary part of the internet.

It's only as rampant as you let it be. The largest part of the problem is that 90% of this crap happens to attention whores, who in the end - deserve to get trolled.

"Oh I'm a girl, tee hee"

Yeah, that's great cupcake, get back in the kitchen.

[Tarzhay]

This article loses a large portion of its edge in an mmorpg, where people have no physical presence outside of voluntary voice chat in groups, where one would hope they have already been socially accepted and are respected. That aside, I like the idea as a whole, but if this is really how children behave online (I for one haven't had much experience with it) then there needs to be widespread education to parents about what online space is and how real its effects are. All the blame of whiny sexist brats can't be lumped onto the online community; it strikes me that all the internet community is responsible for is allowing these likeminded tools to associate and share bigotry. There is so much more behind a child developing without social skills, or with strong bigoted attitudes, than gaming.

Strongly agree. Gaming isn't the problem.

However, gaming is a big part of childhood. And social interaction within games can have some impact.

I really think this is an important topic. I also think DrakeWurrum made it very clear that, article specifics aside, he's interested in combating bigotry and discrimination in general, not just sexism, although not every respondent seems to have picked up on this.

The topic article, with its emphasis on manhood and male development, reminds me of a rather bogus opinion piece I ran across a bit ago (Since I can't link yet, the CNN article "Why men are in trouble"). The CNN article clearly seems to want to blame gaming for all of "manhood's" ills, which just follows in a long line of absurd anti-gaming sentiment, but I wonder, given certain similarities in the problems both articles describe, whether there might be some underlying link, whether one article author or the other might have drawn from their counterpart, or from a common source. Just curious.

I keep hearing people say that "we'll never change the internet" or behavior on the internet. This works very effectively as a barrier to making any attempt. Collaboratively, we ARE the internet. It's made up of us, the users, together with the content providers. The "real world" equivalent to content providers (and yes, I have some problem with the "real/internet" distinction, as the internet is indeed part of the real world), businesses like McDonald's or The Gap, clearly demonstrate bias against offensive or discriminatory behavior. Why? It's bad for business. I'm pretty sure that if we, the community, made anything like a concerted effort to focus on discouraging bad behavior, the content providers would back us up. I'm not talking about bringing down 4chan -- there are clearly some communities built on and dedicated to what most people might consider questionable behavior, in my opinion it should be ok for there to be a place for that. I'm talking about settings like WoW, or GW2, or any place people might reasonably expect to be able to have a good time without being verbally assaulted.

[DrakeWurrum]

I keep hearing people say that "we'll never change the internet" or behavior on the internet. This works very effectively as a barrier to making any attempt. Collaboratively, we ARE the internet. It's made up of us, the users, together with the content providers. The "real world" equivalent to content providers (and yes, I have some problem with the "real/internet" distinction, as the internet is indeed part of the real world), businesses like McDonald's or The Gap, clearly demonstrate bias against offensive or discriminatory behavior. Why? It's bad for business. I'm pretty sure that if we, the community, made anything like a concerted effort to focus on discouraging bad behavior, the content providers would back us up. I'm not talking about bringing down 4chan -- there are clearly some communities built on and dedicated to what most people might consider questionable behavior, in my opinion it should be ok for there to be a place for that. I'm talking about settings like WoW, or GW2, or any place people might reasonably expect to be able to have a good time without being verbally assaulted.

Yup. It's a mistake to believe we don't have the ability to do things. We can only do so much, obviously, but that doesn't mean we should do nothing.

In WoW, for example... every raiding guild has that guy that nobody likes, because he's a total dick. But he's good at the game, or maybe he's the guild leader's friend, or maybe your roster is hurting and you just can't afford to get rid of him, so everybody just puts up with him. That sort of thing needs to stop. People like that need to be ostracized for behaving like total dicks. If you don't want to /gkick the guy, your guild could instead start punishing him for his behavior. What, loot drops that he wants? Nope, disenchant. What, he wants to come off the bench? Naw, we're killing the boss fine without you.
It does work - my old guild, as terrible as they were at actual progression, used this to great effect. If people didn't clean up, they either left on their own, or got kicked when they went too far.

Another example, from WoW... trade chat. You run around a city, see people spewing filth in Trade chat. What do you do? Most people... turn Trade chat off, or just ignore it. Or even just /ignore the people being stupid. What, why? REPORT THEM! Yeah, Blizzard is very lenient and very slow to actually ban people, but it all adds up. If you keep ignoring the guy and doing nothing, then NOTHING will happen. At least if you report them, shit starts happening, regardless of how long it takes. (I think I took the time to figure out, with their tiered suspension system, how long it would take to ban somebody in WoW for just the word "fuck" from initial action... It takes over a month I think... but it still happens!)

In GW2, we know how totalitarian they are with their banning, and we also know that random trolls probably won't get banned if they get their language clean, but that doesn't mean we should do nothing. Doing nothing always results in nothing, period. At least if you do something, there's a chance of action being taken.

What, they're not offending you, personally? Because you're a big internet tough guy with thick skin? So what, you're just going to sit there and do nothing? Some tough guy you are. If you see somebody in Trade chat doing something that you know is against the terms of conduct, unless you personally have issues with that particular rule, why aren't you reporting the guy? We want a nice community, where people don't have to run around "tolerating" the big dicks.

---------- Post added 2012-09-07 at 01:21 PM ----------

Starting to troll? You can't possibly be serious here? You are in no way going to stop people from starting to troll.

I hope for your sake you are still a teenager, because if not, you are in for a very nasty shock.

You aren't thinking this through very well, are you? You need to think on a larger scale, and think about how society works. You can't stop people from starting to troll if they're already the kind of person who will troll, obviously. If they've figured out there's no consequences. etc etc etc. It's not like I'm saying you should be able to predict when a troll will start something, and then pre-emptively stop them.

In order to stop them, you have to make the entire community shift in a different direction and prevent people from becoming trolls to begin with. To create communities where trolls aren't welcome and get kicked out faster than they can open their mouths. Eventually those little communities get a reputation for being unfriendly to trolls, and so current trolls stay away, and new trolls aren't created. You have to create communities where people aren't tempted to troll, because they know it's unacceptable behavior.
The more people who work to create such communities, and the more of those communities that pop up around the internet, the less often you get exposed to trolling, and the less the troll "disease" spreads.

This kind of thing works in the real world as well, so it's not unheard of or impossible. It's not like anybody expects to permanently remove that kind of behavior from existence, but you can reduce it's impact and weaken their position by actually doing something, instead of being a total wuss about it, and doing nothing.

[Deleted]

I can't even express my opinion properly here to be honest. I'll just TL;DR it :
All people have got a dark side. Anonymity, which is provided by the internet lets all those people open up that dark side and show their inner selves.
And there's jack shit we can do about it, so the only thing the whiteknights can do is suck it up, really.
A call to arms against anonymous sexists on the internet? I mean, jeez

This. As much as the self-righteous types get to cluck their tongue and pretend they're making a difference... they're not. Maybe when we get the ability to reach through and punch people through their computer screen, but until then? Anonymous dicks hoooo.

[DrakeWurrum]

This. As much as the self-righteous types get to cluck their tongue and pretend they're making a difference... they're not. Maybe when we get the ability to reach through and punch people through their computer screen, but until then? Anonymous dicks hoooo.

If physical violence is the only tool you understand how to use, then yeah, you can't do a damn thing. But there's more tools at our disposal than that.

[Profyrion]

If physical violence is the only tool you understand how to use, then yeah, you can't do a damn thing. But there's more tools at our disposal than that.

At the end of the day you're still policing a tiny corner of the Internet. Your impact will be insignificant. I wish you all the best, don't get me wrong, but I think you're deluding yourself. Try to stay objective.

[DrakeWurrum]

At the end of the day you're still policing a tiny corner of the Internet. Your impact will be insignificant. I wish you all the best, don't get me wrong, but I think you're deluding yourself. Try to stay objective.

Gotta start somewhere. Insignificant, no - just small. And the more people making their own small impact, the larger the overall impact will be.

[Ynna]

At the end of the day you're still policing a tiny corner of the Internet. Your impact will be insignificant. I wish you all the best, don't get me wrong, but I think you're deluding yourself. Try to stay objective.

It's not what we want to do takes a lot of effort. I already act nice and friendly online, since, as my signature says, I try to act the same, whether online or off-.

[TheOne]

Unfortunately, I believe that humanity as a whole, and not just the gaming community, is too far gone for redemption. It really doesn't matter though, because we're just going to destroy ourselves soon anyway. As a great man once said, we're only gonna die from our own arrogance, that's why we might as well take our time.

Well, there may be one thing that could save us. A giant, planet wide EMP blast. But of course we would just build it all back up and become the douchebag species that we are now.

[DrakeWurrum]

Unfortunately, I believe that humanity as a whole, and not just the gaming community, is too far gone for redemption.

I hate people as much as anybody else does, but I don't believe it's impossible for humanity to better itself. People just have to actually try. If you give up, then you've already lost.

[Deleted]

I think that, ultimately, equality is quite an achievable goal. People are becoming more and more accepting. Hell, look at the KKK membership in the 1920s, now look at it. Look at the struggles black people had to go through to have the right to sit on a fucking bus, and now the USA has a black president.

Look at Germany in the '30s. You look at the rise of the Nazis and it completely fucks over your view on humanity - How can these people exist? Yet you read books like 'The Righteous' and you listen to stories about every day people who risked their lives to save the victims of the Nazis. You read stories about protests like Rosenstrasse where people actively stood up against the Nazis and demanded people be released from the camps.

You look at when being gay was a massive taboo and if you were gay you'd be beaten up in the streets. Back when the Village People were just a bunch of fine, upstanding gentlemen. Now look at where sexuality is, it's seen as nothing wrong when someone comes out of the closet, public displays of homosexual affection have become as accepted as heterosexual displays. Oh, by the way, using 'gay' as an insult isn't actually homophobia, that's called childhood habit when you thought that 'gay' meant 'bad'

Back when women threw themselves under horses and endured force-feeding, riot police man-handling, slander, defaming, public embarrassment and all of that crap just because people didn't think they were emotionally stable enough to vote. Now they have a fine place in society and having a woman work in a job instead of a man doesn't seem odd to anyone anymore.

Those are pretty extreme examples, but it's solid proof that, while humanity will always have the stupid, shitty bits of society, there is always a glimmer of hope, there is always improvement.

[DrakeWurrum]

and now the USA has a black president.

I don't want to start anything, and it doesn't really diminish the importance imo, but technically... isn't he half-black? O_o
Don't honestly care enough to look into that sort of thing.

[Deleted]

I don't want to start anything, and it doesn't really diminish the importance imo, but technically... isn't he half-black? O_o
Don't honestly care enough to look into that sort of thing.

Hell, he ain't a white Texan riding a giant fried chicken wing rodeo bull with a cowboy jacket with about 40 brand names on it, and that's a god damn start.

[DrakeWurrum]

Hell, he ain't a white Texan riding a giant fried chicken wing rodeo bull with a cowboy jacket with about 40 brand names on it, and that's a god damn start.

Oh, I know. The fact that we can even have a publicly-accepted half-black man as president is just as important as having a full African American as president, imo, considering how "mutts" used to be taboo. Was just "splitting hairs" so to speak.

[Snuffleupagus]

You aren't thinking this through very well, are you? You need to think on a larger scale, and think about how society works. You can't stop people from starting to troll if they're already the kind of person who will troll, obviously. If they've figured out there's no consequences. etc etc etc. It's not like I'm saying you should be able to predict when a troll will start something, and then pre-emptively stop them.

In order to stop them, you have to make the entire community shift in a different direction and prevent people from becoming trolls to begin with. To create communities where trolls aren't welcome and get kicked out faster than they can open their mouths. Eventually those little communities get a reputation for being unfriendly to trolls, and so current trolls stay away, and new trolls aren't created. You have to create communities where people aren't tempted to troll, because they know it's unacceptable behavior.
The more people who work to create such communities, and the more of those communities that pop up around the internet, the less often you get exposed to trolling, and the less the troll "disease" spreads.

This kind of thing works in the real world as well, so it's not unheard of or impossible. It's not like anybody expects to permanently remove that kind of behavior from existence, but you can reduce it's impact and weaken their position by actually doing something, instead of being a total wuss about it, and doing nothing.

You are profoundly naive if you think the internet will conform in the same way a society does.

Anonymity is the biggest issue you have to tackle here, and we all know that won't work (RealID forums, anyone?) as people like their privacy.

The only way to stop a troll is TO NOT LET THEM TROLL YOU. The moment you respond, the troll has what they wanted. This is really not that difficult to understand, why do you persist on pushing a flawed view?

[DrakeWurrum]

You are profoundly naive if you think the internet will conform in the same way a society does.

Anonymity is the biggest issue you have to tackle here, and we all know that won't work (RealID forums, anyone?) as people like their privacy.

The only way to stop a troll is TO NOT LET THEM TROLL YOU. The moment you respond, the troll has what they wanted. This is really not that difficult to understand, why do you persist on pushing a flawed view?

Anonymity has nothing to do with it. It's entirely the lack of consequences. Give consequences to poor behavior, hopefully consequences that people actually care about (getting banned for 72 hours is something you will care about MUCH more than a "warning e-mail"), and you start making some real progress.

The problem with your "solution" to how to stop a troll, is that you haven't stopped him. Oh, he didn't troll you? Kay, he moves on to the next person. He doesn't care about failing to troll any one person. He doesn't care if he doesn't get anybody at all. He'll still keep trying to troll, and thus, you have not stopped him.
Your "solution" is how to avoid being the "victim" of a troll, not how you stop a troll from trolling.

I also don't see, at all, how this became a thread about trolling, when the topic started in regards to MUCH more serious behavior than just randomly trolling people.

[Snuffleupagus]

Anonymity has nothing to do with it. It's entirely the lack of consequences. Give consequences to poor behavior, hopefully consequences that people actually care about (getting banned for 72 hours is something you will care about MUCH more than a "warning e-mail"), and you start making some real progress.

The problem with your "solution" to how to stop a troll, is that you haven't stopped him. Oh, he didn't troll you? Kay, he moves on to the next person. He doesn't care about failing to troll any one person. He doesn't care if he doesn't get anybody at all. He'll still keep trying to troll, and thus, you have not stopped him.
Your "solution" is how to avoid being the "victim" of a troll, not how you stop a troll from trolling.

I also don't see, at all, how this became a thread about trolling, when the topic started in regards to MUCH more serious behavior than just randomly trolling people.

Oh good LORD. Stop posting a comic as if it's something profound and meaningful. If anything, you shoot your own argument in the foot with it.

I'm not responsible for people letting themselves be trolled, and neither are you. And yes, this is about trolling, considering THAT'S ALL YOU CAN DO OVER THE INTERNET AND THIS THREAD IS ABOUT MMOS. If no one responds to a troll... then what negative is there? How is acting like a dick to these people going to solve anything? You're going to make them dig their heels in and try harder.

This is not complicated, just ignore them. You can't protect the idiots who let themselves be affected by WORDS from an ANONYMOUS stranger over the INTERNET.

Or am I just feeding a troll?

[Deleted]

Wow, there's so much preaching going on here.

"You have to try."
"You can do something."
"We can't do nothing."

I apologize for even bringing it up, and I assure you I'm only using it as an analogy and not trying to shift discussion onto it, but these are starting to sound more and more like words from religious fanatics.

Before you start commanding people to "do something", you have to specify what that "something" is. Earth Hour is a great example, they have a very clear goal - to have all people involved turn their lights off for one hour a year. Another great example is a recycling program that existed here in Sweden a good couple of years back, which had the goal of having every participant pick up and recycle one littered soda can each week.

"You must do something!"
"Well, what do I do?"
"..."
"Well?"
"...you must do something!"

Set up a clear and reasonable goal, and only then will you have the right to preach that people need to do it.

[Ynna]

Set up a clear and reasonable goal, and only then will you have the right to preach that people need to do it.

Okay, here's an easy thing to start. The next time you see someone saying something needlessly hurtful, comment on it. Show that you don't want that kind of behavior in your online community. It will take less than a minute if you type fast.

[DrakeWurrum]

Still don't think people understand how trolls work.

I'm going to do you a favor:

THIS THREAD HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH FIGHTING AGAINST TROLLS!

It's about fighting against BIGOTRY, which is not the same thing.


If you REALLY love talking about trolls so much, let me tell you a secret from my own personal experience in trolling other people: If nobody falls for it, I'm not going to stop trolling. I'm gonna keep doing it. Getting NO reaction at all is an indication that my behavior is acceptable and tolerable, and therefore I can keep doing what I'm doing without any consequences.

The phrase caught on, not because it works, but because it's easy to just ignore them. Easier than stopping them. Ignoring them won't stop them, it just means you sit back and accept defeat, because you don't want to put forth the effort to actually make a difference.

I don't want to "kill" 4chan. I want to get people who enjoy the kind of interactions you can find in 4chan, to stay there... and only there. And never be accepted or tolerated anywhere else. You can't ever fully "kill" people like this, and stop that kind of behavior, but you can minimize how many people do it, and how popular it actually is, by creating communities where they aren't welcome.