Support's view on potentially abusive behaviour

Please read above.

Your above statement doesn't make your analogy any less bad. I'm sorry, but the two things you compared cannot be compared.

Well he was surely right about op being a carebear. Anyone who gets hurt over a few curses should avoid any kind of competitive environment. PvP is not for you.

Anyways, what did you do in the first place to get called that?

We're approving the use of the Chat Filter, the very same one the OP turned off and immediately began crying because he saw the word Fag. GW cost me money, I had to buy it, and I find it silly that a % of that money has gone to paying employees to deal with retards like the OP.

Who does that? Who turns off a Chat Filter and then cries to the admins when someone uses a single word? You have to be the biggest dumbass on Earth to do that.

Remember to invite your guild along for the fun... 100 people simultaneously flinging a single insult each at the victim/s might be amusing, Anet might disagree.

I would write about how stupid this is, but Arkantos seems to have it all down and I know that people like this don't change.

/sigh

The common thread of the 2 points are that words hurt. Can you deny that? One may be a very extreme case and one you feel doesn't merit any attention. What if the OP were gay ("not that there is anything wrong with that.", Seinfeld) would that make a difference? Fag and retard are thrown around all the time without any thought to their hurtful meanings. I find something basically wrong with that and there is no real good excuse to defend it. As I said, I would have handled it differently than the OP.

Thank you for demonstrating a point I made above.

I'll start off by saying I don't think someone should be suspended for saying the word fag to someone. But the fact of the matter is, anet seems to be completely random with whether or not someone is going to be banned. I'm thinking of 3 examples off the top of my head where friends of mine where banned for saying things like faggot in team chat during an AB after someone said something retarded. How come anet decided to ban him but not the guy the OP reported?

If you are going to ban one person for a derogatory remark, you ban everyone for it. You don't just say this one gets banned, and this one doesn't. Equal acts deserve equal punishment. If this is a new policy and they are going to start being more lenient on people, then cool. But I'd be willing to wager someone is going to get banned for calling someone a fag just once somewhere down the road.

That is not odd, it is disgusting, even more to see moderators and administrators of this site to do it(BTW people get banned from this forum for insulting other members, even if it was only a onetime incident, no "grow a pair to the victim" or "shut up carebear" and so on):

I want to play a game like that. If you don´t want to be banned, don´t insult people. You are actively doing something, so stop it. IS THAT REALLY SO HARD FOR SOME TO DO??? And if it is, I don´t see any reason why anyone should be lenient toward them. Or as garethporlest18 already said:


And that idiocy again. "Competitive environment" != "curses allowed and/or mandatory". Examples: Tennis, Volleyball and even Boxing or Karate and so on.

Only lowlifes and idiots believe that both are intertwined.

I frequently report for leeching/botting but very rarely report for abusive language. However, I was recently on the receiving end of some pretty harsh, personal attacks which I promptly reported. The guy never got banned.

My guess is that ANet can't be bothered with the consequences of bans, such as a barrage of "omg he started it," support tickets begging for account reinstatement or the prospect of defamatory forum threads condemning their company. I like this thread because it does the latter in an unexpected fashion.

It doesn't make much sense to me as to how people can get insta-bans if they're caught selling in Local Chat but we're given leeway to verbally attack other players so long as it's done subtley and in moderation.

"Grow a pair," and "toughen up," are not valid counter arguments to verbal abuse because some people are just sensitive natured, which there's nothing wrong with. The bulk of the discussion in this thread is subjective but you can't deny that calling someone a fag, in vain, falls under the 'verbal abuse' clause.

stating that something is not harassment is not an attempt to state that it is not illegal or morally wrong.

the people in this thread who went to a dictionary and looked up harassment were correcting a misuse of the word. what the OP described was not harassment, it was one instance of name-calling.

The thing I am wondering is, why do people feel like they are under attack when a person points out behaviour that one finds problematic?
Sure, I do get that there are worse things going on, I do get there there were worse things that were or could have been said, but ... so what? Should the simple fact that the occurrence of something that wasn't positive be reason enough not to speak up and express one's desire for this (or something similar) not to happen to someone else?

Yes, I am aware we are selfish little bastards - but we really aren't losing anything by giving someone a bit of support. Or at least not standing in their way.
If you look up the rules, you see that you do not have the right to any kind of language you'd want. But the game currently has a pretty decent system of of allowing one to say whatever one wants IF the people one is telling it to do not have a problem with it. As I have said many times, I've uttered far worse things in GW than what was said to me. The difference is that I knew who the target of my words was, how they will react to it or I was willing to accept that my actions were wrong, I was willing to apologize for them and ready to modify my behaviour accordingly for the future if I misjudged the situation.

Considering what rules apply to these situations, considering that people expressed their concerns that these rules might not be as good as one would hope - why not think twice before unleashing something that might be problematic onto someone else?
Yes, I am fully aware not everyone will do this - but just because someone is acting like a moron, doesn't mean I should to.
Do we really want to strive to have an experience worse than it could be?



If you look at the rules:
you will clearly see that "harassment" isn't the only kind of behaviour that they do not consider appropriate. And if we also consider the fact that quite a number or people here are not native English speakers - it's certainly isn't something I would make into a grand victory when proven wrong.

Men don't tattle.

What it says about my childhood is that it prepared me for life. If your childhood was so sheltered that an anonymous person calling you a single-word slur or swearword has a serious affect on you, I pity that. I truly, truly do.

Okay, this I can agree with. Inconsistency in punishment is bad - I personally think that unless there is a case of sustained harassment (multiple 'attacks') or intent to advocate harm, no action should be taken in any circumstances. The chat-filter is enabled by default, to me disabling it and then reporting everyone and anyone who uses a word that in some kind of language could somehow theoretically be seen as offensive actually sounds like a form of griefing.

Anyway, as I said - you have a valid point. Anet needs to choose a policy and stick with it, or clearly state it's a case-by-case basis. Seemingly random bans are bad.

If in 'real life' someone would go out of their way to find something, and then complain about it as offensive (whilst they would normally never encounter it), I'd call them out on it too. Example: someone takes heavy offense to pornography or nudity, but chooses to walk in to a red-light district anyway. After that, they decide to complain (to whomever).

I wouldn't take people like that any more serious than the OP, here. You go out of your way to encounter something that you don't want to encounter, and then complain about it.

If the OP were gay, he'd probably not care at all due to desensitization. Harsh, but true. That's besides the point, though.

You're comparing apples and oranges under the argument that they're both fruit. Just because they have some common ground doesn't mean they're suitable for an analogy.

Concentration and frustration often go hand-in-hand. In top-sports you cannot allow yourself to become frustrated, because you will lose. This requires a lot of training on the part of the athlete. In reality, most people have nowhere near the amount of concentration that professional or semi-professional athletes have, and thus become frustrated. Exclamations of frustration are often swear-words. So no, they're not always intertwined, but they are often very closely related. Especially in 'amateur' environments.

I'm not entirely sure what you're saying here. If you mean that because it offended someone it should be dealt with, I highly disagree. It opens up a way too slippery slope where someone can easily claim to be offended by something and possibly get that person banned, even though it was never meant to be offensive. Lets just keep it simple; harassment (as in, persistent attacks) is bad, just turn on the chat filter for random swears.

Being called a 'carebear fag' by by some random 12-year old who has no emotional control is hardly worth the effort of a report. You must have some severe self-worth issues, if so then I would suggest counseling.

If you think this is difficult, wait until you get older; it gets worse. The best thing for it is to shrug it off as I believe several people have already recommended. Laugh at the fool for his apparent lack of self-control and enjoy the game. You are always going to run into people who, on a bad day, have little or no emotional self-control

Otherwise have fun fighting the world.

Thats pretty much what OP is doing. Reporting not because he's actually offended, but because he just wants to see people banned.

ffs, i'll try to explain this one more time. by saying "this isn't harassment" im not saying "this isn't against the rules". im saying this isn't harassment. it can still be offensive to you. it just isn't harassment. if one more person assumes that by "this isn't harassment" i mean "this isn't against the rules" i'll punch a clown doubly in the chin.

i also never said that correcting someone's misuse of the word harassment is a grand victory. i was simply defending whoever corrected the mistake back on page 1 or whatever from that guy with the sheep avatar (i think) when he was acting as if people were looking up the definition of harassment to get out of trouble on a technicality.

and for the record i do think it should not be against the rules. but not because it isn't called harassment.

Anet will always be all over the place because there is no standard protocol of action. It is not "_____________ is auto ban", it is "One our of staff will review your case and make his own decision (aka opinion)".

But I do agree about the n-word though. Call somebody the n-word once and somebody will flip out but fag means nothing apparently. Wait what if I call them both at once, in one line of text? Will I only have a 50% chance of action then?

People insult each other all the time in AB, you don't see much if any of them disciplined. IMO Anet support is too lazy to deal w/ small fries like these, they'd be much more interested to things....say like when someone found an easy way to obtain armbraces(sounds familiar?).

The hell you include my quote in that for? I was saying the people who get reported should have thicker skin, because they QQ for being reported even though they know better than to break a rule.



Regardless of the fact, why does Anet follow their rules when they want, and then other times, not follow them. I don't care if it was one word, by their rules it fits at least 3 of the intents not allowed. So what the hell? Ban for one, ban for all, not pick and choose. I know they can do what they want but still, it's not a good thing.

Sure I agree that the guy shouldn't be banned, it's not that big of a deal really, but then any other word, should also not be banned. Because hell, fag can hurt just as much as a racial slur. Idiot can hurt just as much. If Anet is going to lay down rules, then they should follow what they say they are going to do as punishment.

It'd be better if Anet stopped being so " in general" with their rules on this, and brought about something more aimed.

Im wondering if he called Upier for example (and yes i know its filter bypass but for purposes of makin a point)

"you f***** c*** n***** go die!"

would support have taken a different view? and issued a ban? is it maybe to do with the degree of the offense?

I find myself in the surprising position of feeling I need to defend Upier here. This isn't about him. Anyone with even a passing familiarity with his posts should be able to tell that he's not that thin-skinned. It's about support's unannounced policy regarding 1-shot slurs. The fact that upier got called a fag is merely context.

Regarding the unannounced policy:

1. I was surprised by it. I too believed that calling someone a fag(/RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GO/homo/ass-pirate/cocksucker/jew/douchebag/goatRED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOer/whatever) was surely a one-way ticket to banville. Apparently it's not.

2. I think that this policy usually gets the right substantive result most of the time. A ban is a pretty heavy penalty for a single word, especially if there was provocation.

3. I agree with Upier's unspoken suggestion that this rule has no principled justification.

4. I'm not sure what I think of support relying on unprincipled rules that just happen to usually get the right result. On the one hand, the rule is "wrong" since it's unprincipled. On the other, it's not like support is staffed by a large number of highly-paid moral philosophers who could quickly and efficiently handle these cases in a principled manner. One thing I'm sure I don't like is support pretending that their unprincipled rule is a principled one. (Which makes me worry that they don't understand it...)

Gee, I wonder why....

What you guys defending upier fail to understand is that the context has to be looked at.
One thing is a guy offeding someone randomly at a town/outpost in pve, calling them a fag or whatever, this would surely lead to a few days ban.

The other is playing pvp, a competitive place where your screw up might result in a team loss. Expect people to be angry. Expect adrenaline to be high. Anet cant ban every person who says a single curse in pvp, this game would be empty.

Hell i know i have called people names before when they made my team lose by opening green gates for enemys in fort aspenwood. And considering upier did avoid telling what he did to anger the other guy, wouldnt surprise me if it was something similar.

What you guys attacking upier fail to realise is that he isnt QQing about being called a bad word.

The point is that according to support, you can whisper the word 'fag' to 100 people and no action will be taken against that person.

So, what if there is someone running around sending abusive whispers to everyone they come across? This happens a lot in RA. Play a bar or play in a way that someone doesnt like, and you will often be whispered offensive comments.

Now, if the person that had whispered Upier had instead used a racist word, he would have been banned right? I leave my filter switched off so that it doesnt filter these words yes. At the same time, I dont go around calling people fags or any other word via whispers.

Also, I do not bother to report single offenses as I hardly care for them, i just wish that GW would save my 'Do Not Disturb' setting everytime I log in so that people cant whisper me alltogether.

Even if your filter is on, you can still be whispered offensive comments, and I always forget to change my status untill such an attack happens.

So, update GW to save my status setting as DND everytime I log in? This is really the only solution to avoiding idiots that run around sending insulting whispers.

I will however hit /report on any such offenses since people kept on reporting my funny names and getting me banned. Now here is another point - if you are not allowed to use, or were to get banned for using a certain word in your character name, then why is that word allowed to be used towards others?

It doesnt even have to be said to other people, imagine if I made a name called 'Faggot Am I' or Faggot Was Bhavv', I would still without a doubt be banned for using that word for making fun of myself, yet it is allowed to be used against other people without any problems.

What has filter got to do with all this?

Why that ^^ question.

Arena Net support team says, use the filter so you don't see the filtered words, lets says Upier have had their filter ON, you think Upier won't know that he was getting insulted/abuse/harass (don't know which category it should be in since i am not there).

You ------- --- idiot moron, go die.

---- you, DIE! you ------ ------. uninstall noob ---.

^^ that could be as offensive as if you had seen the words itself.

They did. even with filter, you know you are being insulted/abuse/harass when you are being insulted/abuse/harass. even if its a one time thing, and Arena Net support is saying that its okay to insulted/abuse/harass another player if its only a one time thing?

It does not make a different whether Upier has their filter on or off.

1. Inclusion of a chat filter is not permission to use profanity or offensive language. In the game, if you use either, you run the chance of being reported and banned. Don't "Q.Q" when you get banned for being an idiot.

2. Reporting someone for a valid reason doesn't ruin anything. Jerks who like to be jerks say it ruins the game because they can't get online and throw fits. They have serious anger issues and need professional help before those anger issues spill out into real life and they get hurt.

3. Carebear means fag? I did not know that.

4. Reporting someone for being offensive doesn't mean the person can't handle insults. It just means that the person want to play the game and relax without having to deal with other peoples BS.

5. If its fun to be a foul mouthed jerk, then its equally fun to report. Don't "Q.Q" about not liking how other people enjoy the game when you yourself don't care how your actions make them feel. Hypocrites.

6. Handling something online is very different that real life. Online I have very few options. I can place someone on the ignore list until it is full. Then I either have to remove a name from the list (which I do not do) or I can report the person. In real life, I have a few more options. None of which the offender would enjoy.

7. The ignore list is too small and can't handle the massive amount of names needed. The friends list and ignore list need to be increased and seperated into two different lists.

8. For every person saying "don't be so sensitive" I say "don't act like an emotionally unstable child"

I see most of the people posting in this thread have a developmental disorder. In other words, you lack the maturity you should already have. Either that or you lack self control. I think its both.

Yet more examples of unsupervised children and disfunctional adults. The OP wasn't crying about anything. He was trying to discuss where the line between a singular annoyance ends and ToS breaking offensiveness begins.


PS: I hope my reply added to the conversation.

Anet thinks that swears are inherently insulting (even though the f word can mean sex, s for feces, and you could even talk about the n-word from a historical context on how it got it's reputation) or that if there is no swearing, it isn't insulting or capable of hurt. Or they think that the people report because they just don't want to see bad language and don't realize there is a filter. Or that we cannot comprehend censored sentences, so we won't get offended.

What COULD those 3 ---'s mean!? *ponders*

I think a number of people have also expressed a wish for a more detailed version of the incident.
It involved, what I consider a sub-par split, to which I asked "4-4 would be nice", to which the guy replied with "QQ more" "QQ more", following with my explanation that "since we need to break down all gates not going 4-4 is a bit counterproductive" and the guy replied with "learn to play and shutup carebearfag" and "kthnx".

Still, even if I had done something that would be related to homosexuality AND be potentially against the rules (which is the ONLY reason why people have the RIGHT to be against it (but by "it" I do not mean homosexuality itself!)), others users have the right to report me for it - but under no circumstances does that give them the right to resort to abusive behaviour themselves.

except he didn't get called a fag. he got called a carebearfag. fag is short for faggot, an anti-gay slur. carebearfag is a variation of the *something*fag meme, a hip new way of calling someone a *something* while indicating that the name-caller is a newfag, all with the use of only one word. so in effect, upier got called a carebear by a newfag. not quite as offensive as cocksucker is it?

Wow that sucks. I get the opposite - teams that split but can't break through due to not enough offense/too much defense. Suggest to rush? Yes you have to do it sometimes but they never want to or do it at the last moment. I would have either secret/casual leeched or not healed him lol.

And BTW, post this on the first post. Also would be good to know if you won or lost that game.

wow, way to overanalyze. maybe he forgot to add a space.

lol yeah *wink wink*. i've never heard of 4chan either

edit: oh shi-

if you're in the bible belt i'm sorry, i didn't know you were serious. if that's the case i'd like to respectfully deignorantize you by giving you this link to 4chan go to the random board and introduce yourself as a devout protestant where you will get called both a newfag by the people who think you're a bad troll and a religiousfag by the people who know you're a bad troll and are trying to troll you and everyone else by arguing with the vast majority of devout protestants who frequent 4chan. then you'll know how silly your typo theory sounds.

The difference is that we are dealing with two environments and two different sets of rules. It's the same reason why comparing incidents that happen while playing GW and those that happen in real life is a bit off.
Surely when you visit 4chan you do not need to agree to abide by the rules that are set for GW?

Conclusion: Everything is allowed in the heat of the moment.

What the hell happened to common courtesy?

By the way - the game wouldn't be empty. There are enough people that have the decency to behave when playing Guild Wars. Be it PvP or PvE.

Support is right, you cannot ban people for every insult they say. The problem is that "some insults" have already become the norm for MMOs, which is sad. Trying to police heavily instanced games like GW is also problematic.

It is Anet Support or NCSoft Support who is handing out the bans?

(sorry for going OT, please carry on with your discussion, interesting read)

Kooloo-Limpah!

Thanks to upier for posting this. While the ensuing shitstorm of posts in response was dizzying but not surprising, your story does raise interesting questions about NCSoft's inconsistencies on enforcing the EULA. While I doubt I would've reported the guy, I was surprised at the response you got from Support, too.

And another vote for the "QQ less" people having misread this. I've read the thread, and nothing about upier's posts strikes me as whiney at all. He found something surprising, and he put it here to let the community know about it. He's not asking us to avenge him or mend an emotional wound.

While it's not what I'd have expected, I don't mind that this incident didn't result in a ban. I am worried about this new trend of GM's replying to the reporter with information about what happened to the reportee. I liked it much better when all you ever got was the canned, "Thanks for letting us know. We'll check it out. For privacy concerns, we can't tell you anything more," response. I don't like the idea that someone can report you for something, and a GM will tell them what, if anything, they did to you.

TY! That line cracked me up! How would Wednesday be?

Lol almost the exact same thing happened to me once. Long, long ago one I played a team of 4 syncers with perfect TA bars in RA, and beat them. I told them in AllChat, "gg fags", and got banned for it (actually got banned twice too for the same offense, overturned the second one on appeal). OK, lesson learned, don't use the word "fag". Then not so long later one of my teammates called another one of my teammates "fag" in teamchat. I reported him, and he was banned. OK. Looks like I got the interpretation right. Recently someone else said "fag" in teamchat, and again I reported him. This time he didn't get banned. What the heck? I linked the GM the previous ticket which did result in a ban, and then surprisingly enough the GM tells me that the previous ticket was handled inappropriately. Looks like somewhere along the line what constitutes an insult and what doesn't has changed.

I think what ANet needs is a set of clear rules. For example: it is not bannable to say "fag" in teamchat or private whisper, but it is in AllChat. Great. This sets down limits with no grey area. Without it, ambiguities will simply keep happening.

PS: I think said person should be banned. After all, other people have been banned for things less major, so why shouldn't this guy be?

I never said anything is allowed. I said you can expect a curse or another.

Anet cant go around banning every single person that swears a single time. This only pisses off players and make them stop playing, and thats something we dont need right now, specially because of carebears who shouldnt be in PvP.

Most of the times the one reporting isnt offended at all, he just wants his little revenge and try to get the other banned. Fortunately Anet isnt falling for it anymore.