"World of Warcraft" virtual gaming guild, which mostly caters to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender players.

[Hilarious Clinton 452]

Longtime virtual gamer Sara Andrews didn't know she would cause much of a ruckus when she began recruiting new members of her "World of Warcraft" virtual gaming guild, which mostly caters to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender players.

In recruitment messages she posted on WoW, she wrote that the guild was not "'glbt only,' but we are 'glbt friendly.'"

To WoW publisher Blizzard Entertainment, however, Andrews' message was out of bounds. The Irvine, Calif.-based game publisher said her recruiting was a violation of the game's harassment policy, specifically the section of that policy regarding sexual orientation. Andrews was quickly warned in an e-mail to stop recruiting inside the game and to take all such efforts to forums outside WoW's virtual world. Andrews was also warned that if she didn't stop recruiting for the guild inside WoW, she risked being banned from the game.

In essence, Andrews and gay and lesbian rights advocates charge, Blizzard was trying to keep a lid on harassment in its gaming world by blocking players from doing things that could prompt other people to harass them.

"Their (terms of service) statement was clearly crafted to protect the GLBT community," said Ron Meiners, a longtime virtual worlds consultant who has served as a community manager for companies like Ubisoft and There.com. "And I think they wanted to basically protect them in this instance, too. But they seem to have overstepped what was appropriate."

Andrews said she thinks Blizzard, or at least the game master (company employees who control game play and make decisions about low-level controversies) who issued the warning, wasn't being fair. The harassment policy specifically prohibits language that "insultingly refers to any aspect of sexual orientation pertaining to themselves or others." Since Andrews was hardly insulting herself, she couldn't understand how or why the harassment policy was being applied to her.

I wasn't sure that it was Blizzard that felt this way at first," she said. "I kind of felt like a bad (game manager) took care of the situation poorly. But the more I see Blizzard backing up the decision, the more I believe Blizzard to be handling the situation poorly."

With more than 5.5 million players since it was launched in 2004, WoW is arguably the most successful online fantasy game in America. So how it defines gaming rules and says what people can and cannot do can have a wide-ranging impact in virtual communities.

A Blizzard spokesman said it was only trying to enforce a policy designed to protect all WoW members from being harassed. And in fairness, in a gaming world where many players are young, male and prone to hurling insults, that the company wants to avoid potential problems makes sense.

"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," the company said in a statement. "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."

http://news.com.com/Online+game+warns+gay-...ml?tag=nefd.top

[meauxna 15]

Why not spend some of your time helping to rebuild the VJ knowledge base instead of cluttering up OT subjects designed to divide and start controversy?

It's not like the old DB had indexing problems or anything...

And your signature is too wide.

[Hilarious Clinton 452]

Why not spend some of your time helping to rebuild the VJ knowledge base instead of cluttering up OT subjects designed to divide and start controversy?

It's not like the old DB had indexing problems or anything...

And your signature is too wide.

1. STFU

2. There are WOW gamers here (so it's topical).

3. There are like 10 "game" threads in OT. The sole purpose is to boost post count.

4. Trust me. I add more to the knowledge base than you ever will.

5. This is OT. #######?

6. Your screen is too narrow (or is set to 800x600)

Why not spend some of your time helping to rebuild the VJ knowledge base instead of cluttering up OT subjects designed to divide and start controversy?

It's not like the old DB had indexing problems or anything...

And your signature is too wide.

P.S. Create a timeline please. Help out your brothers and sisters in this Journey.

[Fischkoepfin 1]

Thanks for posting the article, rch99. It raises some interesting issues concerning the ways in which non-discrimination policies can be employed to discriminate.

How can Blizzard claim that advertising a GLBTF-guild violates the anti-harrassment policy? Who are they actually trying to protect? GLBTF-players, other players, or themselves?

I get the feeling that Blizzard is more concerned about the repercussions the existence of this group might have among their typical players (young, male, and "prone to insults"). Since it is against WoW policy to engage in harrassment, it would mean that Blizzard would have to get to work to enforce its policies if the guild continued to recruit; the level of insults from those "prone to insults" would increase and Blizzard would have to shoow that they mean it...

Btw, does anyone think it's weird that WoW-players are "prone to insults"??

[Hilarious Clinton 452]

Thanks for posting the article, rch99. It raises some interesting issues concerning the ways in which non-discrimination policies can be employed to discriminate.

How can Blizzard claim that advertising a GLBTF-guild violates the anti-harrassment policy? Who are they actually trying to protect? GLBTF-players, other players, or themselves?

I get the feeling that Blizzard is more concerned about the repercussions the existence of this group might have among their typical players (young, male, and "prone to insults"). Since it is against WoW policy to engage in harrassment, it would mean that Blizzard would have to get to work to enforce its policies if the guild continued to recruit; the level of insults from those "prone to insults" would increase and Blizzard would have to shoow that they mean it...

Btw, does anyone think it's weird that WoW-players are "prone to insults"??

Exactly!! It's a virtual world. Not even real. As long as a group doesn't promote hate/murder etc... who cares.

[Toledospod 0]

I'm a big WoW player and have been playing for ages, but this quite frankly is stupid! IMO what Blizzard did is wrong. Like you said RCH, its not real life, so how should it have any noticable effect on the real world? I think that anyone, regardless of sexual orientation, colour, creed etc should be allowed to play WoW and have their own guild as well. I don't see how Ms Andrews' recruiting was in any way a breach of policy as she wasn't insulting anyone of any sexual orientation. If they're gonna do that, they might as well say, "We will ban anyone that recruits just Warlocks or just Gnomes, etc". I mean, please!!!

If Blizzard thought that setting up a GLBT guild might cause "communication between players that often breaks down into harassment", then they they should have just closed the topic on the forums. I seriously doubt that this will stop the user anyway, she could just set up a recruitment page on a different site, therefore not involving Blizzard at all.

[Cassie 8]

I guess I am the only one that sees Blizzard's point in all of this.

As a long time WOW user, londonspod, I assume you've seen the ridiculous chitter chat that often happens in game channels -- the insults and general nonsense that the 13 yr olds (and those with minds of 13 year olds) on the server like to post to be "cool". If it becomes widespread knowledge that this particular guild is GBLTF-friendly, can you imagine the spam/messages/insults that would be sent their way? The constant abuse? Sure it's not "real" because it's an online game, but it would get tiring really quickly.

So what WOW is saying is -- have your guild, but for your own protection/safety/perhaps more importantly sanity, advertise that it is GBLTF-friendly away from WOW, so that you attract the people you want to attract to the guild, and not the morons/insults.

[Fischkoepfin 1]

I guess I am the only one that sees Blizzard's point in all of this.

As a long time WOW user, londonspod, I assume you've seen the ridiculous chitter chat that often happens in game channels -- the insults and general nonsense that the 13 yr olds (and those with minds of 13 year olds) on the server like to post to be "cool". If it becomes widespread knowledge that this particular guild is GBLTF-friendly, can you imagine the spam/messages/insults that would be sent their way? The constant abuse? Sure it's not "real" because it's an online game, but it would get tiring really quickly.

So what WOW is saying is -- have your guild, but for your own protection/safety/perhaps more importantly sanity, advertise that it is GBLTF-friendly away from WOW, so that you attract the people you want to attract to the guild, and not the morons/insults.

You're right about the motivation, but rather than threatening to ban Andrews for telling people about the existence of the GLBTF-guild, maybe Blizzard should move to ban those who posts the insults.

By instead focusing on Andrews' advertisement, it looks as if the problem is the existence of the guild and it appears to condone the bigotry of some of the players of WoW (or anyone else who would post harrassing comments).

[Niels Bohr 72]

I thought I brought this thread back up since there was a gaming thread, and someone mentioned WoW.

[Welshcookie 17]

I thought I brought this thread back up since there was a gaming thread, and someone mentioned WoW.

And....do you have an opinion you might like to share perhaps?

[Niels Bohr 72]

Hmm...Yes, my opinion is that you should say something about WoW.

[Fandango 1,439]

wow that's bullshit!

see my lil crafty double entendre?

hah! twice! I kill me

Edited April 30, 2007 by LisaD

[Welshcookie 17]

[Hilarious Clinton 452]

Blast from the past.

[Ban Hammer 13,334]

it seems someone is the chosen one to bump old threads.......