TheRPGSite

This article at polygon.com (http://www.polygon.com/2013/8/15/4622252/plague-of-game-dev-harassment-erodes-industry-spurs-support-groups) is about the video game industry, and the negative effects that childish pricks have towards game developers. From simple internet threats, to finding home addresses and calling local police with fraudulent claims of wrong-doing.

I've noticed a LOT of similar shit going on towards tabletop developers. Perhaps not going so far (not that I know of, anyway), but the same in spirit. How many threads on this very site either started or devolved into essentially a Klan rally against a writer or developer over a game that hasn't come out yet? Combine that with all of the equal stupidity at Big Purple, SA, CM, and all the other boards.

The fact that I haven't heard of any tabletop developer calling it quits over fanboy threats may indicate the average age level of our hobby (adults tend to realize that threats can have real life consequences), or it may just be because there are so few tabletop gamers compared to video games.

Either way, people get way too emotionally involved in shit that doesn't fucking matter.

With tabletop games, we can handwave the shit we don't like away (don't like the new edition? keep playing the old one. Don't like a rule revision? Use your own) while video game players don't really have that option (It's highly doubtful that anyone with the capability of cracking open a video game and rewriting the code the way they want it would bother with threatening someone over a small revision). But there are shitloads of tabletop players and GMs who still whine and piss and moan about changes to their favorite games, or even games that they haven't played and will never play.

One of the reasons I never got into DnD as a kid was because the first DM I ever had whined constantly about how Salvatore "ruined MY Forgotten Realms." Seriously. Still whines about that shit to this day, and I don't even game with him anymore. That's not even an isolated incident. I see that kind of mentality almost every day on forums.

Anyway, my point is this. Most gamers are pretty cool. But there needs to be some sort of check on the shitty ones. I wince every time I see a thread started by a GM who complains about a shitty player. For me, I just don't play with, talk to, argue with, or even acknowledge them.

It's a real thing.

I've had places where I've worked that have had no outward sign of what they were, for fear of this.  Even when they did, there was ever-present security.

I got to go to Korea in early 2002 to work with NCSoft on a collaboration with my company.  They showed me the steel door to customer service that was *dented* from people trying to break in due to raging.  I forget what it was they used to try to batter it down.

The online threats and stuff is old hat, of course, but I doubt there's many game devs out there that don't have at least some kind of story about actual, physical harassment of their workplace.

I agree with you, everloss. Though considering the basic human nature of getting overinvolved in things that we do - remember there are people willing to crack skulls for their favourite sports team's "honour" - I don't see that changing too quickly.

But, and there is of course, a small but:

At the same time, if you can't take the heat that popularity brings, do yourself a favour and either drop out early on, or prepare to go on full Van Gogh and start sending your ears to prostitutes. There was recently a huge "Fez 2 Mez" (ha ha), that brought this issue to my attention, where the developer had a complete (well, at least apparently, unless it was a marketing stunt) meltdown due to someone harshly criticising him as hipster. I understand you have cool work you wish to create, and that's it. But once your product reaches the public, you must develop a thick skin, or you will smash yourself to pieces.

The article specifically mentions Fez 2 and how the developer said, "fuck it, it's cancelled." I had never heard of it, before reading this article; ain't my scene. I agree, you need to have a thick skin if you're going to be in the public eye, but I don't have anything against the guy for quitting when it was no longer fun for him.
To paraphrase every person who has ever worked in sales or customer service;
"This wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't for the fucking customers."

Quote from: everloss;683328The article specifically mentions Fez 2 and how the developer said, "fuck it, it's cancelled." I had never heard of it, before reading this article; ain't my scene. I agree, you need to have a thick skin if you're going to be in the public eye, but I don't have anything against the guy for quitting when it was no longer fun for him.
To paraphrase every person who has ever worked in sales or customer service;
"This wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't for the fucking customers."

Neither do I, but the Fez developer is pretty ironic, since he was actually the guy making death threats to that critic who pissed him off, and generally trying to whip his fans into an outrage of sorts. I suppose my point would be - don't be a drama queen yourself, and blame everything on the fans, when you yourself can't hold any tidbit of criticism.

And indeed, this rabid form of fan outrage is very bad - because it can be used to silence out legitimate criticism. Bioware did that in regard to that whole controversy regarding one of female writers saying she doesn't like "game part of gaming", or so, which combined with general shift of Bioware's writing towards harlequinesque, caused a massive outrage, with the whole dance of unbalanced fans making idiotic death threats involved, while the legitimate criticism - that indeed, the writing took a turn towards fanfictiony - was swept under the rug of "our writers will not respond to pressure from  terrorists".

The more damning example would be the whole Feminist Frequency Kickstarter screw - up, where Sarkeesian unlocked unmoderated comments for the first time under her videos, allowing all the rabid anti - fans to come out of the woodwork, to show later to the gaming media the chauvinism and hatred for her work - while getting enough ammunition to dismiss any valid criticism as well.

And another example from Bioware & EA - the ME 3 endings controversy, where the rabid charge of fans at the start allowed them to try and toss those out as "whining" and "player entitlement" (that term is truly something I despise, yes, horrible entitlement that I get what I paid for). In that case though, some ground was perhaps fortunately gained, though even still, not entirely.

I don't know much about Fez or the guy involved in it.  I've heard the story, though.

I will say this - my Facebook feed is mostly game industry folks.  And the one comment I really saw about the whole thing was "there are really two responses to this:  One, 'who the hell is that?' and two:  'Good!'"  I don't recall seeing a ton of sympathy for him.  That's subject to my memory, of course.

I'm not saying I agree - I don't know the guy, even by reputation.  Just repeating what I saw.

Harassment of game devs is definitely a thing, though, regardless of how relevant it was to the Fez example.

Quote from: robiswrong;683332I don't know much about Fez or the guy involved in it.  I've heard the story, though.

I will say this - my Facebook feed is mostly game industry folks.  And the one comment I really saw about the whole thing was "there are really two responses to this:  One, 'who the hell is that?' and two:  'Good!'"  I don't recall seeing a ton of sympathy for him.  That's subject to my memory, of course.

I'm not saying I agree - I don't know the guy, even by reputation.  Just repeating what I saw.

Harassment of game devs is definitely a thing, though, regardless of how relevant it was to the Fez example.

I'd broaden that to "harassment of developers" in general - remember The World According to Garp?

Quote from: Rincewind1;683333I'd broaden that to "harassment of developers" in general - remember The World According to Garp?

Probably.  I'm only speaking to my experience, either first-hand or via friends.

I understand your point. Some people will fan the flames for attention or to promote their agenda.

But there is a serious problem when people are threatening someone's children for a game that they have no need to purchase, play, or even have any reason to actually care about. Players/customers have zero ties to a product that they did absolutely nothing to help develop. The outrage comes from some weird sense of entitlement that absolute strangers are supposed to cater to outrageous whims of anonymous persons because of... reasons. To me, that is simply bizarre and grotesque.

It reminds me of when I was a little kid and would get mad when I died playing Super Mario Bros and had a tantrum and threw the controller at the screen. Yeah, I got mad, but I never once thought of threatening the life of Miyamoto's children. I didn't write to Nintendo Power saying I was going to murder everyone because The Adventures of Link wasn't the same game as Legend of Zelda, ya know?

Now, if you paid into a kickstarter or Indiegogo campaign for a game, and the end result is nothing how it was initially sold to you, yeah, you're entitled to be pissed off. But death threats? Having the SWAT team called to someone's house? All because you chose to spend a few bucks on something that wasn't even guaranteed to happen in the first place? That's ridiculous.

I agree that in some instances game companies/developers could handle criticism better, but I'm not talking about criticism. Criticism is usually meant to be constructive, and persons in a creative field should listen to criticism. This is about sociopathic hatred that is causing creative people to stop being creative.

Quote from: everloss;683339I understand your point. Some people will fan the flames for attention or to promote their agenda.

But there is a serious problem when people are threatening someone's children for a game that they have no need to purchase, play, or even have any reason to actually care about. Players/customers have zero ties to a product that they did absolutely nothing to help develop. The outrage comes from some weird sense of entitlement that absolute strangers are supposed to cater to outrageous whims of anonymous persons because of... reasons. To me, that is simply bizarre and grotesque.

It reminds me of when I was a little kid and would get mad when I died playing Super Mario Bros and had a tantrum and threw the controller at the screen. Yeah, I got mad, but I never once thought of threatening the life of Miyamoto's children. I didn't write to Nintendo Power saying I was going to murder everyone because The Adventures of Link wasn't the same game as Legend of Zelda, ya know?

Now, if you paid into a kickstarter or Indiegogo campaign for a game, and the end result is nothing how it was initially sold to you, yeah, you're entitled to be pissed off. But death threats? Having the SWAT team called to someone's house? All because you chose to spend a few bucks on something that wasn't even guaranteed to happen in the first place? That's ridiculous.

I agree that in some instances game companies/developers could handle criticism better, but I'm not talking about criticism. Criticism is usually meant to be constructive, and persons in a creative field should listen to criticism. This is about sociopathic hatred that is causing creative people to stop being creative.

Oh, I agree entirely. My point was more to say that this phenomena of rabid fandom is hurtful to both fans and developers - the latter for obvious reasons, and the former, because it only enforcers and creates an idea of conflict between fans and creators, which, if there are "suits" about the developers, lets them shut off discussions with a wave of PR wand.

In other words, this sociopathic hatred, as you put it, is a poison to both sides, which is the worst thing about it.

I think the "death threat" angle is vastly overblown these days.

People say stupid things, it's not an actual threat. But today we are hyperventilating over every possible thing. That's the real problem - overreacting.

And people spend $60 on a game these days, even more so in the case of MMORPGs. People can be upset when they don't feel they get their money's worth.

I think the problem today is that game companies feel they can ship any old piece of crap and deserve $60 for it.

A company is not entitled to be able to make millions of dollars selling games. If they can't earn it by making products people want, then they have to understand that people will be upset with them, and eventually their business will suffer.

Quote from: JeremyR;683357I think the "death threat" angle is vastly overblown these days.

People say stupid things, it's not an actual threat. But today we are hyperventilating over every possible thing. That's the real problem - overreacting.

And people spend $60 on a game these days, even more so in the case of MMORPGs. People can be upset when they don't feel they get their money's worth.

I think the problem today is that game companies feel they can ship any old piece of crap and deserve $60 for it.

A company is not entitled to be able to make millions of dollars selling games. If they can't earn it by making products people want, then they have to understand that people will be upset with them, and eventually their business will suffer.

The counterpoint to that is that people should do a little research before they buy games, rather than impulse purchasing and then offering death threats when they don't feel like they got their money's worth.

Acceptable response to buying a game and then not liking it: "I am never spending money on that guy's crap AGAIN."

Unacceptable response to buying a game and then not liking it: "You cheated me with this crap, so I'm going to come to your house, cut off your cat's head and stuff it in your mailbox, you prick!"

Personally, I make few impulse purchases, and when I do, I suck it up if it's not worth it because it's on me for not doing the research first.

Games have always been around 60 bucks. NES games, SNES games, Genesis games, Playstation, on and on and on - 60 bucks.

These are people making threats over games that haven't come out yet, and which they haven't spent any money on.

Regardless of that, if you get that angry over a game that you spent, and let's face it, an inconsequential amount of money on, because you were too fucking lazy and stupid to read a couple reviews, then you're an idiot. Oh, 60 bucks? It was either buying that game, or paying rent that month, right? Give me a break.

Silly internet threats happen all the time and are no big deal. It becomes a big deal when someone posts your home address and your kid's elementary school and your phone number online for the express purpose of malicious harassment. If you can't see the difference, perhaps you're part of the problem.

I concur with everloss.

Dismissing this kind of shit as 'just what the internet does' is enabling behavior. Threats, slander, and harassment are not OK. Ever.

But it's increasingly becoming the rule of mob where gaming is concerned, and I really am sick enough of it that I start thinking I'd be better off employing my talents as far away from gaming as I can get, somewhere where I can write and no one will even see my name on the thing, like screenwriting.

Whether it's SJWs trying to hound Desborough out of the hobby entirely or slandering all of Numenara on one overinterpreted monster entry, to shitty Korean rap fans ruining Tablo's career over a made up charge, to dickhead homophobes and manchildren sending threats to a games writer about her fucking children over a gay sex scene and one comment in an interview, it's becoming a hideous scene to be creative in, and I sometimes consider whether I even want to be anymore.

The Internet mob war is rapidly, I suspect, creating what intellectual freedom lawyers call a 'chilling effect,' and of course, that's exactly what they want.

The only reason I haven't quit yet is because I've no intention of giving in to terrorists.

Quote from: JeremyR;683357I think the "death threat" angle is vastly overblown these days.

People say stupid things, it's not an actual threat. But today we are hyperventilating over every possible thing. That's the real problem - overreacting.

In the vast majority of cases, yes, it's nothing but words on a monitor.

However, it is *not uncommon* at all for game developers to actually have people come to the physical offices of the company and threaten them.

It's not every day.  It's not the vast majority of the "death threats" and the like on the internet.  But it happens.  Again, this is first hand knowledge.

How acceptable internet "death threats" should be is a separate topic, but don't doubt for a second that in some cases this does escalate to actual, real-world issues.

I'd also suggest that it's a bit easier to dismiss something as idle words on a monitor, when it's not directed at you, and your family, and including your home address.

There is a very nasty undercurrent to net discussion that largely comes from the lack of response to behaviour that grew up around 4chan and similar sites. Usenet and forums with stable IDs and poster identities have self-policing mechanisms and cultural barriers to asshattery (I have one ID I use across all English forums I visit, and this usully makes me consider what I post); while I suspect the extreme asshattery is due to people being allowed to splinter themselves into several anonymous sub-personas which they feel are sufficiently disconnected from their traceable selves and consequences.

The good news is that 4chan and a lot of this computer game stuff is basically dumb kids, and whatever they say can be safely discounted as irrelevant. I know from experience this is hard as hell to just shrug it off even if you know it is one dumb stalker; your animal self still gets the fight/flight reaction. And I am very happy I am old enough to cope with this stuff; God knows how kids manage.

The worse news is that this kind of bullying has extended to other demographics, both as a source of entertainment, and as a way to abuse and silence people who become 'fair game' for one reason or another.

Do famous/popular authors run into this type of problem too?

ooooooh yeah.  But it's a different, far more personal level of creepyness.

I have friends who are in the videogame industry. They have horror stories that would curl your hair. Or straighten it.

Quote from: JeremyR;683357And people spend $60 on a game these days, even more so in the case of MMORPGs. People can be upset when they don't feel they get their money's worth.

I think the problem today is that game companies feel they can ship any old piece of crap and deserve $60 for it.

A company is not entitled to be able to make millions of dollars selling games. If they can't earn it by making products people want, then they have to understand that people will be upset with them, and eventually their business will suffer.

If we go back to, say, Mass Effect 3, the "fans" did get what they paid for; an end to the Mass Effect saga, another 40-hour game (There's not even many of those around these days!), and a reportedly quite good multiplayer mode on top! That's an amazing deal compared to most games these days, with short campaigns and tacked-on multiplayer that's abandoned in a week when everybody goes back to Call of Duty.

The issue was that it wasn't exactly the ending they wanted it to be. Bioware could have handled it better (Maybe plotting out the entire series in advance...), but absolutely should not have caved on the ME3 ending; it's their game, it's their story.

Similarly with Jennifer Hepler's discussions about combat; there's an interesting discussion to have there (The actual shooting in recent Bioshock : Infinite ruined it for me, here was a great world that looked really fun to explore, but for the majority of the game the only verb I have to interact with it is "kill"), and allowing someone to go straight to the story would force developers to up their game regarding that. But no, the "games must be all about fighting all the time" crowd gets upset if anyone wants to play their games in any other way.

I am so blessed! No one gives a crap what *I* write! :D

-clash

Quote from: Tommy Brownell;683367The counterpoint to that is that people should do a little research before they buy games, rather than impulse purchasing and then offering death threats when they don't feel like they got their money's worth.

Acceptable response to buying a game and then not liking it: "I am never spending money on that guy's crap AGAIN."

Unacceptable response to buying a game and then not liking it: "You cheated me with this crap, so I'm going to come to your house, cut off your cat's head and stuff it in your mailbox, you prick!"

Personally, I make few impulse purchases, and when I do, I suck it up if it's not worth it because it's on me for not doing the research first.

Yes. I don't care how bad the game is. Not a justification for death threats.

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned YDIS yet.

Quote from: noisms;683490I'm surprised nobody has mentioned YDIS yet.

Because I didn't know either, here's the link for anyone lost: http://yourdungeonissuck.wordpress.com/

Jesus. That is some whacko shit right there.

I honestly cannot think of a sector of human society where there is no representation of people who go psycho at the drop of a hat. Not even ETSY artisan and gardening communities. When grandmas flip their shit over crocheting v. knitting or flower breed heritages I cannot think of a safe place.

This is the human condition. Modern technology has just made us vastly more interconnected to witness more of this shit. Sux, but until our sun goes red giant, c'est la vie.

All I need to add is it takes but one asshat customer out of thirty pleasant ones to completely ruin that day. We fixate on the negative as a species. That's a behavior we need to consciously work on.

Quote from: Melan;683406There is a very nasty undercurrent to net discussion that largely comes from the lack of response to behaviour that grew up around 4chan and similar sites. Usenet and forums with stable IDs and poster identities have self-policing mechanisms and cultural barriers to asshattery (I have one ID I use across all English forums I visit, and this usully makes me consider what I post); while I suspect the extreme asshattery is due to people being allowed to splinter themselves into several anonymous sub-personas which they feel are sufficiently disconnected from their traceable selves and consequences.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19/

I generally note that people on Facebook/G+ are less trolly than on sites where identity is anonymous.

I only use about two logins, this and 'kyoryu', and I try to keep as reasonable as I can.  Not necessarily to 'protect' my identity, in my case I think it's the reverse - I normally try to be reasonable, so I don't see a need to use separate identities.

Quote from: robiswrong;683564I generally note that people on Facebook/G+ are less trolly than on sites where identity is anonymous.

The PA strip is a classic, but I am not sure about this one. In Hungary, a lot of blogs switched from registered nicks to Facebook comments hoping it would cut down on flamewars, and it turns out that a shitton of people are willing to act as total fuckwads with name, picture and place of employment listed for all to see. In fact, FB comment walls tend to be significantly more spiteful and content-free, and they come from people like your Mom or uncle. Maybe that's because they allow participation from people who have never, ever even heard of netiquette, or something like that.

Quote from: noisms;683490I'm surprised nobody has mentioned YDIS yet.

Guarantee that's run by a SA goon.

Quote from: Archangel Fascist;683608Guarantee that's run by a SA goon.

I don't really know anything about SA but whenever it comes up I'm always glad I don't.

Quote from: Archangel Fascist;683608Guarantee that's run by a SA goon.

Nah, if I remember correctly, YDIS is ran by a much more charming fellow. Isn't it our old pal _cunt_, I mean, _kent_ running it?

Quote from: Melan;683583The PA strip is a classic, but I am not sure about this one. In Hungary, a lot of blogs switched from registered nicks to Facebook comments hoping it would cut down on flamewars, and it turns out that a shitton of people are willing to act as total fuckwads with name, picture and place of employment listed for all to see. In fact, FB comment walls tend to be significantly more spiteful and content-free, and they come from people like your Mom or uncle. Maybe that's because they allow participation from people who have never, ever even heard of netiquette, or something like that.

Although Google+ can be pretty caustic as well, and that seems to poll more towards experienced net users than Facebook.

I suspect that real change in culture is that in the past publications had editors who just did not choose to print this stuff, but now that layer of selection is dead.

First I am glad someone brought this up.  I was going to, but wasn't sure if it was on topic.

Next, some points...  And I am going to split these to avoid 'wall of text' issues...

How do you accommodate the fact that being a whiney bitch is the only way to get results?  It really should be studied scientifically,  but at least anecdotally 'vote with your wallet' does not work.

I think the ME3 thing was rather just, actually.  "Distinct endings driven by player choice" were not delivered.  There are some youtubes that demonstrate this pretty well.

But my point here is, "not buying it" doesn't work.  They don't assume that you are unhappy.  They assume that you are a Madden fan instead. Or worse they will just assume there are fewer gamers.  Likewise returns aren't an option.  You wouldn't find out about the ending thing until you played through a second time.

The wallet vote probably doesn't exist.

Next point - George Lucas.  See he is quoted in that article, too.  How do you deal with his pompous ass without whining?

Han shot first.  Jar Jar Binks.  Etc.

Dude actually blamed the fans, "Why would I make any more when everyone yells at you all the time and tells you what a terrible person you are?"

Han shot first, is all I have to say to that.  For a time I was an advocate of what I called "Lucas's Law" - removing copyright protection for creators who drive their content into a ditch.

Anyway, I do think it is unkind to judge Lucas as a person when you have no idea what that person is like.  As a creator, though? As the sole controlling interest for something you care deeply about?   That has to be a different matter.

Quote from: mcbobbo;683671Next point - George Lucas.  See he is quoted in that article, too.  How do you deal with his pompous ass without whining?

Han shot first.  Jar Jar Binks.  Etc.

Dude actually blamed the fans, "Why would I make any more when everyone yells at you all the time and tells you what a terrible person you are?"

Han shot first, is all I have to say to that.  For a time I was an advocate of what I called "Lucas's Law" - removing copyright protection for creators who drive their content into a ditch.

Anyway, I do think it is unkind to judge Lucas as a person when you have no idea what that person is like.  As a creator, though? As the sole controlling interest for something you care deeply about?   That has to be a different matter.

If you care so deeply about a fictional creation that changes to it that you dislike motivate you to make threats against the creator's family, hound them with abuse, or even whine at them...it's a rather clear sign you need to get some perspective.

Last one...  Anti-bullying.

Caution - this is a slippery slope argument.

But anti-bullying statutes scare the hell out of me.  For example, the one they're looking at up in BC prohibits...

"threats, name calling, insults, racial or sexual comments" and "spreading rumors, ignoring, gossiping, and excluding"

In that view,  one of the very tenants of therpgsite is "bullying" - being able to speak your mind freely.  Someone put it as "an armed society is a polite society".  If this type of law gets created to protect content creators,  we lose our unique environment.

Also, a lot of this is judgement.  Imagine the rpg.net gang at the wheel.  When they can ban you from a site you shouldn't need to participate in, that's one thing.  When they can fine you (and jail you if you don't pay the fine) that's entirely different .

I don't think you need 'anti-bullying' laws to stop these kinds of threats.

You just need to make it easier for people to press charges and see prosecutions and suits for slander and harassment. There needs to be more vigorous enforcement of the the law with regards to protecting people from spurious attacks on their character and safety. All sides need to stop pretending the Internet is some magical land where the laws no longer apply.  

22 people got charged over the Tablo case. They're even angling for extradition for the jackass who mostly ran the campaign.

A few more high profile cases like that and suddenly all this 'Anonymous Lives!' shit will start dying down just like the hacker boom did. Use the chilling effect in the other direction, and a lot of the more cowardly will start backing the fuck off when they realize there really are actual consequences for this bullshit.

Quote from: J Arcane;683690I don't think you need 'anti-bullying' laws to stop these kinds of threats.

You just need to make it easier for people to press charges and see prosecutions and suits for slander and harassment. There needs to be more vigorous enforcement of the the law with regards to protecting people from spurious attacks on their character and safety. All sides need to stop pretending the Internet is some magical land where the laws no longer apply.  

22 people got charged over the Tablo case. They're even angling for extradition for the jackass who mostly ran the campaign.

A few more high profile cases like that and suddenly all this 'Anonymous Lives!' shit will start dying down just like the hacker boom did. Use the chilling effect in the other direction, and a lot of the more cowardly will start backing the fuck off when they realize there really are actual consequences for this bullshit.

Exactly. The laws already exist. Harassment is a tort and/or a criminal offence in most jurisdictions. Defamation is a tort.

More importantly, people need to behave like grown-ups a little bit more.

Quote from: noisms;683678If you care so deeply about a fictional creation that changes to it that you dislike motivate you to make threats against the creator's family, hound them with abuse, or even whine at them...it's a rather clear sign you need to get some perspective.

We agree there.  But let's do be careful where we draw that line.  Death threats are already covered under established law, and existing systems can be leveraged.   So what's next?

Quote from: mcbobbo;683712We agree there.  But let's do be careful where we draw that line.  Death threats are already covered under established law, and existing systems can be leveraged.   So what's next?

I think three things could happen, or more likely a combination of all three:

a) Technological development - people being able to simply better filter what they see on the net, including abusive crap directed at them
b) Tort law will respond as the legal profession slowly opens up and becomes more competitive both in England and the US
c) Governments will start to criminalise harassment and defamation to a greater degree than they already do

I prefer a) to b) to c) for obvious reasons but I think change is more or less inevitable. A week or so ago news about teenagers committing suicide because of bullying via ask.fm was all over the BBC. Once it gets to that level I'm sure it won't be long before there's either a social or a political response or both.

As a function of 'a', some method for input would be nice to see.

I just don't know how it's possible,  though.  There are so very many voices wanting to be heard...

Quote from: mcbobbo;683733As a function of 'a', some method for input would be nice to see.

I just don't know how it's possible,  though.  There are so very many voices wanting to be heard...

I think it might just be the case that you will see more 'walled gardens' on the internet where nice people go. Or people will be more savvy about the way they use social media. I do it already on G+: the minute somebody posts something to do with politics they go in my ignore circle. On Facebook I unfollowed almost everybody so I get very little on my news feed. More people will do things like this and get more sophisticated about it.

Nevermind.

Quote from: mcbobbo;683683Last one...  Anti-bullying.

Caution - this is a slippery slope argument.

But anti-bullying statutes scare the hell out of me.  For example, the one they're looking at up in BC prohibits...

"threats, name calling, insults, racial or sexual comments" and "spreading rumors, ignoring, gossiping, and excluding"

In that view,  one of the very tenants of therpgsite is "bullying" - being able to speak your mind freely.  Someone put it as "an armed society is a polite society".  If this type of law gets created to protect content creators,  we lose our unique environment.

Also, a lot of this is judgement.  Imagine the rpg.net gang at the wheel.  When they can ban you from a site you shouldn't need to participate in, that's one thing.  When they can fine you (and jail you if you don't pay the fine) that's entirely different .

Nah. An armed society is a society where you're walking on eggshells. There's no actual politeness, just a climate of fear in case you accidentally screw up and piss someone off.

You can be perfectly critical without needing to resort to any of the things you've mentioned, if you have an actual point - in fact, if you can't actually back up your assertions properly, going straight to ad hominems or threats is a good way to demonstrate you don't actually have any position to argue from.

Like, with Jennifer Hepler's "skip the combat" ideas, "I quite like the combat in these games, and I'd rather skip the story pieces, actually - how about a more comprehensive checkpointing system that would let me skip things, too?" is a good comment, fair and reasonable. "lol lazy bitch games are all about combat not your shitty story"... isn't. It doesn't add anything to the discussion or the topic at hand. The world is a little bit more shit for it's presence.

The volume that a concerted campaign can put out makes arresting and punishing the attackers difficult. And "ignore list"-type tools only really help against an odd few attackers - so you go online, and have to ignore all the new sockpuppets that have appeared, and the new attackers that have joined in, before actually getting to do what you want. At some point, it just becomes not worth it.

I'm curious if anyone just death-threats them right back...

" oh yeah? Well I'm going to sneak into YOUR house tomorrow night, kill your whole family, go all Titus on them and make them into a pie, then force feed it to you while I rape your cat! Then I'm going to pee on your computer."

Wait bullying laws prohibit... Ignoring? WTH?

Quote from: TristramEvans;683828Wait bullying laws prohibit... Ignoring? WTH?

Oh, come on. You've been a child at some point in your life; I don't believe you've never deliberately ignored someone in an attempt to make them upset (Not an ad hominem, just a statement that children are mean to each other). There are different ways of ignoring people.

Quote from: Ladybird;683831Oh, come on. You've been a child at some point in your life; I don't believe you've never deliberately ignored someone in an attempt to make them upset (Not an ad hominem, just a statement that children are mean to each other). There are different ways of ignoring people.

I ignored everyone when I was a kid. I didn't do it to make them upset, it's because interacting with them upset me. Ignoring is any individual's right as a person. That's no more doing something to that person than offending them is causing"injury". There may be different motivations for ignoring people, but there's no type of ignoring that's tantamount to bullying a person.

Quote from: everloss;683370Games have always been around 60 bucks. NES games, SNES games, Genesis games, Playstation, on and on and on - 60 bucks..

That is a simplification. From the N64 era you started to get prices around $60. Prior to that, it was all over the map, but generally $10-$15 lower.  Complicating matters is that USSRP (suggested price) and street price were not always the same, though there were far more controls over this than, say, PC software.

You could also get much higher if the developer was Japanese and was padding their pricing to bring it in line with what they were charging in Japan. Plus, the yen was constantly gaining value over the dollar throughout that entire era.

Prices also deflated a bit after release, like now, and then there was aftermarket.

In the xBox vs Playstation era, it wasn't entirely a sure thing that average prices over $50 would be sustainable - but happily for developers, they were - especially since the cost to develop for those platforms plummeted because of tools licensing.

I don't know, Ladybird.  Are you really making the claim that there's no use for the full vocabulary?  Somehow "slog off you fartface" doesn't seem to communicate the same emotions.
:-)

Quote from: mcbobbo;683857I don't know, Ladybird.  Are you really making the claim that there's no use for the full vocabulary?  Somehow "slog off you fartface" doesn't seem to communicate the same emotions.
:-)

It's all about context.

Someone cuts you up, sure, write them a letter querying why the "Father:" space on their birth certificate says "unknown, consult Afghani telephone directory", ask them what their mother was doing with the entire active Welsh national rugby squad last night... wrap it round a brick and chuck it through their windscreen.

You've got a legitimate complaint about the writing in a video game, write it out properly, explain why you're dissatisfied with the game and that you don't feel it provided what it billed, and send it to 'em; you're much more likely to get looked at. Start swearing or being offensive, you're just going to go into the recycle bin, and you're poisoning the well against anyone who can write that letter and help get you what you want.

Quote from: noisms;683693Exactly. The laws already exist. Harassment is a tort and/or a criminal offence in most jurisdictions. Defamation is a tort.

More importantly, people need to behave like grown-ups a little bit more.

It's not quite that simple.  How do you press charges against someone who resides not just in another state, but another country?  How do you subpoena the records of someone who has basically created a bogus account in order to find out who's really behind the harassment?  How do you get prosecutor's offices to go to a large amount of expense over what amounts to name-calling and potentially groundless threats when they also have to pay for investigators, attorneys, etc.?   When it comes to the tort system, how do you handle it when the aggrieved party has no funds to file a complaint, at the state or Federal level, or to serve someone across state lines, or to do the investigation needed to determine who is Assclown69?

In addition, there are evidentiary hurdles to get over when proving harassment.  These have proven to be fatal even in serious witness-tampering cases, I can't imagine the courts are going to waive them for lower-severity cases.

Honestly, the answer to my mind is going to be walled gardens and internal corporate policies, rather than the legal system.  The legal system is not designed for these kinds of cases, at least in the US, until they get so serious that the aggrieved party has usually had to deal with an enormous amount of harassment.

(Even bullying cases are mainly designed for people close to one another geographically and jurisdictionally.)

Quote from: Future Villain Band;684057It's not quite that simple.  How do you press charges against someone who resides not just in another state, but another country?  How do you subpoena the records of someone who has basically created a bogus account in order to find out who's really behind the harassment?  How do you get prosecutor's offices to go to a large amount of expense over what amounts to name-calling and potentially groundless threats when they also have to pay for investigators, attorneys, etc.?   When it comes to the tort system, how do you handle it when the aggrieved party has no funds to file a complaint, at the state or Federal level, or to serve someone across state lines, or to do the investigation needed to determine who is Assclown69?

In addition, there are evidentiary hurdles to get over when proving harassment.  These have proven to be fatal even in serious witness-tampering cases, I can't imagine the courts are going to waive them for lower-severity cases.

Honestly, the answer to my mind is going to be walled gardens and internal corporate policies, rather than the legal system.  The legal system is not designed for these kinds of cases, at least in the US, until they get so serious that the aggrieved party has usually had to deal with an enormous amount of harassment.

(Even bullying cases are mainly designed for people close to one another geographically and jurisdictionally.)

I agree with you that walled gardens and corporate policies are going to be the main thing, but I still think that this is a big area of potential expansion for tort lawyers, especially in a liberalising legal market. And alongside that I think it is inevitable that there will also be increased criminalisation of online harassment and similar. It's happening already in England regarding comments made on twitter.

Quote from: noisms;684070I agree with you that walled gardens and corporate policies are going to be the main thing, but I still think that this is a big area of potential expansion for tort lawyers, especially in a liberalising legal market. And alongside that I think it is inevitable that there will also be increased criminalisation of online harassment and similar. It's happening already in England regarding comments made on twitter.

I agree with you in principal, but in my opinion one of the big factors in the liberalization of the legal profession is simple cost -- the average litigant in most common family law or lower court matters simply can't afford an attorney, which makes collateral issues like out-of-jurisdiction service, investigation, and subpoenaing phone or web records to be out of the common person's capability.  Also, America's got larger issues in that service across state lines usually means the courts have difficulty enforcing summonses except in special circumstances (restraining orders) or it kicks it up to the Federal level, which is all the more expensive to file in.  

Right now, protective orders have stepped in to fill this void, but they're mainly aimed at domestic violence and not online bullying.  It's interesting to consider a world where conventional peace orders expand to deal with that kind of matter, though.

Quote from: Future Villain Band;684082I agree with you in principal, but in my opinion one of the big factors in the liberalization of the legal profession is simple cost -- the average litigant in most common family law or lower court matters simply can't afford an attorney, which makes collateral issues like out-of-jurisdiction service, investigation, and subpoenaing phone or web records to be out of the common person's capability.  Also, America's got larger issues in that service across state lines usually means the courts have difficulty enforcing summonses except in special circumstances (restraining orders) or it kicks it up to the Federal level, which is all the more expensive to file in.  

Right now, protective orders have stepped in to fill this void, but they're mainly aimed at domestic violence and not online bullying.  It's interesting to consider a world where conventional peace orders expand to deal with that kind of matter, though.

In England at least the law market has recently been opened up so that, among other things, non-law firms ("alternative business structures") can provide legal services under license. This should in theory drive costs down, so that's why I think we will see an expansion in the legal services available to normal people.

Quote from: noisms;684086In England at least the law market has recently been opened up so that, among other things, non-law firms ("alternative business structures") can provide legal services under license. This should in theory drive costs down, so that's why I think we will see an expansion in the legal services available to normal people.

Ah.  I was unaware of that.  The law has here is still undecided on things like non-lawyers providing traditional legal services even to the extent of form creation, but it's opening up in the sense that more and more power is being provided to folks who want to litigate pro se.  (At least in my neck of the woods.)