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Sanitizing Expression In Virtual Worlds

Posted by Zonk on Thu Apr 13, 2006 02:40 PM
from the speak-and-be-heard dept.
Role Playing (Games) Censorship
1up has a piece looking back at the GLBT guild mixup that happened earlier this year in World of Warcraft. From the article: "'... last summer a friend introduced me to WOW, and I really liked it, though I didn't care for remarks many of the players made, like the fact that everything is apparently so gay when it's bad. So I decided to create my own guild, which would be GLBT friendly.' Sometimes singing, other times slogging her way through WOW's exacting echelons to a formidable level 60, Andrews had big endgame plans for her developing guild--until January 12, 2006, that is, when a note from publisher Blizzard blinkered everything."
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[+] Blizzard Responds To Gay Guild Debate 444 comments
Edge Online reports that Blizzard has responded to the issues raised by a gay guild trying to recruit in public chat. From the article: "We encourage community building among our players with others of similar interests, and we understand that guilds are one of the primary ways to forge these communities. However, topics related to sensitive real-world subjects -- such as religious, sexual, or political preference, for example -- have had a tendency to result in communication between players that often breaks down into harassment." We discussed this story when it first came up last week.
[+] Gay Guild Recruitment Disallowed From WoW? 514 comments
Fireball394 wrote with a link to an article on the site 'In Newsweekly'. The article, entitled "Blizzard of GLBT gaming policy questions", discusses the application of a harassment warning on a player who was recruiting for a GLBT guild. From the article: "In her follow-up letter to the company, Andrews explained that there was an obvious misunderstanding and that she was not insulting anyone, but merely recruiting for a 'GLBT friendly' guild. The response from Blizzard was, 'While we appreciate and understand your point of view, we do feel that the advertisement of a GLBT friendly guild is very likely to result in harassment for players that may not have existed otherwise. If you will look at our policy, you will notice the suggested penalty for violating the Sexual Orientation Harassment Policy is to be temporarily suspended from the game. However, as there was clearly no malicious intent on your part, this penalty was reduced to a warning.' Blizzard's stance was clear that recruiting for a guild using 'GLBT' was inappropriate as, the company said, it may 'incite certain responses in other players that will allow for discussion that we feel has no place in our game.'"
[+] Blizzard CEO Lays Gay Guild Issue To Rest 296 comments
Edge Online reports that Blizzard CEO Paul Sams has responded to the GLBT Guild issue that flared up in World of Warcraft a while back. From the article: "... he again characterized the earlier decision to prohibit mention of real-world subjects in recruiting for guilds as an 'unfortunate mistake,' which only came about because the initial comments weren't properly analyzed before sending a warning. 'It is expected and accepted that players will discuss a wide variety of topics, based on both the game world and the real world,' Sams says. 'Players are free to discuss personal characteristics if they wish, to include their sexual orientations and gender identities.'
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  • Oh man (Score:3, Funny)

    by OverlordQ (264228) on Thursday April 13 2006, @02:44PM (#15123926) Journal
    Until January 12, 2006, that is, when a note from publisher Blizzard blinkered everything.

    Yea I hate it when things blink . . . I always seem to blink things up . . . Oh yea, well blink you too.

  • Wait.. (Score:4, Funny)

    by realmolo (574068) on Thursday April 13 2006, @02:50PM (#15124017)
    So, there are people that play WoW that *aren't* homosexual? I don't believe it.
     
    ;)

  • Stop that! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Tackhead (54550) on Thursday April 13 2006, @02:51PM (#15124030)
    > So I decided to create my own guild, which would be GLBT friendly.' Sometimes singing, other times slogging her way through WOW's exacting echelons to a formidable level 60, Andrews had big endgame plans for her developing guild--until January 12, 2006, that is, when a note from publisher Blizzard blinkered everything."

    Sometimes singing? Andrews? Her?

    "Stop that! Stop that! You're not going into a song while I'm here. Now listen, lass. In twenty levels, you're getting married to a girl whose Tauren father pwns the biggest tracts of open land in all of Kalimdor!"

  • This shouldn't even be an issue. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by sc0ttyb (833038) * on Thursday April 13 2006, @02:52PM (#15124042)
    If players would form/join guilds based on the player's skill or helpfulness or other such ways that directly affect gameplay, then we wouldn't be having this problem.

    Ultimately, who cares? If people weren't such dicks and played the game without resorting to "omg u r a fag gtfo" then people wouldn't feel the need to make these guilds.

    Of course, even then it wouldn't go away entirely, as people would form guilds just to try to be different.

    My guild consists of men and women of differing ages, races, nationalities, and sexual orientations (really - I'm not joking), and we all have fun and just play the damn game. We don't care if one of our members is gay because IT DOESN'T MATTER. It doesn't give you a stat bonus, it doesn't make you a better player, so who cares?

    I say leave the politics out of the game and just HAVE FUN!

    • Re:This shouldn't even be an issue. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Yosho (135835) on Thursday April 13 2006, @03:01PM (#15124151) Homepage
      The thing is, not everybody plays MMORPGs will the sole desire of leveling up. A lot of people play for the social aspect, and nobody wants to hang around somebody who has you, no matter how good that person may be. If your goal isn't to gain XP faster than anybody else, it makes a lot of sense to join a group of people you like rather than a group of good players.

  • Well, I agree. (Score:4, Funny)

    by Gannoc (210256) on Thursday April 13 2006, @02:59PM (#15124128)

    Our guild doesn't care if you're gay, straight, black, white, democrat, or republican. It just has no place it the game.

    However, all the jews are losing 50 DKP tomorrow for killing our Lord and savior. Sorry, but if you nail the son of God to a 2x4, you're not going to get that epic chest piece.

  • Sex & Violence (Score:4, Interesting)

    by f97tosc (578893) on Thursday April 13 2006, @03:10PM (#15124245)
    I am amazed by how much fuzz anything related to sexuality is generating. For crying out loud, you are playing a game in which the basic premise, like in most other games, is to kill and plunder. There are no moral problems with this because you are Good and they are Bad. But if someone say "gay", or starts an LBGT guild - then what an outrage. No more is the game good "family" entertainment, no indeed, it needs to be cleaned up, the little ones need to be protected.

    Tor

  • Soapbox rant of the whale (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jonathantu (957890) on Thursday April 13 2006, @03:31PM (#15124500)
    I think it's fair to say that there are WOW male players whose avatars are female, and vice versa. Some of these roleplay. What if someone wanted to roleplay as a gay character? Is that not allowed, and why not? The article mentions that there have been gay MMORPGers for years and they've dealt with this shit, mainly by ignoring it and having a good time anyway - however, they shouldn't have to ignore it. What's wrong with them wanting to belond to an organization where they know they won't have to endure insulting language coming from their supposed 'mates'? Using the word gay as a pejorative is widespread; trolls use it, I occasionally use it and you might use it as well. It's almost impossible not to blurt it out if you grew up in the American education system where it's as entrenched as tater tots and pop quizzes. I understand that. It goes beyond 'just' the word gay, however; it's a seemingly unending wave of dialogue that can only be described as "homophobic" at best and "hate speech" at worst. The argument that it should be kept out of the game because this is supposed to be entertainment is invalid; if game only dialogue were allowed then there'd just be the raid leader screaming and everyone bickering over loot. The fact is that our everyday lives creep into this game as part of the natural draw of MMORPGs: social interaction, not isolation. If you want to keep it game only then don't allow for any player-to-player communication or play Elder Scrolls. Reading any guild's message board will lead you to the conclusion that people enjoy interacting on all levels: WOW has become a big part of some of these people's lives and the mixing of personal and "WOW" life is pretty common from what I've seen. It's silly to say that discussion of one's sexual orientation in a non-insulting manner is not allowed. It's even sillier to say that discussion of one's personal life ought to be left outside of the game, because then you'd have to ban sob stories of boy/girlfriends and bitching about the domestic situation and that's not gonna happen. Just as marriage doesn't seem to be a very sacred institution in America, WOW is permeated throughout with the often banal, sometimes amusing and always personal accounts of one's real life. Why limit that to heterosexuals? Shouldn't gay men and women, and the transgendered, and whatever other group you want to throw in there be just as miserable as the rest of us? Finally, to address that tired old issue: it's a GLBT friendly guild, not a GLBT only guild.

  • Real World Politics in the Game Dangerous... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by RexRhino (769423) on Thursday April 13 2006, @03:46PM (#15124639)
    So what happens when the "Jesus Freaks" guild attacks the "Rainbow Guild"? If it was the "Black Dragons" attacking the "Iron Tigers" or something like that, the Iron Tigers would understand it is a game and all in fun. But are the "Rainbow Guild" going to complain that they are being discriminated against by the "Jesus Freaks" guild? What happens if the "Bowman of Allah" attack and kill the "Jesus Freaks"? Are the "Jesus Freaks" gonna get in a big huff and cry about it? What happens when the "Republican Ogre League" attacks the "Democrat Swordsmen"? Doesn't anyone see how the whole thing could become a mess really quick?

    It is not discriminating against anyone to not allow real world affiliations in a game. Because a game involves violence, you want the victims and perpetrators of violence to be completly fictional groups. If you have real life affiliations like Sex, Race, Religion, Sexual Preference, and it is going to cause all kinds of problems.

    I realize that nowadays, politically correct posturing trumps common sense, and so people are going to cry that they are being discriminated against because they can't create a Gay, Bi, Lesbian, Transexual clan... and the threats of lawsuits will probably give them their way. But demanding to be allowed to make a GLBT guild, when all other real world affiliations are banned, is just stupid. GLBT are not discriminated from playing the game, or from starting clans, but they are (or where) banned from bringing real world issues into a totally fantasy escapist game.

  • Language evolves as does slang, deal with it (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Jtheletter (686279) on Thursday April 13 2006, @03:56PM (#15124748)
    Do people who consider themselves 'gay' and use that term to describe themselves even realize that the original meaning of the word simply meant "happy"? It was gradually taken over by other uses and now it is generally accepted as meaning 'homosexual' and to many people it means 'male homosexual' exclusively.

    There are parts of the country where soda is referred to as 'pop' but that doesn't mean people are asking you for a grandparent or a punch in the jaw when they say "give me a pop". In the same way in my encounters with people saying "that's totally gay" they don't mean "that's totally homosexual" or "I hate that in the same way I hate homosexuals" they in fact mean it as "that's totally stupid/absurd/odd". It is an ALTERNATE SLANG MEANING that has been appropriated by a subset of the culture, just as homosexuals and society re-appropriated the word 'gay' itself about a generation or two ago.

    In New England we say 'wicked' to mean 'very', e.g. "The new console is wicked cool". However in this usage it has nothing to do with being evil. In some places in NY people use 'mad' the same way New Englanders use wicked, but they don't mean angry in any way. A word can have two different and unrelated meanings!

    To be offended by an alternate use of a word you happen to associate with is silly when it's patently not being used offensively. Could it be used offensively? Has it been? Yes. But this is not one of those examples. And in the case of the word gay itself the argument even becomes hypocrtical since gay already had a different meaning which has been appropriated by today's culture to mean something completely different. Language evolves, and slang is simply a genetic mutation of language, often here today gone tomorrow. If you can't get over that then you're taking yourself way too seriously and need to find a better battle to fight.

      • Re:Language evolves as does slang, deal with it (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Jtheletter (686279) on Thursday April 13 2006, @05:25PM (#15125622)
        Tell you what, why don't you try applying that logic to words like "nigger", "wop", "kike", "chink", and so on. Get on WoW and complain about Blizzard being "jew cheap" about loot. Does the idea make you uncomfortable? It should. It makes me uncomfortable writing about it. But if using "gay" in a derogatory manner doesn't make you just as uncomfortable then you've got a problem.

        Wow, just shooting from the hip aren't you. You just assumed from the start I was trying to advocate the use of gay as a derogatory term. did you even read my whole comment? I specifically said that in the given context not only was it not being used as a derogatory term for homosexuals, but that it had a different meaning altogether unrelated to sexual orientation. Why can't people understand that? I even gave you two examples of other words - 'wicked', and 'mad' - and how regional slang uses them to mean 'very' but without any relation to the other meanings of those words. I was pointing out that in the context it was being used, the term 'gay' meant stupid or perhpas absurd, but not in any relation to someone being gay. Or that the person using it that way thinks gays are stupid or absurd. If you ever encounter someone who says something like "that rule is gay" and you confront them on it they'll always point out they don't mean it as a derogatory homosexual remark, and not because they're just some backpedaling racist, most kids don't even realize someone would take offense at it because to them it's wholly unrelated in their mind. It's unrelated to gays and gay culture! You personally seem to to think that because they use gay to mean 'absurd' they are therefore making some larger political statement that they believe all homosexuals to be absurd, but it's not the case. The racial terms you listed above are purely racial slurs (except for chink, see your other replies). So if I say "there's a chink in your defenses! we will surely destroy you!" Does that mean I am implying there is either an actual asian in your defenses and that is why they are weak, because I believe asians to be weak? You don't concede that it's entirely possible the word could have an alternate non-deragatory meaning? For fuck's sake, I know gay rhode island kids who themselves have exclaimed "that's wicked gay!" and they weren't talking about their boyfriend.

        As to the going on WoW and complaing about something being "jew cheap" you're not even giving some alternate meaning of jew there, you're using it as a classic deragatory slur against jews and the falsehood they are miserly, so how does that even work as an example? In addition you're trying to take words which have exclusively been used as slurs (jew, nigger, wop) and sticking them into a context in which they cannot fit because of the huge stigma attached to those words. My point also was based on the fact that gay has been used widely in our recent cultural history with a completely different meaning that has no such stigma. So just because 'gay' or some other word may be transmutable, that doesn't mean any old slur with a history behind it could be. I'm not gay bashing here, I'm not advocating racism, it's stupid and useless and based on utter falsehoods. But for a group of people to change the meaning of a word and use it to represent themselves and somehow think they then have exclusive control over the future evolution of that word is a ludicrous assertion. Language is an amorphus thing, and it will continue to change, it IS POSSIBLE for two words to have DIFFERENT AND UNRELATED meanings.

    • I completely agree. I tried WoW for a few days, and decided it wasn't for me. I wasn't on a role playing server, but still that kind of stuff was an INSTANT turn off from the game. I was enjoying walking around killing low level creatures when two idiots (who I did report) decided to run through the area yelling to everyone. It went something like this:

      Dick Haney: Look out Georgy! Terrorists!
      Prezy-Dent: Oh no, protect me Dick Haney!
      Dick Haney: Don't worry, I'll blow them up...

      And on and on and on. Clear, OBVIOUS, greifing. They were out to do nothing about annoy people. That was within the first half-hour I played the game. If I'm going to play a MMO I want to play a MMO. I don't want nonsense (relative to the game world) about the president of the US, advertising for GLBT guilds, or anything else like that. The game is supposed to be escapist. You want to do all that stuff, go to second life (a sandbox) or invent a virtual world that is supposed to mirror the real world in many ways.

      And I wouldn't care if everyone in your guild WAS GLBT. You could advertise yourself outside of WoW as the GLBT guild, but don't drag that kind of stuff into the game. p>While I understand how the person felt with all the "this is gay" (I got sick of it real fast and I'm straight, so I can see how they felt), there is no need to draw that into the game and start a GLBT guild. Just ignore those people, or report it to Blizzard and see if they'll give the person a warning.

      • The only way to prevent those things from entering an escapist world is to have an escapist world consisting of only you yourself. The moment there's more than one person it becomes "people" and people bring their politics with them where-ever they go. You yourself are a perfect example. You brought your personal politics of avoiding supporting equal rights because you just wanna play a game.

        Amazing self centeredness.

          • Re:Maybe People Just Want to Play (Score:5, Insightful)

            by rkcallaghan (858110) on Thursday April 13 2006, @03:53PM (#15124714)
            Do you see guilds/factions outright proclaming their heterosexualness out there?

            All the time. They're the guys screaming "gay" "fags" etc every 10 seconds. The majority makes their declaration by demonstration.

            Only minority groups have to make explicit declarations, in order to notify potential members that they are different from the masses. This works as both an advertisement and a warning.

            ~Rebecca
              • > You wat to be gay? Fine. Why do you have to announce that in a game where odds are you'll never even meet any of these people?
                1. heterosexual culture, especially among gamer geeks, has an amazing amount of innate homophobia. Everything bad in a game is "gay" this, or "fag" that. The article even says, the impetus to start a LGBT guild was because of the language in the game at large.
                2. rubbing it in everyone's face is not the same thing as just being yourself. People shouldn't have to pretend to be some
              • It is a game and if anyone thinks otherwise, I recommend blizzard doing something about that. People pay them for entertainment, not to be harrassed, bombarded, or in any way drug into the sludge of the normal day.

                Don't you see the hypocisy in your comment? You don't want to be harassed or bombarded. That's exactly what the GBLT guild wants - to escape from the harassment.

                How does them having a guild where they can play together "harass" you in any way? In contrast, they are the ones being harassed by all

      • Re:Maybe People Just Want to Play (Score:4, Interesting)

        by arkanes (521690) <arkanesNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Thursday April 13 2006, @03:42PM (#15124594) Homepage
        Your problem is that you fundamentally misunderstand the concept of a *multiplayer* game. It's not "escapist" any more than playing basketball down at the park is escapist, and "real life" issues are just as valid in WoW as they would be on a basketball court. Gay this and fag that is as annoying in WoW as nigger this and nigger that is at a park. If you want escapism, do it with either solo or with a carefully selected group of other people.

        Blizzard, by the way, (and this may change but I doubt it will) does not generally police channel speech, and GMs are incredibly slow to respond to even extremely outrageous actions. So "report people using the word gay" is hardly a reasonable answer. Actively attempting to create an environment that is more friendly is a totally acceptable reaction. I've belonged to a guild were were didn't allow trash talk or l33t speak on guild channel. Thats more or less the same thing as the guild in TFA was doing.

    • Re:Maybe People Just Want to Play (Score:4, Insightful)

      by AuMatar (183847) on Thursday April 13 2006, @03:00PM (#15124137)
      Yet at the same time there were plenty of Christian guilds that were not targeted.

      If they want to eliminate all guilds with messages from rl, thats fine. But they need to target everyone equally, not just certain ones.

    • Re:Maybe People Just Want to Play (Score:4, Insightful)

      by vertinox (846076) on Thursday April 13 2006, @04:11PM (#15124909)
      You don't always have the right to intrude your "message" into everyone else's consciousness.

      Actually, in public places they do. You know... First admentment and whatnot.

      But in private places like WoW... Well it is a matter of tresspassing.

      Think of it like this...

      Your invited to someone's house to play AD&D. During the game, one of the players keeps on going on a diatribe how the other player is oppressing his sexual orientation.

      You can of course say "You... You shut the hell up!" or ignore him, but he can go on and on as long as the owner of the house says he can. You as a guest of that house cannot remove the other person or force him to be silent. You can of course take your issue up with the house owner, but you do not have a single right or legal ability to make that other person be silent.

      So as long as the owner approves either with consent or non-action, the person making this activist diatribe has the right to implant his agenda into your mind via means of sounds and images (as long as those sounds and images are legal).

      You can of course always leave...

      However, if it was your house... Then you can remove the guy from your premises, but obviously none of us own the WoW servers.

      Even if it is a game, it is not your game. It is Blizzard's game and you have as much rights on their property as they say you do.

      If they let people do this to you, then either you need to ignore it, take it up with Blizzard, or quit.

    • You don't always have the right to intrude your "message" into everyone else's consciousness.

      Did you read TFA? Nobody's trying to "intrude" any "message", unless it's the person who tried to get the GLBT Guild banned. The only purpose of the guild was for people with similar interests to play together. I've never played this MMOG, but I assume that's the main reason people join guilds.

      People love to accuse gays of "activism" and "recruiting", when what they really mean is, "STFU, so I can pretend you d

      • Re:Maybe People Just Want to Play (Score:4, Insightful)

        by thebdj (768618) on Thursday April 13 2006, @03:14PM (#15124293) Journal
        Minorities that aren't gay maybe. These same people who claim tolerance do a 180 when it becomes a gay thing. And for each person who has some sign of carrying about minorities there are probably at least 2 (well maybe 1.5) people who have no care at all. Racism and bigotry are alive and well in America, it just has taken on some new names and new victims.
      • Would you advocate for a public space where people can say "nigger" all they want but complaining is strictly dissallowed?

        Actually, the word "nigger" IS used in public spaces with great frequency, in in a deeply pejorative sense--by African Americans urbanites. It's only NON-African-Americans who aren't allowed to use it.

        The whole "politics of language" is distorted and very illogical--the use typically reflects the agenda of the person in question.

        C.f. pretty much any film by Spike Lee.

            • The constitution is sorely lacking on this point. In my view, the 1st amendment should be extended to de-facto public places, such as malls, most online forums, and the likes. How exactly is society benefiting by having an abridged 1st amendment vs. an extended 1st amendment?

              The current set up is giving a few people who happen to have some strategically placed capital control a chunk of society. It's never been a good thing.

    • Re:They gave you your life back (Score:5, Funny)

      by Ohreally_factor (593551) on Thursday April 13 2006, @02:55PM (#15124074) Journal
      But they're still not free from their addiction to Gay Bacon Lettuce & Tomato sandwiches.

      • Re:They gave you your life back (Score:4, Insightful)

        by samkass (174571) on Thursday April 13 2006, @04:49PM (#15125251) Homepage Journal
        Sexual content has no place in this game.


        You've never seen a female night-elf dance, have you?

        • Re:::kicks troll back under bridge:: (Score:4, Interesting)

          by flyingsquid (813711) on Thursday April 13 2006, @05:02PM (#15125381)
          I really wonder about Blizzard though. I wasn't terrifically bothered by the lack of non-causasian humans in Warcraft III; after all the whole fantasy thing is sort of a modified version of medieval Europe, which was pretty white.

          But I thought that Starcraft verged on overt racism- the only black characters were the dumb, nose-picking, powerless SCV pilots- basically, the manual laborers. Everyone else is lily-white. Well, OK I think Duran from the expansion was black. And evil.

          I don't buy into the concept of political correctness, but I do think that the vision promoted by Starcraft- where there aren't any positive portrayals of non-white humans- was really a step backwards from the vision promoted by Star Trek, where you've got blacks and asians and whatnot serving as equals. It's disappointing that Blizzard seems to be so backwards looking and narrow-minded in the fantasy worlds it creates.

        • From what my friend told me they are rather strict on offensive language.

          My friend's son, was apparently using the term "gay" inappropriately. So he was reported and warned. Happened again and maybe a third time? BAN! Account terminated just like that.

          Now there were some other things that happened too.

          Too bad his son was bright enough to remove the warning messages before his father read them.

          None the less, he learned a very valuable lesson: No matter how angry you get, if you talk trash in an inappropriate
    • If I want to sit around in my home, my restaurant, or my office

      Your home is private property, but when you open your restaurant to the public, it becomes a 'public accomodation', and is not private property. This was an issue with a case against the Boy Scouts of America. They were sued because they discriminate against homosexuals. The courts ruled that the Boy Scouts were a private club, not a public accomodation, and that they were free to discriminate.

      Some bars and restautants are also run as private clubs (playboy clubs (defunct), bottle clubs, etc). Most are public accomodations, with restricted 'property rights'.

      Also, if you hire a person to work in your business, you are bound by labor laws. This includes not creating a 'hostile work environment' and other EEOC restrictions. If you don't like it, don't hire people in America.

    • Re:Private Property rights exist in virtual worlds (Score:5, Insightful)

      by _RidG_ (603552) on Thursday April 13 2006, @03:06PM (#15124215)
      I firmly believe that the ability to speak is a protected right directly protected by the right to personal property. I don't believe we need a government to protect our right to speech on our own land.

      Control over property does not give you absolute right of speech within its borders. To pull out the old Supreme Court analogy, by your logic, if you owned a theater, that would give you permission to attend a crowded performance, yell "Fire!" and watch the havoc unfold. That is absolutely ridiculous.

      I also believe we can censor whoever we want, as long as we're on our own land.

      Sure thing. I'll throw out another analogy. You are a restaurant owner who happens to actively dislike black people. You own the restaurant, and it is your "own land." Does it follow that you can "censor" - e.g., deny access, refuse service, etc. - black people from going to your restaurant? (Hint - read the 1964 Civil Rights Act.)

      I'm not anti-gay, anti-lesbian, anti-transgendered, but I am pro-freedom.

      Please understand that you being pro-freedom necessarily implies that other people have the right to enjoy their freedoms as well, such as freedom from your asshatted bigotry.

    • Re:Private Property rights exist in virtual worlds (Score:5, Insightful)

      by kisrael (134664) on Thursday April 13 2006, @03:07PM (#15124222) Homepage
      Now the GLBT folks are mad because they created their own private property, and the "big government" in the game said NO. This is even funnier now because the group that has historically been known to work against individual rights is now being hampered by their own policies.

      Err, it's not that funny. I think for as much as they've "historically been known to work against individual rights" they've been more known to be working FOR individual rights, namely, that no one from "big government" to anyone else should dictate who they fall in love with or what kind of sex they choose to have and with whom.

      Seriously, the person who complained about a guild listing itself as "GLBT-friendly" was being a total ass, and the complaint have been treated accordingly. These guys weren't looking to ban players who casually throw around term "that's so gay", just trying to politely and fairly discretely advertise their group in a coded language to other people who might feel likewise.

    • Re:This story is so gay (Score:5, Insightful)

      by hanako (935790) on Thursday April 13 2006, @03:01PM (#15124156) Homepage
      .... wait, how is having my own little gay club that you don't have to join 'forcing my gay agenda on you'?

      • Re:This story is so gay (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Chris Burke (6130) on Thursday April 13 2006, @04:37PM (#15125143) Homepage
        Well, presumeably part of the "gay agenda" is to not have to hide one's identity, and instead to be accepted, as gay, as a full first-class member of society.

        So by proclaiming that one is gay, and by advertising for a gay guild without being censored by the authorities, you have "forced" people to consider the fact that people playing the game may actually be gay, and that they have the same rights to speech and to association as all other citizens.

        That's the logic, such as it is.

        All these people keep saying they don't want to hear about it, because they don't care. This is nonsense, they obviously care very much or they'd let it be, instead of feeling like you are imposing on them merely by declaring your existence. What they really mean is that they don't want to hear anything about gay people, so they can pretend everyone is straight. This is why having your own little gay club offends them -- they can no longer pretend that people in that guild are straight, and you have "forced" them to realize that they are sharing a game server with a homosexual.

        It's as lame an answer as saying that it's the GLBT groups who brough sexual preference into the game in the first place. No, it's the people using "faggot" as their pejorative of choice that brought the issue of homophobia into the game. A GLBT group is just an attempt to escape from this environment. It's as ludicrous as blaming a black person for bringing race issues into the game when he complains that everyone is tossing "nigger" around with reckless abandon.

        Oh, but of course racism is frowned upon by mainstream society, and thus spewing "lol u nigger" would be frowned upon. It's still socially acceptable to be a homophobe, so "i hate teh gheys" is fine, everyday speech and "hey I'm gay that offends me" is bringing up issues that don't belong in the game.

    • Re:This story is so gay (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Mistshadow2k4 (748958) on Thursday April 13 2006, @03:59PM (#15124788) Journal

      What, exactly, is the "gay agenda" again? I keep forgetting. Wasn't it something about not being treated as second-class citizens for being gay? Yes, they have absolutely no right to insist that we treat like human beings. Or do you mean another agenda, like their plot to take over the world and force all the rest of us to be gay too?

      Married het female, if you're wondering. I'm wondering how a comment about with the words gay agenda got modded up. That smacks of anti-gay paranoia.

        • Is it to get more men to be homosexual or find and support the boys who already are that way? I know plenty of gay guys who are happy to support confused/bullied young homosexuals, but I have never known or heard of any gay people trying to "recruit" straights. All of the gay guys (and girls, for that matter) that I know seem to hold the belief that if they can't even convince themselves to be straight, the odds of them convincing somebody else to spontaneously become gay are vanishingly slim.

          Well, I s

        • Re:This story is so gay (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Guano_Jim (157555) on Thursday April 13 2006, @03:18PM (#15124357)
          I think it's just people manufacturing a perceived controversy because they see things one way, and everyone else doesn't give two shits.

          Perhaps it's because everyone else won't get beaten to death and chained to a fencepost, and then have their funeral picketed by lunatics [wikipedia.org] just for being who they are.

          Maybe that's why they see this as controversial.

        • It's much like the slashdot crowd's uproar against the media each time they misuse the term "hacker" to mean "someone who writes viruses and breaks into computers and sells stolen data on the black market". No, it doesn't mean they're explicitly equating people who enjoy coding all night long, or making something do a useful thing it wasn't meant to... They're writing out of ignorance, and it's messed up as eventually that link is reenforced by virtue of the same term being used.

          For any of you reading this
          • Well, the article says that "everything" in WOW is apparently gay. So I'd say that there's an overwhelming majority of people using it and not caring, because I can virtually guarantee you that almost none of those references are actually meant in a derogatory-to-homosexuals connotation. Unless you know, PrinceWanksALot getting an epic mount before CharlizeTheronIsHot is in actuality a homosexual thing.
            Nice try though.
      • Keep your politics, religion, sexual orientation, etc out of the game and play to have fun dammit. I just cannot see basing a guild off of things like that. I joined a guild receantly and they never asked any questions about any thigns like that. What thye wanted to know was if I was a good player, if I liked PvP, and so on. They don't really care who I want to have sex with when I'm not playing, that's my concern.

        So ya, Christian, Atheist, Gay, Lesbian, Republican, Democrat, White, Asian, and so on guilds
      • But lets say that they form a "Gay" guild... and I attack them (I don't play MMOs, but if I did, I would like to attack people because I think player vs. player competition is a lot of fun).

        Now I have to worry about being called a homophobe or something like that, because I am having fun doing what I like (attacking other players). Could they even charge me with a hate crime, because after all, I am "simulating violence" against a "Gay" group, and could that be interpreted as an endorcement of violence agai

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