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Gay Guild Recruitment Disallowed From WoW?

Posted by Zonk on Fri Jan 27, '06 01:37 PM
from the double-standard dept.
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.'"

Related Stories

[+] 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.'
[+] Sanitizing Expression In Virtual Worlds 516 comments
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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  • Okey dokey

    (Score:5, Funny)
    by voice_of_all_reason (926702) on Friday January 27, @01:38PM (#14581077)
    This cannot possibly backfire in any conceivably way.

    Way to go, clowns!
    • Re:Okey dokey

      (Score:4, Insightful)
      by TikiTDO (759782) on Friday January 27, @01:56PM (#14581394)
      Actually they are really acting within the best interest of most of the people involved. If you go out of your way to create a 'GLBT' guild and advertise it for all to see, then you, and your guild members are certain to become prime target for the rest of the server that are not quite as ok with the alternate sexuality as the guild members.

      I'm sure if such a person wanted to create a 'GLBT' guild they could go to one of those forums mentioned in TFA and announce it there, having the effect of reaching a large fraction of the people they wanted to reach while keeping those who have no business with it out. Anything else is just asking for pure grief from the vast majority of the community.

      When you consider how many players blizzard may have lost had such a guild come to exist, became publicized, then had all of the members harassed versus the few they will lose over this announcement you should see where I'm coming from.
      [ Parent ]
      • Re:Okey dokey by voice_of_all_reason (Score:2) Friday January 27, @02:10PM
      • Re:Okey dokey by SatanicPuppy (Score:3) Friday January 27, @02:13PM
        • Re:Okey dokey

          (Score:5, Insightful)
          by pomo monster (873962) on Friday January 27, @02:36PM (#14581952)
          Hmm... maybe I misinterpreted you, but it sounds like you're agreeing that if there's a problem here, it's not with the folks who want to start an LGBT--it's the puerile kids who haven't yet learned how to function in society. So the question is: why is Blizzard supporting the latter instead of the former? I'm guessing because there's a lot more of the latter, and a lot more, to Blizzard, means a lot more money.
          [ Parent ]
          • Re:Okey dokey

            (Score:5, Interesting)
            by tsm_sf (545316) * on Friday January 27, @03:15PM (#14582401)
            (Last Journal: Thursday August 05, @10:39PM)
            Blizzard has a LONG history of turning a blind eye to assholes and jerks, simply because they're a large portion of their fan base. Every time I reload Diablo 2 I'm reminded of why I remove it; "oh yes, I'm surrounded by scum".

            I'm just not sure that there's as much mischief to be made out of this as Blizzard seems to think. What are they going to do, call them fags? Oh noooo.

            Braxor begins to cast Bruised Feelings.
            [ Parent ]
            • Re:Okey dokey by Jace of Fuse! (Score:3) Friday January 27, @08:21PM
            • Re:Okey dokey by Tessmage (Score:1) Wednesday February 01, @02:52AM
          • Re:Okey dokey

            (Score:5, Insightful)
            by Kadin2048 (468275) <kadin2048@m[ ]com ['ac.' in gap]> on Friday January 27, @03:32PM (#14582600)
            (Last Journal: Tuesday November 21, @08:40AM)
            I'm guessing because there's a lot more of the latter, and a lot more, to Blizzard, means a lot more money.

            Yeah, pretty much.

            I think Blizzard is also taking the "don't make waves" style of law enforcement. That is, a certain amount of antisocial behavior is allowed, as long as it doesn't rock the boat, so to speak. And conversely, your right to say whatever you want is going to be conditional that it doesn't cause a problem in their pretty little world.

            WoW is a lot like Disneyland. It's a part of the real world, and yet it's not. It's all quite fake and intended to create the an illusion (in Disneyland, an idyllic place to take the kids; in WoW a world where you can take on an alternate persona and hack at people with swords) which people pay for the priviledge of experiencing. The Disney folks are probably not going to let you burn the American flag in front of EPCOT Center -- even though it may be your right to do somewhere else -- because a whole lot of other people who are paying to be there don't want to see it. Likewise, Blizzard isn't going to let you set up a GLBT guild, because a lot of other customers would dislike it. (And I suspect they have a fear of being portrayed as a place for perverts in the Conservative media, which could cost them a lot of customers; there are still a lot of people for whom "gay" is synomous with "pervert" or "pedophile," especially in regards to interaction with their children.)

            I admit, it's not very fair. However, WoW is essentially a private playground, and they can do what they like in there. Anyone who doesn't like the rules can take their membership fee and go home.
            [ Parent ]
            • Re:Okey dokey by Rei (Score:2) Friday January 27, @03:56PM
              • Re:Okey dokey by Kadin2048 (Score:2) Saturday January 28, @07:51PM
            • Re:Okey dokey by Voyager640 (Score:1) Monday January 30, @02:05PM
              • Re:Okey dokey by Original Replica (Score:1) Friday February 03, @08:12PM
            • Re:Okey dokey by Frank T. Lofaro Jr. (Score:2) Friday February 03, @05:44PM
              • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
            • 2 replies beneath your current threshold.
          • Re:Okey dokey by GmAz (Score:1) Friday January 27, @03:50PM
            • Re:Okey dokey by iowannaski (Score:1) Friday January 27, @10:10PM
            • Re:Okey dokey by rvalles (Score:1) Friday January 27, @11:53PM
              • Re:Okey dokey by DeadChobi (Score:1) Saturday January 28, @11:38AM
              • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
          • Re:Okey dokey by vertinox (Score:2) Friday January 27, @05:46PM
          • Re:Okey dokey

            (Score:5, Insightful)
            by pomo monster (873962) on Friday January 27, @03:23PM (#14582489)
            And if you were principal of a middle school, you'd ban LBGT student groups for the same reason--their existence invites harassment and denigration from the rest of the student body, causing more problems than there would otherwise be. Even though it'd all be the fault of other students, not the LGBTs.

            I hope that's not actually what you would do as principal. And I hope that's not what you'd do as Blizzard's CEO, even though I can understand why you would.
            [ Parent ]
            • Re:Okey dokey by The Snowman (Score:2) Friday January 27, @06:20PM
              • Re:Okey dokey by iowannaski (Score:1) Friday January 27, @09:57PM
              • Re:Okey dokey by laughingcoyote (Score:2) Friday February 03, @07:12PM
                • Re:Okey dokey by alzoron (Score:2) Saturday February 04, @07:41AM
                  • Re:Okey dokey by laughingcoyote (Score:2) Sunday February 05, @12:44AM
                • Re:Okey dokey by laughingcoyote (Score:2) Friday February 03, @10:25PM
                • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
            • Re:Okey dokey by moosesocks (Score:2) Saturday January 28, @01:56AM
            • Re:Okey dokey by ralatalo (Score:1) Saturday January 28, @04:01AM
            • Re:Okey dokey by magefile (Score:2) Sunday January 29, @08:50PM
            • 2 replies beneath your current threshold.
          • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
        • Re:Okey dokey by snwcrash (Score:3) Friday January 27, @02:40PM
        • Re:Okey dokey by BloodAngel_Au (Score:1) Friday January 27, @09:08PM
      • Yes, this really is silly. by stephenslashdot (Score:1) Friday January 27, @02:42PM
        • GBLT? by RoadDoggFL (Score:3) Friday January 27, @03:08PM
          • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
      • Re:Okey dokey

        (Score:5, Interesting)
        by Onan (25162) on Friday January 27, @02:51PM (#14582121)
        Actually they are really acting within the best interest of most of the people involved. If you go out of your way to create a 'GLBT' guild and advertise it for all to see, then you, and your guild members are certain to become prime target for the rest of the server that are not quite as ok with the alternate sexuality as the guild members.
        How kind of them to have our best interests in mind. I wonder if they extend the same courtesy toward black players, banning them for disclosing their race in order to protect them from racists?
        [ Parent ]
        • Re:Okey dokey

          (Score:5, Interesting)
          by Rei (128717) on Friday January 27, @04:00PM (#14582886)
          (http://www.cursor.org/)
          That's actually a good standard to apply. One should look at something that they're doing considering GLBT people and replace the word "gay" with "black", "homosexual" with "african-american", "gay culture" with "hip-hop culture", etc, and see if what you're stating sounds horribly racist. If it does, don't do it.
          [ Parent ]
          • Re:Okey dokey

            (Score:5, Interesting)
            by Rei (128717) on Friday January 27, @04:15PM (#14583073)
            (http://www.cursor.org/)
            To apply this in more detail, I've "translated" part of the article.

            Original poster: OZ [the name of her guild] is recruiting all levels. We are not 'Non-caucasian only,' but we are 'Multicultural'!

            Blizzard: While we appreciate and understand your point of view, we feel that the advertisement of a "non-caucasian" 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 Racial Discrimination 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 "non-caucasian" 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."

            Gamer John Blatzheim, who heard of Andrews' situation, e-mailed Blizzard to express his concern of a double standard that game masters would send her a warning that she could not use "non-caucasian" as an advertisement to express a safe place for black gamers after an incident a few months ago where a drive-by occurred within the game and players yelled in general chat, "Don't trust the n******!"

            "Many people are insulted just at the word 'African-American' or any other word referring to race," Blizzard responded to Blatzheim in an e-mail. "Also to discriminate against other players, such as not allowing any caucasians into the guild simply because of their race, could cause extreme offense to a large percentage of our players and should be avoided."

            MLK Champions and The Spreading Pride, two large black guilds are currently formulating a letter they plan to submit to Blizzard requesting a more detailed explanation as to the intent of this reinterpretation and execution of the racial discrimination rule. As the spirit of the discrimination rule seems to have been reinterpreted from protecting non-caucasian players, to keeping them silent.

            There are various types of servers that players can experience the game on. One of the options is to play on a role-playing server where players actually play as their characters, rather than through their characters. "We have determined that advertising race is not appropriate for the high fantasy setting of the World of Warcraft and is therefore not permitted" was another of Blizzard's responses. Does this mean that if a player has a character on a role-playing server that they play as black that would be violating the policy?
            [ Parent ]
          • Re:Okey dokey by relentless1914 (Score:1) Friday January 27, @06:38PM
            • Re:Okey dokey by Onan (Score:2) Friday January 27, @08:06PM
            • Re:Okey dokey by geminidomino (Score:2) Sunday January 29, @07:13AM
              • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
          • Re:Okey dokey by Fulcrum of Evil (Score:2) Sunday January 29, @10:15PM
            • Re:Okey dokey by Grab (Score:2) Tuesday January 31, @01:18PM
              • Re:Okey dokey by Fulcrum of Evil (Score:2) Tuesday January 31, @02:17PM
          • 3 replies beneath your current threshold.
      • Re:Okey dokey by Monkeyboy4 (Score:2) Friday January 27, @07:07PM
  • Seems Standart

    (Score:3, Insightful)
    From what I have read, Blizzard is pretty tight on what sort of character names, etc that they allow. The decision in the article seems to be consistent with their in-game policies.
  • Blizzard is right

    (Score:3, Insightful)
    by A beautiful mind (821714) on Friday January 27, @01:42PM (#14581133)
    WoW is a fantasy world and they just want to take the issues of contemporarly life out of it.

    It's not like a gay couldn't play WoW, as I'm sure thousands of gay people do play, but rather that recruiting people to a gay guild is adding unnecessary tension. It's like naming a guild "republican lovers" and trying to recruit people in to that kind of guild. I'm sure many people would dislike that too and I'm almost certain Blizzard would act similarly.
    • Re:Blizzard is right

      (Score:4, Insightful)
      by duerra (684053) * on Friday January 27, @01:53PM (#14581330)
      (http://lyrictalk.net/)
      It's not like a gay couldn't play WoW, as I'm sure thousands of gay people do play, but rather that recruiting people to a gay guild is adding unnecessary tension. It's like naming a guild "republican lovers" and trying to recruit people in to that kind of guild. I'm sure many people would dislike that too and I'm almost certain Blizzard would act similarly.

      And what is wrong with either? I understand where they are coming from, but at the same time, if I am playing a game that takes advantage of teamwork, the best bet is to try and get players around you that have similar ideals, passions, ways of thinking, etc. This provides an opportunity for players to form deep-seeded friendships, which online games do for a lot of people. If my passion is being a Republican (or Democrat, or snowboarder, or whatever), then I don't see why I should be disallowed from forming a group of players together that have these similar passions when I am clearly not doing so out of malicious intent.
      [ Parent ]
    • Re:Blizzard is right by DeepCerulean (Score:2) Friday January 27, @01:58PM
    • From TFA:

      Sara Andrews has stated that she will not be renewing her World of Warcraft account due to Blizzards lack of support for a GLBT friendly environment, "It seems to be OK for general chat to be flooded with, 'That's so gay!' and 'I just got ganked! What a fag!' yet advertising for a GLBT friendly environment where we don't have to deal with such language is deemed inappropriate."

      ---

      But I don't see any links about "Damn republicans! Stupid GOPs!" or anything like that. If done right it can be a positive thing, and people see that there are gay gamers [gaymer.org] out there. A thing more rare than women it seems. It doesn't have to be an isuse, it can be a positive thing. Instead of grouping with a bunch of people who just yell anti gay slurs and being a closet-case-ork.

      The problem is the society, you can't take the issues of contemporary life out completely, and it never hurts to group up with similar people so you don't have to worry about those issues either.

      What blizzard has done has simply left those issues in.
      [ Parent ]
      • Re:Blizzard is right by SatanicPuppy (Score:3) Friday January 27, @02:21PM
        • Re:Blizzard is right by bahwi (Score:3) Friday January 27, @02:50PM
        • Re:Blizzard is right

          (Score:5, Insightful)
          by Onan (25162) on Friday January 27, @02:59PM (#14582221)
          So because an offensive act is accepted within a given subculture, we should always just sit back and accept it?

          My understanding is that slaveholding was pretty universally accepted in the antebellum South. Does that mean that everyone should've just gotten over that and waited for the fad to change on its own?

          (No, I'm not claiming that calling someone a fag is the same scale of badness as holding them in lifelong servitude. But I'm pointing out that societal acceptance is a crappy sole standard for the condoning of oppressive discrimination.)

          [ Parent ]
        • Re:Blizzard is right

          (Score:5, Insightful)
          by Peganthyrus (713645) on Friday January 27, @03:47PM (#14582756)
          (http://egypt.urnash.com/)
          "Gay" and "Fag" are common parlance of annoyance and insult with the younger set.

          Yeah, and it makes people who are gay really uncomfortable to have those words thrown around as insults. It's hard enough to come out in the first place; I can't imagine what it would be like to come out if everyone I knew was clearly hostile to my sexuality because they used those words as insults all the time.

          What's your ethnicity, what's your kink? Search and replace "gay" and 'fag" and so on with "wop" or "kike" or "Jap" or "nigger" or whatever term is instant fighting words, when applied to you. Looks like a pretty hostile environment, doesn't it?

          I've actually gotten younger people I know to stop saying "That's so gay" when they mean "that's stupid" by pointing out that, hey, I'm gay, and it hurts every time they do that.
          [ Parent ]
      • Re:Blizzard is right by blunte (Score:3) Friday January 27, @03:47PM
      • Re:Blizzard is right by Epi-man (Score:3) Friday January 27, @04:16PM
      • Re:Blizzard is right by twoallbeefpatties (Score:2) Friday January 27, @04:24PM
      • Re:Blizzard is right by CmdrTookah (Score:1) Friday January 27, @06:04PM
      • Re:Blizzard is right by dbIII (Score:2) Saturday January 28, @07:21PM
      • 2 replies beneath your current threshold.
    • Re:Blizzard is right by LiENUS (Score:1) Friday January 27, @02:01PM
    • Re:Blizzard is right by AuMatar (Score:2) Friday January 27, @02:14PM
    • Re:Blizzard is right by Gulthek (Score:2) Friday January 27, @02:23PM
    • Bad Analogy

      (Score:5, Interesting)
      by Moth7 (699815) <mike.brownbill@dsl.pipex.com> on Friday January 27, @02:29PM (#14581872)
      (Last Journal: Saturday January 10, @08:01AM)
      There's nothing wrong with a gay guild from the perspective of total in-game immersion. Homosexuality is not something artificially created by contemporary society - it will exist in any environment where humans, and indeed other species, are present. There's no republican gene that would cause an elf to magically align his or her self to what is, compared to the number of possible outlooks on life, a relatively narrow band of thinking. However, where nature can only incline you to be attracted to one gender or a combination of the two, then probability says it is definitely going to happen.

      Take a mythology with 10 races, all of whom are loosely based on humans. In total, you're going to have as many gays over all as, for example, dwarves. Your argument appears to equate homosexuality (an inherent characteristic) with any of a number of artificially defined concepts, such as religion or political alignment. If it's ok to base a guild around in game concepts, say all those who worship some in game deity, why is it not acceptable to base a guild around concepts which exist both in game and in the real world? Would it be a violation of Blizzard policy to create a race of herbivores? I think not. Why then is it wrong to differentiate between (loosely paralelled) homosexuals (herbivores), bisexuals (omnivores) and heterosexuals (carnivores)? If anything, denying the existence of homosexuality within the world of warcraft reduces its verisimilitude and only serves to alienate people further.
      [ Parent ]
      • Re:Bad Analogy by jone_stone (Score:1) Friday January 27, @02:59PM
        • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
      • Except... by Moth7 (Score:2) Friday January 27, @02:57PM
        • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
      • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
    • Re:Blizzard is right

      (Score:5, Interesting)
      by Ptarmigan42 (927409) on Friday January 27, @03:11PM (#14582345)

      I totally disagree.

      The fact is that discrimination against GLTB people is fairly common in WoW. Usually when I'm confronted a person who gratuitously uses descriminatory language, I just tell them to knock it off, and I've had about a 50% success rate with this strategy. Some will apologize and tell you that they have several gay friends, and that they totally didn't mean it like that. Some will tell you about Sodom and Gomorrah and how 'that lifestyle' leads straight to hell, and while I find it quite hilarious that people actually believe that in this day and age, I can see how for some people it would get quite frustrating. Which is why a GLBT-friendly guild has a place on WoW - it would be a place where you can play the game and not have to deal with discriminatory fuckwits. It makes even more sense when you consider that, when you join a guild, you often don't know the GLBT-friendliness of your fellow guildees. And if you do find out subsequently that some of them (especially a guild leader) are not terribly enlightened, you face a tough decision about whether or not to stay with the guild (most of whom may be really good people). I've had this happen to me - I eventually quit, because the guild leader was one of the less enlightened folks. Joining a guild advertised as GLBT-friendly would alleviate all of these problems.

      [ Parent ]
    • Re:Blizzard is right by orangesquid (Score:3) Friday January 27, @03:28PM
      • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
    • Re:Blizzard is right by bombshelter13 (Score:1) Friday January 27, @09:45PM
    • Re:Blizzard is right by Tedium Unleased (Score:1) Saturday January 28, @07:50PM
    • WoW or WoE? by CheeseTroll (Score:2) Sunday January 29, @09:05PM
    • Re:Blizzard is right by penguin-collective (Score:2) Friday February 03, @05:50PM
    • Re:Blizzard is right by heinousjay (Score:1) Friday January 27, @04:31PM
    • 2 replies beneath your current threshold.
  • Good for Blizzard

    (Score:3, Insightful)
    by MustardMan (52102) on Friday January 27, @01:42PM (#14581149)
    Why should a guild be limited to GLBT? What if someone tried to make a "whites-only" guild? The whole POINT of an online game is that you can get away from your real self and become another persona - a person's sexual orientation, race, creed, color, or taste in music has exactly jack squat to do with the game or the game world.
  • Huh?

    (Score:5, Insightful)
    by Saige (53303) <evil.angelaNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Friday January 27, @01:43PM (#14581155)
    (http://slashdot.org/ | Last Journal: Monday June 05, @12:23AM)
    Let's see... because doing this MIGHT cause other players to harass and discriminate GLBT folks, Blizzard will head this all off by discriminating against GLBT folks.

    So now you're allowed to go around calling other people and things gay, but refer to yourself that way, and you're in trouble.

    Quality ideas here.
    • Re:Huh? by Muchacho_Gasolino (Score:2) Friday January 27, @01:49PM
      • Re:Huh? by hesiod (Score:2) Friday January 27, @02:21PM
        • Re:Huh? by SatanicPuppy (Score:2) Friday January 27, @02:26PM
        • Re:Huh? by theStorminMormon (Score:2) Friday January 27, @02:41PM
      • Re:Huh?

        (Score:4, Insightful)
        The way I see it, Blizzard isn't really discriminating against anyone.
        Blizzard has already been discriminating against people by failing to enforce their anti-sexual harrasment policy. As long as someone if free to hurl 'fag' or 'gay' as an insult in game, then Blizzard is fostering a hostile environment for GLBT players. And FTA, the person was recruiting for a GLBT friendly guild. That means it wasn't exclusionary except of course that you couldn't be hostile to GLBT people. You didn't have to be Gay to join the guild. You just had to think that using 'fag' as an epithet was wrong. Besides, Night Elves are very clear already gay.
        [ Parent ]
        • Re:Huh? by Rakarra (Score:2) Wednesday February 01, @03:12PM
    • Re:Huh? by kchrist (Score:1) Friday January 27, @01:49PM
    • The ONLY question by acvh (Score:3) Friday January 27, @01:50PM
    • Re:Huh?

      (Score:5, Insightful)
      by Godai (104143) * on Friday January 27, @01:56PM (#14581389)
      (http://www.baytor.com/)
      Actually, they're quite consistent. They don't allow the discussion of sexual orientation in any way. This is in keeping with their desire to maintain a 'family safe' environment.

      You wouldn't even be allowed to discuss whether Elton John is gay or not -- in fact, I know of a player who was suspended for 3 hours for doing so. Rightly or wrongly they've decided that rather than try to evaluate such discussion on a case by case basis they'd rather simply disallow discussion of the topic. This would include bannig discussion about whether or not Brad Pitt is straight so it's not discrimination.

      Thus, it'd be hard to recruit for a GLBT guild without discussiong policy-banned topics. In the end, it's their game, it's their policy, and if someone is playing, they've agreed agreed to it. If someone doesn't like it, they're always free to not pay them to play.
      [ Parent ]
      • Re:Huh? by TheCarp (Score:2) Friday January 27, @02:11PM
        • Re:Huh? by Zanth_ (Score:1) Friday January 27, @02:26PM
          • Re:Huh? by TheCarp (Score:2) Friday January 27, @03:46PM
          • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
        • Re:Huh? by dunkelfalke (Score:2) Friday January 27, @02:46PM
        • Re:Huh?

          (Score:5, Insightful)
          Why form a guild of GLBTs when GLBT has no meaning inside the game at all?
          Are you for serious? Do you really think people don't talk about sexuality at all on WoW? They don't talk about their boyfriends & girlfriends & what they think is attractive? People don't make friends on WoW? They don't use sexuality based slurs?

          Sure, I know what's prohibited, but that's irrelevant. It happens just the same.

          So if roles were reversed, 98% of WoW users were gay, and slurs against straight people were common on WoW, and I actually hoped to meet other people on WoW with whom I might become friends with (and, you know, maybe date), then I can totally imagine joining a guild for straight people. How is this not obvious? You sound like you've intentionally deluded yourself (and you sound a little like all the idiot homophobes up in this discussion).
          [ Parent ]
          • Re:Huh? by TheCarp (Score:2) Friday January 27, @03:32PM
            • Re:Huh? by Elwood P Dowd (Score:2) Friday January 27, @04:50PM
              • Re:Huh? by TheCarp (Score:2) Saturday January 28, @12:36PM
            • Re:Huh? by pomo monster (Score:3) Friday January 27, @07:10PM
              • Re:Huh? by TheCarp (Score:2) Saturday January 28, @01:43PM
              • Re:Huh? by Elwood P Dowd (Score:2) Thursday February 02, @12:35AM
              • Re:Huh? by TheCarp (Score:2) Friday February 10, @10:35AM
              • Re:Huh? by Elwood P Dowd (Score:2) Friday February 10, @10:57AM
            • Or this... by pomo monster (Score:2) Friday January 27, @07:28PM
            • Re:Huh? by drinkypoo (Score:2) Monday January 30, @05:02PM
          • Re:Huh? by thesandtiger (Score:3) Friday January 27, @04:52PM
            • Re:Huh? by Harinezumi (Score:1) Saturday January 28, @10:47AM
          • Re:Huh? by TheCarp (Score:2) Friday January 27, @04:05PM
          • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
        • Re:Huh? by Muchacho_Gasolino (Score:1) Friday January 27, @02:46PM
        • Re:Huh?

          (Score:4, Insightful)
          by metamatic (202216) on Friday January 27, @03:13PM (#14582363)
          (http://www.pobox.com/~meta/ | Last Journal: Sunday February 29, @09:19AM)
          Why is it so important to tell everyone and organize around it.

          The point is to organize a guild so you can enjoy the game without having bigots call you a fag all the time. That's exactly the behavior that keeps me away from online gaming.

          [ Parent ]
          • Re:Huh? by mabu (Score:2) Friday January 27, @03:25PM
            • Re:Huh? by TheCarp (Score:2) Friday January 27, @04:00PM
        • Re:Huh? by slavemowgli (Score:2) Friday January 27, @04:51PM
        • Re:Huh? by naubol (Score:2) Friday January 27, @05:25PM
          • Re:Huh? by TheCarp (Score:2) Saturday January 28, @12:18PM
        • Re:Huh?

          (Score:5, Insightful)

          I strongly disagree. This is just like the military's don't ask, don't tell policy, and it stinks. Why is it not okay to be yourself on WoW? I was just reading an article about this, it's called "covering". You can come out of the closet maybe, but then you have to "cover" up your real self. One of the examples was, your family will invite your (the theoretical third-party homosexual is "you" in this case) lifemate to christmas, but don't kiss under the mistletoe like a "normal" couple. You can play WoW, but you'd better not let anyone know you're gay. What's the difference? Nothing. It's still sexual discrimination and it's utterly inappropriate.

          Now, maybe they have the right to discriminate against homosexuals on a MMOG, I'm not sure how the law would be applied if it would be at all, but it's still discrimination, and it makes me ill. I'm not playing WoW just because I don't want to, but if I had wanted to, I'd certainly skip it now.

          [ Parent ]
          • Re:Huh? by Muchacho_Gasolino (Score:1) Friday January 27, @07:54PM
            • Re:Huh? by drinkypoo (Score:2) Monday January 30, @12:24PM
        • Re:Huh? by daVinci1980 (Score:2) Monday January 30, @10:24AM
          • Re:Huh? by TheCarp (Score:2) Friday February 10, @11:51AM
        • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
      • Re:Huh? by Onan (Score:2) Friday January 27, @04:33PM
      • Re:Huh? by flink (Score:2) Friday January 27, @06:50PM
        • Re:Huh? by Godai (Score:2) Monday January 30, @09:31AM
      • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
    • Re:Huh?

      (Score:5, Insightful)
      by keyne9 (567528) on Friday January 27, @01:56PM (#14581390)
      Blizzard will head this all off by discriminating against GLBT folks. So now you're allowed to go around calling other people and things gay, but refer to yourself that way, and you're in trouble.


      Uh, no. They're saying it isn't a good idea to form such a guild, as it promotes a lot of hate-mongering. Additionally, if you'd read the blurb at all, you'd know that calling people "gay" or any derivative can result in suspension (rather than a warning).

      Read & comprehend.
      [ Parent ]
      • Re:Huh? by pomo monster (Score:2) Friday January 27, @02:28PM
        • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
      • Re:Huh? by tnakilper (Score:2) Friday January 27, @03:12PM
      • 2 replies beneath your current threshold.
    • They shut down obviously religious ones too by Shivetya (Score:2) Friday January 27, @03:05PM
    • Re:WTF GLBT ? by snuf23 (Score:2) Friday January 27, @06:15PM
      • Re:WTF GLBT ? by Dr. A. van Code (Score:1) Saturday January 28, @04:58AM
    • Re:Huh? by magefile (Score:2) Sunday January 29, @09:07PM
    • 2 replies beneath your current threshold.
  • GLBT?

    (Score:1)
    by JaredOfEuropa (526365) on Friday January 27, @01:43PM (#14581157)
    (Last Journal: Saturday January 31, @05:25PM)
    So what does that even mean?

    Ultima Online still has them beat with a practising S&M guild
    • Re:GLBT? by DeepCerulean (Score:1) Friday January 27, @02:04PM
    • Re:GLBT?

      (Score:5, Informative)
      by gclef (96311) on Friday January 27, @02:07PM (#14581560)
      Gay
      Lesbian
      Bisexual
      Transgender

      [ Parent ]
      • Censorship Discrimiation by Accipitradea (Score:1) Friday January 27, @03:06PM
      • Re:GLBT? by Kadmos (Score:1) Friday January 27, @07:50PM
        • Re:GLBT? by Alsee (Score:2) Friday January 27, @11:48PM
        • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
      • Re:GLBT? by GeekyMike (Score:1) Friday January 27, @10:42PM
    • Re:GLBT? by tdvaughan (Score:2) Friday January 27, @03:57PM
    • Re:GLBT? by eyepeepackets (Score:2) Friday January 27, @04:40PM
    • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
  • GLBT

    (Score:5, Funny)
    by Alioth (221270) <dyls@alioth.net> on Friday January 27, @01:47PM (#14581221)
    (http://www.alioth.net/ | Last Journal: Wednesday November 29, @07:24PM)
    I wish they could come up with a better acronym. I always read it as "Gilbert", which probably isn't the intention.
    • Re:GLBT by miyako (Score:2) Friday January 27, @02:12PM
    • Re:GLBT by TWooster (Score:1) Friday January 27, @02:21PM
      • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
    • Re:GLBT by moosesocks (Score:2) Friday January 27, @02:42PM
    • Re:GLBT by rsynnott (Score:1) Saturday February 04, @10:11PM
    • 3 replies beneath your current threshold.
  • Question

    (Score:1, Insightful)
    by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 27, @01:50PM (#14581283)

    Can straight people join it? If no, then it's discriminatory. If yes, then there's no point to it.

    I really don't see the point of a guild like this. Sure, clubs like this at Uni are a good idea, but why should your orientation be brought into a game that has nothing to do with sex?

    • Re:Question by pclminion (Score:2) Friday January 27, @01:56PM
      • Re:Question by virg_mattes (Score:2) Monday February 06, @11:56AM
      • 2 replies beneath your current threshold.
    • Re:Question

      (Score:5, Insightful)
      by voice_of_all_reason (926702) on Friday January 27, @01:57PM (#14581398)
      why should your orientation be brought into a game that has nothing to do with sex?

      Take a look at the promotional art for any female character in the history of fantasy and tell me that's not true :)