Gay Guild Recruitment Disallowed From WoW?

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.'"

Okey dokey

This cannot possibly backfire in any conceivably way.

Way to go, clowns!

Re:Okey dokey

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.

Re:Okey dokey

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.

Re:Okey dokey

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.

Re:Okey dokey

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.

Re:Okey dokey

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.

Re:Okey dokey

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?

Re:Okey dokey

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.

Re:Okey dokey

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?

Yeah I agree..... NOT

Sure you can be a jew, just don't look like one okay. Because if you do well it is going to be trouble. Don't dress like muslim either. We can't be held responsible if you get lynched and you catholics better keep that cross under your clothing.

Oh and gays, no walking hand in hand, that might upset people. White and blacks kissing in public, no sorry, could lead to scenes.

What you suggest is a very slippery slope. You are giving in to the haters. How far are you prepared to give in? What race/religion/orientation can be told to keep quit before you will say enough? Or will you only cry out when it is you who is being told to behave.

No this stuff makes me sick. People like you in my eyes are worse then the open haters, I rather deal with ten neo-nazi's then with one person who says to not upset them.

Seems Standart

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

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

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.

Re:Blizzard is right

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.

Re:Blizzard is right

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.)

Re:Blizzard is right

"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.

Bad Analogy

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.

Re:Blizzard is right

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.

Good for Blizzard

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.

Re:Good for Blizzard

The whole POINT of an online game is that you can get away from your real self and become another persona...

So why can't this other persona be gay?

Re:Good for Blizzard

So deal with hate issues by, oh, I don't know... dealing directly with those who are doing the hating, perhaps? The end result here doesn't make sense. This person's GLBT-friendly guild isn't anti anything, nor are they starting their group with malicious intent.

By going on assumptions that a guild like that may lead to hate issues, they're not doing anything to remove the true negative elements from the game. Instead, Blizzard chooses to limit positive social interactivity between benevolent like-minded gamers.

And by the way, calling people "gay" or a "fag" online has nothing to do with breaking any kind of RL/game boundary. It's simply ignorance and hatred. (I've been called a "fag" many times online, and I'm not gay in RL.)

They allow...

Christian guilds, why should other communities be blocked.

Huh?

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?

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.

Re:Huh?

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.

Re:Huh?

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).

Re:Huh?

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.

Re:Huh?

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.

Re:Huh?

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.

GLBT?

So what does that even mean?

Ultima Online still has them beat with a practising S&M guild

Re:GLBT?

Gay
Lesbian
Bisexual
Transgender

GLBT

I wish they could come up with a better acronym. I always read it as "Gilbert", which probably isn't the intention.

Question

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

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 :)

backwards blame?

I may have something wrong here, but it seems as though the company is blaming the gay player for harassment that might come from other players. That would be like banning women from playing so that men don't harass them. It seems pretty backwards to me.

What I am curious about is

Individuals fight for Gay Rights. They fight for equal opportunities. They fight to be recognised as equals. Then they form a guild to spotlight the fact that they are different than the common society.

If you don't want to stand out in a crowd, don't call attention to yourself. There should never have been a guild in WoW that was allowed to recruit based on sexual preference. It is only a target for harassment.

Otoh, I can see how Blizzard has an express interest in keeping this sort of thing from happening. After all, the more accounts they have to ban for harassment, the less residual income they make. Although with their current numbers, tossing a few bad apples from the bunch wouldn't even make a dent.

Re:What I am curious about is

Individuals fight for Gay Rights. They fight for equal opportunities. They fight to be recognised as equals. Then they form a guild to spotlight the fact that they are different than the common society.

No. Would some of you dense people read the fucking article? The guild was formed because WoW is rife with homophobic abuse. Yes, Blizzard has a policy against it but it is not enforced. And the guild is "GLBT Friendly" not "GLBT ONLY." What does GLBT Friendly mean? It means guild members can rest assured that they will not receive homophobic harassment from other guild members. It does not mean this is some sort of "gay sex club." Get a fucking grip.

Blizz owns WOW

They can do what they want with the game including make the rules, change the rules, and break the rules. Your options are limited to playing the game they way they want or not playing it. Accept it.

Many legitimate purposes for a GLBT guild!

A GLBT guild has many practical applications in WoW:

• Campaigning against Night Elves cybering in Ironforge.
• Fashion shows, modelling, and finding pirate outfits.
• Seeking out phallic landmarks.
• Offering support services for gnomes abused by priests.
• Paladins.
• /dance
• Parades through Stormwind

Two questions

I have two questions here.

1. What would you want Blizzard to do if a guild started publicly recruiting with a "straight people only" policy?
2. How is this any different?

Ratings

The game is rated Teen and not Mature. I imagine that the Teen rating limits the sexual content of the game, and blizzard's Terms of Service reflect that rating by also restricting people's ability to discuss sex and sexuality in game.

Ultimately it doesn't matter if your character is Gay/Straight. World of Warcraft is not supposed to be a game in which sex and sexuality is a defining aspect of a character. I wonder how you are supposed to recruit for a Gay/Lesbian guild while not being allowed to discuss sex in game?

Anyway, the "why?" is the Teen rating. Blizzard may need to work on the "how?" especially since they seem to be just pissing more people off with their current policy of "Don't ask, don't tell."

Simple.

I agree with Blizzard that this is merely consistent application of their policies.
Would GLBT people object if I said "I'm recruiting for a guild, we really only want heterosexuals pls, kthx." Of course they would.

Personally, I think that's wrong headed, but I'm a freedom-of-association type myself. If I want to have a guild for blue-eyed tall people into bestiality and reject anyone else, what would be wrong with that? But no, once the formulation becomes general enough, people nevertheless excluded from the generalization declare 'victim' status and call the lawyers...

My Two Cents

A reason I could see for taking exception to this is the specificity of their objection. I've seen 'all female' guilds, Hispanic guilds, Asian guilds, etc. recruiting in City chat, and as far as I know none of those folks have been warned.

I can understand why these folks would be annoyed; Blizzard is essentially saying that simply by mentioning their lifestyle they're inviting harassment. Ergo, they themselves are harassers. While your RL sexual preference has nothing to do with your ability to game, isn't everyone entitled to group with folks that share the same interests?

It's a tough question.

Complaint based system

Since I haven't seen this mentioned yet, Blizzard works off a complaint based system. That is, mods are not actively seeking out policy violations on the server. Players report players. Someone took exception to the recuitment message. You got griefed!

I read the second message as, "We messed up, but we are not totally backing down from our previous position." Company policy or uppity support tech? You decide.

When I write my dark futurepunk MMORPG...

I'm going to fill it full of gay bars, trannie bars, and the like. A core part of the game will be shopping in goth/punk/hellokitty type areas in order to equip your character with all the correct gear for their sexuality. Instead of Lawful-Neutral-Chaotic it'll have Straight-Bi-Gay-RichardSimmons... (yes, this is a joke). It'd get all the business that other games don't want.

I can understand Blizzard's POV - let's not bring these things into the game, it's a game, it's fantasy.

OTOH I can understand that some people might want to be with people who (external to the game) are like them. That's natural. It's like older gamers not wanting to play with punk 14 year olds with attitude problems.

Common Culture

I, for one, think Blizzard is completely off-base.

There's certainly Chinese guilds, French guilds, mature guilds, and 1337 guilds; why not a GBLT guild? Being GBLT isn't about primarily about sexuality, it's about gender roles and common culture. Just as geeks have sites like slashdot, GBLT persons have common forums, movies, and books with which they identify to create common cultural references.

Defined gender roles and attitudes toward them have an integral role in any cooperative community -- real or virtual -- and I believe that it's perfectly reasonable to use this set of common beliefs to form a guild.

(Note: I am not GBLT, but I am friends with quite a few)

"Don't ask. Don't tell." -- Blizzard

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.

That reminds me of a notice I received from the East Cracktown Police Department:

"While we appreciate and understand your point of view, we do feel that parking your bright red 2006 Ferrari F430 Spider is very likely to result in the theft or vandalism of a car that may not have occured otherwise. If you look at our local and state laws, you will notice the suggested penalty for parking bright red sports cars in seedy neigborhoods is to temporarily jail you. However, as you are just an arrogant, rich prick, this penalty has been reduced to parole and 1000 hours of community services."

Seriously though, this situation is ridiculous. Blizzard is punishing the wrong people here. Harassment of any player (gays, lesbians, straights, americans, canadians, jews, muslims, etc) should not be tolerated. Blizzard apparently has a "Don't ask, Don't tell" policy when it comes to diversity.

don't make an issue out of it

to me it sounds like this person is just trying to cause undue tension. we have a girl claiming to be lesbian, but no one makes a big deal out of it - mostly because she doesn't.

i'm not saying you need to join the ranks of the immature by yelling "fag" or "gay", but you don't have to wave your flag out in front of everyone.

i don't yell "bush sucks" even though that's what i think and make it known to those i meet in real life.

The Point

A lot of people miss the point. Thankfully, other slashdotters get it and have clarified the point in these comments. To me, it seems clear that Blizzard is trying to prevent people from fighting by preventing them from getting to know one another...but they're doing so inconsistently. "For your protection, we are not going to let you identify yourself as being gay." But not... "For your protection, we are not going to let you identify yourself as being xxxx." where xxxx is anything else that might make a person a target for harassment: Christian, Jewish, African-American, Muslim, French, female, etc. The guilds in question are not GLBT-exclusive. They don't prohibit heterosexuals from joining. They essentially have a code of conduct that they make clear in their recruitment efforts. Given the ubiquitous "ghey" and "fag" comments seen in every chat channel in the game, GLBT-Friendly translates to: "We do not tolerate harassment of GLBT people or slurs against them. If you cannot abide by this policy, don't even ask to join our guild. If this policy is acceptable, we welcome you." Why is that different from "We do not tolerate foul language in our guild channel, regardless of the built-in language filter."? It isn't about sex. It isn't about bigots. It isn't about religion. It's about Blizzard's vague and inconsistent application of their own policies in a manner that looks a heck of a lot like discrimination.

Give 'em their own server?

Why can't Blizzard give them their own server?

A very neat, meticulously-decorated, smartly-color-coordinated, sensitive and compassionate server?

Try Second Life instead.

It sounds like these players ought to give Second Life [secondlife.com] a go if they've never tried it and are looking for a massively multiplayer online world (and community) that accepts anyone [google.com], however they want to be.

Linden Lab deserve their money far more than Blizzard does - Linden have managed to cultivate fantastic diversity in their online population and to sucessfully police their community for harassment - of any sort - to other players. Their single most important community rule is to be polite to other players - and it works brilliantly.

If Linden can prevent players from abusing each other, Blizzard also ought to be able to do that. Instead Blizzard makes excuses because they can't be bothered. I'm guessing it's cheaper for them to make the GLBT guild go away than to police players to prevent abuse.

Of course Second Life isn't much of a Fantasy MMORPG (if that's what you were explicity trying to play), it's a virtual playground with diverse user-created content - although I hear there are a couple of pretty good games that players have created.

Gay-friendly forum posts are usually a disaster

I haven't been playing WoW for many months now but when I did I was looking for a guild for quite some time.

I'm generalizing, but on the whole when someone posted that they were looking for or starting a gay-friendly guild, it was either an honest post that led to a flame of harassment or a blatant troll that pretty much ended up the same way.

And any kind of discussion of "gay-friendly guilds" in public channels was more or less the same.

The sad fact is that when the word "gay" comes up on WoW, it is usually in the context of "That was so gay," or "What are you--gay?"

Rather than starting a gay-friendly guild, I think it is more effective to look for a so-called "mature" guild or to operate a guild with guidelines that encourage mature behavior.

The irony of the situation that Ms. Andrews seems to have encountered--that sexual language guidelines used to protect gay players are apparently being used only against those same players--may not be a reality. Just because she constantly hears the word "gay" being used in a derisive manner doesn't mean that Blizzard condones such use or even tolerates it. Players who use such language may in fact be getting the same warnings that Andrews received--there's no way for us to know this.

But the problem with this derisive usage is its utter prevalence in the general chat channels. I doubt that Blizzard has the human resources to handle the number of kids (and adults) who are using this kind of language. And, I suspect, they are probably reluctant to actually ban that many players. Hiring enough people to do the banning and the subsequent drop in subscriptions would probably cut into their bottom line too excessively, I'm sorry to say.

Extreme example but...

Giving blacks equal rights could result in racial slurs. As such, we shall continue enslaving them to maintain the family values of the community.

What is a gay character???

I'm sure someone will argue with me, but as I understand it, being gay basically means that you're sexually attracted to people of the same gender. The "GLBT community" is generally made up of people whose sexuality is nontraditional. Where you fit in that community has to do with your own sexual identity and the sort of sexual identity of the people you want to be sexually intimate with. You don't generally find straight people or asexual people being associated with the GLBT community.

That being said... sex (as an act) has no place in the game. Primary sexual traits (ie. male and female) are unavoidable, so it seems natural to have male and female characters. But you can be male or female without considering sexual orientation or sexual acts. You can't be a member of the GLBT without that. Otherwise, what does it mean to be gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender?

So, as I say, sex (as an act) has no place in the game. Therefore, anything relating to sex (as an act) should be excluded. That's not just GLBT, but ANY kind of sex-act-related topic. It would be just as inappropriate to discuss being straight or any kind of straight-sex related topics. There is no discrimination here.

legalities

I have to wonder if there aren't legalities in question here. The game is not intended to be a "dating service" and those types of services have certain legal protections that I would imagine Blizzard might be unwilling to look at. Imagine if some person's teenage son was "recruited" by such a group, I would imagine the lawsuits would focus on Blizzard... and that could get costly.

Way to blame the victims.

If you do something that might cause a bunch of 13-year-old losers to sexually harass you, it's your own damn fault!

Bad move by blizzard

The very fact that people feel a need for a Gay Lesbian Bisexual Trans(gender/sexual) friendly guild in World of Warcraft (just so the people confused with acronyms know what this is all about) says enough about blizzard.

It is not a very "mature" place resulting in a very intollerant atmosphere. Not just of GLBT people either. WoW is more or less anonymous and this allows people to behave in ways that in real life would earn them a few broken teeth. Rather then do something about this Blizzard instead asks there the victims of the online bullies to keep quiet and not attract attention.

Nice move. Good to see the last 100 years of liberation of the individual was all for nothing. It is still only acceptable to be a while male protestant and everyone else should just be quiet.

What next Blizzard? Women who play your game and are harrased should not tell people they are really female?

People who claim that Blizzard owns WoW and can therefore do what it wants are living in a fantasy world. A MMO is closer to a social club and the law requires clubs to be open to anyone regardless of sex/religion/race/color/sexual orientation. A club that rejects women because they claim that they want to protect the women from being harrassed by their male members would find very little sympathy from the law.

This woman (presumable lesbian) wanted to create a guild that was friendly to people of a different sexuality then heterosexual. From other comments here it is pretty clear that WoW as a whole is not very friendly to that group. She did NOT want to make a guild for GLBT people only! She did not exclude hetero's.

It is sad that this is still needed in 2006. Very sad in fact that even in a place like Amsterdam wich used to be a really open place it is again becoming necessary to make sure GLBT people can feel safe.

Rather then dealing with the haters among its subscribers Blizzard seems to prefer the "don't rock the boat" attitude that made Amsterdam into the city it is today. And paris france. Don't speak out, keep quiet and hopefully the haters will go away. They never do.

I hope canadian lawmakers are watching this and taking the legal steps to get Blizzard in court and punished to hell and back.

Just what is canadian law on this subject? I would imagine that the sport of hockey has a large proportion of homophobic fans, how is this dealt with? Can a gay player be part of a team or is he hooted of the ice?

Ofcourse the slashdot audience consisting mostly of white hetero male christians is not exactly best fit to understand why there would be a need for a special guild for people who do not fit the so-called norm.

good for them

Good for them.

  So long as they apply it to everyone.

  I'm quite gay-friendly.

  Gay people have a tendency to bring their persecution down upon themselves.

  "LOOK AT ME!!!!! I'M GAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

  Then they wonder why people think they are assholes.

Why bother?

It's not like they'll be able to tell anyway. Can you honestly say that not being in a gay friendly guild makes you less likely to be called a "faggot" or a "cocksucker" by other players?

I'm only half kidding.

Rubbish post!

I've read the article and all of the comments. Instead of outrage or anger, I'm just feeling hungry... Better go find myself a BLT to sate this.

How about

you all just make a guild for FREAKS, that way, you, me, him, she, anyone can join & we all agree for some reason or another we are all might to be. Now STFU and go back to killing things. Thank you & have a nice day.:)

LBGTs cannot discriminate against Heterosexuals

What most majorities don't realise is that minorities need a place where they can be with others in their minority and not have to worry about the majority intruiding.

That's why a Black-only club or Latino-only club can exist but a White-only club cannot. White's have their own "club," it's called the United States.

I wish Blizzard would understand that this is also why a LBGT Guild is not discriminating against heterosexuals. You can't discriminate against hetereosexuals, there is not power structure in place to do such a thing with.

Gay only guild?

If someone is allowed to create gay only guild, then i should be allowed to create straight-only guild. And even white-only guild!

Role playing?

I have one character on a roleplaying server. I made her a female dwarf so she would stand out from the crowd. She joined a dwarf-only guild which has been a lot of fun, more than any of my other characters. In the past few weeks she has come to the realisation that she prefers girls to boys. She hasn't told anyone yet, but may do so when she's a bit drunk at a guild function and one of the dwarvish lads starts to flirt with her.

What I will find interesting (hopefully) is her search for other lesbian characters in a not very (it would appear) gay-friendly environment, much as the older gay men I know made their way in the 60s and 70s. Gay and lesbian people I know in RL frequently lament that the boy or girl they like is straight, and WoW I imagine will give her endeavours a higher degree of difficulty. If she meets the right person, perhaps she would get married. The RP will hopefully allow a straight boy like me to experience life from another viewpoint. Occasional discrimination I would expect to be part of the journey, but overzealous GMs would not be very realistic in RP.

I've never considered the sexual orientation of any of my non-RP characters, as they're just me with a different look.

Re:Not about rights...

So you don't complain about all the other players who use gay-bashing language, screaming "Faggot!" at anyone who pisses them off, and receive no punishment from Blizzard... But you claim inappropriateness when a GLBT group forms in an effort to counter this abuse?

I guess you think they should sit back down and take the abuse silently like good little homosexuals... I can't believe this received a +4 Insightful on Slashdot.

Re:Not about rights...

I agree with you 100%. Online gaming is a haven for homophobia. The amount of gay-bashing that goes on in in-game chats would be considered intolerable in even the most conservative circles in the real world.

A few years back, a small online FPS game [wikipedia.org] I used to play decided to extend its anti-biogtry policy to protect against gay-bashing. The backlash was severe, and many players left in protest after being repatedly kicked from the game for using offensive language.

Fortunately, the developer running the game stuck with it despite the many rumors circulated that he was gay -- I can't help but admire the fact that he never bothered to defend himself against the rumors. I think he eventually responded in an interview something to the extent of "No, I am not, but I don't feel the need to defend myself against these rumors because I find nothing offensive about it"

Gamers can be so immature. This is probably the biggest reason I no longer game online. These people give the impresion of being 13 years old, and you later learn that they're actually grown adults. Pathetic.

Re:Not about rights...

Blizzard encourages players to report harrasment of any form. There aren't enough GMs to police every single chat message. They rely on player reporting.

And yes, using that type of language is against their terms of service.

So I don't believe your point is valid. If players aren't receiveing punishment it is not necessarily because Blizzard is actively deciding to let them slip by, it's because they don't have the resources to do it, and the players themselves are apathetic towards it.

This one chat message happened to have been caught. Do you think that this is the first advertisement for a GLBT group? This was a routine wrong place, wrong time, got caught language issue that has been blown out of control because so many people feel so strongly about the subject, one way or the other.

This is less about Blizzard's policy than it is about the media and militant people using this event to control their message and how it's portrayed by the media. How else are they going to get their message onto the front page of Slashdot?

-Adam

Re:Blizzard is right!

Everyone who plays WoW is gay.

No, WoW just reveals latent gender-identity issues in our youth. Why else would almost all of America's male teenagers want to play a female night-elf?

Re:Not about rights...

Are all neocons so philosophically unsophisticated or are you just intellectually lazy? This punishes a group that is actively harrased and demeaned in WOW 24/7 who only wished to form a safe haven from pricks like you and WOW punishes them by censoring their recruitment ingame. The story here is that pricks like you need to die off or shut up for civil rights to progress. Take your heterosexual once a week monogomous guilt sex and shove it.

Re:gays...

I don't see bank robbers and child molesters running around making guilds or having parades... Probably because:

• what they do is against the law and they can't get out in public with it
• they are not proud of what they are

If you're going to live a lifestyle that is against nature, sinful and basically sick to the majority of the world then keep it to yourself and you won't have problems. the same books you are refering also tells you that people are not allowed to judge this, it is Gods business. ...and homosexuality is known behaviour among other species on this planet so it is not unnatural. ...and why do you think you are "the majority" ?

I sleep with girls and I'm a guy... If you really need to remind yourself of it, you probably are a gay who do not have the courage to accept it.
--
No, I'm not gay... I would however love to have a pair of good tits.

Re:Reverse It

If you read the article, it was pretty clear the advertisement was for a GLBT Friendly, not GLBT Exclusive guild. And it was spelled out pretty clearly. Therefore, it is non discriminatory, and no close minded players would be recruited.

What were your points again?

Re:gays...

Excuse me while I think of the proper diction to express my disgust with your narrowminded idiocy.

I'll be clear and honest.
I was raised in a neocon, ultrachristian household. And I have developed into a Libertarian with odd religious leanings (Christian/Buddhist?)

You sir, need to let go of whatever misguided hatred is causing you to insult people you have never met based on something they (generally) keep to themselves. Freedom of speech applies to EVERYONE! Not just those who you decide should have it. I'm sure you have parts of your own life you wish to keep to yourself. Or, god forbid, you might be proud of whatever makes you different, or want to show that to the world.
I applaud the GLBTs who decide they are going to be in a parade and risk the wrath of your pathetic ilk.
To compare GLBTs to bank robbers and child molesters...
To quote Simon from Firefly
"I'm trying to think of how you could be more crude...but it's just not comin!"