Sunday, December 13th, 2009
Issue: 6   Editor: Mika


When Does Racism Become Harassment? Seannypoo
With the introduction of the new forum rules at the beginning of this reset, which meant that there would be a lot less staff intervention in and around the game, the question of racism and harassment has risen time and time again. The question players seem unable to get a definite answer to is “Just where does racism become harassment and what are we supposed to do to deal with someone who is harassing us?” Most people would agree that the rule currently stated in the Forum Rules thread could be interpreted in many different ways. The rule begins with “No harassment. This includes racism…” but ends with a short message telling players to do everything within their powers to deal with the problem themselves before consulting a member of staff. The Buzz conducted a debate on the Game Forum earlier this week to try and get some answers along with players’ views on the matter.

The debate got heated pretty much immediately and we saw replies from people like Smiffey who said “Is it really that hard to not say one word?” who obviously believed that ANY form on racism on the forum was completely uncalled for and the harshest punishments should be used for anybody who makes a reference to anything racist. Smiffey basically agreed to a zero tolerance campaign against racism on Bootleggers. However, in response to OOD saying that there should be staff intervention for swearing/racism just like there is for pornography, IllAdvised pointed out that pornography had a legal issue, whereas swearing and hearing swear words was not illegal.

As the argument picked up, SixRounds commented on the idea of zero tolerance by saying that context would have to be considered. After questioning how the staff could ever define a rule under those circumstances, Smiffey continued to opt for banning racism entirely so that the game would never have any issues of false interpretation. JDM disagreed with Smiffey and said that “You shouldn’t have to [ban it completely]” because we should be able to trust the staff to interpret the rules fairly for us.

Carrying on his argument against Smiffey and the idea of zero tolerance, JDM brought forth his views on the whole world becoming too politically correct. He raised an interesting point when he said, “Where's the line? Do you ban saying something's retarded because "mentally challenged" people can find it offensive? Do you ban saying something's gay because homosexuals can find it offensive?” Decoratedgrave backed JDM up saying “See what we mean about speculation and interpretation?”

It was at this point that the staff gave their view on the matter and tried to clear things up. Nyxxie said that she believed racism became harassment (and therefore the point at which the staff should intervene) was when “you cannot avoid the racist player by any in-game feature means.” For example, if you are being boot mailed racist or offensive material, you should filter them from the Mailbox page. If a player posts a controversial topic, you should ignore it. As the rules do state “Players who fuel harassers and play victim will not be taken seriously”. You CAN simply ignore offensive material and not get overly-offended by it. And, as Mika recommended, you can just shoot people who are getting on your nerves for any reason. VooDooDoll also tried to help clear up the issue by saying similar things to Nyxxie but adding “It will be done on a case-to-case basis”. This brought up the earlier controversy that the staff could interpret things differently to players and therefore it couldn’t be fair. Most people agreed with VooDooDoll, however, when she said that “as a Mod I am capable to taking things on a case to case basis and making the best decision I can.”

After the staff explanation on the matter, Aldarion complained that you cannot simply ignore racism or harassment on the forum unless you didn’t use the forum at all. When the Buzz asked if players thought ignoring the racism in the forums would help, MyLady responded by saying you “probably could, but that doesn't mean we wouldn't see it and feel irritated or even offended by it. I don't see why people should be allowed to say practically everything regardless of how much it offends people.”

So, it would appear that the player base as a whole is disgruntled with the new forum rules and how racism and harassment will be dealt with by the staff. Some don’t trust the staff to interpret the rules correctly, others don’t see why racism should be tolerated in anyway shape or form and others believe that you can’t simply ignore the harassment and that the players shouldn’t be expected to do that. Whatever they think, the rules remain the same and we at the Buzz hope everyone using the forum can try to just be a little bit nicer and then issues like these wouldn’t need to rise.