Virtual harassment - Is it a real thing?

[mamselle]

That's why raw numbers and 'rational' approaches that draw on ideas like a free market of gamer attention won't work. I mean, they don't work so well in the real world, but in the real world we don't have the option to withdraw. We need to eat. In gaming, however, we do have the option of dropping out. So the consequence of favoring one segment of the population over another aren't going to result in a market correction. They're going to result in the disfavored population dropping out.

You'd think.

But for someone(s), Keynes was clearly divine, so we can't do anything but bow anytime markets are mentioned.

Maynard is in retrograde.

M.

[marshwiggle]

What I was alluding to in my post above is that game popularity will be a test of this; virtual worlds with more and less strict rules of conduct will be a natural virtual experiment to determine what kind of world most people want. If a workable process exists that can prohibit all "bad" behaviour while allowing all "good" behaviour, then it should be wildly popular. However, if it turns out that the more a process limits "bad" behaviour, the more it restricts lots of "good" behaviour as well, then the most popular world may indeed be one that allows the presence of "evil".

If this experiment gives somewhat anticipated results, could one then apply that to improving the overall environment for nice people? 

A honeypot to lure the trolls and keep them distracted might be helpful. Specificallly, one creates a game in which there are many rule-following players for a troll to victimize. They react in ways that keep the troll engaged. The essential element is that those players are all bots. The trolls are real people. (Someone will find a way to monetize the concept.)

There's a plotline about exactly this in Mythic Quest.

Regarding the question about popularity: If women are persistently harassed and hounded until they stop gaming, then the fact that they're 50% of the real-world population is irrelevant. What's relevant is the proportion of the gamer population that are women. And if only 10% (or whatever) of gamers are women, then measures that make games attractive to the 90% of male gamers are going to win out over measures that make the games attractive to the 10% of female gamers.

Isn't this a "chicken and egg" problem? If only 10% of gamers are women because women have been hounded out, then that doesn't address a game that doesn't hound women out, and thus should have more equal proportions (or be able to attract them over time.)

That's why raw numbers and 'rational' approaches that draw on ideas like a free market of gamer attention won't work. I mean, they don't work so well in the real world, but in the real world we don't have the option to withdraw. We need to eat. In gaming, however, we do have the option of dropping out. So the consequence of favoring one segment of the population over another aren't going to result in a market correction. They're going to result in the disfavored population dropping out.

But if another game can appeal to and retain that "disfavored population", then they should have that market to themselves.

[Parasaurolophus]

There is no victim!

Different games will have different rules. Leave one one doesn't like and enter one one does.

Variety is the spice of life.

For the record, you have no idea what you're talking about. Your empty platitudes don't track the real world.

Try gaming for a while, then get back to us.

So I'm curious. Do the complaints by cis-women athletes getting destroyed by trans-women athletes that it's unfair "track the real world", or are they based on "empty platitudes"?

They're pretty bullshit, once you investigate the facts. The math of the distribution of physical properties based on chromosomal sex doesn't care about their feelings. But athletes aren't selected for their mathematical prowess.

So why bother having separate leagues, events, etc. for male and female sports? Is the lack of mathematical prowess responsible for that as well?

They're primarily historical artifacts. I think the whole thing is stupid (remember when Hailey Wickenheiser had to got to Russia to play in a more competitive men's league?) but nobody elected me Consul of Sport, so.

[dismalist]

What I was alluding to in my post above is that game popularity will be a test of this; virtual worlds with more and less strict rules of conduct will be a natural virtual experiment to determine what kind of world most people want. If a workable process exists that can prohibit all "bad" behaviour while allowing all "good" behaviour, then it should be wildly popular. However, if it turns out that the more a process limits "bad" behaviour, the more it restricts lots of "good" behaviour as well, then the most popular world may indeed be one that allows the presence of "evil".

If this experiment gives somewhat anticipated results, could one then apply that to improving the overall environment for nice people? 

A honeypot to lure the trolls and keep them distracted might be helpful. Specificallly, one creates a game in which there are many rule-following players for a troll to victimize. They react in ways that keep the troll engaged. The essential element is that those players are all bots. The trolls are real people. (Someone will find a way to monetize the concept.)

There's a plotline about exactly this in Mythic Quest.

Regarding the question about popularity: If women are persistently harassed and hounded until they stop gaming, then the fact that they're 50% of the real-world population is irrelevant. What's relevant is the proportion of the gamer population that are women. And if only 10% (or whatever) of gamers are women, then measures that make games attractive to the 90% of male gamers are going to win out over measures that make the games attractive to the 10% of female gamers.

Isn't this a "chicken and egg" problem? If only 10% of gamers are women because women have been hounded out, then that doesn't address a game that doesn't hound women out, and thus should have more equal proportions (or be able to attract them over time.)

That's why raw numbers and 'rational' approaches that draw on ideas like a free market of gamer attention won't work. I mean, they don't work so well in the real world, but in the real world we don't have the option to withdraw. We need to eat. In gaming, however, we do have the option of dropping out. So the consequence of favoring one segment of the population over another aren't going to result in a market correction. They're going to result in the disfavored population dropping out.

But if another game can appeal to and retain that "disfavored population", then they should have that market to themselves.

That's precisely the point!

Entry of games with different rules is guaranteed by the greed of game developers. Nothing to worry about there.

Compare gaming to going to public school. In school, you're stuck on a single playground. Bad rules then create bad outcomes, such as bloody noses. One can't exit the school, so one is guaranteed a bloody nose, or some other physical violence.

In games there is no bloody nose, and one can exit. Just switch games if one doesn't like the rules.

There is no problem here.

[ergative]

In principle, yes, it could work that way. But that assumes your reaction to harassment is to switch games, rather than to quit gaming. But in practice, people do quit gaming, and it's a tall order to sell a product to an unwilling market. It's a lot easier to sell chocolate chip cookies to someone who already knows they like cookies than it is to sell chocolate chip cookies to someone who, every time they've had a cookie in the past, has been attacked by face-eating leopards. How willing are they to believe the marketing claims of 'Oh, no, our cookies are different.'

And, for that matter, how many game marketers are going to straightforwardly say, 'Yes, you are usually harassed by dicks, but we'll prevent harassments, and that's what makes us different from other games'? And really, how much of a draw is that going to be even if they do acknowledge it? Gamers want to play good games. Avoiding harassment is the minimum bar for a game to surpass. It should not the sole goal.

[dismalist]

In principle, yes, it could work that way. But that assumes your reaction to harassment is to switch games, rather than to quit gaming. But in practice, people do quit gaming, and it's a tall order to sell a product to an unwilling market. It's a lot easier to sell chocolate chip cookies to someone who already knows they like cookies than it is to sell chocolate chip cookies to someone who, every time they've had a cookie in the past, has been attacked by face-eating leopards. How willing are they to believe the marketing claims of 'Oh, no, our cookies are different.'

And, for that matter, how many game marketers are going to straightforwardly say, 'Yes, you are usually harassed by dicks, but we'll prevent harassments, and that's what makes us different from other games'? And really, how much of a draw is that going to be even if they do acknowledge it? Gamers want to play good games. Avoiding harassment is the minimum bar for a game to surpass. It should not the sole goal.

Quit gaming? Do people have a right to game on their own terms? Absolutely not!

As for the rest, that's just the everyday challenges of a market economy, which get solved every day.

Trust in greed.

[marshwiggle]

And, for that matter, how many game marketers are going to straightforwardly say, 'Yes, you are usually harassed by dicks, but we'll prevent harassments, and that's what makes us different from other games'? And really, how much of a draw is that going to be even if they do acknowledge it? Gamers want to play good games. Avoiding harassment is the minimum bar for a game to surpass. It should not the sole goal.

This gets back to my point. Does making a game which avoids harassment implicitly prevent it from  being "good"? That's the question which can, in principle, be answered by experimenting with virtual worlds. In any area of life, freedom can be used for good or ill, and restricting freedom to avoid the "ill" part consequently avoids some portion of the "good" as well. This can be tested in virtual space by being able to play around with rules at will to see what provides the most enjoyment with the least harassment.

[Juvenal]

I think any domain in which people can interact with each other will include people being dicks. So, yes, virtual harassments is absolutely a real thing.

Whether it is so severe a thing as to warrant any kind of penalty is of course a different question. I can imagine that a service that provides an interactive domain will have some sort of terms of service that say 'don't be a dick', with penalties such as blocking from the service if you violate it. This may serve as the thing that you're facetiously referring to a virtual court with virtual sentencing.

However, given the tone of your post, I get the sense you're not terribly interested in the actual issue of how to prevent people from being dicks to each other.

I have no proof to back this up, but it would not surprise me in the least to find that there are cave paintings dating back to the dawn of humanity that prominently feature BOOBS!!!!  I'm seriously dubious that sexual harassment is a modern creation.

Check out the "Venus of Willendorf."  'Nuf sed.