Extra Credits v Harrasment On Xbox Live

[Paradoxrifts]

If the community is given tools to take direct punitive action against griefers then they will be most often employed by online bullies to more effectively harass their victims. The chances that in any given situation where a gamer would have to use the mute button on two or more players then any democratic method that was put in place to discourage anti-social behaviour would be used to punish the victim instead.

Getting harassed by a couple of players? Mute them. Being harassed by half a server? Move on, and no none of the methods mentioned by Extra Credits is going to help you with that situation.

 

[Neaco]

snip

First off your definition of ass hat (or offensive for that matter) probably varies. So if someone says something that offends you but entertains me who is right? Is it fair that the "ass hat" gets banned or muted indefinitely because of your sensitivities? Especially when you have the tools to not hear it without infringing on my desire to hear it.

Now if a person is constantly being harrassed by another well there is an app for that. If they are being constantly harrassed by the entire community then maybe they are the problem and don't belong. Oh I know I am blaming the victim but some people make themselves targets and ask for it. Now keep in mind bullying is far different than rape.

As far as I can see MS has taken as much responsibility as possible. They can't be asked to monitor the billions of communications made daily. Then filter through which is actual bullying and which is friends verbally jesting with each other. As owners they have the responsibility to ensure the community can thrive. And they have. They gave us the tools to police ourselves. In a community of millions that is all they can do. Not everyone is going to get along plain and simple. You will always find people you don't like and those who don't like you. And short of MS beaming mind control radiowaves through the headset so we all get along the tools provided should be adequate if used properly.

And it really saddens me that we as a community are being treated like a lot of crybabies because some people would rather look to a faceless corporation to fight their battles for them instead of using the tools that can end it before it really starts. Unless I am the last of a dying breed called ADULTS who can handle hearing 1 offensive thing or reading 1 offensive message and putting an end to what I hear or see of it.

The only thing I believe that should be implemented is some kind of filter for messages for those who are using the family setting. No parent wants little 5 yr old Timmy receiving a string of curse words in thier inbox. And in that respect little Timmy shouldn't be on the mic in the general in the first place (you know predators and all).

true enough, comedy varies. but just as its unfair to mute someone for my being sensitive, its unfair to be subjected to someone else's insensitivity. but i do believe there is a difference in being a dick to be entertaining, and being a dick to be offensive; usually entertaining will also poke fun at themselves (more so in fact.) opinions... but then again, majority opinion makes right in society. so if someone is auto-muted, regardless of their intent, they were deemed overly offensive and muted.

exclusion to a community isn't the answer either. saying someone doesn't belong is like saying the gaming community is meant for the opposite. some people do make themselves a target, but more often specific people are simply targeted.

disagreements happen yes, but just saying bullying and arguments is how the world works just isn't true. animosity just loosens our tongues, but policing ourselves has only led to who has more friends (we all receive those messages from strangers saying "report so and so.") its an unbalance of power. i have to go through 4 commands to block/mute/avoid/report which seems harsh, but if you want to only have to deal with their first message, you have to (and this is for 1 person, when they usually wander in packs). the tools are there, but they are inefficient.

also yes, i agree little kids shouldn't be playing the mature games where foul language is common. but foul language is common everywhere you go. anonymous hate and bullying is simply wrong, and defending them shouldn't be a priority over stopping online harassment.

 

[squid5580]

snip

First off your definition of ass hat (or offensive for that matter) probably varies. So if someone says something that offends you but entertains me who is right? Is it fair that the "ass hat" gets banned or muted indefinitely because of your sensitivities? Especially when you have the tools to not hear it without infringing on my desire to hear it.

Now if a person is constantly being harrassed by another well there is an app for that. If they are being constantly harrassed by the entire community then maybe they are the problem and don't belong. Oh I know I am blaming the victim but some people make themselves targets and ask for it. Now keep in mind bullying is far different than rape.

As far as I can see MS has taken as much responsibility as possible. They can't be asked to monitor the billions of communications made daily. Then filter through which is actual bullying and which is friends verbally jesting with each other. As owners they have the responsibility to ensure the community can thrive. And they have. They gave us the tools to police ourselves. In a community of millions that is all they can do. Not everyone is going to get along plain and simple. You will always find people you don't like and those who don't like you. And short of MS beaming mind control radiowaves through the headset so we all get along the tools provided should be adequate if used properly.

And it really saddens me that we as a community are being treated like a lot of crybabies because some people would rather look to a faceless corporation to fight their battles for them instead of using the tools that can end it before it really starts. Unless I am the last of a dying breed called ADULTS who can handle hearing 1 offensive thing or reading 1 offensive message and putting an end to what I hear or see of it.

The only thing I believe that should be implemented is some kind of filter for messages for those who are using the family setting. No parent wants little 5 yr old Timmy receiving a string of curse words in thier inbox. And in that respect little Timmy shouldn't be on the mic in the general in the first place (you know predators and all).

true enough, comedy varies. but just as its unfair to mute someone for my being sensitive, its unfair to be subjected to someone else's insensitivity. but i do believe there is a difference in being a dick to be entertaining, and being a dick to be offensive; usually entertaining will also poke fun at themselves (more so in fact.) opinions... but then again, majority opinion makes right in society. so if someone is auto-muted, regardless of their intent, they were deemed overly offensive and muted.

exclusion to a community isn't the answer either. saying someone doesn't belong is like saying the gaming community is meant for the opposite. some people do make themselves a target, but more often specific people are simply targeted.

disagreements happen yes, but just saying bullying and arguments is how the world works just isn't true. animosity just loosens our tongues, but policing ourselves has only led to who has more friends (we all receive those messages from strangers saying "report so and so.") its an unbalance of power. i have to go through 4 commands to block/mute/avoid/report which seems harsh, but if you want to only have to deal with their first message, you have to (and this is for 1 person, when they usually wander in packs). the tools are there, but they are inefficient.

also yes, i agree little kids shouldn't be playing the mature games where foul language is common. but foul language is common everywhere you go. anonymous hate and bullying is simply wrong, and defending them shouldn't be a priority over stopping online harassment.

It isn't unfair to you since you have the power not to listen to it. You have the tools not to hear anything more than the first offensive word right now. Which is more than you have out in the real world. It only takes 2 button presses to mute someone. 2 more if they send you a message. Reporting them after you blocked/muted them is just you playing the victim card and a feeble attempt to bully them using the system designed to protect you.

The system will never be perfect but how will anything EC put on the table fix a pack trying to make someone elses experience any better? People will still be able to gang up and try to get others banned, muted ect. At least right now it takes more than a handful of people to get one person put out without actual proof. The new way that has been described would lead to people being able to do just that. The sad part is the trolls would have the upper hand in it.

 

[Neaco]

snip

snip

snip

It isn't unfair to you since you have the power not to listen to it. You have the tools not to hear anything more than the first offensive word right now. Which is more than you have out in the real world. It only takes 2 button presses to mute someone. 2 more if they send you a message. Reporting them after you blocked/muted them is just you playing the victim card and a feeble attempt to bully them using the system designed to protect you.

The system will never be perfect but how will anything EC put on the table fix a pack trying to make someone elses experience any better? People will still be able to gang up and try to get others banned, muted ect. At least right now it takes more than a handful of people to get one person put out without actual proof. The new way that has been described would lead to people being able to do just that. The sad part is the trolls would have the upper hand in it.

you know what, we're both right. you want to be able to listen to people and pass judgement on them, and i'd rather them not have to listen to them. and its unfair to force one option over both opinions. if MS makes auto-mute an optional feature (auto-mute feature, but can be turned on/ off) we're both satisfied yeah? we don't have to argue over maybes and what ifs, we could simply let things play out and compare the communities.

 

[fix-the-spade]

Clearly you have never seen matilda.

But it's a reward there! He finishes the cake, doesn't explode and everyone cheers (well... nearly everyone).

 

[getoffmycloud]

Clearly you have never seen matilda.

But it's a reward there! He finishes the cake, doesn't explode and everyone cheers (well... nearly everyone).

But then they all get given a really long detention.

 

[chimeracreator]

Well then, how would you deal with the problem? If people start acting immature online, I just block em and not all matches have total twats on them.

I would start handing out bans for offenders, using a "3-strikes" system. People need to get the message that this stuff is just not okay, and will not be tolerated. Those who act like a douche online will receive a strike. They continue their actions, another. When they get to 3, they are banned from X-Box live Gold forever, unable to send messages to anyone but the people on their friends list, and their account will be marked with a "Banned for misappropriate behavior" message. Might be a bit... harsh, but that is my idea.

That seems like it would be far to easy to abuse and far to hard to moderate. How do you decide what is being a douche? Do you decide that he was a douche because the guy was really good and a ton of people reported him for being better then them? How do you moderate it and prevent all of the false accusations?

Well, good for them I guess. I have to be honest I really think their solutions for cleaning the Xbox Live gutter was actually pretty good. Auto mute players who get muted too many times, don't allow them the right to speak with strangers until they reach a certain level, make it so you can only communicate with people on your friend's list etc.

It's admittedly very heavily dealt but if the games industry is truly committed to getting rid of the angry embittered misogynists of the online world then they might as well come down hard on them.

Wow those actually sound like really really bad ideas. It pretty much all goes against the very reason we have voice chat in the first place.

Your knee jerk reaction fails to take into account the fact that too many in the case of their example is based on a constantly recalculated scoring percentage. So lets think about the math here:

Let the scoring system use two measures:
1. A floor value of N mutes per Y time, under this no one can be auto-muted.
2. The percentile the player is in regards to the community as a whole when it comes to being muted.

Let us also assume that players fall into three groups where B is a baseline percentage of muting:
1. Extremely bad actors that are muted by 90% + B of the people they play with
2. Somewhat bad actors that are muted by 30% + B of the people they play with
3. Normal players who are muted by B% of the people they play with

Assuming a roughly random distribution of games everyone should encounter the mute everyone or mute because I died people on a roughly equal basis. The percentile system auto-factors this is because this is part of the established 50th percentile baseline (ie B). The floor would need to be manually assigned however, but because both triggers are required this doesn't provide an issue.

Now if we draw up the community and say that there are 10% extremely bad actors, 30% somewhat bad actors and 60% everyone else and assign B a value of say 5% meaning that 5% mute no matter what. Then the 50th percentile (taken from the mean) is a 23% mute rate or 5% taken from the median. The 80th percentile would be around 35% or so depending on the exact deviation. So if we drew the line at the 80th percentile that would catch all of the extremely bad actors and some of the somewhat bad actors.

In terms of the system being used to grief mute players this would require a number of players to coordinate their efforts equal to at least the 80th percentile of mutes (relative to the number of games the person plays in) making it harder to auto-mute them if they play more. Likewise if they don't play enough you will be unable to hit the floor value of N mutes thus providing the system a measure of protection.

 

[rapidoud]

Get people to rate other people in game before they can play another, review their peers for how much crap they talked etc.

If they were suspended in anyway then they could appeal it and cite reasons why 'I was only arguing against him but they were all letting him make racist remarks and didn't like me talking back' etc.

 

[Dryk]

]
Legal wrangling everywhere, until EC finally wrestle their IP from The Escapist and leave permanently, all their backlog wiped (as neither party fully owns the rights to it any more), and the spare RocketHub donations going to setting up an organisation to help indie developers, which I... haven't heard from since. Huh.

Actually their backlog is fine, it's on PATV and their YouTube channel

As for the publishing company, last week's episode was an update on that... but your post was from before that release so you might know that by now

 

[Dryk]

Huh, thanks for clarifying that. As I said, I was away when it all went up, but I thought I at least had the gist of the whole ordeal.

Yeah it other than that that's the impression I got when I noticed what was happening

 

[rapidoud]

snip

See, I have to disagree about the report system being more effective, because it would turn the mute button into a report button . Rather than having to go to the person's profile and a few menus to report them, which is both a hassle, and a waste on the resources needed to sort through the real reports from the fake ones, it would implement a system that wouldn't need anything other than someone clicking the mute button. It's something people do anyway, and since its based on averages, it would get rid of the need for people to go through them. Plus, it prevents bannings based on trash-talking, which I've always felt was a little too harsh, what with it preventing people from playing games online. Just taking away the thing they abused seems to make more sense to me.

Again, they painted the earned communications as a red button, only to be used if all other options have been exhausted, and it does pretty much what you described. If you lose an account to verbal harassment, you have to start over from scratch. I'm not really seeing a difference between that and what you just described.

EDIT: Also, I'm guessing that the lack of party chat on those few games are a design choice, like how dark souls prevents you from chatting while playing online.

If the person harassing isn't worth clicking on a menu to push Report, they probably are not doing something wrong enough to be worth reporting. By making the Mute button the report button, you're going to get much more collateral damage to people who have done nothing wrong (maybe it would balance itself out as has been suggested by others but I disagree). While any system with player interaction is exploitable, making it a Report button takes away the random chance of someone getting punished who shouldn't be.

As for the "earn communication" thing, I don't see any acceptable way to do it. Treating your customers like scum and forcing them to prove otherwise is just not acceptable to me. If you implement it on players who are being shit-heads THAT badly that you have to remove their communication, they shouldn't be on the service at all.

Even reporting is a joke through the amount of crap that has to be filtered.

I've been reported in over 30 different games on SC2 for being on wireless for those games and lagging a bit. Seriously? They considered it harassment.

Then you get the numpties that just want to speak with a GM on WoW or report the most contrived things.

When I report I fully expect my desired outcome to come true, e.g. someone has a name that got past the censors on a game kids are likely playing, or they're abusing the everloving crap out of someone (if it was my first time in online gaming, which was only 10 years ago now, I know I'd be turned off if some idiot felt it upon themselves to treat me as if I just murdered babies like the man who repeatedly told me to go kill myself during my first CS game in CSGO. You wonder why gamers have such a reputation because book-readers don't tell you to go kill yourself for reading The Sookie Stackhouse Mysteries).