Halo 4 Sexism Earns You a Lifetime Ban

[Xan Krieger]

I think they just killed Halo 4s multiplayer. There'll be nobody left playing within a week.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Proportional response... game server moderators have yet to read about it.

 

[Erttheking]

I hope this doesn't infringe upon my frequent habit of trashtalking the opposing team.

It's a Halo past-time, for God's sake!

There's a difference between trash talking someone and throwing sexist comments around. I think you'll be fine.

Is there? Is "*****" a sexist remark? Is it sexist when I say it to a female, but not when I say it to a male? Is it worth a permaban to joke about "getting back to the kitchen"? Why is it ok for me to be as blatantly racist as possible, but sexism is off limits? Who determines these invisible lines which we can't cross, or we are banned from the service forever?

These are all questions you have to ask. I'm not saying the IDEA is bad. I'm saying that permabans are bad. Find these players, and remove their in-game chat privileges, or temp-ban them for 24 - 48 hours. What we're talking about is COMPLETELY REMOVING THEIR ABILITY TO PLAY ONLINE, because someone found their remarks "sexist"...

...I'm pretty sure that when they're talking about sexism, they're talking about directly belittling a women for her gender. I have no problem with people getting banned for that. And yes, racism and homophobia are problems on Xbox live, but the thing is you can't really tell the tone of someone's skin or their sexual preference from their voice, but you can usually tell their gender. Homophobic and racist terms are thrown around as stock insults while sexist ones are actually used to get personal. We need to deal with those problems too, but those problems not being addressed at the moment is not an excuse to ignore this one. This is a start, and it's a damn good one.

Maybe it is kinda harsh, maybe there should be a three strike policy, but frankly I don't have an issue with this. A day long ban is a slap on the wrist and it won't stick. Xbox live is full of assholes, and this is trying to send a message "grow the Hell up" and to do that, you need to make your point heard. Perma bans make that point very clear.

 

[Erttheking]

I think they just killed Halo 4s multiplayer. There'll be nobody left playing within a week.

I honestly feel kind of insulted. I hope that you're joking.

 

[Rainboq]

I hope this doesn't infringe upon my frequent habit of trashtalking the opposing team.

It's a Halo past-time, for God's sake!

There's a difference between trash talking someone and throwing sexist comments around. I think you'll be fine.

Is there? Is "*****" a sexist remark? Is it sexist when I say it to a female, but not when I say it to a male? Is it worth a permaban to joke about "getting back to the kitchen"? Why is it ok for me to be as blatantly racist as possible, but sexism is off limits? Who determines these invisible lines which we can't cross, or we are banned from the service forever?

These are all questions you have to ask. I'm not saying the IDEA is bad. I'm saying that permabans are bad. Find these players, and remove their in-game chat privileges, or temp-ban them for 24 - 48 hours. What we're talking about is COMPLETELY REMOVING THEIR ABILITY TO PLAY ONLINE, because someone found their remarks "sexist"...

Read the article, racism gets you the ban hammer as well. Also, as a woman, the sexism on XBL really needs to be reined in, I've had a lot of fun times absolutely ruined by people telling me to go get in the kitchen.

 

[Xan Krieger]

I think they just killed Halo 4s multiplayer. There'll be nobody left playing within a week.

I honestly feel kind of insulted. I hope that you're joking.

I'm not, was thinking back to my past experiences when I played Gears of War 2 online. Sorry I offended you but back then every other word out of the other player's mouths was racist, sexist, or homophobic. It's why I cancelled my xbox live subscription and stick to PC games which seem to (on average) have more polite people.

 

[Kargathia]

What we're talking about is COMPLETELY REMOVING THEIR ABILITY TO PLAY ONLINE, because someone found their remarks "sexist"...

Right now, what we're talking about is a community that has become a by-word for steady streams of homophobic, racist, and sexist insults being hurtled at anyone in the general vicinity. Liberal application of perma-bans sounds about right.

 

[Erttheking]

I think they just killed Halo 4s multiplayer. There'll be nobody left playing within a week.

I honestly feel kind of insulted. I hope that you're joking.

I'm not, was thinking back to my past experiences when I played Gears of War 2 online. Sorry I offended you but back then every other word out of the other player's mouths was racist, sexist, or homophobic. It's why I cancelled my xbox live subscription and stick to PC games which seem to (on average) have more polite people.

Fair enough I guess. I guess I was under the impression that you were saying "no one will be interested in playing Halo 4 if they can't tell the women to get back in the kitchen." It felt like an attack on me as a Halo fan as opposed to an Xbox Live user. Sorry about the confusion.

 

[Schadrach]

I hope this doesn't infringe upon my frequent habit of trashtalking the opposing team.

It's a Halo past-time, for God's sake!

There's a difference between trash talking someone and throwing sexist comments around. I think you'll be fine.

Is there? Is "*****" a sexist remark?

Probably. I'm sure the usual array of epithets that mean female genitals or a female animal are sexist remarks that demean all women and thus should lead to the permabanning while the array of epithets that mean male genitals, male masturbation, semen, or a male animal are of course fine and not gendered in the slightest, since that's the way it usually works.

Or else they'll ban those last 5 people who weren't already going to be banned for this.

 

[ShirowShirow]

Oh look. A reason not to cancel my LIVE subscription.

 

[Meight08]

I think they just killed Halo 4s multiplayer. There'll be nobody left playing within a week.

I honestly feel kind of insulted. I hope that you're joking.

I'm not, was thinking back to my past experiences when I played Gears of War 2 online. Sorry I offended you but back then every other word out of the other player's mouths was racist, sexist, or homophobic. It's why I cancelled my xbox live subscription and stick to PC games which seem to (on average) have more polite people.

Fair enough I guess. I guess I was under the impression that you were saying "no one will be interested in playing Halo 4 if they can't tell the women to get back in the kitchen." It felt like an attack on me as a Halo fan as opposed to an Xbox Live user. Sorry about the confusion.

Well it is true there won't be allot of players left if everybody who screams sexist slurs get's banned.

 

[WanderingFool]

As much as I think Xbox live badly needs to reigned in, I hope they're not ovary vindictive with the enforcement.

Anyways, I can only see this as a positive.

 

[RaggedKarma]

This is a kind of odd mission statement from the people who made Cortana notably more sexualised.

 

[Phasmal]

Awesome.
Maybe I'll even play the damn thing if I can go on Xbox live for five minutes without someone having to make a big deal out of my voice (and purple armour).

It's about time someone did something about Xbox live.

 

[Triality]

Here's an idea for bad behavior in multiplayer for any company. Take this further. If some dipshit little kid is mouthing off racism, homophobia, or sexism like some insecure parentless little bastard, a player could flag that player as offensive to be placed under review. The developer in charge records the misconduct then emails the transcripts and even some compressed mp3 attachment to the parents of that kid (provided the parents set up email contact in some parental control type mechanism).

If that doesn't cut down the filth talk by half I'll be surprised.

 

[SextusMaximus]

Guarantee this only applies to sexism towards women.

 

[Dascylus]

This Halo fan approves...

I am all for a bit of trash talk... It helps the competitive spirit if you can pretend your opponent is you mortal enemy. However there is trash talk and then there is racist, sexist offensive screaming into the mic.

Halo 2 had a major problem with this and then they released the 360 and Halo 3 and suddenly there was a system for quickly muting people. Definite correlation.

I dislike it when other players are screamy and offensive.
I dislike it when my PUG teammates do it.
And I'm downright ashamed when my friends do it.

 

[Denamic]

What we're talking about is COMPLETELY REMOVING THEIR ABILITY TO PLAY ONLINE, because someone found their remarks "sexist"...

Right now, what we're talking about is a community that has become a by-word for steady streams of homophobic, racist, and sexist insults being hurtled at anyone in the general vicinity. Liberal application of perma-bans sounds about right.

And then the by-word will be "X-box Live? What's that?"

Real people have racist and sexist attitudes they don't express in polite company. If you make X-box live polite company, they'll leave, your financial base will tank, and you'll have to go ruin something else.

Basically Halo's getting the Dragon Age 2 treatment. Guess the people in charge of the franchise ran out of ideas to steal, which is probably why they sold it to a woman-owned company in the first place.

Just one more reason to join the PC gaming master race.

Why would they leave?
It's not a place to vent bigotry. It's a place for playing games. If they'd really leave because there's repercussions to being an asshole that takes the fun out of other people's experiences, good fucking riddance.
My sister never use voice chat and usually pretend to be a guy online, just because there's so much damn sexism. People instantly hitting on her is one thing; she can take that. But there's almost invariably assholes that go for "back to the kitchen" attitudes once they find out she's actually a woman. No one should have to deal with that shit, male or female.