Have you ever experienced harassment on a video game, or video game forum?

[Arch0wl]

Given how much talk there is about harassment of women in tech, I'm curious about overall harassment as opposed to harassment based on gender. Vote honestly, if that's not a problem for you.

[Red Blaster]

Re: Have you ever experienced harassment on a video game, or video game forum?

I suppose this depends on what someone considers harassment.
I usually run into the basic shit talking/rages, but I've never really been victim of what I would label as harassment.

[andy-o24]

Re: Have you ever experienced harassment on a video game, or video game forum?

Given how much talk there is about harassment of women in tech

Can someone explain this for me?

I voted yes, by the way.

-o24

[hi19hi19]

Re: Have you ever experienced harassment on a video game, or video game forum?

If you're defining harassment as thinly as being called an idiot once in a while, then yeah I've been harassed. I guess.

By the definition everyone else uses - aggressive/repeated pressure or intimidation, not merely an offhand remark with no followup or pretense of aggression - then no I haven't been harassed online.

[Red Blaster]

Re: Have you ever experienced harassment on a video game, or video game forum?

Can someone explain this for me?

I voted yes, by the way.

-o24

Gamergate.

[gold stinger]

Re: Have you ever experienced harassment on a video game, or video game forum?

Yeah I've had aggressive/repeated pressure and/or intimidation online. I'm pretty sure just about everyone has done so online too (knowingly or unknowingly) because there is a humongous amount of anonymity associated with browsing the internet. I'll give it that Google has tried multiple times to try and change this, but it just doesn't work.

Just about everything on the internet has been in one way or another associated with being anonymous. People can upload interesting things to youtube that others may want to keep private about themselves. People can bash & hate others without it directly affecting their life outside of a computer. People can also make names for themselves - cause international movements & attention without actually giving out their name or address.

Bad-Talking others is a side-benefit of using the internet, and one of the major social rules of using the internet is to take everything on the internet with a grain of salt, but obviously some do not do so.


The reason why I bring this all up is because it really depends on how you're affected by said harassment - whether or not you decide to take it with a grain of salt. If you feel really hurt & offended by something that someone said on the internet, then it's going to be considered as harassment, this counts for video games. If you take it with a grain of salt and that said person might have nothing better to do than be butt-hurtingly angry and have the need to throw petty insults left and right and they don't phase you, then people will probably associate it with trolling, baiting, or just being extremely unsportsmanlike.

[ilikexd]

Re: Have you ever experienced harassment on a video game, or video game forum?

I had a lot of my personal information spread and one person make serious death threats against me on another website.

[choof]

Re: Have you ever experienced harassment on a video game, or video game forum?

irionman doxxed me on here and on gabber.od.ua lmao

[choof]

Re: Have you ever experienced harassment on a video game, or video game forum?

i'm also obligated to vote yes solely because i had an account on ffr with the word "noob" in it

[gold stinger]

Re: Have you ever experienced harassment on a video game, or video game forum?

leaked personal info & DDoSing is stuff completely different from just general vocal internet harassment...

[Mahou]

Re: Have you ever experienced harassment on a video game, or video game forum?

I was harassed in Maplestory about 6 years ago since I was ranked 140-150 in GMS. (I think I'm still there in legacy rankings). I was well known in my server at the time, and I got a lot of harassment when I was going through some depression issues that was caused from a good friend dying.

[Izzy]

Re: Have you ever experienced harassment on a video game, or video game forum?

There is always going to be someone that will bitch at someone else over anything. It is just a part of the internet anonymous experience. I would barely call that being harassed as the vast majority of the time nobody cares and it leads to nothing or even a shred of emotional distress.

[hi19hi19]

Re: Have you ever experienced harassment on a video game, or video game forum?

My overall position on the issue of this kind of harassment is pretty split.

On one hand, harassment of women in tech fields is extremely real, and worth working to minimize.
There was a recent panel at my university about being a woman in a STEM field and, while it was interesting all around, hearing the point of view of one of the female professors from the CS department was very interesting. She clearly had quite thick skin.
I'm absolutely of the mind that any claim of harassment should be taken seriously at first and judged only after the evidence is there.
So, I don't want to make it seem like I'm unaware of the issue.


But, on the other hand, I like to be careful before jumping to conclusions, because the nature of online interactions can be especially difficult to gauge. Because so many common social cues from face-to-face interaction are missing (facial expression, gesture, posture, intonation, proximity, etc.) the possibility for both accidental and intentional misinterpretation is very high- additionally, there is often no feedback mechanism. For example I could just make this post then never look at the thread again and I'd never know if I offended someone, intentionally or not.

So with that in mind, some people just make an honest accident and wind up feeling victimized. You have to be careful not to blame either party in that case, and just clear up the misunderstanding as impartially as possible.
On the other hand, some people definitely have the mentality where they are looking to be offended, and it's so easy for them to find material online because of the issues above. And those people, you absolutely should blame the "victim" because they are being assholes and the real victim is actually the person who they are misrepresenting. This is the classic SJW phenomenon.


Related, I can use an example from my own experience:
I played WoW with a pretty close-knit raiding group. Raid chats were constantly filled with "noob" "***" "asshole" or whatever. If someone were to lean over my shoulder and read raid chat out of context it would surely look like harassment, no question about it. But in context it was all good-natured and everyone was actually quite friendly with each other (especially for a WoW guild)

I remember one case where we had an openly gay raider in the guild, and, being an officer in the guild, I pulled him aside after one raid and asked him if all the "***" remarks etc. were bothering him. And then he called me a *** for being so worried about him and he laughed and that was it.
In the back of my mind I still wonder if he and people in similar situations are just really good at hiding their true feelings, but several of my guildies met him in real life at Blizzcon and it was such a non-issue for him even in person, because there was clearly no ill intent from anyone involved. And so a lot of these things seem just so easy to blow way out of proportion because of a lack of context.

So in many ways, I actually view this type of "harassment" as being evidence that a lot of online communities are more progressive than they get credit for:
If you're playing like a noob you're gonna get called a noob whether you're a guy or a girl, gay or straight, white or black, etc.
Equality!

[_Zenith_]

Re: Have you ever experienced harassment on a video game, or video game forum?

Never was a victim of online harassment.

Like it's been said before, you'll most likely run into someone who rages/trolls/acts immature online.

[gold stinger]

Re: Have you ever experienced harassment on a video game, or video game forum?

Still standing by my opinion that it's based on whether you want to treat it as a person who's just out there to push buttons, or a person who has the sole intent of trying to ruin your day/make you feel worthless.