Self-Identified Lesbian Banned from Xbox Live

[Pnikosis]

I'm impressed. Most of the posts here are about the girl and not about the harassers, and even there is a post talking about the fact that the girl could be even lying, as we just have her word.

I think a lot of the people here is missing the point.

[Pnikosis]

Originally Posted by Flatpicker

I'm going to be stupid here and ask a probably dumb question.

Does being a lesbian make you more or less able to play a videogame?
If the answer is "it dosen't effect it either way", then I don't see why you would put it in your profile.
If Live had a dating circle or sexual discussion forum, I'd get it. Otherwise?

It is a dumb question.

The fact that being a lesbian doesn't affect your gaming skills is as pointless as being single, married, man, woman, black, white or having some hobbies, but nobody asks himself why some people put these things on their profile or show them on their avatar.

[Suicidal ShiZuru]

Originally Posted by Pnikosis

It is a dumb question.

The fact that being a lesbian doesn't affect your gaming skills is as pointless as being single, married, man, woman, black, white or having some hobbies, but nobody asks himself why some people put these things on their profile or show them on their avatar.

A lot of people dont seem to understand that being gay/lesbian is just another bunch of people, such as the gamers/geeks that gather here. I dont see putting "Im a lesbian" in a profile to be an issue at all. If someone said "I like sci-fi" they could be made fun of by horror fans blah blah blah lame example. My point really is that being gay isnt normal for our society, and having it be a known fact about yourself is a way of trying to find others with that common "interest" while doing something you attempt to enjoy and not to mention a way of saying you dont care what the norm is. That last bit may come off as abrasive but only if you feel the need to be defensive about your sideways view of life.

Too many times to count have I been playing a game online and friendships or at least good conversation begin due to someones spray or username or some random personal info they gave just to be talkative.

The problem is the same as it always has been. Shallow, illogical, stupid and down right cruel people cannot accept those who are different so they lash out.

[Virtuoso]

Originally Posted by yutt

To summarize most of the above responses:
If she didn't want to be raped she shouldn't have worn that mini-skirt! Clearly she wanted it. If a woman is going around being sexy, she should expect to be raped now and then.

The irrefutable logic of bigot apologists.

The more I think about it, the more analogous (if inflammatory) this seems.

[dividius]

Originally Posted by Nate Graves

I'm not sure if you're serious here, but I'll bite and assume you are as I've seen a lot of responses demonizing Microsoft for their inaction or responsibility in the situation and I'll use your quotes to launch into a related mass-rebuttal.

Let's be clear: to the best of my knowledge and the limited information we have to go on, she wasn't harassed or banned by Microsoft employees. She was most likely banned as a result of the feedback system, which most people will tell you is imperfect, but is essentially community-focused as it relies on the X-Box Live community to police itself.

It's the community's job to police itself? C'mon man, that's a weak rebuttal. There needs to be some form of oversight. Relying on any community the size and scope of XBL to responsibly "police itself" is truly asking for the impossible.

Read the user agreement and the notes related to feedback options, racial slurs, discrimination, obnoxious or harassing behavior are all mentioned. These are things that were put in place specifically to discourage the kind of behavior that I mentioned in my above response and that we all routinely see online.

Again, this is a really weak argument. Just because Microsoft puts a few words in its TOS doesn't mean it is actively discouraging that behavior. Actions speak louder than words.

And 'online' is the key word here, this isn't something that is exclusive to XBL. Interacting anonymously with people over the tubes is something that has bred asshattery for years before console gaming ever caught up. It's simply expanded your options for who, when, and on which platform you wish to be insulted.

You're making my argument for me here; this is all the more reason not to rely on the 'online' community to responsibly police itself, because they won't. Everyone is a tough guy when they're hiding behind a monitor and a keyboard.

I challenge you to find a realistic solution to this, beyond muting everyone.

It isn't possible. You can't control the experience people are going to have when they interact with other people because that is out of your hands. You can warn people, and you can punish them when you catch them violating your terms, and you can (as XBL has implemented) encourage the community to try and make a difference in this behavior, but the ultimate problem lies not with the company or the service but with its denizens.

Take these forums, or any other good message board, as an example. If someone is making inappropriate posts, the mods will ban them. Sure, users can file complaints and make the mods aware of the offending person, but the responsibility ultimately lies in the mods' hands, not the community's. There is no reason why XBL can't use a similar system; the users can make the "police" aware of the problem, but their feedback shouldn't be the final word. It seems silly to me that someone could just drive up enough negative feedback for another user and get them banned without any kind of oversight from Microsoft. There needs to be some form of checks-and-balances to prevent this very thing from happening. If there were, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

What Microsoft has done is, in a manner of speaking, to put the wolf in charge of the hen house. They can't plead ignorance when the hens turn up missing.

[Flatpicker]

Originally Posted by Pnikosis

It is a dumb question.

The fact that being a lesbian doesn't affect your gaming skills is as pointless as being single, married, man, woman, black, white or having some hobbies, but nobody asks himself why some people put these things on their profile or show them on their avatar.

I just don't get it.
I try not to put personal info in my profile simply because I don't want my life choices to be public knowledge.
Why anybody would put their sexual preferences in their gamer profile confounds me.

[Pnikosis]

Suicidal ShiZuru: You are right, the sad thing is that being gay should be considered normal in our society.

Originally Posted by Flatpicker

I just don't get it.
I try not to put personal info in my profile simply because I don't want my life choices to be public knowledge.
Why anybody would put their sexual preferences in their gamer profile confounds me.

Because not everybody is like you, and some people in their own right, could want to put their sexual preference in their profile (among other things). But I want to add that the thing here is that, if I put in my profile "I like girls" (I'm male by the way), probably nobody would ask itself why my profile says that, but if I put "I like guys" is when people start to ask why should I need to expose my sexual preferences.

[Flatpicker]

Originally Posted by Pnikosis

Because not everybody is like you, and some people in their own right, could want to put their sexual preference in their profile (among other things). But I want to add that the thing here is that, if I put in my profile "I like girls" (I'm male by the way), probably nobody would ask itself why my profile says that, but if I put "I like guys" is when people start to ask why should I need to expose my sexual preferences.

I'd ask you either way.
I'm not trying to be goofy, but, I don't see how it's relevant either way.
I play online just to have better AI and make the game more fun to me.

I leave the mic off as for the most part I don't want to have a relationship with my online opponents, just play a g-d game.

[Dr. Douche Nozzle]

Originally Posted by Flatpicker

I'd ask you either way.
I'm not trying to be goofy, but, I don't see how it's relevant either way.
I play online just to have better AI and make the game more fun to me.

I leave the mic off as for the most part I don't want to have a relationship with my online opponents, just play a g-d game.

I know this is totally off topic, but some relationships from the game world have actually carried over and been great friendships. But back to the topic, that sucks she got banned, and is really f'ed up.

[Nate Graves]

Originally Posted by dividius

It's the community's job to police itself? C'mon man, that's a weak rebuttal. There needs to be some form of oversight. Relying on any community the size and scope of XBL to responsibly "police itself" is truly asking for the impossible.

I don't entirely disagree with you on the latter note, but I don't believe it was a poor decision to give the community the options and ability to police itself. Oversight does exist already. It hasn't worked out perfectly thus far, but that doesn't mean it doesn't work at all. Monitoring the tools, tendencies and effectiveness of the feedback system can (if done properly) lead to improvements in the future and hopefully a happy medium.

Again, this is a really weak argument. Just because Microsoft puts a few words in its TOS doesn't mean it is actively discouraging that behavior. Actions speak louder than words.

What actions, exactly? The main reason I bothered to point this out was the presence of the language in the feedback options, the TOS was secondary. That's pretty much the extent of their obligation. As I pointed out before, in italics even, you cannot control people's interactions with each other.

Smith & Wesson doesn't want people robbing 7-11 with their firearms, but they aren't actively stopping them. Are they encouraging armed robbery? By your logic, they are.

This might sound mildly tangential, but I'll bring it home, I promise: every time the topic comes up, people rally and scream about DRM and what a massive waste of energy, time and money it is, and that's a far less ambiguous issue (although still possessing of gray areas). Why is it a waste? Because no matter how well you encrypt something, no matter how convoluted and difficult you make access to its content, someone will crack it in a week. This is a frequent argument and I'm sure you're aware of it.

People are dicks online.

This will not change.

I'm not suggesting that anyone give up entirely (in the same way I would never suggest giving up on protecting your legal dues to your intellectual property), but creative solutions for managing an anarchic wasteland of pirates, internet tough guys, and pretentious douchebags who argue in big words on forums (that's us, guys! ) are not easy to achieve anywhere and the task of heavy and constant moderation for a community like XBL would be beyond possible.

Take these forums, or any other good message board, as an example.

No. And this is why.

Reason #1: The size and scope of the Live community is not equal to the size and scope of evil avatar. With several (unpaid) moderators, it is possible to manage the traffic here. Now, imagine we had 10 million posts a day.

How many conversations are had, messages sent and games played in a 24 hour period?

Reason #2: Forums, online communities, MMOs, email all benefit from one element XBL does not use in-game.

Text. Written words.

You can't screencap someone calling you a jew terrorist and yelling at you for killing the dinosaurs unless they send it to you in a message (and even those you can't forward).

Assuming every word said in a game was logged (which would be creepy and far more upsetting) sifting through the hours of speech would be impossible and even responding or following up on every complaint filed is unrealistic considering the how many millions of users?

Could things improve? Sure. Hasn't Microsoft hired people to start playing games and act as sort of global GMs? Whistle-blowers would probably be more accurate.

I don't know what the official number of complaints filed before hands-on action is taken, maybe that number should be increased. (I'm sure it varies based on the severity of the complaint i.e. Console Modification or Cheating > Offensive In-Game Voice) There are always ways to improve the system and these are things that should be addressed but reactionary fury and heavy, draconian intervention is not an ideal solution. Learning from these situations and finding methods to encourage change within the community is your best hope to achieve not a shiny, happy sanitized environment for online interaction but an uneasy truce amongst a wretched hive of scum and villainy.