Posted on 01/31/2006 3:14:03 AM PST by chunk2005
POPULAR MAKER OF ONLINE GAME WORLD OF WARCRAFT CITES A GAMER FOR HARASSMENT FOR USING THE TERM 'GLBT'; OTHER GAY GUILDS REQUEST CLARIFICATION
Sara Andrews thought it was a big misunderstanding when she received an e-mail from a game master in Blizzard Entertainment's popular online role playing game "World of Warcraft" citing her for "Harassment - Sexual Orientation."
Andrews had posted that she was recruiting for a "GLBT friendly" guild in a general chat channel within the game.
Believing that her notice had been accidentally flagged, she e-mailed Blizzard to correct the problem. Blizzard, to Andrews' surprise, upheld the decision.
Other gay guilds have been alerted and are planning to request clarification on the policy from Blizzard.
Blizzard's policy on "Harassment - Sexual Orientation," which is set forth in the games' "Terms of Use" and cited in the e-mail to Andrews reads, "This category includes both clear and masked language which insultingly refers to any aspect of sexual orientation pertaining to themselves or other players."
A series of e-mails back and forth concerning the incident, seems to make it clear that Blizzard may be inadvertently using a policy meant to protect GLBT people as a way to discriminate against them.
In Newsweekly obtained all of Andrews' e-mails between herself and Blizzard. Numerous requests for comment from Blizzard were not returned. Here's the sequence of events:
Andrews' original posting read: "OZ [the name of her guild] is recruiting all levels ¦ We are not 'GLBT only,' but we are 'GLBT friendly'! (guilduniverse.com/oz)"
In her follow-up letter to the company, Andrews explained that there was an obvious misunderstanding and that she was not insulting anyone, but merely recruiting for a "GLBT friendly" guild.
The response from Blizzard was, "While we appreciate and understand your point of view, we do feel that the advertisement of a 'GLBT friendly' guild is very likely to result in harassment for players that may not have existed otherwise. If you will look at our policy, you will notice the suggested penalty for violating the Sexual Orientation Harassment Policy is to 'be temporarily suspended from the game.' However, as there was clearly no malicious intent on your part, this penalty was reduced to a warning."
Blizzard's stance was clear that recruiting for a guild using "GLBT" was inappropriate as, the company said, it may "incite certain responses in other players that will allow for discussion that we feel has no place in our game."
A game with 5 million paying subscribers.
Uhhhhhhh. What's the saying? "It's a private matter"? and, ummmm "What I do in my bedroom is no one's business"? And ... well ... I'd just like to tell the 5 million subscribers to this game: "I AM RECRUITING GAY AND LESBIAN AND BISEXUAL AND TRANSEXUAL PEOPLE SO THAT WE CAN FORM COZY LITTLE GUILD!!!!!"
They are unable to reproduce, therefore they recruit!
They are mentally defective, socially destructive, disease spreaders!
Not that there's anything wrong with that! /sarcasm
I think it's pretty clear that they want a gaming forum, not a sexual orientation forum. They apparently want the subjects of the forum to be their online gaming service, not a recruitment service for homosexuals, or any group for that matter. Of course, gaming forums probably have a lot of under 18s, which is why the recruiters want to be there.
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