Hate hate

I would like to find a way to rid our FAF community of racism, bigotry, hate speech and the like. I think it is time we mature as a community and not tolerate such behavior anymore. I am not talking about typical shit talk, calling each other stupid noobs blah blah blah. I am talking about the serious hate talk that no adult in 2021 should be tolerating.

Why are lobby names allowed to be such things as "No n****** or f***"

Why can't there be chat filter for such terms, why can't there be an instant bans for such actions? Why do we tolerate it and just deal with it.

I'm all for shit talk but hate talk needs to go. I have brought this up in chat and I get shit on for even mentioning it which is surprising.

Am I the only one who wants to clean this place up? Am I the only one who won't tolerate this? If so why?

Why do we tolerate it? Why do we allow it?

What's the point in growing the community, becoming an official non-profit if we are going to condone this type of behavior?

There has to be something we can do. I have been a Patreon supporter for a short time but don't feel I can contribute anymore until such efforts are made to rid our community of these things. Or...if my contributions can go directly to the effort to ban all hate speech.

What am I missing here?

I understand FAF better than I can play it

I’d suggest taking a screenshot and making a report whenever you come across this so they can be banned/suspended.

On a related note I’m happy to volunteer to go through reports if it would help such issues (and other breaches of faf rules) be dealt with quicker/if you (faf moderation team) need more resource to deal with reports.

We don't tolerate it. If you see such a lobby name, pm me or an other moderator and we will close it. Games and conversations can be reported via the report tool in the client.

Yeah definitely report this stuff. The moderators aren’t all seeing, but if they’re made aware of stuff like this I’m sure they’d take action

I appreciate that we have a reporting system in place but my point is can we do more. Like I mentioned chat filters, and instant term bans for using such language? Perhaps a campaign of awareness within the newsfeed and forums to make it known that it will no longer be tolerated. Perhaps a special committee that helps process reports of this type of thing specifically with severe punishments for infractions. I just think it's time we do more.

I understand FAF better than I can play it

I don't like automatic systems. They are too unreliable, espacially if you want to tie any real consequences to them.
I see two things that could realistically improve the situation:

  • ability to mute certain players in game (I don't know if it is possible already, It's been a long time since my last team game)
  • making players more aware that they can report misbehaving people.

You can trick it extremely easily so it's not reliable ,BDO has such a system and 90% of the players know the way around it already

queuing with a newbie to show him the beauty of tmm and meeting tagada be like:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLcRpdZ0Xb0&ab_channel=Tomoko

I'm not a fan of automatically filtering the chat or automatic actions such as banning. It is a slippery slope and in the end it doesn't change the intention. Therefore it doesn't deal with the actual problem.

Regardless, I do agree that it happens often. Having a news item about this is an interesting approach (instead of Nomads, for example) stating something about this and that it can be reported. If that would link to a topic / guide on how to do this (the report system is made for replays, not for other issues as described by Tsirkitna) then I think we can get a long way. This would be option 2 of blackyps. The special committee would be the moderators in my opinion - with the assumption that they have the time to process more reports.

A work of art is never finished, merely abandoned

Well I think a certain level of automated moderation would still be possible. I mean even if it only catches 5% of offenders that's still progress right? What I'm thinking is that we could just generate automatic moderation reports when we see certain words in game titles. The downside is that we had this before with teamkills and it generated way too many reports and simply overwhelmed the mod team. Although I think these sorts of reports would be easier to handle as you don't need to fire up a replay or anything. Might be something worth looking into.

Automated moderation can work if done properly, or requiring human intervention for dishing out punishments. If reports are to be automatically generated they have to be of good quality. The previously mentioned teamkilling reports were mostly false anyway.

Some simple blacklist of words is a bit icky, can be easily circumvented and can even promote more childish users to see where the limits are and thus emphasizing the problem.

Like others already mentioned in the thread, for now the best thing to do is to keep reporting users that break the rules.

@blackyps said in Hate hate:

  • ability to mute certain players in game (I don't know if it is possible already, It's been a long time since my last team game)

Yes, this is already possible to do.

@tsirkitna

can we do more

Are you a developer? Perhaps you can volunteer your time.

special committee

Nothing fancy needs to be done. You are offended by something and it so happens that these things are something the moderators can deal with. Please report them and you will be doing your part.

Former Board Member - March 2021 - March 2022

@furyritchie I'm a carpenter not a developer lol. I would gladly volunteer my time to assist in reading reports and anything that like that

I think this type of thing is more than simply being offended. This is an obvious social issue that should not be allowed regardless of if people are offended or not. Even if nobody reports it it shouldn't exist ever. If there is a clear stance against it and people know they risk a 30 day ban for first offense and lifetime ban for second offense (as an example) then perhaps they would think twice about their choice of words and how they conduct themselves.

I understand FAF better than I can play it

@tsirkitna said in Hate hate:

I think this type of thing is more than simply being offended. This is an obvious social issue that should not be allowed regardless of if people are offended or not. Even if nobody reports it it shouldn't exist ever.

So you are a political activist... for a video game?

If there is a clear stance against it and people know they risk a 30 day ban for first offense and lifetime ban for second offense (as an example) then perhaps they would think twice about their choice of words and how they conduct themselves.

A lifetime ban for a second offense from the online community of a game they purchased is extreme. So is 30 days for a first offence. We have mechanisms to report, please use them. People who create games with those names will face a warning, and cascading bans (eventually permanent if they actually are a menace and will not respond to reason)

Even the politically correct thought police on Facebook etc do not have such tyrannical and extreme punishments.

I would gladly volunteer my time to assist in reading reports and anything that like that

You have shown that you want to punish people savagely for words rather than gently warn and steer or encourage them to do better. You are not quite ready to be in the moderation team. At least not until you learn to approach the situation with some empathy.

I have brought this up in chat and I get shit on for even mentioning it which is surprising.

Outside of college campuses most people hate political correctness as it is every bit as insidious as the problem it tries to combat. It is such a drain to even hear about it. People come to play a video game to escape reality.

Ultimately we want FAF to be a decent, friendly community. Report these games when you see them - that's the best way for you as an individual to contribute to fixing the issue.

Whilst I really don't like how extreme you want this issue pursued I do appreciate that you have spoken your mind on the subject.

Former Board Member - March 2021 - March 2022

@furyritchie I appreciate you can have your own thoughts on this but for you to shit on me for wanting to take such a strong stance is confusing to me. If you are ok with hate speech than that is a reflection of who you are. I want to take a strong stance against it and that is a reflection of who I am. People purchase the game yes but it should be a privilege to be part of the online community not a right. The reasonings you are attempting to make are part of the problem. I'm not being political. This is not a political issue to me it is a human rights issue. Like I said I am not talking about people trash talking. I am talking about racism, anti gay, bigotry. I fall into none of those groups but will defend them vehemently. Perhaps you are the one who should not be part of a moderation team if you take such issues so lightly and are annoyed that there are those who wish to rid a community of them. Savagely punishing those who act with savage hate should be a no brainer. The current system exist yes but I don't think it is enough for this specific issue. When people have a problem with any attempt to rid the community of hate speech it makes me think they are the types that act like that. Why else would you want to defend such actions. Do you actually want a community where anyone can say and do anything with no real consequence?....not really a community then is it....

I will continue to report all infractions of this nature that I see. I will trust that the actual leaders of this community have seen this post and will consider it objectively. I hope that there are more people like me around here that want a minimum standard of conduct and hope that we can find a way to rid our community of hate speech in all it's forms but I will never have empathy for people who act this way and am shocked you would make such a suggestion.

I understand FAF better than I can play it

Violations of rules will always exist regardless of how severe the punishment is. The existence of the violations does not imply that they are allowed.

I am not arguing for or against an increase of punishments, I just want to say that there is a point where an increase in punishment doesn't have any further effect. There is a reason why we don't punish every crime with a lifetime in prison.

Human rights lol

“what’s wrong with being gay?”
“it’s gay”

is right between running over POWs with tanks to hear the sound they make and intentionally withholding food and water from areas that didn’t vote for you in a natural crisis.

I get the desire to remove use of racial slurs, but your OP sounds like you also want people to stop saying fuck which is just kinda ridiculous. Especially when you attach it to some perm ban. At least that’s what I think your censored F word is since it’s 4 letters.

For this to be as productive as possible:
https://www.faforever.com/rules

Explain what segment of the rules should be changed and what it should be changed to.

Also, does anyone have an example of a game that implemented a chat filter that resulted in any real cultural shift? It’s like the penultimate example of George Bush flying onto an aircraft carrier to proclaim Mission Accomplished in 2002 after Desert Storm.

@tsirkitna said in Hate hate:

When people have a problem with any attempt to rid the community of hate speech it makes me think they are the types that act like that. Why else would you want to defend such actions.

He wasn't defending people using hate speech. He was arguing for not punishing it as severely as you want it to be punished. Implying that he is someone who uses hate speech because of that is unreasonable and frankly insulting to him. Simply arguing against your stance doesn't make whoever does it your enemy, which does seem to be what you think though.
As people have already told you multiple times, make the report, there will be some kind of punishment. The punishment won't be as harsh as you want it to be, but it's definitely not tolerated, and has led to perma bans in the past for people who don't learn.

I give up, just delete this post. I got my answer on where FAF stands on this issue......everything is fine and nothing needs to change. The end!

I understand FAF better than I can play it