Can You All Do Something About the Toxic Conversations in the Gen Chat on the Fleets?

[DarthEnrique]

BioWare actually, it's in the TOS everyone agrees to when they load the game.

Thank you!

 

And I agree with the OP, chat has become increasingly toxic of late and could do with some actual moderation.

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=938379

 

On the topic of moderating the chat, I personally do not see Bioware doing this at all which is why I made the following suggestions in my OP.

My suggestions:

Expand the ignore list limit

Or

Make a general OPS chat (like the trade and pvp chat) for people to be able to form an ops group that way if nothing else.

[lightSaberAddiCt]

No one said all off topics needed to be not allowed there are some that are highly inappropriate that need to be dealt with. Eg. Topics on Politics, sex, racism, homophobia, xenophobia, pretty much topics like these should not be discussed and the first topic I mentioned can open the door to all the ones I mentioned after, which as an LGBTQ Hispanic I find that very uncomfortable. Should all my gaming experience be ruined because you think these toxic conversations are enjoyable?

 

Genchat has always been this way, in every MMO. You just have to put your big boy pants on, and ignore it. Or report them. But this whole "safe space" BS is getting out of hand. Let me help you out, there are no safe spaces. There is always ******es, you cant hide from them, or expect people to make some heavy handed moderation, to stop people from talking about subjects you deem insulting.

 

Report ->ignore -> move on

[DWho]

Until we as players show Bioware that we take the issue seriously enough to report the offenders they will likely not do anything to change the current climate because they believe the players are fine with it the way it is. If you are not fine with it, show them by reporting offenders. Change only happens if you make an effort to change it.

[HisShadowX]

From sex to politics the Fleet chats have become very disgustingly toxic since the server merge to the point where any of us that ask that the topics be taken elsewhere people start trolling and I have hit my max on the ignore list, and I am sure I am not the only one.

 

People say to turn of the chat but I shouldn’t have to do that especially when I watch the chat for OPS groups that are forming and those heppen in the General Chat so to turn that off I would miss opportunities to join OPS groups.

 

My suggestions:

Expand the ignore list limit

Or

Make a general OPS chat (like the trade and pvp chat) for people to be able to form an ops group that way if nothing else.

 

This game is suffering due to the hardcore minority ruining the game the first couple years. Best thing to do is just ignore them. Otherwise not enough subs & you SWG hardcore players will have to find another home, again..

Edited January 8, 2018 by HisShadowX

[curulz]

ignore it and move on, engaging some folks is a losing proposition and will only lead to more aggravation. you wont convince people topics shouldn't be discussed, and I don't see BW doing anything significant to curtail it at this point. use the meager tools you have and make the best of it

[IoNonSoEVero]

Until we as players show Bioware that we take the issue seriously enough to report the offenders they will likely not do anything to change the current climate because they believe the players are fine with it the way it is. If you are not fine with it, show them by reporting offenders. Change only happens if you make an effort to change it.

 

On the other hand why should I be responsible for doing BW's job for them? They know the problem exists. There have been threads complaining about it. Many threads with many posters. The devs are said to play the game and if they've gone through the Fleet, DK, Coruscant, etc. they have invariably seen it. They were warned before the merger that people such as RPers were worried about encountering toxic environments. Apparently the Powers that Be at BW are unwilling to do anything about it, as a whole. It's their job to put mods there to enforce their own ToS, not mine to act as their unpaid mod.

 

If I see a username that is racist, homophobic or promotes rape I will report it, but if I reported every troll in gen chat I'd spend all my play time doing that. I just keep all the chat channels turned off so I don't have to see the garbage.

Edited January 8, 2018 by IoNonSoEVero

[Kyrra_T]

ignore it and move on, engaging some folks is a losing proposition and will only lead to more aggravation. you wont convince people topics shouldn't be discussed, and I don't see BW doing anything significant to curtail it at this point. use the meager tools you have and make the best of it

 

I've given up on reporting. Nothing happens. I ported to fleet today. On a female character, a healer, forming an ops group in guild. The character received a whisper when I landed. "Hey baby. Come to my ship and I'll f*ck you hard." I put the person on ignore. Noted the guild tag they were running and went on to doing to the Op. This is the 2nd time within a week that I have had something like that happen. Yeah, its annoying. They don't know I do happen to be female. Most female toons are run by males. They were just being dimwits. All I can do is ignore them. When I hit the limit I take out the ones that are oldest so I can add new ones. Yeah, that opens me up to stuff happening again but it's my only choice.

[TrixxieTriss]

Don’t forget the Dromund Kaas gen if you’re fixing chat, I find it much worse than the fleet. I have to turn it off when I go to that strong hold.

[LordFell]

RE: Gold Spammers

...once Bioware gets around to nuking the credit selling scum, that spot on your ignore list is freed up. So go ahead and report them, and ignore them... unless, of course, your ignore list is full.

 

Re: Ignore Lists

Right now, it's fairly easy to fill up your ignore list. "Report and move on" is kind of a silly mantra for people... probably people who like to troll in chat, and like the status quo. But, I'm just speculating here.

 

One of the reasons it's easy to fill up your ignore list, is because a lot of the people trolling are only trolling because they want that reaction. Once enough people stop paying attention to their trolling character, they retire it, and log in as a different troll character. If NONE of their troll characters are getting the kind of Negative Reinforcement these mentally prepubescents crave, they'll create brand new characters to troll with.

 

At the same time... Joe Troll most likely has more serious characters... characters that they PvP with, or do Ops with... people that are "respectable members of the community." If trolling on their lowbie throw-away toons gets their "serious" main characters added to people's ignore lists TOO... then that will make some changes.

The ignore function really needs to be account wide. All of their account, all of your account.

 

"Just Report"

Well... you know... I'd like to. I really do wish it were just that easy.

 

If you go target a toon you can see, and right click the name, you'll see you have all sorts of wonderful options. You can report them for things like harassment, real world threats of violence... or real world threats of suicide. If you right-click someone's name in chat, and they're not near where you are (probably about 30 meters, since that's the functional range of most abilities) you can ONLY report them "for spam."

 

And, to be honest... I did report someone for spamming, because that was the ONLY option available to me... but they were in game, threatening to harm themselves. Now, they also had an "obvious troll" name, so the likelihood is that they were more interested in getting a rise out of people than actually hurting themselves... but, how do I know? Maybe people who want to troll also actually hate themselves and think about killing themselves? Regardless, I wasn't going to track this guy down on fleet, just because of the unlikely possibility that they actually were contemplating suicide... but I'd like to have been able to report it to the correct category.

I want the same "within 30 meters" reporting options extended to anywhere in chat.

 

Speaking of the End User License Agreement

OK... nobody reads these. There's just not enough time in the day to read these... and to be honest, Judges in various jurisdictions have ruled for various reasons, they're not especially legally binding. At the same time... you don't have to have read the EULA to know that acting like a jerk in chat is against the terms. This is just common sense. But, what a lot of people neglect to thing about, is that this is an Agreement... between us the Player, and EA/Bioware the Company. We agree not to be jerks in chat (despite a preponderous number of players who seem to think this doesn't apply to them) and THEY AGREE TO ENFORCE THESE TERMS FOR THE GOOD OF THE GREATER COMMUNITY.

 

...so, some players aren't living up to their agreement (SWTOR is a community, players must be community minded) but, EA/Bioware still has an obligation to live up to THEIR END of the agreement. So, what I'm saying is...

EA/Bioware is not living up to its end of the agreement to keep the SWTOR community a nice place to play.

 

...and, I'll be honest here. As much as it's going to such to actually have to read chat reports, and Warn and Silence, and sometimes even Ban players for behaving like utter tools... a short term crackdown will have a long term effect. Once it becomes known that trolling just isn't acceptable, people will stop doing it. You gotta make it unacceptable first.

[WayOfTheWarriorx]

I personally have no objection to expanding the ignore feature so that it sufficient to ignore as many people as someone deems worthy of it, but I do not support limiting of topics, use of language, or mods. Ignore of there for a reason, right now it's easy to cap it off and not have room to ignore more people, that shouldn't be the case.

 

Just because one person might find something offensive doesn't mean it is worthy of being not allowed. Toxicity is nothing new, it has always been there, if people find it to be much worse since the server merge that is because they came from a dead server. Ain't nuthen new from where I came from.

 

Is it nice and neighborly? Hell no, but neither is real life. Gotta have a thicker skin than that. If anything you could possibly see in chat is so offensive to you that you feel it ruins your ability to enjoy the game and that it can upset you and make you not want to play, that's nothing but pure weakness on your part.

 

Strife, insults, bad words, general vulgarity, politics, people being mean, welcome to 1st Grade. If an expanded ignore feature is not sufficient for your sense of propriety, time for you to make room for the stronger, more survivable of your species. That kind of weakness is bad for the gene pool.

 

Feel free to tell me what I can or cannot say after you have killed me and thus proven the stronger.

[IoNonSoEVero]

There's actually a specific list of things players agree not to discuss, and language they agree not to use, when they create an account and sign up for the game. It's a binding contract with Bioware. That's been addressed by LordFell above, and others. If you want to be a racist homophobe who hates women on your own time, nobody can stop you (although I'm sure many will stay away from you), but by creating a SWTOR character and logging in, you've actually made a legally binding agreement not to behave that way or use that language in the game.

 

So all this talk about growing a thicker skin, and how some topics will always be offensive to some? Irrelevant. It's about abiding by the game's ToS. Someone else already decided what is considered offensive in the game, and by creating your account you've agreed to follow their rules. The fact that BW doesn't seem to give a **** about enforcing their own ToS doesn't make that any less so.

[Rheshalea]

All it would take, really, is for an Official Employee of Bioware/EA to be pingable when problems arise in chat. Say when three separate people (=accounts) report the same nonsense-spewer in the same chat.

 

Ping Chat Moderator for MyLittleTrollAccount, by Player WASD

Ping Chat Moderator for MyLittleTrollAccount, by Player InnocentBystander

Ping Chat Moderator for MyLittleTrollAccount, by Player Lord IHateHate

 

And poof, like magic, Official Employee shows up and reads the chat back for a minute, and acts accordingly. Time-outs first, then longer bans if the same person doesn't get the point. MAIN POINT is Official Employee actually tells the chat when MyLittleTrollAccount has been dealt with so the players of AnotherLittleTrollAccount and ILoveHate can see it.

 

For most people, gaming is an escape from reality. It's what we do when we do NOT want to read/see that crap on the news. Edgelords call that, disdainfully, a safespace. Well, to me, online gaming especially has always been a "safespace" where people don't know, and shouldn't care about, whether or not I have female or male body parts and whether or not I prefer the same in others. People don't know and shouldn't care about if I'm gray-haired and wrinkly or haven't started shaving yet. They shouldn't know or care about whatever religious and/or political views I admire or detest, because NONE OF THAT MAKES A DIFFERENCE in the game.

 

Online gaming is where we have the chance to be better than we might be IRL. We can get to know people based on their personality, without any possible bias based on their looks or gender or country of origin. Yet some people choose to show that they are intolerant scumponddwellers, IN A GAME, and feel the need to shout it out loud.

 

Honestly, when a kid in a sandbox can't behave, it gets removed. Why should this game and the chats be any different?

[Celise]

IMHO there's no way to 'abuse' an ignore - nobody's obligated to interact with anyone else in this game, and if there's a player they'd rather not hear, get requests from or end up in a GF group with, they have the right to ignore them.

 

it's easier than you realise to troll someone and then just block them, you got your rise from them and you block em on purpose to make sure they can't respond back. that is a clear abuse of the ignore feature.

 

another case of abusing the ignore feature are players with thin skins who can't win an arguement they started or got involved in and this other player is pushing them for an answer that will hurt their ego in a way, the fact is that person shouldn't of gotten involved in such a conversation to begin with and now they burn themselves and others by putting the ignore feature in place because they couldn't win that case and it isn't like anyone was being rude either at the time.

 

if you put your mind to it there are ways to use the ignore feature like a weapon.

 

There's actually a specific list of things players agree not to discuss, and language they agree not to use, when they create an account and sign up for the game. It's a binding contract with Bioware. That's been addressed by LordFell above, and others. If you want to be a racist homophobe who hates women on your own time, nobody can stop you (although I'm sure many will stay away from you), but by creating a SWTOR character and logging in, you've actually made a legally binding agreement not to behave that way or use that language in the game.

 

So all this talk about growing a thicker skin, and how some topics will always be offensive to some? Irrelevant. It's about abiding by the game's ToS. Someone else already decided what is considered offensive in the game, and by creating your account you've agreed to follow their rules. The fact that BW doesn't seem to give a **** about enforcing their own ToS doesn't make that any less so.

 

so long as the general chat isn't being monitored and only specific cases are looked at, everyone else who gets involved in these crap throwing matches won't think it will happen to them, and even if you report that person another will come up saying it won't happen to them. it's that entitled mentality that only a few ever get reported on and the rest never gets noticed that makes it a completely pointless task to report and ignore everyone you see just because you can even with the ToS in place, not unless everyone is reporting the bad players, but as shown on this thread: it is hit and miss who does what and when.

 

Thing is if Bioware aren't interested in proactively enforcing their own rules, the vast majority of incidents will be overlooked and any agreement with Bioware with the ToS or not, the agreement only works when it is actively enforced.

Edited January 8, 2018 by Celise

[IoNonSoEVero]

it's easier than you realise to troll someone and then just block them, you got your rise from them and you block em on purpose to make sure they can't respond back. that is a clear abuse of the ignore feature.

 

another case of abusing the ignore feature are players with thin skins who can't win an arguement they started or got involved in and this other player is pushing them for an answer that will hurt their ego in a way, the fact is that person shouldn't of gotten involved in such a conversation to begin with and now they burn themselves and others by putting the ignore feature in place because they couldn't win that case and it isn't like anyone was being rude either at the time.

 

if you put your mind to it there are ways to use the ignore feature like a weapon.

 

I will be honest, I'd never even fathomed someone doing that with the ignore feature, in the first case. In the second, though, I don't have an issue with someone deciding to step away from a conversation and refusing to respond or communicate further with another player. It might not be polite, but IMHO it's akin to walking away from someone at a party or hanging up on them. Everyone has a right to stop engaging.

 

so long as the general chat isn't being monitored and only specific cases are looked at, everyone else who gets involved in these crap throwing matches won't think it will happen to them, and even if you report that person another will come up saying it won't happen to them. it's that entitled mentality that only a few ever get reported on and the rest never gets noticed that makes it a completely pointless task to report and ignore everyone you see just because you can even with the ToS in place, not unless everyone is reporting the bad players, but as shown on this thread: it is hit and miss who does what and when.

 

Thing is if Bioware aren't interested in proactively enforcing their own rules, the vast majority of incidents will be overlooked and any agreement with Bioware with the ToS or not, the agreement only works when it is actively enforced.

 

And on this, I completely agree with you. People do what they do on gen chat because they think they can, and BW is giving them no reason to think otherwise.

 

As mentioned, I don't bother with ignore for that; I have chat off so I don't see it. Even if chat were on I would not be reporting players for chat. It's BW's responsibility to police their property; not mine.

[DarthEnrique]

Thing is if Bioware aren't interested in proactively enforcing their own rules, the vast majority of incidents will be overlooked and any agreement with Bioware with the ToS or not, the agreement only works when it is actively enforced.

Exactly and this is the main issue as to why people think that they can get away with some of these toxic topics that they otherwise wouldn’t if the ToS were being upheld by Bioware.

 

The devs are said to play the game and if they've gone through the Fleet, DK, Coruscant, etc. they have invariably seen it.

This is what bothers me most is they do claim they play the game so common sense would dictate that they have seen these conversations in the game and yet they say nothing about it or say nothing here on the forums these conversations are not okay, just absolute silence and it makes me wonder if they really do play the game or are they completely incompetent or oblivious to the conversations or are they just purposely allowing this? It’s got to be something.

Edited January 8, 2018 by DarthEnrique

[DWho]

On the other hand why should I be responsible for doing BW's job for them? They know the problem exists. There have been threads complaining about it. Many threads with many posters. The devs are said to play the game and if they've gone through the Fleet, DK, Coruscant, etc. they have invariably seen it. They were warned before the merger that people such as RPers were worried about encountering toxic environments. Apparently the Powers that Be at BW are unwilling to do anything about it, as a whole. It's their job to put mods there to enforce their own ToS, not mine to act as their unpaid mod.

 

If I see a username that is racist, homophobic or promotes rape I will report it, but if I reported every troll in gen chat I'd spend all my play time doing that. I just keep all the chat channels turned off so I don't have to see the garbage.

 

Well, I guess if you choose to do nothing about it then you can't blame Bioware for not doing anything about it. They see a lack of reports as the playerbase saying that what is going on is just fine or even "we like it this toxic". I know I can't speak for everyone but I do make an effort to clean it up and that's all I can do.

[DarthEnrique]

Well, I guess if you choose to do nothing about it then you can't blame Bioware for not doing anything about it. They see a lack of reports as the playerbase saying that what is going on is just fine or even "we like it this toxic". I know I can't speak for everyone but I do make an effort to clean it up and that's all I can do.

 

Yet reporting these people DOES NO GOOD. You’ll just get a thank you for making them aware and the person will be right back to it a couple of minutes/hours/day later because they receive no reprocussion so why should we do their job amd report these people for Bioware to do nothing?

Edited January 8, 2018 by DarthEnrique

[DWho]

Yet reporting these people DOES NO GOOD. You’ll just get a thank you for making them aware and the person will be right back to it a couple of minutes/hours/day later because they receive no reprocussion so why should we do their job amd report these people for Bioware to do nothing?

 

Well. I have seen some of the people I reported disappear from fleet chat (at least their toxic posts some have been around but more subdued). At least one of them I reported appeared to have been banned from the game because I made a point to add them to my "friends" list to see if anything happened because what he was saying was so offensive. They are now completely gone from that list (not renamed to something else which just changes the name on your friends list). I don't dispute that Bioware should do more. I am just stating that we need to show them as a community that we find it unacceptable by making out the reports. Posts in the forums I think get less attention than numbers of reports handled by Bioware. Not that they don't at least scan the forums, but history seems to indicate there is a low probability that something posted on the forums will be acted upon.

 

My perspective on this is that there should be roving chat monitors with the authority to issue squelches, suspensions, or even bans if they see behavior that does not belong in Gen Chat. Just a short period of cracking down would get the word out that "someone might be watching" which is about the best way to prevent bad behavior (the threat of getting caught - it doesn't work 100% but it can have a big impact). The areas needing attention are also limited (Fleet, Drommund Kaas, and Coruscant - for whatever reason the Imp side seems worse than Pub side). We have had several posts about it and the complaint against it always boils down to "you can't trust monitors to be fair" which I think is a silly argument but it gets made just the same. If that is the case then you "can't trust anyone" to be fair., why would a monitor be different that someone reviewing reports.

[Floplag]

i likes a good trolling i do, but thats not what we have anymore.

What we have is a bunch of attention seekers that use shock tactics to irritate people, thats not trolling, thats being a tard.

The ones that spam, or are literally just tossing out insulting buzzwords, i will ignore, thats all of about 4 people right now.

Good trolling is a lost art. The ones that are just trying to have a little fun and play a few reindeer games, party on fellas, party on.

[Kaedusz]

^This problem is only on the american servers, which i have visited a few times now, just to check the chat, due to threads like these and i can confirm it.

 

The Europeans servers(DM) are pretty tame. I haven't even seen good trolling, which i like a lot. Nothing. Just formal business as usual on the fleet chat with the occasional normal conversation that isn't even close to trolling, for months now. It's weird really.

Edited January 8, 2018 by Kaedusz

[Sargrith]

i likes a good trolling i do, but thats not what we have anymore.

What we have is a bunch of attention seekers that use shock tactics to irritate people, thats not trolling, thats being a tard.

The ones that spam, or are literally just tossing out insulting buzzwords, i will ignore, thats all of about 4 people right now.

Good trolling is a lost art. The ones that are just trying to have a little fun and play a few reindeer games, party on fellas, party on.

 

 

 

 

Well time line wise the greatest troller of all time will be born and pick up his lightsaber and begin his legendary trolling. Kenobi will show us the way.

[AlrikFassbauer]

The funny thing is that in forums with a much older player base ( 35+ ), there are far less trolls.

[RagnarAugustus]

From sex to politics the Fleet chats have become very disgustingly toxic since the server merge to the point where any of us that ask that the topics be taken elsewhere people start trolling and I have hit my max on the ignore list, and I am sure I am not the only one.

 

People say to turn of the chat but I shouldn’t have to do that especially when I watch the chat for OPS groups that are forming and those heppen in the General Chat so to turn that off I would miss opportunities to join OPS groups.

 

My suggestions:

Expand the ignore list limit

Or

Make a general OPS chat (like the trade and pvp chat) for people to be able to form an ops group that way if nothing else.

I definitely would like a looking for Ops channel in the chat so I don't have to scroll through pages of Jawa jokes and blank spaces from trolls

[Kurj]

I definitely would like a looking for Ops channel in the chat so I don't have to scroll through pages of Jawa jokes and blank spaces from trolls

 

LOL, I actually like the jawa jokes. My biggest concern are the blatant racist, sexist, misogynist, nationalist, etc. comments that fill gen chat on fleet, in particular the imperial side. People who say things like that in open chat should receive an account ban, at least in my opinion. The image it creates of the game community cannot possibly be good for attracting and retaining players - at least not the type of players we want.

[WayOfTheWarriorx]

but by creating a SWTOR character and logging in, you've actually made a legally binding agreement not to behave that way or use that language in the game.

 

So all this talk about growing a thicker skin, and how some topics will always be offensive to some? Irrelevant. It's about abiding by the game's ToS.

 

That may very well be, however, to make an anology, common law wives and husbands. Normally, you have to make a legally binding agreement, hire some people, invite some guests, say some scripted words to ghandi you have no intention of keeping, say I do than have some uncooked chinese food thrown at you.

 

or

 

Just live with the person for a few years but do nothing that actually makes it legal anyways.

 

Not one person in this history of this game has ever read TOS start to finish when signing up, the same as they have never done for anything that comes with a TOS agreement and anything that has alot of legal stupid jargon half of which you wouldn't understand even if you really did read it anyways.

 

It's also against the law to perform oral sex for any reason whatsoever at anytime, even if you are married to the person in some states. Laws like that are still "on the books". Know anyone's who's ever been arrested under such a statute?

 

Precedent is also a legal argument to make even if it has no legal sanction yet behind it. That's how things become legal precedents in the first place.

 

This thread is not about "what is", it's about what people want "it" to be, or think it should be.

 

Spare the rod spoil the child, that ship has sailed. Far too late to use TOS in that subscribed manner. This is how it is, and this is how it's going to stay, it is literally part of the game's sub-culture now.

 

Again, I'm not saying I think it's all okay, or that it's a proper way of behaving, but until there are laws that's intent is to legalize being respectful to others, people should maintain no expectation of such, and continue with the real life maxum, "sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me". - If anything anyone can say in an online video game can ruin your ability to enjoy the game and make you not want to play, that is pure weakness on the person's part.

 

Ignore. You won't even see anything the person ever says again.

Edited January 8, 2018 by WayOfTheWarriorx