Competitive TF2, Harassment, and Volunteering
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@norfnorf said in Competitive TF2, Harassment, and Volunteering:
I honestly pity those who are unintelligent enough to not mute someone being rude to them and instead cry to the admins and make their lives more complicated.
For RGL pugs and the RGL discord I genuinely want people to “make my life more complicated” with reports. I obviously can’t speak for other departments but part of combating this sort of thing is knowing what’s going on, and evidence of behaviour. Reports exist for a reason, and the ability to act on them is important for various reasons, including fighting the kind harassment listed in the OP.
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@Iso I find it strange you’re scared of people who report bad behaviour but aren’t bothered by the people carrying out the bad behaviour.
I would ask them not to carry out the behaviour, if they persisted I would report. I don’t have to do the thought experiment. I call out bad behaviour in pubs, pugs, lobbies etc. and if it’s consistent enough I report it on all of those platforms.
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@Iso kinda odd to complain about people choosting to ignore/report bad behavior in private circles in a thread about public harassment of volunteers
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@cyclowns I completely agree that harassment, especially toward volunteers, is uncalled for, but the thread’s topic had strayed away from that before I started posting. I’m sorry for continuing the derailment from that topic towards arguing about other rules.
I had typed a longer post about how what defines “bad behavior” becomes more subjective in private groups, but that topic can be left for a different time and place.
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@Iso said in Competitive TF2, Harassment, and Volunteering:
* for what it’s worth, some of them also had no loyalties to that team – they used 3 different ringers for the scrim, but such is life in amateur highlander (I don’t know whether the offensive gamer was also a ringer)
So a couple things, if you’re bringing in a ringer then maybe you should warn the ringer and confirm with them “Hey I say racist and bigoted things, are you going to be okay with that?”
RGL does not punish that type of stuff in private spaces, so the only time that our rules (which the survey showed the clear majority agreed with) are in public scrims and matches, and you can still say all the racist/bigoted things in your own private discords/mumbles during the scrim/matches. Basically, 99.99% of the internet is available for you to say all of the racist/bigoted things you want, and RGL will take no action. If you genuinely struggle for that very small portion of time to not say racist/bigoted things in game chat during scrims and matches, then I think you might have a bigger issue outside this.
Swinging the banhammer too freely doesn’t just lower the number of players, it makes the entire remaining community more divisive and less trusting of each other – the remaining players will see their friends get banned over misunderstandings (per human nature, there inevitably will be misunderstandings) and act excessively guarded, which sucks away fun for everyone in a positive feedback loop.
The number of players banned is fairly small, but the number of players that racist/bigots/harass others affect is higher. Do you think people who harass others or are bad-faith actors in the community only negatively affect less than one person in the community on average? If so, then the bans would be pushing more people out. However, it tends to these people have negatively affected many people in the community and can be a reason why people leave the competitive scene.
I would argue it’s the inverse, having lax policies and enabling bad behavior drives more people away than bans. This is one of the main reasons that RGL has grown in my opinion, is through our moderation. Every six months we’ve posted about 20-40% growth over the previous six months of the total registered player count in this “dead game” for the last three years.
“But sigafoo you’re only growing because of money!!”
This is another common misconception, look at HL for example. We’ve seen consistent growth from the sections outside of Invite. Invite has stayed the same size roughly 6-8 teams, but we’ve grown in our free divisions moreso. The same thing with sixes, look at our Amateur and Newcomer divisions in sixes, they’ve done very well.
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@sigafoo I have nothing against the current conduct rules for matches. I was writing in response to other posters ITT who wanted to see those rules extended to private spaces because they see it as a way to “weed out” potential harassers.
The number of players banned is fairly small, but the number of players that racist/bigots/harass others affect is higher. Do you think people who harass others or are bad-faith actors in the community only negatively affect less than one person in the community on average?
People who go out of their way to harass others? By definition, they are willfully negatively affecting at least one other person, and they should absolutely be reprimanded and removed.
People who are deemed bigoted/toxic/etc. for wrongthink expressed off-platform? This case is much less obvious to me. I would bet that among the hundreds of players apparently implicated in the screenshot norfnorf posted ITT, they actually have negatively affected less than one person in the community each.
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@sigafoo said in Competitive TF2, Harassment, and Volunteering:
I would argue it’s the inverse, having lax policies and enabling bad behavior drives more people away than bans. This is one of the main reasons that RGL has grown in my opinion, is through our moderation. Every six months we’ve posted about 20-40% growth over the previous six months of the total registered player count in this “dead game” for the last three years.
This is the most important part that is often overlooked by those who claim their edgy behavior is benign. Through the cultural damage done by hateful conduct, it brings harmful repercussions to the entire community and league. What you may think is only relevant to the people in the server at the time can actually negatively affect the overall culture and perception of the community, which is essential to protect in order to maintain RGL as a place that is welcoming of new players. If someone is harming the league, it is perfectly reasonable for RGL to take action.
I quite dislike the current wording around the lack of scrutiny of off-platform behavior such as Steam/Discord PMs, as those can be some of the most potent tools bad actors will use to directly harass people, and can still contribute to the same problem of cultural degeneration.
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yo can i play a match without seeing ppl ive never talked to have personal vendettas against me thanks
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@blue99 said in Competitive TF2, Harassment, and Volunteering:
yo can i play a match without seeing ppl ive never talked to have personal vendettas against me thanks
seconding this
it also happens sometimes outside of rgl’s jurisdiction which can be frustrating but i get why they dont enforce it outside of their reach