* Very * alarming interventions over guild names in recent weeks

Gegensmith

ImmortalCX, I hold a PhD from Stanford in drama and teach dramatic theory to actors in training at a London drama school. So, thanks, but your assumptions quite literally couldn't be more wrong.

I can only assume that you didn't read the original post.

For those of you complaining about having even mentioned LGBTQ+-friendly, I ask you this (not for the first time):

Are you in all seriousness suggesting that a player saw our guild's name and concluded that, since it uses "Pacrooti", it ought to be reported?


Twice?

In the space of one week, having existed on both PC servers for a DECADE without any problems?

This is the problem with the "just the facts, ma'am" attitude of some posters here (let alone the trope of "I'm gay but...", which is structurally equivalent to the "some of my best friends are [insert whichever identity category you're currently piling onto]"). I laid out in some detail (and yes, sometimes it requires detail -- not all problems are simple or offer simplistic solutions) what the facts were and my logical reasoning process based on those facts.

Another feature of dramatic analysis, ImmortalCX, is the ability to follow a narrative. ZoS have not said that the response to the first report (if indeed there was actually a report) was a hack nor have they said that it was an error. They said that the support ticket's mentioning of "Catzputin" was the error.

I've also argued that the misuse of the reporting procedures are part of a broader problem. That in no way means that we should dismiss the possibility that in this case (as in the case of the other LGBTQ+-friendly guild that was subjected to a forced name-change), it is the result of bad actors in the game motivated by anti-LGBTQ+ sentiments.

As to the stunningly patronising attitude and "advice" of Syldras: I would say, words fail me, but — they don't. This back-of-a-cornflake-box psycho-babble may pass for insight where you are, but from where I'm standing I am most struck by your failure to do what every psychological approach insists upon as a foundation: to consider and integrate into the analysis your own position and motivations -- your apparent desire to "rescue" those poor deluded *** from their self-created phantoms of persecution. When I receive zone-chat messages saying AND I QUOTE "We need an lgbtq+ holocaust" and your response is to tell us to stop imagining things, be more resilient, and think about how it looks to uninvolved others to speak about homophobia and transphobia in public, I can only respond by telling you to take your vacuous positive thinking *** and your boy-who-cried-wolf narrative and shut the *** up. Yes, an emotional response. Deservedly so.

Since my original posting has prompted discussion on related topics, I would also like to share an observation. I've sent time
this year rebuilding the guild(s) on both the EU and NA PC servers. When I've spoken of "cooldowns", I'm talking about a setting within the recruitment add-on that limits how frequently in the same zone an ad can be placed. This is far, far higher than the ingame cooldowns limiting chat spamming. You can post the same message in the same zone fairly frequently and not hit the ingame cooldown. Our recruitment and my observations about how I've gone about it come NOWHERE near that limit. The add on limits one message per zone every TEN MINUTES.

Why is this relevant? Because the attitude of some posters appears to be a form of "you brought this on yourself". We didn't. The guild has recruited in just the same way most other guilds recruit. We haven't been notified by ZoS ONCE -- NOT ONCE -- warning us about spamming. It just hasn't happened. So this idea that we've incurred "mass reportings" is a fantasy. On NA, prior to the launch of Solstice, the guild hadn't advertised quite literally in years.

What I want to share is something that I discovered from rebuilding the guild first on EU (which has experienced no forced name change, suggesting it isn't an AI reporting thing) then on NA.

Advertising garnered phobic zone-chat messages, whispers, and applications to join the guild on both servers. I've shared one such response, but there were many, many more.

One thing that was unique to NA, however, and that I found personally really shocking. I was whispered by gay men who wanted to attack me for advertising a guild as "LGBTQ+-friendly" at all. 'I ought to be ashamed', because such things 'have no place in gaming'. They were keen to tell me how very "proud" they were and that they were married. They seemed to assume that I was young and that they were speaking from a position of greater age and experience. Now, I am a veteran of the LGBTQ+-rights movement in the UK and engaged in direct political action that, in my country at least, helped to win those rights to marry. Sure, I understand that the UK, and Europe more broadly, is a far less phobic cultural environment than the USA is right now. Nevertheless, if you think that LGBTQ+ visibility in this game is harmful to the community, or that we ought to avoid raising concerns when we encounter phobic behaviour in-game, then I can tell you, from my knowledge and experience -- not least reading literally hundreds of applications from players who express their joy and relief at having a guild like ours to play within and countless messages and discussions between guild-members -- you are completely wrong, regardless of your own particular identity. If you disagree, I trust that you will, at your earliest convenience, take yourself along to your local gay soccer club and tell them to disband immediately because sexuality has no place in sport; then, off to your local lesbian reading group to inform them that it has no place in literature; be sure to contact film directors and production companies and tell them to quit what they're doing because it has no place in cinema. Finally, pop into your local LGBTQ+ youth group, escort them out of the building and down to the local branch of whichever far-right extremist organisation is closest, so they can stop being such cry-babies, grow up, face the harsh realities of life and become appropriately resilient.

Fortunately, I have never seen ZoS display such infantile attitudes. On the contrary, ZoS deserves high praise for its commitment to diversity within the game world, its characters and storylines, and its support of LGBTQ+-friendly guilds. Long may it continue.

Syldras

Gegensmith wrote: »

This is the problem with the "just the facts, ma'am" attitude of some posters here (let alone the trope of "I'm gay but...", which is structurally equivalent to the "some of my best friends are [insert whichever identity category you're currently piling onto]").

Can you please elaborate? Since right now this reads like, because I have a different view on this possibly LGBT-related topic, my opinion is not valid, even though I'm also gay? Am I not allowed to contribute my own perspective as a gay man if it seems to oppose some "mainstream opinion"? Who defines this opinion that "the gay person" is allowed to have? Why is my view supposed to be worth less than that of another gay person?

Gegensmith wrote: »

As to the stunningly patronising attitude and "advice" of Syldras: I would say, words fail me, but — they don't. This back-of-a-cornflake-box psycho-babble may pass for insight where you are,

What does "where I am" mean? My culture of origin, my nationality, my race? Please elaborate.

In case someone is actually interested in the source I used: The info I cited about negative events leading to negative expectations leading to wrong conclusions and overall more anxiety, unhappiness and less resilience can, for example, be found in "Treatment Plans and Interventions for Depression and Anxiety Disorders" by Robert Leahy, which has been a standard work on the topic for several decades.

Gegensmith wrote: »

but from where I'm standing I am most struck by your failure to do what every psychological approach insists upon as a foundation: to consider and integrate into the analysis your own position and motivations -- your apparent desire to "rescue" those poor deluded *** from their self-created phantoms of persecution.

Maybe it would help to read and contemplate what I wrote more calmly, then it's clear I never wrote that LGBT-phobia doesn't exist.

Gegensmith wrote: »

When I receive zone-chat messages saying AND I QUOTE "We need an lgbtq+ holocaust" and your response is to tell us to stop imagining things, be more resilient, and think about how it looks to uninvolved others to speak about homophobia and transphobia in public, I can only respond by telling you to take your vacuous positive thinking *** and your boy-who-cried-wolf narrative and shut the *** up. Yes, an emotional response. Deservedly so.

Unless mods remove my writing rights, I have the same right to voice my opinion on this topic like everyone else.

spartaxoxo

Gegensmith wrote: »

Since my original posting has prompted discussion on related topics, I would also like to share an observation. I've sent time
this year rebuilding the guild(s) on both the EU and NA PC servers. When I've spoken of "cooldowns", I'm talking about a setting within the recruitment add-on that limits how frequently in the same zone an ad can be placed. This is far, far higher than the ingame cooldowns limiting chat spamming. You can post the same message in the same zone fairly frequently and not hit the ingame cooldown. Our recruitment and my observations about how I've gone about it come NOWHERE near that limit. The add on limits one message per zone every TEN MINUTES.

Why is this relevant? Because the attitude of some posters appears to be a form of "you brought this on yourself". We didn't. The guild has recruited in just the same way most other guilds recruit. We haven't been notified by ZoS ONCE -- NOT ONCE -- warning us about spamming. It just hasn't happened. So this idea that we've incurred "mass reportings" is a fantasy. On NA, prior to the launch of Solstice, the guild hadn't advertised quite literally in years.

There is no way for you or anyone to know how many reports were received other than support acting fairly swiftly. The more reports are received, the more likely you are to have had a support agent take action.

You have had two different support agents take action and one directly contradicted the other swiftly. That's exactly the type of mistake that gets made internally when there are multiple reports. I know that as someone who has been on the other side of the support end of things for a website, although not for this game. Not being banned for spam in particular does not mean a report was never received. It can also mean that an agent felt that you were not spamming and did not break that rule.

I never said you brought it on yourself and in fact directly stated that anti-lgbt sentiment could be still be a primary motivating factor even if that is the report reason.

The reason I said that was because of your mention of the cooldowns. What is too frequent would vary by server. I know that every 10 minutes would likely be enough to be disruptive on my server, even if you cannot technically call it spam, because chat moves kinda slow on PSNA. IDK if that is a sufficient buffer for PCNA. If you don't want to change frequency, then do not. It is just a suggestion. I agree that LGBTQ sentiment is likely a huge reason why you're getting a different reaction on the na server. It is at a high point in the USA, which is the country with the most players in the NA region. So the different reactions based on region does back your claim that it is not due to the cooldowns.

And nobody deserves bigotry based on LGBTQ status.

Gegensmith

I can see, Syldras, that you're struggling to follow. Perhaps if you were not so selective in your quotations, you would have.

You've failed to consider what you have invested in advancing your patronising advice; the position you are adopting, transactionally, in so doing; what it means, politically, to suggest that the entirely calm and rational account I gave in my original post is a function of my own unexamined trauma or in any way a failure in my ability to engage in calm, rational, logical reasoning; and the now consistent attitude of framing concerns about anti-LGTQ+ sentiment motivating abuse of the reporting system as "emotional".

Yes, merely belonging to a particular group does not prevent you from expressing attitudes and opinions that are hostile towards that group. Your opinions are not invalid -- they are wrong. There is a difference. That I also find them trite and superficial philosophically, breathtakingly naïve, if not outright reactionary, politically, and infantile psychologically, is besides the point.

I understood that you were not saying that LGBTQ+-hostile behaviour doesn't exist. I criticised you for suggesting that our response to it was (1) the result of unexamined trauma on my part, (2) a boy-who-cried-wolf response, and (3) "focussing [sic] on being vicitmized", and (4) harmful to the community.

Who, exactly, do you imagine you are rescuing from the persecution of our "accusations"?

So, yes, I believe the the most appropriate response to your argument, offered in the most calm and dispassionate mode you care to imagine, is to stfu.

Syldras

Gegensmith wrote: »

I can see, Syldras, that you're struggling to follow. Perhaps if you were not so selective in your quotations, you would have.
You've failed to consider what you have invested in advancing your patronising advice; the position you are adopting, transactionally, in so doing; what it means, politically, to suggest that the entirely calm and rational account I gave in my original post is a function of my own unexamined trauma or in any way a failure in my ability to engage in calm, rational, logical reasoning; and the now consistent attitude of framing concerns about anti-LGTQ+ sentiment motivating abuse of the reporting system as "emotional".
Yes, merely belonging to a particular group does not prevent you from expressing attitudes and opinions that are hostile towards that group. Your opinions are not invalid -- they are wrong. There is a difference. That I also find them trite and superficial philosophically, breathtakingly naïve, if not outright reactionary, politically, and infantile psychologically, is besides the point.
I understood that you were not saying that LGBTQ+-hostile behaviour doesn't exist. I criticised you for suggesting that our response to it was (1) the result of unexamined trauma on my part, (2) a boy-who-cried-wolf response, and (3) "focussing [sic] on being vicitmized", and (4) harmful to the community.
Who, exactly, do you imagine you are rescuing from the persecution of our "accusations"?
So, yes, I believe the the most appropriate response to your argument, offered in the most calm and dispassionate mode you care to imagine, is to stfu.

Despite all obvious insults and accusations thrown at me, one last attempt: Where did I write something about "unexamined trauma on your part" in my post? Where did I even mention you as an individual at all?

I made a general statement how I personally think our community would benefit from more confidence, strength and resilience, and how we might achieve that. Because I care for the wellbeing and health of other LGBT people. Because I am part of this demography, and several of my friends are too. It was an advice, and as such, everyone can make of it what they want - they can think about it and accept it as a good idea, or they can reject it as nonsense, it's both fine with me.

Gegensmith

Why don't you take another look at some of the posts you've made:

In response to:

hiyde wrote: »
it's logical to suspect

"It is one possibility out of several different ones. Just because one person belongs to a group that is affected by cases of bigotry (which is sad enough), that doesn't mean everything bad that happens to that individual is related to that."

You were literally discussing MY conclusions drawn from the evidence I'd offered in my original post.

You then switch your mode of address to the general, true. In that mode you offer these startling titbits:

"Focussing [sic] on being victimized might lead to the exact opposite, by becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy: Because with the expectation to be hated and persecuted, people will interpret everything accordingly, real attacks as well as completely unrelated events."

You then attempt to garner some semblance of authority for such a disgustingly reactionary response to our ability to identify actions motivated by anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment with:

"Psychology calls that cognitive distortion. Cognitive distortion includes things like (not saying that all have to apply, but to give you a short idea of the concept) making negative assumptions about people you don't know at all and their intentions, assuming a majority of people is against you or an aspect of your identity, overgeneralization, labelling, emotional reasoning (making your fears cloud your view of reality), jumping to conclusions, etc, you get the picture."

Sure, you are not explicitly saying that I have made negative assumptions, assumed a majority of people blah blah, overgeneralised, engaged in emotional reasoning, jumped to conclusions — but you've offered these pearls of wisdom in response to a post I made in which, by any reasonable assessment, I most certainly did not overgeneralise, assume a majority were against me, or, indeed, any of the other flaws of reasoning or modes of acting out that you in your patronising benevolence were helping us all to guard against.

I can only assume that you have no actual experience or knowledge of psychotherapy, given the absurd statement "focussing [sic] on suffering only increases suffering". Are you serious? That *** might fly on the back covers of the latest fad MBS publications, but as a proposal for actual psychological health -- let alone a politically engaged existence -- it reads more like a manifesto for self-repression.

You write: "Thinking "out there are people who try to harm me", no matter if it's true or not, [my emphasis] will influence your way of thinking and your feelings negatively. Does this benefit the community as a whole or the individuals being part of it? I don't think so."

If competence with psychological principles is too much to ask of you, how about the most rudimentary historical awareness? Hear-no-evil, see-no-evil, speak-no-evil denial as a proposal for addressing the realities of homophobia, sexism, and transphobia? How has that tended to work out, ya think? Again, are you serious?

"I very much advocate for keeping a clear mind and vision and not jumping to conclusions" and "one should be careful when it comes to assumptions in an unclear situation and rather try to resolve the situation calmly and consideredly before making any accusations" followed, having lectured us all on how we may be falling foul of emotionally distorted perspectives, illogical reasoning, and acting-out our persecution.

That you can offer all this cornflake-packet wisdom in response to the calm, reasoned, logical and detailed analysis that I first posted in this thread is mind-boggling. That you have not taken a moment to consider what you are doing psychologically, interpersonally, and politically when you posture in the manner that you have is striking and speaks to the worthlessness -- not to say, actual harmfulness -- of the "advice". When you apply, as you identified, principles derived from "Treatment Plans and Interventions for Depression and Anxiety Disorders" to perfectly reasonable, logical, rational, evidence-based discussions concerning LGBTQ+ issues, you pathologise us. We are not depressed nor suffering from an anxiety disorder. We are attempting to address a legitimate concern.

Reasonchill

Syldras wrote: »

I find it rather disappointing that one gets accused of being an "anti LGBT bigot" just for having the ideal of approaching things calmly and factually.

Yo, Syldras, my man! What happened to the "leaving it at that" and "making short, factual statements"? No one has accused you of being an LGBT bigot, but that's some nice several walls of text there. Your texts are roughly the same size as OP's but he has a lot of actual information and precise lines of reasoning in them, yours are just stating how you "prefer to communicate", repeatedly. You have mentioned not letting emotions cloud your judgement: I think it's a good idea and you should do that.
I really don't want this topic to become "let's psychoanalyze Syldras and make it personal", it is difficult, however, since you talk about genuinely really personal things (personal to you, that is) not really paying attention to what is happening in the thread. Aesthetics of reason and calmness instead of actually doing those in reality.
You have made a somewhat naive comment, you have been made aware that your comment was somewhat naive ("naive" can be a judgmental word, we were talking more about "not fully relevant", until you escalated) - in a really nice manner, too - and now you are blowing it out of proportion. Could you please please keep to the original arrangement and indeed "leave it at that"?
I'll say to you one thing: "hypersensitivity is in the eyes of the beholder". I thought of saying it before, but decided that'd be a little mean: your comment was a miss, but it was well-meaning, after all.
Syldras, you are being ill-behaved, inattentive, conflict-seeking. Please stop.
This thread is "meta enough" not to get moderated harshly, but we are all walking on really thin ice here, you are making it impossible to avoid the escalation you are creating, at this point. This thread could get moderated too much, cut at all the really valuable discussion, and I would hate to see that. And it would be your fault. Not because you are a "bigot" or whatever. Behave.

I did state I didn't want to follow you into making it personal, but I'll give you this: you have made a somewhat naive comment, found it out, got upset. The rest is the out-of-proportion consequence of that. Maybe there are some deeper issues of your life connected to this, but this is none of my business and not the topic of this thread.
You've given advice you thought would be useful. Thank you. Now please move on.

Imperial_Archmage wrote: »

It’s deeply disappointing, though entirely unsurprising, to see so many dismissive comments. It’s clear that so many people saw “LGTB” and immediately decided “woke snowflakes” are blowing things out of proportion.

Great comment, THANK YOU for posting it. I, myself, focus on competence rather than empathy, and the general problem here is that competence is treated as something optional rather than a must (which it is). As a result: a myriad of mildly insulting messages about nothing, the issue has already been resolved, all useful things said many times over, yet it goes on. People saw the mention of LGBT+ and it was ALL they could see, arguing against the points no one was making, thus escalating, and so much more.
I am specifically saying "thank you" because what you posted doesn't feel good to post. Hammering your point over and over ignoring all reality feels nice, that's why many people do it, and that's why forum discussions can get, let's say, counterproductive (looking at you, Syldras.) That's why some people (like myself) prefer to stay away from forums and discussions whenever possible (although seeing what is going on, I am hoping to provide a better alternative and contrast, that's why I'm participating; doesn't feel good to me, either.)

@Gegensmith I suggest you and I both ignore this thread, or at least ignore the less useful messages of it. The job is done *handshake emoji*. You are right in pretty much all you say, it's just that (and I am speaking from personal experience) the more you engage with selfishness and (cognitive) laziness, the more you take it upon yourself to solve other people's problems - the more they "relax", the more they escalate, and the more problems there are for you to fix. There's no universal answer here, but imo, you've done all you needed to do, we both did. Also, maybe our friend Syldras can reflect on where his judgement had an error once he gets some breathing room, cools his head and processes all that's happened.

NoSoup

wow, how has this thread not been shut down yet? When threads discussing actual gameplay/balance go off rails they're closed faster than I can neck a beer, yet here it's just pages and pages of politics and mud slinging....

ZOS_Hadeostry

Greetings,

As the core issue behind the thread has been resolved and to ensure the back and forth does not continue to escalate and cause unnecessary action, we are going to close the thread.