Feedback:User/Avaera/Preventing troll culture in game
Preventing troll culture in game | |
|---|---|
| User | Avaera |
| Categories | Player interaction Mechanics |
Over the last few days (perhaps because I have begun to venture out of the starting zones) I have noticed a marked increase in hostile, anti-social and abusive map chat conversations. While there is always going to be people who use more colorful language than others, swearing is not the issue (and can be effectively managed by the optional chat filter if a problem).
Instead, what I've observed on my server (Henge of Denravi) that worries me are more frequent offensive slurs on the basis of race, sexuality and gender (specifically women, latin americans and gay people), deliberately offensive or degrading comments in response to questions or requests for help (specifically a torrent of lewd responses or harmful advice to newbie questions), and general gloating and bullying against others (I saw hostility against roleplayers and against those who asked for help in completing skill challenges).
I completely understand that there is a range of different sensibilities and maturities in any new community, and I absolutely applaud the approach taken so far by Arenanet as evidenced in their reddit threads about inappropriate names and insults. My concern though is that staff responses are necessarily delayed given the sheer volume of reports that must flood in each day, and given that there is little hope of immediately dealing with trolling behaviour it becomes an accepted and ingrained part of the game culture. Blocking individuals or not listening to map chat only cedes power to trolls and does nothing to make the game culture less exclusionary or more welcoming. Temporary/permanent bans are useful and understandable, but as these measures are effectively invisible to everyone else there is not really any disincentive provided to other players who may be tempted (or may be desensitized) to engage in similar behaviour in the future.
Anyway, I'd like to propose a possible system to try to minimize the harm that trolls can do in poisoning an online community. I'm not sure I have the best solution, but I'd like to share the idea anyway.
Proposal: Troll Marginalisation[edit]
My suggestion is to provide graduated administrative restrictions that are applied to suspected and verified trolls in order to marginalise their influence as much as possible while providing an example to others that there is administrative pressure to maintain civility. The system would be partly automated in order to provide an immediate response to minimize further abuse, but all significant restrictions would remain staff-authorized so as to prevent 'gaming' of the system.
Automated warning: Muting public chat[edit]
The first restriction that can be imposed upon a suspected troll is a condition visible to other players that marks the suspect as a Troll-baiter, an initial warning level that means further investigation is pending.
In order to facilitate this feature, the report player dialogue box should be expanded and require that a reason be given for the report to ArenaNet staff. A brief description of exactly what constitutes abusive behaviour, and perhaps a link to the TOS, should also be clearly displayed to anyone who intends to file a report.
The Troll-baiter condition is activated automatically when five different accounts have reported you for abusive behaviour. This condition would apply to all characters on the suspected account, and would persist for 24 hours by default (unless removed or extended by GMs).
The effect of this condition would be only to mute the player from public conversation:
- Map chat would be unavailable
- Local area chat would be unavailable
- The report player feature would be unavailable
- An example error message might be - Your access to that feature has been disabled due to accusations of disruptive or abusive behaviour. Please refer to the GW2 Code of Conduct or contact Support if you believe this is in error.
All other communication forms (guild, whisper, party, mail) would still be available. I would also suggest that the player receive a mail message containing an explanation of why they have been placed on a warning level and perhaps also containing the text (but not account/character names) of the reports filed against them.
If GMs investigate and find there is no substance to the reports, or decide no further action is warranted, the condition is removed after 24 hours and no further penalties apply. I would suggest there also be a restricted area on the forum or perhaps a support ticket pathway for appealing an inappropriate muting, and if the report feature has been abused then those players who filed misleading reports should be subject to administrative warning/punishment themselves.
Administrative warning: Further restrictions and guild penalty[edit]
The second level of administrative warning that might be imposed on an account could only be handed out by a staff member. This would again impose a condition on all characters on the target account that is visible to other players, marking that character as a Wannabe-troll.
This condition may be imposed if, after admin investigation, the reports from players are substantiated or perhaps simply because a GM or staff member decides that a more severe warning is warranted. The default time limit would be one week, however this could be set to any length at the staff member's discretion.
The effect of this condition would be to extend the muting of the first warning but also to impose gameplay penalties:
- Restrictions on communication -
- Map chat would be unavailable
- Local area chat would be unavailable
- Whisper would be unavailable
- Outgoing mail would be unavailable
- Emotes would be unavailable
- Guild-influence restrictions -
- All guild influence gains by that player would be halted
- All guilds to which the account belongs would receive a -15% influence gain penalty for as long as the person remains in the guild and retains the condition
- Disabling punishment -
- At random intervals the character would spontaneously transform into a target dummy, disabling all player actions for a few seconds while the punishment persists
The intended effect of these penalties is to allow the person to continue to play, but not offend others through their communication, nor contribute to their guild. Guilds which harbour and encourage individuals who are prone to anti-social behaviour would also be held accountable (in a very minor sense) through the influence penalty, hopefully encouraging some shared responsibility and peer pressure. The transformation curse would be an annoying reminder that there is a punishment in place, without necessarily preventing access to the game.
Once the Wannabe-Troll condition ends, all restrictions are removed, however the account is flagged as having received administrative punishment (and this flag is visible only to other guild members and staff). While this flag remains, only three reports are required before the automated system imposes the mute condition again. This flag may be removed after 6 months of good behaviour.
Temporary and Permanent Bans[edit]
Obviously if the account continues to engage in anti-social, offensive behaviour, or if the original behaviour was extreme harassment or bullying, then temporary or permanent bans to prevent the player from accessing the game at all remain the final option. I would suggest that whenever a ban is applied, any guilds to which the offending player belongs be alerted to the ban, and perhaps suffer an influence penalty for as long as that person remains in the guild.
Anyway, this is just a thought that may or may not be helpful.
