What to do about racism in OpenRA - Red Alert?

Discussion about the game and its default mods.
givepeasachance
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What to do about racism in OpenRA - Red Alert?

Post by givepeasachance »

Dear all,

I dont know if this is the right adress, feel free to refer to another forum if it isnt.

Since I play Openra I regularly encounter sexism, homophobia, antisemitism and racism. Well surprise this is the internet you might say.
Still I miss options to encounter this problems in chats and user nicknames (Donald J Nigger, Adolf H, or any other crazy Nazi Doctor or General like Hermann G')

I usually dont play with those people and try to problematize, which as you might guess, usually doesnt lead to: ah well, true the n*word is a historical reference to colonialism and slavery and so on and therefore pretty racist - thanks that you are reminding me". No the answer is rather something like "no it isnt". For the nazi-guys...well...forget it.

I think it would be benificial in virtual as well as real life if it is possible to point to those problems and encourage other players to simply dont play with them or do whatever. You might think their persons viewpoints dont matter in a game. Sure they dont, but they get the arena to spread the worldviews that are represented in their talk and names. And we gotta start somewhere to point to some borders.

Maybe theres an option to report registered persons for racist language or nicknames? Sure its alot too ask for people doing this in their freetime. I just dont know, i am just tired by having the impression that no one really cares.

all the best,
peas

lawANDorder
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Re: What to do about racism in OpenRA - Red Alert?

Post by lawANDorder »

Thanks for bringing this up. IMO the best thing each OpenRA player can do is like you said to encourage others to not use aliases that may offend other players and discourage the use of racist aliases. I believe that the majority of the players in the OpenRA community can agree with the intend of the preamble of the project's Contributor Covenant Code of Conduct to make participation in the community
a harassment-free experience for everyone, regardless of age, body size, disability, ethnicity, gender identity and expression, level of experience, nationality, personal appearance, race, religion, or sexual identity and orientation.
I'm convinced that many players who used these usernames would change them if more people expressed their disapproval. It should be in our all interest to establish an environment that allows everyone to enjoy the game. Everyone in the community can contribute to establish these standards, enforcing them would not have the same effect.

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anjew
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Re: What to do about racism in OpenRA - Red Alert?

Post by anjew »

givepeasachance wrote:
Tue Aug 14, 2018 9:06 pm
I usually dont play with those people and try to problematize, which as you might guess, usually doesnt lead to: ah well, true the n*word is a historical reference to colonialism and slavery and so on and therefore pretty racist - thanks that you are reminding me". No the answer is rather something like "no it isnt". For the nazi-guys...well...forget it.
The longer you get offended (on behalf of people, mind you) the longer you give the meaning to those words and the longer people will run around on the internet trying to offend people.
lawANDorder wrote:
Tue Aug 14, 2018 10:55 pm
I believe that the majority of the players in the OpenRA community can agree with the intend of the preamble of the project's Contributor Covenant Code of Conduct...
The scope of that document clearly states:
This Code of Conduct applies both within project spaces and in public spaces when an individual is representing the project or its community. Examples of representing a project or community include using an official project e-mail address, posting via an official social media account, or acting as an appointed representative at an online or offline event.
By the definition and examples provided this document is non-binding on players and if it were so, it is unadvertised and at no point does the player formally agree to these guidelines. The document is clearly for contributors and not players.
Majority players may agree with it but no player is bound by it nor has the opportunity to agree with it formally.

lawANDorder wrote:
Tue Aug 14, 2018 10:55 pm
I'm convinced that many players who used these usernames would change them if more people expressed their disapproval.
I'm not so convinced that that would be the case. If someone is using outrageously offensive names (like Donald J Nigger) they are obviously doing it for a reaction and expressing disapproval is exactly what they want

abcdefg30
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Re: What to do about racism in OpenRA - Red Alert?

Post by abcdefg30 »

givepeasachance wrote:
Tue Aug 14, 2018 9:06 pm
Maybe theres an option to report registered persons for racist language or nicknames?
The latest playtest adds support for ingame authentication and 'registered players only' servers. We hope that will improve the situation.

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Sleipnir
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Re: What to do about racism in OpenRA - Red Alert?

Post by Sleipnir »

Expanding on abcdefg30's answer: there is currently nothing that we can do about this at a global level - most of the popular servers are hosted and maintained by third parties, and it is their responsibility to moderate the behaviour that happens in their servers.

The authentication feature in the next release provides an opt-in solution to this problem, where server hosts can choose to configure (a subset of) their servers to reject anonymous accounts. This provides a technical means to block toxic players - either at the server level (they can blacklist specific forum accounts), or by banning accounts here. Whether this will work in practice remains to be seen, as it depends first on hosts and players embracing the feature, and then for appropriate behaviour policies to be defined and enforced.

eskimo
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Re: What to do about racism in OpenRA - Red Alert?

Post by eskimo »

Ooooo, those propositions sound quite promising for team games

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netnazgul
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Re: What to do about racism in OpenRA - Red Alert?

Post by netnazgul »

@Sleipnir can the technical side at server level also include whitelisting as well as blacklisting? Is it in planning, in the works or has already been implemented?

lawANDorder
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Re: What to do about racism in OpenRA - Red Alert?

Post by lawANDorder »

anjew wrote:
Wed Aug 15, 2018 2:46 am
By the definition and examples provided this document is non-binding on players and if it were so, it is unadvertised and at no point does the player formally agree to these guidelines. The document is clearly for contributors and not players.
Majority players may agree with it but no player is bound by it nor has the opportunity to agree with it formally.
I never said it is binding for players, however the part I quoted represents IMO such fundamental conventions of human interaction that I am surprised that you feel the need to explicit point out that it is not binding for you (or other people). Maybe there should be such an user agreement if it is really necessary to clarify that OpenRA and its community discourage racism, at least your reply makes me think so.

My intention is, while other note the technical and administrative measures that can be taken to improve the situation, to point out that it is up to the community to establish an environment that works for everybody.
and expressing disapproval is exactly what they want
Expressing disapproval is what is needed to establish conventions and this sounds like a lazy excuse to me. We also want to discourage that people from certain regions get banned from multiplayer games, not because anyone agreed on any rule, but because this harms the community and thus should be something the community discourages. Again, it is up to the community to establish fundamental standards for interaction and this can not be achieved by enforcing a set of abstract rules.

Given the manageable size of the multiplayer community it would have an impact if people expressed their disapproval and I motivate those who can agree on the quoted lines to do so.
Last edited by lawANDorder on Thu Aug 16, 2018 4:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Sleipnir
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Re: What to do about racism in OpenRA - Red Alert?

Post by Sleipnir »

netnazgul wrote:
Thu Aug 16, 2018 2:46 pm
@Sleipnir can the technical side at server level also include whitelisting as well as blacklisting? Is it in planning, in the works or has already been implemented?
Yes, and in fact this is the only part that works in the current playtest. #15504 adds the blacklist and registered-only flags for the next playtest.

pointbreak
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Re: What to do about racism in OpenRA - Red Alert?

Post by pointbreak »

What makes you think Hermann Göring wouldn't be fighting for the allies in the OpenRA universe?

I would suggest you support my petition for an ignore function or if a name scares you so bad that you feel like crawling under your bed and hide until a parent comes home, simply switch off your monitor and walk away.

pointbreak
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Re: What to do about racism in OpenRA - Red Alert?

Post by pointbreak »

Sleipnir wrote:
Thu Aug 16, 2018 10:55 am
Expanding on abcdefg30's answer: there is currently nothing that we can do about this at a global level - most of the popular servers are hosted and maintained by third parties, and it is their responsibility to moderate the behaviour that happens in their servers.
You might even have some players from countries where not only calling yourself after a famous politician you don't like is legal, but common and not seen as a bad thing! I know it's heart-breaking but some countries actually really like Hitler.

By the way I'm jewish so go ahead call me a nazi and delete my posts lol.

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anjew
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Re: What to do about racism in OpenRA - Red Alert?

Post by anjew »

lawANDorder wrote:
Thu Aug 16, 2018 4:00 pm
the part I quoted represents IMO such fundamental conventions of human interaction that I am surprised that you feel the need to explicit point out that it is not binding for you (or other people).
You might as well bring up a Bible quote then because it is just as relevant to playing the game than the document you reference. I'm also willing to bet that more players are informed of the Bibles existence than the Contributors Code of Conduct. I bring up that its non-binding to a player because you cant expect to hold people to a standard that no one is aware of and no one has to agree with. Also it doesn't even deal with the subject matter of using offensive names, it literally states "harassment-free experience" and harassment is a legal term with multiple different definitions in different regions. In some areas, it really only considered harassment legally if it is ongoing and targeted personally. Naming yourself "Adolf H" is in no way harassment.
lawANDorder wrote:
Thu Aug 16, 2018 4:00 pm
Expressing disapproval is what is needed to establish conventions and this sounds like a lazy excuse to me.
I completely understand that it is the only way to get across an established convention but that is a two way street. Perhaps the offensive person wants the established convention to be the freedom to speak and call themselves anything they like. Or perhaps they are from a culture, like mine, where being offensive and rude is almost an established convention.
Or perhaps they are someone trying to get a rise out of another player and you are literally playing into their hand by expressing disapproval.


I take rules, policies, guidelines etc very seriously. I'm not attacking you lawandorter, I am merely expressing the expectations and guidelines that I, as a player of Openra, have agreed to. I refuse to be held accountable for policies that I have never agreed to.

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Sleipnir
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Re: What to do about racism in OpenRA - Red Alert?

Post by Sleipnir »

The player registration system already requires players to agree to policies (currently limited to a technical/privacy statement) before they can add keys. There is no technical reason why this could not be changed to include other things, and for existing players to be forced to re-agree, if that is the direction that people want to go.

For anonymous players, servers hosts already have the ability to insert policies into the MOTD. Enforcing this globally doesn't seem useful, because as mentioned above there is no way to enforce it on servers which may even want these offensive behaviours.

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JuiceBox
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Re: What to do about racism in OpenRA - Red Alert?

Post by JuiceBox »

snowflakes. Please take your flower power someplace else. Its the internet, if you haven’t got the hide thick enough to read a few bad words then god be with you because you’re going to have a bad time in life. Shame on anyone giving this little care bear cuddles

lawANDorder
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Re: What to do about racism in OpenRA - Red Alert?

Post by lawANDorder »

You are right, and I think most people here will rather agree with you both than with the "social justice warrior" like me they laugh about, which is ok because most people here hate me anyway. I was informed that instead of changing the communities rules, I should change communities and while this makes me kinda sad, the advice itself makes a lot of sense. It is me who does not fit into this environment and obviously the majority of the community feels good in the environment they established so it is not appropriate to demand to establish rules that comply to my philosophy of life. I'll be more reserved from now on and try to annoy less.

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