I hope for once this post gets read in its entirety, because I think the subject matter is important.
I’m going to post an example of a lack of self-awareness that bothered me recently - I would have replied in the thread but it got locked before I could. I assume it’s a lack of self-awareness, based on the protests against OOC’ers/ etc on the behalf of the PCU, but from the Rabies thread:
Now to me that seems to be saying that if you respond or engage with your harassers on the platform that you are being harassed on, “you lose the ol’ victim playing [card]” because responding to your harassers is in some way consenting to or legitimising the harassment.
I think that’s very troubling, to the point of being disturbing. The implication is that if you’re being bullied, any attempt to defend yourself against those bullies means you’re no longer a victim of bullying - worst still, you are not a victim at all, worthy of sympathy and support, but are actually culpable for the bullying in some way. Your only option as a victim of harassment would be to vacate the arena of bullying - whether that be a social media platform or a playground.
If we apply that same logic, then, to the PCU, then the PCU are culpable for their own griefing by a) responding to the griefers, and b) occupying the same arenas they are being griefed. Simply turn warmode off, and stop pvp’ing. If you’re being harassed in Cathedral Square, simply move your character to an instance. A PCU-approved solution to the PCU RP-griefing problem would therefore be to stop RP’ing.
This is of course ridiculous.
I would say this constitutes a lack of self-awareness on Stonetower’s part, who I think would certainly claim the right to protest against OOC griefing of RP events. In the same thread, I posted the following prohibitions from the forum code of conduct - posters may not:
- “Insultingly refer to other characters, players, Blizzard employees, or groups of people”
- Result in ongoing harassment to other characters, players, Blizzard employees, or groups of people
- Causing disturbances in forum threads, such as picking fights, making off topic posts that ruin the thread, insulting other posters
- Creating posts or threads to discuss disciplinary actions taken against a player, including chat logs and email correspondence between a player and a Game Master (GM)
All of these things were occurring in that thread, and indeed, several of these things are occurring in this thread. Rabies was being harassed, and at least one poster apologised for intimidating, threatening, and bullying him, though many others could have done so as well.
Now, I see the ToS and the CoC held up as a gospel of truth and virtue, a code of unimpeachable moral law, whenever it is cited in cases of ERP or OOC griefing - as it should be. Why then, when it comes to forum conduct, are Blizzard’s rules and regulations considered mere advisory guidelines? The answer can only be that in the case of some players, it’s considered “justifiable” - the targets deserve some sort of punishment, and it’s seen as a necessary evil to prosecute a crime that Blizzard is refusing to, in the case of ERP for example because of the risk to minors.
But by Stonetower’s own acknowledgement, none of the above was true in the case of Rabies. He became the victim of what I called earlier a fabricated narrative of moral outrage - the manufacturing of a “good” target (i.e, one that deserves, and thus justifies, insulting and harassing) for people to torment for their amusement. This is done with alarming regularity, but more importantly, this was done knowingly and deliberately in the case of Rabies. As Stonetower himself said:
Honestly there are a lot of names like Rabies’s in the world, many of which owned by friends of mine - even Stonetower could fall amiss to a certain interpretation of the naming policy - so I would be a hypocrite to go too hard on it. It is, however, really funny to watch RábĂĂ©s mald publically
To his credit, Stonetower wasn’t leading the abuse of Rabies, and I don’t think even contributed to it. But every PCU member that participated in the harassment in that thread was acutely aware of their own hypocrisy, because, as Moody says -
I want to bring attention to the fact that word-names were all the craze in the RP community a few years back, particularly in Rotgarde.
I remember Dark , Pestilence , Bones , Thrashin , Bury to name a few, so I’m not sure (short of the accent, which is unfortunately a necessary evil in these name hoarding days) what’s wrong with using Rabies …
There were no moral or legal grounds to protest his name, it was a self-admitted form of bullying and harassment to constantly announce reports and any discussions with Blizzard, and furthermore, the thread was littered with insults and demeaning comments directed towards him, as this thread is here.
Let’s be clear then. Somebody - probably a minor - was made to feel distressed, anxious and upset, for the entertainment of a number of posters, for no other reason than schadenfreude - pleasure in their suffering. They had not breached any of the rules or principles which the harassers themselves actually demonstrated.
It’s difficult to argue, in this case, a “lack of self-awareness”, because the act was done cynically and maliciously. Yet in this thread I see people protesting the PCU’s persecution -
while PCU posters do most of the actual shatting (Brigante excepted).
I imagine once upon a time that the PCU had a plethora of “good” targets - people whose harassment could perhaps by justified on the basis of wrong-doing. From what I’ve seen, Perroy “punches back”, to quote Asmongold, rather than punching down - responds to conflict and attacks, but doesn’t instigates them.
But I can’t help but feel, seeing how quickly new members of the PCU take to the lingo, and begin echoing the buzzwords, that people are being attracted to the PCU not because of the quality of the RP they provide, but because they want to shoot from Perroy’s shadow - they just like doing the punching. The PCU provides the cover, and the majority, for them to harass, bully, troll and grief the forums, because now, Argent Dawn in its entirety is a “good target”. People who disagree with the PCU consensus are a convenient punching bag, quickly slandered and then condemned in a kangaroo court of public opinion. In the case of Rabies, people who seem to be nothing other than easy targets are subjected to the same treatment, purely for the sake of sport.
I don’t actually feel like this is something that you, Perroy, want or approve of. I could be wrong, but that’s my instinct.
What I’d say is, if pasta-sauce man, and the community that sheltered and defended him, are all tarred by the same Dolmio-dipped brush, and the leader especially is considered culpable for both his crimes and all the griefing and negativity that followed, are you not accountable for the behaviour of your community on the forums?
If there’s a hard rule against griefing RP in game, as is the case with Stormbinder - on penalty of removal - why is there not a similar rule for the forums? I can’t imagine you approve of what happened with Rabies. I can’t imagine you approve of the CoC being broken repeatedly by PCU members for what was legitimately a bad target. I can’t imagine, being subject to harassment yourself, you approve of innocents getting bullied and harassed on the forums. But if you don’t approve of it, should you not disapprove of it?
I’d never say that you were responsible for what happened with Rabies - the actions of your imitators are theirs alone. But I feel like you could have stopped the entire Rabies thread with a single post. You’ve got that power. You have the means to use it. Do you not think there’s an obligation to use that power to ensure your community upholds the CoC and the ToS?
Much like Vaxir, who bewailed her own doxxing while approving of everybody else’s, isn’t the bare minimum you need to do to justify any protest of PCU-directed wrong-doing - and to be able to claim self-awareness - to stop any bullying and harassment perpetrated by the members of your community?
People can find the thread (now locked) by tagging the following on at the end of “com” in their browser window.
en/wow/t/i-decide-what-my-name-is-not-you/126352/597