January 31, 2006 4:15 AM PST
Online game warns gay-lesbian guild
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In recruitment messages she posted on WoW, she wrote that the guild was not "'glbt only,' but we are 'glbt friendly.'"
To WoW publisher Blizzard Entertainment, however, Andrews' message was out of bounds. The Irvine, Calif.-based game publisher said her recruiting was a violation of the game's harassment policy, specifically the section of that policy regarding sexual orientation. Andrews was quickly warned in an e-mail to stop recruiting inside the game and to take all such efforts to forums outside WoW's virtual world. Andrews was also warned that if she didn't stop recruiting for the guild inside WoW, she risked being banned from the game.
News.context
What's new:
A member of a gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender virtual gaming guild posted a welcome message on the "World of Warcraft" site saying that the guild was "glbt friendly." She was warned by the site publisher to stop on-site recruiting, or risk being banned from the site.
Bottom line:
The incident has generated debate about the way the site's rules are being enforced by the game's publisher, Blizzard Entertainment, which says it is only trying to protect the guild from harassment by other gamers. The GLBT guild and others in the gaming world dispute that contention.
In essence, Andrews and gay and lesbian rights advocates charge, Blizzard was trying to keep a lid on harassment in its gaming world by blocking players from doing things that could prompt other people to harass them.
"Their (terms of service) statement was clearly crafted to protect the GLBT community," said Ron Meiners, a longtime virtual worlds consultant who has served as a community manager for companies like Ubisoft and There.com. "And I think they wanted to basically protect them in this instance, too. But they seem to have overstepped what was appropriate."
Andrews said she thinks Blizzard, or at least the game master (company employees who control game play and make decisions about low-level controversies) who issued the warning, wasn't being fair. The harassment policy specifically prohibits language that "insultingly refers to any aspect of sexual orientation pertaining to themselves or others." Since Andrews was hardly insulting herself, she couldn't understand how or why the harassment policy was being applied to her.
"I wasn't sure that it was Blizzard that felt this way at first," she said. "I kind of felt like a bad (game manager) took care of the situation poorly. But the more I see Blizzard backing up the decision, the more I believe Blizzard to be handling the situation poorly."
With more than 5.5 million players since it was launched in 2004, WoW is arguably the most successful online fantasy game in America. So how it defines gaming rules and says what people can and cannot do can have a wide-ranging impact in virtual communities.
A Blizzard spokesman said it was only trying to enforce a policy designed to protect all WoW members from being harassed. And in fairness, in a gaming world where many players are young, male and prone to hurling insults, that the company wants to avoid potential problems makes sense.
"We encourage community building among our players with others of similar interests, and we understand that guilds are one of the primary ways to forge these communities," the company said in a statement. "However, topics related to sensitive real-world subjects--such as religious, sexual or political preference, for example--have had a tendency to result in communication between players that often breaks down into harassment."
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I am a father of two children, ages two and three. So it does not impact me now, but it sets a precedent for toe future. I would never condem two men or two women kissing on the street. I also would never be upset about any innocent form of fondling in public by girl with boy, boy with boy, or girl ith girl. But in any combination of these, if a member of any gender were grouping inappropriately in a playground where my children were playing I would be thouroughly offended.
There is a time and place for everything. Sexuality is a topic which some parents feel is best left for adulthood or late adolesence. If I were a anal retentive parent from Kansas, I would likely be horrified that my child was playing a game that allowed public exposure of sexual preferences, I would be horrified by players with names like "12inchshlong" as well.
Now as a parent, when my son sees two guys kissing (we're in Europe, not anal retentiveland) on the street, I explain to my son if he notices (and 3 year olds notice everything) that some boys like other boys and some girls like other girls. Sometimes they like both. But I would not be happy if my 13 year old child (don't have one yet) were playing a video game that would cause him/her to possibly prematurely question his sexuality. It's not the time or the place.
I mention this because I regularly find myself playing online with kids that age. I have nieces and nephews that age that are in fact still quite innocent. It is not up to the other players to judge when the best time to present the issue of sexual orientation to other peoples children.
When I see that the license agreement of a game clearly states that this is not the place to deal with these issues, I expect other players to respect that and more importantly to enforce it.
Go to a bar, go to a district, go to a chat server that addresses adult issues. Do not use a video game as a place to do this. We're talking about basically the next step up from Mario Bros. Respect other people and respect that the other players may not be of the appropriate age group.
Keep in mind one other thing, even if you're not in agreement with my thoughts on the topic, at least respect that simply by being what is still considered a political and religious issue to many of the unemployed rednecks playing the game, the flame wars will likely be obscene and inappropriate for much of the viewing audience. The response by ignorant players should be enough to make even a truck driver consider ducking and hiding.
The biggest problem the gay and lesbian community faces in gaining acceptance is how people cope with the issue of sexual topics being delt with in a mature and rational way. Many people that their tax dollars are spent on congress discussing sexually related topics such as gay and lesbian marriage. Never mind the fact that it should simply be a question of legality. Many supporters of gay rights simply don't believe that it should be an public issue. Gay and lesbian tolerance shouldn't have to be taught in schools, it fact, it shouldn't have to be taught, it should just be. But it definately should not be paraded all over main street. What occurs in a persons house should stay in their house just like the moron at the office bragging about the fling with 3 chicks the other night should also stay out of the office.
This game is not the appropriate place for these types of issues. If you find another player that you genuinely believe would be interested in your sexuality, have a nice /w discussion with them. You can even go on raids together, but you cross a line when you make it an issue of a public nature.
In the future, try a new guild name like "Rainbows", I know it's cliqued, but everyone that's old enough to know, know's what it means and instead of recruiting publicly, simply warn people asking for a membership to the guild that "Rainbows" refers to something about your lifestyle, if they still don't understand, ask them how old they are. If they're under 16, let them know that the guild typically discusses topics of an adult oriented nature and you do not allow members that are too young since you'd prefer to not risk offending thier parents.
I really wish that news.com would've done a little bit better job at presenting both sides of the issue here. Reading through the article (while it does appear attempts were made at impartiality) it definitely seems to favor the GLBT people that are complaining. I'm going to guess this is because the author is without all the information, as I can say as someone who does play this game and has kept up with the issue -- it's all over the world of warcraft community -- there are errors in their 'facts'. Specifically, the warning was issued due to messages broadcast on general channels in the game, not because of postings on some WoW site. While this may not seem important, it is something that you would really expect respected news organization such as news.com to have correct if they want to present an informative and unbiased issue and it makes you question whether or not you're being given all the information.
The point is that sexual orientation has no being discussed in public channels on a video game that is rated for teens (rated for people as young as 13). It's not forcing GLBT people to 'stay in the closet' or opressing them in anyway. Blizzard (the makers of World of Warcraft) is seems to be taking the same (and very fair) method as none other than the U.S. Military.
It's very simple. When you're in a situation that doesn't involve your sexual orientation in any way shape or form, i.e., video games or fighting wars, don't ask don't tell. In both cases this IS an attempt to PROTECT people from being harassed. Not to discriminate. It would be wholly unfeasible to allow people to broadcast sexual orientation everywhere and not incur harassment. There is no way Blizzard could go through punishing all the people doing the harassment as it would be rampant and many cases would go unreported. As such, I firmly believe their current policy is the appropriate one.
I would not want my son exposed to some of the crap that goes on in WoW. Flame wars start over the dumbest crap, because someone just can't let something go.
I think you are right that there are more discreet ways of recruiting than shouting it out in the main "cities" of the game.
I am 30 and one day while playing I had to take a call from work and found out that 3 other people I was playing with were in Jr. High, good thing I keep the thought children are playing in my head. I thought they were adults given I was online during school hours and they thought I was another kid out on their snow day, showing that our preconceptions can be completely wrong.
But there is much more to this story than this article covered, as well. I've been following this issue through game-related forums Ms. Andrews has been trolling to drum up support for her cause, and I really can see both sides of the story. There is much more in the TOS and EULA specifically concerning Blizzard's responsibilities and authority over in-game chat than the "no insulting" clause Ms. Andrews repeatedly quotes. I hope that in future articles, CNET will delve a little deeper and share the other sides of this story with its readers.
These people want their own guild so they can make their game experience as friendly as possible. That's all. Anyone who has played knows perfectly well that you are about 100000% more likely to come across anti-gay remarks than you are a player who is openly gay. What you SHOULD be concerned about exposing your kids to is all of the HOMOPHOBIA that goes on in the game.
I can't believe in the year 2006 people are still so ignorant.
But to wave a big flag in people's faces and to expect to not draw harassment is naive.
I quess what I'm saying is don't make yourself a target and then expect protection when the harassment comes.
Blizzard did right as far as I'm concerned.
Each player does represent an instance of real life intruding into fantasy land, so in a very real sense, WOW society cannot refrain from being a mirror to the real world. Thus, issues about whether you like cats and am a gay republican will ievitably pop up in the game. However, the question boils down to whether Blizzard has an obligation to uphold the mirror of reality that it's players bring into the game.
I believe that every governing body is obligated to uphold the society that created it. Blizzard, however, is a governing body that has created a ficticious society to which you have been invited to join. Blizzards beliefs parallel the players beliefs only to the extent that both want the player to have fun and that the code be designed to facilitate that fun. They are not obligated to uphold the players sense of good will stemming from beliefs that have nothing to do with this game.
Don't believe for a second that MMO's are automatically a democracy, they are all first and foremost an autocracy designed to facilitate fun. If Blizzard believes some issue will detract from that fun, they are fully in their right to excise that issue from the game.
Food for though: It's easy to get around this, by saying that her character is the lesbian. Then Blizzard would have to ban homosexuality in characters, which would certainly cause some players to be less than pleased.
Moreover, the solution you suggest, of role-playing as a homosexual, completely misses the point of Ms. Andrews' guild, and I'm fairly sureit would violate the EULA and TOS more directly than the current issue of her public channel spam-recruiting.
The issue has nothing to do with 'exposing kids about sexuality,' either. All of you who feel there should be no elements of non-conventional sexuality in a "T"-rated release, why weren't you whining as the Sims became the best-selling PC game in history?
times.
group that touts itself as Hetero?
<BR>
Monkey-huggers should have rights too!!
It's a valid request.
It's too bad parent's can't enable a flag on their children's character that would enable them to join specially flagged guilds marked for children, but alas, I feel that some sick adults would flag themselves for those guilds as well... I posted on that very issue later on in the string...
Fact is that in a game there is no place for these kinds of things... and if you're so sensitive about anti-gay remarks, for god's sake, stop playing the game... nobody is making you pay to play, you're paying them just for the right to play on their servers...
Maybe Blizzard should make a special gay server that you can have customer service flag your account for & that you otherwise can't get access to. This seems a much more reasonable solution.
If they want to keep ignorant adolescent boys from harassing gays, it makes perfect sense to allow guilds that say, in game, that they are specifically for GLBT and GLBT-friendly players only. This way, gay players and their friends can join a guild where they automatically know they will not be judged, insulted or harassed. The contact between homophobes and normal people will be minimized and there will be less chance for harassment.
As for your kids, too bad. Like any other players, the glbt guild should be held to standards of conduct that include no sexually explicit language. So the only thing your precious children would be exposed to is the EXISTENCE of gay players and a gay-friendly guild. Big deal. Gay people exist, and if you are insistant upon keeping your children away from them then DON'T LET THEM PLAY A GAME WHERE THEY COME IN CONTACT WITH ALL KINDS OF PEOPLE. This is essentially a public space where they could be exposed to all kinds of people. If you don't want to allow them to be exposed to a diverse public, keep them off the game, out of chatrooms, away from the television and don't let them out of the house without you.
Blizzard's position is ridiculous.
Do you mean to imply there should also be "Republican" and "Republican-friendly" guilds? What about "Christian" and Christian-friendly guilds? "Swinger" and "Swinger-friendly" guilds? "Homophobe" and "Homophobe-friendly" guilds? "Nazi" and "Nazi-friendly" guilds? And should all of these guilds be allowed to recruit in public chat channels? Even if another player complains about it to a GM?
Allowing one special interest, it seems you have to allow them all. That, or draw a line. But if you're going to draw a line, where do you draw it?
General chat is not the place to advertise this guild. Any issue of
an incendiary nature is not allowed in general chat. Advertising
a gay-friendly guild, a straights-only guild, a white power guild,
a socialist guild... none of these are allowed in general chat.
However, Blizzard does allow advertising these guilds in the
game forums. Blizzard does allow these guilds to exist in game.
Ms. Andrews would scream and yell just as much about
something advertising a straight guild as she is now yelling
about being told not to advertise a gay-friendly guild.
Also in term of that arguemtns there are some guilds that already have a particular focus such as things as a cat-lovers guild, should they be disbanded becasue I like dogs, and that I might call them losers for liking cats. No! Punish the person doing the harrasement not the people who might be harrased.
On the other hand (just to use the most extreme example that pops into my head) it would be one thing to have an "Al Qaeda-friendly" guild, where members might discuss (in private) their hatred of Israel and the West, but it's a different thing to publicly spam-advertise your "'Vengeful Death To Amoral Capitalism'-friendly" guild. I think this might be so distracting, exclusionary, and offensive as to justify GM intervention.
I don't think Blizzard had any problem with Ms. Andrews running her GLBT-friendly guild. She was just asked not to advertise it as such in public chat channels.
The dog lovers make a guild and actively recruit members. They want a "better gaming experience" because they want to chat about dogs while killing mobs and running quests.
The cat lovers hear about this and call out to all like minded people to form a "cat lover only" guild. They know they can't get the other guild disbanded because the GMs have said they are ok with "special interest" guilds now (fearing the dog lovers lawyers mostly) so the decide to take matter into their own hands.
The cat lovers begin a campaign of ganking, spawn camping, out right PvP killing and engage the dog lovers solely because they are a dog loving guild and not any other reason. They don't SAY anything to them (except the normal smack talk) in game, but they kill and "dog" them in the game as much as possible.
So how much fun is the dog loving guild having now?
All this occurs because they had to bring their RL philosophy into a game, where all that should not be a factor. It doesn't matter what your "special interest" is. There is nothing to say it's wrong or right, just that people are not to be verbally harassed about it. But allowing focused guilds to be based around them bypass this much needed protection.
Enjoy the fantasy and leave RL at the door.
extent, I believe that this policy is mostly about business. Any
online community, such as chatrooms, online dating sites, etc,
has to be sensitive to protection of minors. WoW certainly caters
to minors. They have to have a staunch policy in some ways
because if they aren't careful, they will be sued, and sued, and
sued some more if it is found that they didn't do enough to
protect members of their community from harrassment, which is
a pretty subjective thing. Imagine young Billy tellilng his parents
that he just joined a guild of very nice people that call
themselves glbt. In many homes, that would be the last time
Billy played WoW. Blizzard just wants to prevent a political or
religious battle ground. All in all, I think they are just making a
wise business decision in trying to stay out of the sensitive
topics as best they can. In this particular instance, it just seems
to have backfired a bit.
to worry about the possibility of sexuality (any flavor) becoming a
factor. With the hyper-sensitive climate we live in, you just can't
take a chance. There is always somebody waiting to file a law suit.
As an alternative, WoW could have set-up adults only servers.
If Blizzard's response offends you that much you do have another
option: vote with your pocket book. Same as when Walmart comes
to town, you can choose to take your custom elsewhere.
In order to define the base of our woes let us diffuse the situation into the simplest of components. In the generic sense what we have is a fictitious world, fictitious character, real world, real person, and perception. I mention perception here because it is vital to what is at stake in the argument.
If an individual chooses to participate in WoW and their perception of that game is one of complete fiction, then nothing that happens in the game can affect their real life perceptions. Performance artists do this every day they step into a role , and therefore any personal attacks against their character do not affect their real perception of themselves or the real person making the attacks. If however the individual who chooses to participate in WoW perceives that world to be a subset of reality, and not completely fictitious, then what goes on in the game really can affect them personally.
And now we reach the crux of the situation as the lure of WoW is not the game play itself, but the pseudo-reality it offers. A subset of reality that filters out all the things you dont like, leaving only those you enjoy. Early ancestors to the now extremely popular MMORPG were completely text-based, but offered basically the same functionality, and the lure to those games was exactly the same. It was the virtual community it offered, and the persona you could create through your character. It was a chance to make yourself into something you could not be, to escape into a reality that was more pleasing than your current reality and perceive the real world in a different way than it really is. However, when too much reality begins to creep into your fictitious world, it ruins your perception, and the fantasy is lost. When this happens the game becomes to much like the real world and the lure is gone.
This is the problem, and it always will be with games like this. It will take on an infinite number of forms as we continue to search for a nirvana that doesnt exist.
Gameplay are those elements intrinsic to WoW.
Sexual orientation is NOT intrinsic to WoW.
Therefore, Sexual orientation is NOT needed gameplay.
I've been in enough MMORPGs to know that you don't have to be gay, bi, straight, black, white or aquamarine to be harassed by other players. The reality is that some people out there just ENJOY making other people feel bad about themselves. I'm no psychologist, but in my experience, such behavior comes about when people want to draw attention away from their own percieved flaws. My point is: Ending recruitment for ANY type of group is not going to protect them from harassment.
I myself have made several insulting and rude comments out of frustration. Many of them were made at specific people. But I didn't know if these people were gay, straight, black, white, conservative, liberal, whatever. Their actions angered me, and I vented that anger without consideration for their feelings.
I think that the money Blizzard is putting behind Burning Crusade would be put to better use by hiring more GMs to police the servers and uphold the policies _as they are_.
Each player does represent an instance of real life intruding into fantasy land, so in a very real sense, WOW society cannot refrain from being a mirror to the real world. Thus, issues about whether you like cats and am a gay republican will ievitably pop up in the game. However, the question boils down to whether Blizzard has an obligation to uphold the mirror of reality that it's players bring into the game.
I believe that every governing body is obligated to uphold the society that created it. Blizzard, however, is a governing body that has created a ficticious society to which you have been invited to join. Blizzards beliefs parallel the players beliefs only to the extent that both want the player to have fun and that the code be designed to facilitate that fun. They are not obligated to uphold the players sense of good will stemming from beliefs that have nothing to do with this game.
MMO's are not automatically a democracy, they are all first and foremost an autocracy designed to facilitate fun. If Blizzard believes some issue will detract from that fun, they are fully in their right to excise that issue from the game.
To try to say that forcing people to shut up and hide is somehow protecting them from harassment is comparable to saying black people during the era of "Mississipi Burning" should have stayed home and not voted in order to avoid being beaten up. That's hateful and ignorant, and it practically makes me weep.
Besides which, clearly she didn't break the rules specifically with reference to the word "insulting". To claim she did is incorrect.
"Ehhh, keep it away from my kids."
What? The gay germs? It's an interesting infectious disease
metaphor.
If it didn't echo the sentiment of the closet racists I've
interviewed over the years, I might be less concerned.
Still, you can't blame people for warrantless fears.
I'm just glad I'm not gay.
They're not telling one certain group to shut up. They're telling the people in their TEEN rated game they don't want them talking about sexual orientation.
Don't Ask Don't Tell.
It's a policy to PROTECT the GLBT segment of the population, not to oppress them.
Maybe punishing people who "throw insults" isn't such a bad idea, but how do you define "insult?" Unless you can assume one's intentions with great accuracy and consistency, you'll have to go by the words that are used. That is pretty much what brought about this entire issue in the first place -- whether or not Ms. Andrews can use the term "GBLT," as long as she doesn't intend it in an insulting way.
(But if the real problem is rooted in unfair stereotypes and hurtful discrimination, I don't understand why would you make it about punishing "young males" specifically.)
By the way who in their right mind actually says who they really are in online games. Only RL friends know the truth (and even that is not complete). Play on these games to have fun not to find other like minded to have sexual conversations. Recruiting and stating that you are friendly for a sexual orientation is not the way to go at all and blizzard is 100 percent right with telling her not to do it in game. If you want to find a boyfriend/girlfriend don't do it in WoW. I also think its absurd people get married in these games, makes me laugh that they put this much of their life into a game, and yes I am addicted to WoW myself.
Regarding content in game that is sexually explicit, let me ask you which MMO does not have it? I believe in standing up for your opinions and such, but you agreed to let blizzard be your GODs in this game and you should follow what they do otherwise I see more nerfs on the way since too many whine about things they don't really understand. WoW is blizzard territory and as far as I am concerned once you enter that realm they are my master and such and yes a gm has come after me before and no they are not friendly, but they can't afford to be with all us punks out there. Blizzard will make mistakes, but they can't be perfect. Realize that and play the game to have fun with their rules. Don't say you have been treated unfairly unless you really have.
If you want a glbt friendly MMO create one and run it your way no one is stopping you yet.
This just means that you are one of those narrow-minded, foul-mouthed individuals who have no control over the tripe that spills forth from their lips...otherwise why would you have been hit with the banhammer, or whatever the GM had to talk to you about, either way you were in the wrong because you couldnt keep yourself from being insulting or aggressive, maybe griefing? Either way you admit to being a punk so your opinion is pretty much moot, you ARE the problem.
chat, I would **** my self laughing. It's a redundant statement.
Even the GLBT friendly guild is hetro friendly. In fact (unless
otherwise stated) all guilds are hetro friendly. No straight person
ever has to worry that their guild mates will kick them out for
making a casual reference to their straight relationship. GBLT
players do have to worry about that. It's important for them to
know the guild their in will not shun them for being them selves.
That said, I personally don't like seeing guild recruitment
messages spammed in the general chat. Spamming wasn't what
she got warned for (a warning in WoW is a punishment, three
warnings could mean a banning). She got warning for violated a
non existent rule. That is the problem here. Please try to keep
up.
They're not telling one certain group to shut up. They're telling the people in their TEEN rated game they don't want them talking about sexual orientation.
Don't Ask Don't Tell.
It's a policy to PROTECT the GLBT segment of the population, not to oppress them.
I should be able to play online without having sexual orientation showing up any place anywhere in the gaming world. Just play! No need to promote or encourage an agenda online.
Another attempt to try and gain public acceptance for a private behavior.
My employer defines "unwelcome or irrelevant mention of sexual topics" as a form of sexual harassment.
Claiming that this "gay recruitment" (???) is a form of harassment (???) -- well, that's just so out there but God bless America and thanks for sharing your opinion.
A heterosexual has no problem openly discussing their spouse/significant other. A straight person doesn't walk around saying "I am straight" but does proclaim their straightness by talking about their wife/husband/girlfriend/boyfriend etc.
In my case I don't proclaim "I am gay" but any type of personal discussion at all (ie. what did you do this weekend?) will involve my significant other who happens to be another man.
The issue comes up in World of Warcraft all the time. Other players will refer to the fact that the wife doesn't want them to play on Friday night or that the girlfriend just got home so they have to leave. But if I say my boyfriend wants to go out to dinner so I have to run, I am pushing my sexuality in everyone's face.
Those that think that sexual orientation is merely a Private Behavior should attempt to conceal their orientation for a week. No comments about current or former wives, girlfriends. All the photos of the wife and kids have to come down at work. You have to be evasive about your living arrangements and when discussing what you did last night you have to delete you wife/girlfriend from the story. Essentially you will need to deny the existence of the person most important in your life.
Yes there are other gay guilds, and too be honest I don't particularly care either way. I will only make an opinion once it becomes aparent to me that such activities are being advertised in a place where it has no feasible benefit to anyone at all.
It's fantasy RP, take a break from the norm and leave your gender / sexual preference / race / political interests / darkest secrets behind, because no one wants to hear them.
believed to have sexual intercourse with sleeping men.), the
sexually oriented emotes i.e. /kiss, /hug, /cuddle, /flirt, all of
the skimpy outfits (maybe burkas instead?), all the quests that
ask you to save, help or avenge some one's lover, husband or
wife. Is that all? Oh for that matter let's make all the players and
NPCs genderless. Is the game still fun? If it is, we make need to
work on it more.
Gender and sexual orientation are two of the most intrinsic parts
of a human being.
The guild I was in when I was playing WoW didn't discriminate or at least tried not to. If someone did or was rude to someone in or outside of the guild they would get booted. There are good people out there, and amazingly enough this was my very first guild. Now they are one of the largest and most accomplished guilds in all of WoW.
I understand why people think there is a need for a GLBT guild but shouldn't we all simply be looking for good, nice people to play with reguardless of anything else.
I am just sick and tired of being thrown in the same group as all the jerks in the world simply because I am a heterosexual male.
Then again, I am a hetero male so what do I know. Right?
What I'm trying to say is that GLBT means more than who I like to have sex with. When I mention my boyfriend, I am not talking about sex. People often say this is "in your face", well, it's as "in your face" as when heteros talk about their spouses or girlfriends. And many teenagers play this game who have girlfriends, boyfriends or who have parents who have procreated to their benefit.
So to your point, any inference as to sexual orientation (Sam: "My wife is making me get off the computer", Louise: "My husband's home, I need to get dinner started", Jason: "Boyfriend's asleep, do you want to go hunting?") is entirely meaningless. GLBT friendly groups are probably looking for like-minded people who are interested in communicating with each other in terms that to them would be more comfortable, relieving you of the tedium of being annoyed.
<a class="jive-link-external" href="http://news.com.com/5208-1043-0.html?forumID=1&threadID=13575&messageID=108977&start=-100" target="_newWindow">http://news.com.com/5208-1043-0.html?forumID=1&threadID=13575&messageID=108977&start=-100</a>
I feel they should have to suffer the same consequences as any of us. Until they update the ToS to include making yourself a target for harassment, as they say they're going to do. They really can't say anything about the comment she made in her recruitement phrase.
If she choose to make herself a target for harassment by including that in her recruitement message, that's her personal choice and problem, not a problem of Blizzard's.
--
The Unruh Act applies to all business establishments that provide services, goods or accommodations to the public. Businesses subject to the Unruh Act include, but are not limited to, shopping centers, mobile home parks, bars and restaurants, schools, medical and dental offices, hotels and motels, and condominium homeowners associations. The Unruh Act explicitly prohibits discrimination based on sex, race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, disability or medical condition. Courts have held that the categories listed in the law are merely examples and that the Unruh Act should be interpreted broadly to prohibit arbitrary discrimination including discrimination based on personal characteristics, geographical origin, physical attributes and individual beliefs.
--
Blizzard is based out of Irvine, CA. My guess would be that Lambda Legal, The Task Force, GLAAD, or some other LGBT public policy related organization will bring up the Unruh Act in relationship to this story relatively soon, and the story will hit the mainstream press when it does.
Guilds advertising acceptance of a certain preferance is no better than talking about it. Why should it matter what your sexual preferance is? Why bring it into the game? If everyone just shut the hell up, no one would be upset. This is what blizzard is trying to do. Shut the irrelevant controversial stuff out.
As for roleplaying servers, the same policy follows. Have all the fun you want talking with your friends talking about whatever the hell you want. Just don't advertise it. You're only asking for trouble. The issue here is less about what you say, and more about what you say openly.
I know of no game with online multiplayer capability being completely devoid of Real-Life content. Even Blizzard had adopted Real-Life holidays (and even some corresponding issues) into the world of Azeroth!