Off to the Racists

[Frybread]

A buddy of mine was given a 3 day suspension for quoting Dave Chapelle over guild-chat (Dave Chappelle is indeed a WoW player, log on to the Frostmane server and say hello to Woodshelf). This is because the quote included a racially offensive word, and some noble undead warlock decided to stand up to racism at its source: online roleplaying games.

Just how racially paranoid is Blizzard? The word was said over a private channel, it was used in a non-hateful way, and it was a quote from a TV show.

	"I love the irony of it, every time I hear one white kid call another white kid 'nigger,' it makes me smile. And I think that it might be one of the best things that's happened to race relations in quite a long time." - Dave Chappelle

But hey, it’s Blizzard’s game and they can ban who they want. My friend is kind of an asshole anyway. What interested me was not the censorship, it was the power Blizzard has given me or any other idiot – If I'm offended, I can get people banned.

My character on a roleplaying server, Elvy, was made with the intent of dancing naked in the middle of Ironforge to see how many people would stop and stare (not that I'm gay or anything). But this time I roleplayed her as Miss Politically Correct, and became offended at as many things as possible. It’s harder than it sounds, because people on roleplaying servers are awfully nice. After unsuccessfully trying to get offended for comments on my boobs, or going PETA on a hunter for his malnourished tiger, I gave up and started to sell the leftovers of my tailoring career.





This is me, Elvy. Elvy the cloth salesmen. Elvy the dancer. Elvy the elf.
1/4 00:56:37.312 [2. Trade] Elvy: WTS linen, wool, mageweave, runecloth (full and half stacks only)

This is Suprnintendo, someone who does not belong on a roleplaying server.
1/4 00:56:55.562 Suprnintendo waves.

This is Blizzard after a patch.
1/4 00:57:02.015 We are aware of the current issues with the mail system. We are working to resolve this as quickly as possible. Please do not delete your in-game mail.
I was going to delete my girlfriend’s issue of Vogue until I noticed they said the problem was for “in-game” mail, phew!


He’s a pushy little 16-bit bastard.

1/4 00:57:22.265 Suprnintendo says: do u have n e silk?
1/4 00:57:27.656 Chandy whispers: how much for each type / stack
1/4 00:57:37.468 Suprnintendo says: do u have n e silk?
1/4 00:57:52.000 Suprnintendo whispers: do u have n e silk?

It’s time for Miss Politically Correct to strike!
1/4 00:58:03.265 To Suprnintendo: ...
1/4 00:58:12.796 To Suprnintendo: just because im chinese doesnt mean i trade in silk
1/4 00:58:30.390 Suprnintendo whispers: em
1/4 00:58:56.531 Suprnintendo whispers: I will give u 90s for a stack of silk
1/4 00:59:03.312 Suprnintendo whispers: AH is all sold out

1/4 00:59:19.125 To Suprnintendo: because silk comes from the orient right
1/4 00:59:35.687 To Suprnintendo: and you just assumed
1/4 00:59:41.703 To Suprnintendo: because im chinese that I go in silk trading
1/4 00:59:47.281 Suprnintendo whispers: ok bye


I had to stop that racist jerk from ruining the game for someone else. I did what I knew was right; I reported him to the GM’s.


They did their work fast, this came to my non-in-game mail the next day:

From: donotreply@blizzard.com < donotreply@blizzard.com>
Date: Jan 4, 2006 6:52 AM
Subject: Blizzard Entertainment - World of Warcraft
To: blart@fuckforforest.com

Greetings Ralph Stinkwidderskeinz,

Thank you for contacting the World of Warcraft Game Master Department.

We were able to investigate the character(s) that you have reported, and are taking the appropriate actions. If you need additional assistance, please submit another petition when you next log in; we will be happy to assist.

Thank you again for contacting us. We hope you continue to enjoy your experience in World of Warcraft!

*** Please do not respond to this email as all conversations on this matter would be best handled online. ***


If you have any comments on the service you have received, please feel free to contact us at wowgmfeedback-us@blizzard.com.

I greatly appreciate your time and patience.

Regards,

Rhaele
Game Master
Blizzard Entertainment
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/

I’ve put Suprnintendo on my friends list, but have never seen him online since. I even put Gamcube and Rvolution on just in case, no luck. I hope he’s learned a lesson from all of this, perhaps in the future he’ll stop trying to communicate with other players.

(Thank you Mhotl for the idea, it works great)

[Itdano]

The awesome depth of that awesomeness astounds me.

[Runned]

I bet that woodshelf (dave) is getting a LOT of tells right now, making it hard for him to communicate with the guild he is currently leading as well as functioning in battle grounds.

You know... on a roleplaying server, a name like Suprnintendo would never fly with Blizzard once they found out about it. The roleplaying server guidelines say it has to be something that would fit in a fantasy world plausibly... so Playstashun and Xboxman would be out of the question too.

What i'm thinking is that maybe when you reported him for racism, they noticed his naming issue and just made him change it to Aragorrnnn or something. In fact i would bet he's still there playing, personally.

I once witnessed a guy using really nasty sexist language for real, yelling it out for the whole area to hear, and reported him along with about 6 other people who were there. A few days later, there he was playing the game again. Maybe he got a slap on the wrist, or a dire warning. I loathe the thought of talking to him again, so i'll never know.

Thats pretty funny.

If you make racism a serious issue, why not make people shouting out 'n000bs!!!' a serious issue as well?

Im in IF, and too often i read other people calling other people 'n00bs'. And then continuing to insult their knowledge.

Example: Some guy, obviously new to the game asks where the auction house is. Around 5 people reply in general chat, all making some sort of insulting remark towards this inquiring person.

Wouldnt it be easier to write 'On your right as you enter Ironforge
rather than 'Omg you n00b! HAHAHA YOU ARE SO STUPID! YOU ARE SUCH A NOOB! MORON! HAHAHAHA!' ?

Dont get me wrong. I hate racism. But if you belittle someone because of their nationality or colour of skin, wouldnt it also be wrong to belittle someone because of their intelligence?

[Rawr bert]

Originally Posted by Akuman

... wouldnt it also be wrong to belittle someone because of their intelligence?

Whoa whoa whoa....

This is still the internet, right?

Crap, I knew I should have taken that right at Albuquerque.

[Itdano]

No. This use to be the internet. It just imploded under the weight of it's own morals.

/snicker Sorry, I can't even pretend to say that with a straight face.

You can't help the "race" you're born into, in RL anyhow, but you can help your intelligence ;-)

However, intellectual giants whose only recourse is to belittle others with words like "n00b" and other such really ought to take a look in the mirror before typing derogitory things.

In reply to the above poster, I'm going to quote/paraphrase the ACLU:"Discriminating against blacks isn't wrong because they didn't choose the color of their skin, it's wrong because it's discriminating against someone based on an entirely unrelated characteristic"

[Unregistard]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

However, intellectual giants ... really ought to take a look in the mirror before typing "derogitory"

fixt

I am laid low by the shame of failing to spell DEROGITORY! Whatever shall I do?

First of i cant spell anything... anything at all.

My argument is that some people cant help their low intelligence.(Witness the spelling) I am white but i like Rap therefor yes i am a "wigger" and beleive me i hear about it. anyways my point is dont make fun of people about that shit.

If some one trips and halls on his face thats funny if somebody is black.. well u can see that its not funny. seriously lets brake it down whats funny or cool about calling someone a "nigger"

It breaks you down inside. Be proud of being white son. And dont be ashamed of black people being called niggers. Remember, your ancestors made them who they are today.

Originally Posted by White guy

It breaks you down inside. Be proud of being white son. And dont be ashamed of black people being called niggers. Remember, your ancestors made them who they are today.

Thats got to be the dumbest thing I'v ever read.

I would only like to state that calling someone a noob because they don't know where the AH is actually isn't demenaing their intelligence it's not like they don't know what they are doing or seeking they simply don't know where it is....This would be a lack of knowledge not a lack of intelligence.

This is all so fucking pointless!! If people are so worried about getting offended, dont leave the house, dont turn on the TV, stay off the internet, stop reading your mail, and stop answering your phone. Grow up! I dont understand how half of these crybaby bitches get thru a day in real life. I'm just sorry I never got my chance to bully most of these people in High School and further destroy their pitiful self-image.

I've been playing over a year in WoW, and I love the game, but the one thing I really despise is the community that dictates political correctness (and the grammar police who insult people for using internet shorthand). STFU and play. Put the political correct crowd on ignore, turn off general chat, and start having fun playing again!!!

[Saediien]

I want to hit people irl over the internet.

Is it just me or was the offended Elf like many “bigots” that take offense to things that were either not intended to be offensive and are erroneously assumed to be (I think this was the case), or are purposely feigning being offended for their own selfish reasons? Maybe the text of the dialog was incomplete and there was more said that did not appear on the webpage? I wonder, can you report someone to Blizzard for being "confused"?

Just to clarify - A bigot is a prejudiced person who is intolerant of any opinions differing from their own. The origin of the word in English dates back to at least 1598, via Middle French, and started with the sense of religious hypocrite, especially a woman. Today, it is considered a synonym of narrow-minded. - Wikipedia encyclopedia

Is it just me or was the offended Elf like many “bigots” that take offense to things that were either not intended to be offensive and are erroneously assumed to be (I think this was the case), or are purposely feigning being offended for their own selfish reasons? Maybe the text of the dialog was incomplete and there was more said that did not appear on the webpage? I wonder, can you report someone to Blizzard for being "confused"?

Just to clarify - A bigot is a prejudiced person who is intolerant of any opinions differing from their own. The origin of the word in English dates back to at least 1598, via Middle French, and started with the sense of religious hypocrite, especially a woman. Today, it is considered a synonym of narrow-minded. - Wikipedia encyclopedia

haha, are you real?

Originally Posted by Dawei

You know... on a roleplaying server, a name like Suprnintendo would never fly with Blizzard once they found out about it. The roleplaying server guidelines say it has to be something that would fit in a fantasy world plausibly... so Playstashun and Xboxman would be out of the question too.

What i'm thinking is that maybe when you reported him for racism, they noticed his naming issue and just made him change it to Aragorrnnn or something. In fact i would bet he's still there playing, personally.

I once witnessed a guy using really nasty sexist language for real, yelling it out for the whole area to hear, and reported him along with about 6 other people who were there. A few days later, there he was playing the game again. Maybe he got a slap on the wrist, or a dire warning. I loathe the thought of talking to him again, so i'll never know.

I did something similar. I made a black dude with yellow hair. Named him flaminghomo. Ran around Ironforge asking people if they wanted their cornholes tickled and dancing naked. For the most part people started dancing with me. And there were some jokes about epic mounts in our pants and someguy named timmythetool made jokes about his tool. I reported him to blizzard. I haven't seen him online anymore, I think he had a forced name change. I however have not recieved any disciplinary action. I deleted flaminghomo a couple weeks later.

OMFG,what u did was very low,sprnintendo was clearly not a racist,and he seemed like a nice player,I hope he only changed his name or something,if he was kicked,i hope somebody from blizzard finds out what u did and kick u too.U had no right of doing that to him,and to experiment wich such things just "out of curiosity",u knew the risk existed he would be kicked...

[Runned]

Originally Posted by Unregistered1

OMFG,what u did was very low,sprnintendo was clearly not a racist,and he seemed like a nice player,I hope he only changed his name or something,if he was kicked,i hope somebody from blizzard finds out what u did and kick u too.U had no right of doing that to him,and to experiment wich such things just "out of curiosity",u knew the risk existed he would be kicked...

lol

Sounds to me Elvy,YOU were selling Cloth. You even admit your a cloth salesman. So this guy asks you if you have silk and you take offense to it?
How the hell did even know you were Chinese? You report him for being a racist because he is trying to buy silk from a clothsalesman. You must be the
greatest IDIOT in WOW!!!! I cannot belive the gamemaster even took your complaint into consideration, YOU ARE A FUCKING MORON!!!!!! Its people like you that give other people a bad reputation. Looking at your evidence that you posted, I saw no hint of racisim exhibited by the accused player.You ruined this guy and you sit there like you were a victim? It is my hope that one day someone you screw over like this puts his or her fist thru your worthless face!!! This comming form one pissed off Chinaman!!! Go to hell.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Sounds to me Elvy,YOU were selling Cloth. You even admit your a cloth salesman. So this guy asks you if you have silk and you take offense to it?
How the hell did even know you were Chinese? You report him for being a racist because he is trying to buy silk from a clothsalesman. You must be the
greatest IDIOT in WOW!!!! I cannot belive the gamemaster even took your complaint into consideration, YOU ARE A FUCKING MORON!!!!!! Its people like you that give other people a bad reputation. Looking at your evidence that you posted, I saw no hint of racisim exhibited by the accused player.You ruined this guy and you sit there like you were a victim? It is my hope that one day someone you screw over like this puts his or her fist thru your worthless face!!! This comming form one pissed off Chinaman!!! Go to hell.

Shouldn't call a man Chinese though AND you don't name a character after a console name in an RP world

Ummm. this was merely an experiment to find out to what extent blizzard punishes racism/stereotyping... supernintendo was a good ubject for the test because he needed to either be kicked or have his name changed anyway because the name was inappropriate for an RP realm...in all likelyhood he probably just had his name changed which needed to be done anyway, so stop getting so pissed over nothing...
I totally respect everyone untill the do something that makes me not respect them... I generally give everyone a fair chance to be liked by me but some people are just "ignorrant" those people are should stop acting like fools and get with the program...

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Sounds to me Elvy,YOU were selling Cloth. You even admit your a cloth salesman. So this guy asks you if you have silk and you take offense to it?
How the hell did even know you were Chinese? You report him for being a racist because he is trying to buy silk from a clothsalesman. You must be the
greatest IDIOT in WOW!!!! I cannot belive the gamemaster even took your complaint into consideration, YOU ARE A FUCKING MORON!!!!!! Its people like you that give other people a bad reputation. Looking at your evidence that you posted, I saw no hint of racisim exhibited by the accused player.You ruined this guy and you sit there like you were a victim? It is my hope that one day someone you screw over like this puts his or her fist thru your worthless face!!! This comming form one pissed off Chinaman!!! Go to hell.

OMG. Don't you realize he did this to point out how stupid Blizzard is with their policies. He obviously got something out of nowhere and blizzard dived right in. If anything you should complain to Blizzard.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Sounds to me Elvy,YOU were selling Cloth. You even admit your a cloth salesman. So this guy asks you if you have silk and you take offense to it?
How the hell did even know you were Chinese? You report him for being a racist because he is trying to buy silk from a clothsalesman. You must be the
greatest IDIOT in WOW!!!! I cannot belive the gamemaster even took your complaint into consideration, YOU ARE A FUCKING MORON!!!!!! Its people like you that give other people a bad reputation. Looking at your evidence that you posted, I saw no hint of racisim exhibited by the accused player.You ruined this guy and you sit there like you were a victim? It is my hope that one day someone you screw over like this puts his or her fist thru your worthless face!!! This comming form one pissed off Chinaman!!! Go to hell.

He's right you were selling cloth and took offence when someone wanted to buy???

Originally Posted by Unregistered

OMG. Don't you realize he did this to point out how stupid Blizzard is with their policies. He obviously got something out of nowhere and blizzard dived right in. If anything you should complain to Blizzard.

All he got was a confirmation notice everyone gets when they have a complaint. It doesn't say anything about what happened or if they even took you seriously. They just send a semi automated message!

Originally Posted by Unregistered

OMG. Don't you realize he did this to point out how stupid Blizzard is with their policies. He obviously got something out of nowhere and blizzard dived right in. If anything you should complain to Blizzard.

Should complain they shouldn't let Elvy in anymore!!! He purposely started an argument with someone who only wanted to buy cloth. Elvy? What's wrong with you! Go play somewhere else.... This is for people who wants to play and have fun not kids who wants to stir trouble.. Wish the would only let adults in!

[Nkai]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Should complain they shouldn't let Elvy in anymore!!! He purposely started an argument with someone who only wanted to buy cloth. Elvy? What's wrong with you! Go play somewhere else.... This is for people who wants to play and have fun not kids who wants to stir trouble.. Wish the would only let adults in!

Crap, I thought this place was for kid-like adults who want to play and have fun by stirring trouble.
Taxi!

[Alynia Wildpetal]

Besides the hilarious fact that many of the unregistered here really don't seem to get the joke, they're missing the very amusing hypocrisy of the whole article.

We see all this talk and action against "racism" from a fairly harmless and highly out-of-context quote, from a company who has Dwarves speak with Scottish accents, whilst talking about Ale and Kilts, and Trolls that speak in Caribbean accents that say, "mon" and have a /silly that's actually modified lyrics to a Bob Marley song.

One could imagine how "over the top" and stereotypically accented the Pandaren would be if they became a playable race.

[Itdano]

/agree

This is the funniest thread I've ever read. Mostly because the whole thing went right over most of their heads. Pure awesomeness.

doesnt anybody else realise that, while i do agree that what has been proved here was important, it was done at the expense of some random person's acount they put many hours and dollars into? and it was taken away at no fault of his own??

[Alynia Wildpetal]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

doesnt anybody else realise that, while i do agree that what has been proved here was important, it was done at the expense of some random person's acount they put many hours and dollars into? and it was taken away at no fault of his own??

His... name... was... Suprnintendo...

on an RP server....

And he was talking in a manner also unfit for RP servers.

Also, it's quite obvious that Elvy was sent back a form letter, and the letter stated that they had LOOKED INTO the character, so it's not like Blizz went and nuked the guys account. There is no guarantee that his account was taken away, and it's more likely one of the following happened.

1. The incident, caused Blizzard to notice his name was inappropriate for an RP server and at the very least, forced him to change his name. (There was probably more than just Elvy complaining about him, although his name was likely the real subject.)

2. The player got tired of playing on an RP server (Most with names and typing skills like that usually leave on their own once they figure out they joined the wrong type of server.) and just stopped playing as that character.

Just because he no longer showed up on the friends list, doesn't mean his account was nuked.

Was it wrong for Elvy to possibly risk at worst, a 3 day ban just for the sake of this experiment? Perhaps.

Was the person eventually going to bring something similar to this upon himself? Oh yes.

No real need to feel sorry. Unless one is afraid the same will happen to them.

I don't see the racism in that? I do see the point you were trying to get across, but still.

I've ran into alot of things on the net...this has to be the dumbest.

[Runned]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

I believe everything I read on the internet

Ah, I see...

OMG lol. What if he meant that "if he has silk, he must be a chinese farmer?" Or is it racist to call chinese farmers chinese farmers these days. Maybe we should call them our "Friends from the East" farmers or "disadvantaged asian" farmers.

I come from South Africa, a country infamous for racism, so there's not much u can tell me on the subject. I'd love for these overly politically correct types to take a visit to the Apratheid museum and see what real racism is. OMG you try to be so noble but just end up being lame.

what the? you tried to prove a point by toying with someone and getting them banned. the fact that he had a console name is just like having any other copywright name in any MMO ive seen so many WoW players with Pepsi in it. you really think you would get banned? I would consider it good for the company as a form of Advertisement.. seriously i saw a guys name with pepsi in it i went to the local store and i bought PEPSI!

The whole point is know one should toy with someone else should it be emotions, physicaly etc....

PS it has come to consideration that Supernintendo did not have a fair trial! i shall now find you Elvyn and get you banned .... cheerz buddy

[Itdano]

Wow. You actually went out of your way to buy a particular brand of soda just because you saw the name of it in someone's online video game name? That's amazing. I always thought the advertising execs were out of their minds when they said people do that kind of stuff. I mean... who would actually be that dumb? I guess I have my answer now.

[Stegmite]

I can't see why you all are arguing about this. Unless it was your account, or Suprnintendo was your eFriend, then act like you do in the game and not care about anyone else :p