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[FryHole]

If you'd had all your personal details posted online and had rape and death threats would you be wary of giving too much information incase it happened again?
Yeh, ok, Giran, try again.

So that's open season on making up any kind of bullshit, then, provided your experience was so horrible you dare not even attempt to supply any verifying details.

We're left with maybe it happened, maybe it didn't, but it damn well shouldn't be above the line at the Guardian. That paper, srsly.

 

[GulAtiCa]

Man, what the fuck? I wish they would say what the MMORPG was.

 

[Finaika]

Isn't WoW the only MMORPG with millions of active players worldwide?

If so, shame on Blizzard.

 

[Goldenmoney]

This sounds like a pretty extraordinary case here. It seems like the company had a personal vendetta against her to go so far as to release personal information and encourage people to harass her. I get the feeling she isn't completely innocent in all this, but that's not to say what the company did was right.

 

[dose]

too much information == any actual name at all?

If it could lead to her identity being found out, yes. She should follow the threats up with the Police.

 

[B.O.O.M]

What the actual fuck....this sounds like one extremely messed up situation. She should just outright give the info on what game this is

 

[walking fiend]

and there are people on GAF who think people who are concerned with sexism in gaming are a detriment to the gaming and its pleasures

 

[rvy]

Clearly we are being given all the facts here.

 

[Sullen]

Isn't WoW the only MMORPG with millions of active players worldwide?

If so, shame on Blizzard.

You really think the CEO of Blizzard would ban this woman personally and post her info online? Man, you're really naive.

 

[MotionBlue]

Remember when The Guardian used to have good articles, by journalists that actually researched their subjects?

Spoiler

Me neither.

 

[rvy]

Remember when The Guardian used to have good articles, by journalists that actually researched their subjects?

Spoiler

Me neither.

Better than TheSun though.

Well.

 

[YouEnjoyMySelf]

Sounds like complete bullshit.

 

[dodgykebaab]

Zero evidence provided, no names named, and the Guardian runs with it as if it's absolutely 100% true and real. Great journalism!

This. ^

If you ask me, this whole thing is utter nonsense. Let's turn this around for just a second and imagine this happened to me.

*I would have kept the email of the CEO.

*I would have screen shots of my details given out in the manor it was in this 'case'.

*Also I would have screen shots of some of the harassment in the first place. Which I'm sure she would do to make a complaint, so she could prove her case.

If I had all this information, this would easily be enough to mount a criminal case against the company.
The second point alone is enough to take the company to court for mis-use of personal information.

To me, this whole thing stinks for the other end of attention seeking. Trolls seek attention via pissing people off. This is attention seeking via peoples empathy.

Who really would have none of this information to hand if this had happened to them. Plus remember what sort of person we are talking about here. According to the story, it is someone who is tech-savy enough to class themselves good at an MMORPG.
So someone who can ding lvl 90 in WoW (using WoW as an example as no game is given), and reach a point where they are good at end game PvE or PvP, - but at no point saved an email or thought to take a screen shot as evidence.

BUT, this is all to assume that she has no evidence. Maybe she does (and for some reason didn't go to the police, despite have a solid case), but then what would this say about the Guardian News paper, for not asking for it before publish the story.

I wouldn't trust what you read in the Guardian. Just because it's not a tabloid, doesn't mean it;s not full of shit.

http://www.shoutingatco.ws/2011/11/23/the-8-types-of-guardian-reader/

Worth a read if you think the Guardian is worth it's weight in salt. Mainly for lols, but does point to some of their hypocrisy.

 

[rvy]

Sounds like complete bullshit.

Now that's nonsense, I have been threatened to be mauled, raped, killed and shitted on multiple times by 17 year olds.

 

[cheststrongwell]

Any men in here ever get legit shook by an insult during an online game

I love being insulted in online games. It feeds me. My personal info being dropped would be the only thing that could shake me.

 

[AyaisMUsikWhore]

There are no facts.

People whose names I'd rather not mention were very mean to me in a game whose name I'd rather not mention and other people, whose names I'd rather not mention either but they totally run this mysterious game, were awfully mean to me too!

Yeah, ok, lady.

It is a fact. I'm not sure if you've noticed but the same exact thing she is talking about happens in the army. That's a fact and a statistic that is STILL a major issue and has not been fixed since.

So you can chose to not believe her at all but in this business, you can't just say everything you want to say without fear of people not believing you like ,obviously you. If she named the company, what would have made the difference? It's still a problem. People aren't going to up and boycott the game for being mean to a women, it will continue to function as such because of that 80:20 ratio.

 

[Taruranto]

I'm pretty sure these kids insult everyone they lose to, It's hardly something exclusive to women.

That said, I wonder what kind of mmorpg did she play? Mmorpg community usually aren't very sensitive to the player gender to my experience, like, dunno, something like the CoD community.

 

[ROBOKITTYZILLA]

I was with her until she said the CEO banned her from the game and a company representative released her information to the public. This definitely sounds suspicious, especially without any corroborating evidence at all.

 

[AppleSmack]

That is one of the most obviously fake articles I ever read. I highly doubt even a word is true.

 

[MikeDown]

Detective GAF get to work!

I was with her until she said the CEO banned her from the game and a company representative released her information to the public. This definitely sounds suspicious, especially without any corroborating evidence at all.

Yeah, starts to sound far fetched around that point, though that isn't to say it isn't possible. It is disgusting to see players being that crude, but that problem exists outside videogame communities also. It really is a cultural decay and deterioration more then it is sexism.

 

[Trogdor1123]

Gotta name the game, this is just silly.

 

[AyaisMUsikWhore]

agreed, but using a very suspicious story that has not been fact checked at all seems like a piss poor way of addressing this very real issue.

True I don't disagree, but when you look at the facts. The minute we do have an actual real article about it.....It's still dismissed. Regardless if it's real or not, it's going to be the same way. Then you get people who relate the situation to kids as if they even know what they are talking about. They say it because they are immature, however grown ass men who are mature and know what they are saying. And when they say it, it has a whole other affect to what a child will say. This is not everyone however.

 

[Blair]

Not saying she is lying, but it would be weird to make up this kind of thing when you can hop into one of the many dribbler magnet games (CoD, LoL) and get verbally hounded within the first 30 seconds of play, regardless of gender. But if the kids know you are a girl expect a torrent of rape from the dark pit of boners and hate that is online gaming.

Having said that, back when i played WoW the girls in my guild were treated like gods. Guess that can be annoying aswell though.

 

[cheststrongwell]

I mainly play TF2, and on the rare occasion a woman shows up, the kids are tripping over themselves to befriend her(if I were a woman, this would annoy the hell out of me). I usually play on adult servers with pretty good admins, so maybe that makes a difference. Punks get banned pretty fast.

 

[Kinky John]

http://youtu.be/Uuqry9SMjQM?t=18s

 

[Flayer]

There's literally no evidence any of this actually happened. While it could be true why is anybody getting outraged at a potentially fabricated story about an unknown and vague game? The story is sourced from a random comment to a news article, it could just be a troll stirring up trouble.

There's no doubt that women do suffer awful abuse on the basis of their gender but let's stick to real actual cases which can be dealt with.

 

[wonderdung]

Story reads as entirely made up, as does the TSA one.

At least in WoW females are definitely treated differently, but I never recall seeing rape or death threats directed at them.

Where it's a problem it should definitely be acknowledged and a solution should be sought, but I'll save my rage for verifiable stories without numerous red flags.

 

[FoxSpirit]

What can I say? :lol

Ýou can say why you don't have an avatar

Also:

"Before I was banned, one of the game operators, an employee of the company, released my real-life details (full legal name, physical address, email, telephone number, link to my social media, such as Facebook, etc.) to thousands of other players (I had given this information when I registered for the game) and encouraged people to harass me outside the game, which several of them did. I had to change my mobile number, cancel my Facebook account, and even considered moving house at one point to escape the harassment.

But you did not sure or raise a media ruckus?? Ummm, yeah.

 

[Jac_Solar]

If it could lead to her identity being found out, yes. She should follow the threats up with the Police.

This is quite an unusual case -- GM's releasing her information, CEO's personally getting her banned after she emailed/mailed them. If true, I'm pretty sure they already know who it is based on that information. So.. why not release the name of the game as well?

If this turns out to be false, which it very well could be due to the lack of sources, facts and just information in general, then it would do more bad for the overall issue than good, as it would be harder to take any subsequent stories or claims seriously. This is why these kinds of things need to be fact checked when writing articles about them.

True I don't disagree, but when you look at the facts. The minute we do have an actual real article about it.....It's still dismissed. Regardless if it's real or not, it's going to be the same way. Then you get people who relate the situation to kids as if they even know what they are talking about. They say it because they are immature, however grown ass men who are mature and know what they are saying. And when they say it, it has a whole other affect to what a child will say. This is not everyone however.

Because it's so unbelievable. The majority of people who've dismissed this story seems to have done so because it's so unbelievable, the way it's worded without evidence to back it up, the implications, etc. (CEO's of a game with millions of players personally getting someone banned?) I'm sure far fewer people would have dismissed it if they believed it, had more evidence -- most importantly for believability, backing the outrageous claims up with evidence. I think that making up stories on these kinds of subjects does more bad for the issue than good, since it's likely to make people doubt or dismiss subsequent claims and stories. (Especially if someone initially believes a story that is later proven to be false.)

 

[Giran]

If you'd had all your personal details posted online and had rape and death threats would you be wary of giving too much information incase it happened again?
Yeh, ok, Giran, try again.

They already leaked her info, according to her anyway. That's punishable by law, at least in my county. Alleged childish idle threats are not.

So yeah, ok, I would try again.

 

[lmpaler]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but she could sue the company for releasing her info right?


And Internet harassment is a serious offense. I believe she could report it and the authorities could do something, but then again this is a video game, not Facebook. And if it is different countries I'm sure that creates problems too.

You know for how advanced we are sometimes I am saddened at how archaic our thoughts are on things

 

[Patryn]

It does.

Actually, it doesn't. I was aware that the picture was of the woman in question. I was wondering what posting it brought to the discussion, beyond allowing people to comment on her looks?

 

[Poetic.Injustice]

Ýou can say why you don't have an avatar

Also:


But you did not sure or raise a media ruckus?? Ummm, yeah.

Coincidentally just decided to get one

Actually, it doesn't. I was aware that the picture was of the woman in question. I was wondering what posting it brought to the discussion, beyond allowing people to comment on her looks?

Maybe it was posted so someone on gaf could recognise her. :lol

 

[akaoni]

Actually, it doesn't. I was aware that the picture was of the woman in question. I was wondering what posting it brought to the discussion, beyond allowing people to comment on her looks?

I didn't want to have to say anything more than I needed to because I expected I would get shit for making judgements, but I'll give it a shot;

I felt the story is full of shit, the fact she made an issue out of standard online stuff to begin with, reeking of the lack of the whole truth, feeling like this person was someone who drew attention to themselves regardless of their gender, and making a pretty wild claim, conveniently with no names and no evidence.

My reaction when I saw the picture was lots of things, what someone chooses to portray themselves with tells you things about them; when someone does a ducklip face for a photo, of themselves, and uses it as an avatar, on a newspaper website of all things, well I've judged this person to hell and back already in addition to what I already felt. The choice of avatar gave me more than just an picture of said person.

Reading her other posts makes me feel like this person is full of themselves and loves the attention, including their own appearance. To whatever extent the truth of the story is they have brought it upon themselves, no doubt about that for me. She comes across as very cunning in my eyes, a clever one.

Maybe I'm just a total asshole? Probably.

 

[TaroYamada]

Without the name of the game I'm gonna label this fake.

 

[Mory Dunz]

If you ask me, this whole thing is utter nonsense. Let's turn this around for just a second and imagine this happened to me.

*I would have kept the email of the CEO.

*I would have screen shots of my details given out in the manor it was in this 'case'.

*Also I would have screen shots of some of the harassment in the first place. Which I'm sure she would do to make a complaint, so she could prove her case.

If I had all this information, this would easily be enough to mount a criminal case against the company.
The second point alone is enough to take the company to court for mis-use of personal information.

To me, this whole thing stinks for the other end of attention seeking. Trolls seek attention via pissing people off. This is attention seeking via peoples empathy.

Who really would have none of this information to hand if this had happened to them. Plus remember what sort of person we are talking about here. According to the story, it is someone who is tech-savy enough to class themselves good at an MMORPG.
So someone who can ding lvl 90 in WoW (using WoW as an example as no game is given), and reach a point where they are good at end game PvE or PvP, - but at no point saved an email or thought to take a screen shot as evidence.

BUT, this is all to assume that she has no evidence. Maybe she does (and for some reason didn't go to the police, despite have a solid case), but then what would this say about the Guardian News paper, for not asking for it before publish the story.

I wouldn't trust what you read in the Guardian. Just because it's not a tabloid, doesn't mean it;s not full of shit.

http://www.shoutingatco.ws/2011/11/23/the-8-types-of-guardian-reader/

Worth a read if you think the Guardian is worth it's weight in salt. Mainly for lols, but does point to some of their hypocrisy.

This, all of this.

I wonder why no one is trrying to refute what you said, maybe it makes too much sense.

 

[SwiftDeath]

Releasing personal information like that online is terrible and legal action should be brought against both the game company and the mod or (game referee) that did it

Honestly she should just release the name of the game and let the internet fight her battle for her

 

[Karsticles]

Not saying she is lying, but it would be weird to make up this kind of thing when you can hop into one of the many dribbler magnet games (CoD, LoL) and get verbally hounded within the first 30 seconds of play, regardless of gender. But if the kids know you are a girl expect a torrent of rape from the dark pit of boners and hate that is online gaming.

Having said that, back when i played WoW the girls in my guild were treated like gods. Guess that can be annoying aswell though.

Indeed. While sexism is rampant, in WoW a female gets a lot of love. My wife would have stuff given to her for free all the time, and randoms would just ask if she needed help on things. Several guildmates even had female characters just because they would get things. Several guild leaders even gave loot preference to women.

 

[zhorkat]

This. ^

If you ask me, this whole thing is utter nonsense. Let's turn this around for just a second and imagine this happened to me.

*I would have kept the email of the CEO.

*I would have screen shots of my details given out in the manor it was in this 'case'.

*Also I would have screen shots of some of the harassment in the first place. Which I'm sure she would do to make a complaint, so she could prove her case.

If I had all this information, this would easily be enough to mount a criminal case against the company.
The second point alone is enough to take the company to court for mis-use of personal information.

To me, this whole thing stinks for the other end of attention seeking. Trolls seek attention via pissing people off. This is attention seeking via peoples empathy.

Who really would have none of this information to hand if this had happened to them. Plus remember what sort of person we are talking about here. According to the story, it is someone who is tech-savy enough to class themselves good at an MMORPG.
So someone who can ding lvl 90 in WoW (using WoW as an example as no game is given), and reach a point where they are good at end game PvE or PvP, - but at no point saved an email or thought to take a screen shot as evidence.

BUT, this is all to assume that she has no evidence. Maybe she does (and for some reason didn't go to the police, despite have a solid case), but then what would this say about the Guardian News paper, for not asking for it before publish the story.

I wouldn't trust what you read in the Guardian. Just because it's not a tabloid, doesn't mean it;s not full of shit.

http://www.shoutingatco.ws/2011/11/23/the-8-types-of-guardian-reader/

Worth a read if you think the Guardian is worth it's weight in salt. Mainly for lols, but does point to some of their hypocrisy.

She made a comment on a website. Why would you expect her to dig through her email and screenshot her email to the CEO, something that could be used to identify her, for a random comment. Why would she keep screenshots long after she has been banned from an MMO she no longer wants to play? So that she could eventually, in that one moment in which she makes a comment on a Guardian article, post photographic evidence of the fact? She said in other comments that the company is German, and that she is fluent in German. Given that she is commenting on a Guardian article and her username has Swede in it, it is not unimaginable that she is not German. Given that, why would she believe that it would be fruitful to go to the police about the actions of a company that is not even in the same country? Why would she want the trouble and unwanted attention that dragging the company to court would bring? Yes, this says a lot about the Guardian that they collected a bunch of comments and packaged them as a news article, but the Guardian not contacting the commenter to verify facts does not instantly mean that the commenter is full of bullshit.

 

[Wazzy]

Indeed. While sexism is rampant, in WoW a female gets a lot of love. My wife would have stuff given to her for free all the time, and randoms would just ask if she needed help on things. Several guildmates even had female characters just because they would get things. Several guild leaders even gave loot preference to women.

You do realize that is still sexist right?

 

[Bethany]

I didn't want to have to say anything more than I needed to because I expected I would get shit for making judgements, but I'll give it a shot;

I felt the story is full of shit, the fact she made an issue out of standard online stuff to begin with, reeking of the lack of the whole truth, feeling like this person was someone who drew attention to themselves regardless of their gender, and making a pretty wild claim, conveniently with no names and no evidence.

My reaction when I saw the picture was lots of things, what someone chooses to portray themselves with tells you things about them; when someone does a ducklip face for a photo, of themselves, and uses it as an avatar, on a newspaper website of all things, well I've judged this person to hell and back already in addition to what I already felt. The choice of avatar gave me more than just an picture of said person.

Reading her other posts makes me feel like this person is full of themselves and loves the attention, including their own appearance. To whatever extent the truth of the story is they have brought it upon themselves, no doubt about that for me. She comes across as very cunning in my eyes, a clever one.

Maybe I'm just a total asshole? Probably.

Perhaps you're merely projecting, given the appearance of your own avatar...

I find that people who accuse others of attention-seeking often make such accusations because they themselves feel slighted, as though the "attention-seeker" in question somehow took from them, personally, attention that was somehow rightfully owed to them for some reason.

Who cares if she likes attention? On some level, the only reason to speak up about ANYTHING in any social context is in part for the attention it gets us. Just because someone wants attention doesn't mean that therefore she has no grounds to complain when that attention turns inappropriate, rude, and threatening.

Human beings are social creatures. Subtly blaming women for exhibiting what are fundamentally human characteristics, and using them as an excuse to disproportionately vilify women generally, is pretty much the textbook definition of sexism.

 

[dodgykebaab]

If you ask me, this whole thing is utter nonsense. Let's turn this around for just a second and imagine this happened to me.

*I would have kept the email of the CEO.

*I would have screen shots of my details given out in the manor it was in this 'case'.

*Also I would have screen shots of some of the harassment in the first place. Which I'm sure she would do to make a complaint, so she could prove her case.

If I had all this information, this would easily be enough to mount a criminal case against the company.
The second point alone is enough to take the company to court for mis-use of personal information.

To me, this whole thing stinks for the other end of attention seeking. Trolls seek attention via pissing people off. This is attention seeking via peoples empathy.

Who really would have none of this information to hand if this had happened to them. Plus remember what sort of person we are talking about here. According to the story, it is someone who is tech-savy enough to class themselves good at an MMORPG.
So someone who can ding lvl 90 in WoW (using WoW as an example as no game is given), and reach a point where they are good at end game PvE or PvP, - but at no point saved an email or thought to take a screen shot as evidence.

BUT, this is all to assume that she has no evidence. Maybe she does (and for some reason didn't go to the police, despite have a solid case), but then what would this say about the Guardian News paper, for not asking for it before publish the story.

I wouldn't trust what you read in the Guardian. Just because it's not a tabloid, doesn't mean it;s not full of shit.

She made a comment on a website. Why would you expect her to dig through her email and screenshot her email to the CEO, something that could be used to identify her, for a random comment. Why would she keep screenshots long after she has been banned from an MMO she no longer wants to play? So that she could eventually, in that one moment in which she makes a comment on a Guardian article, post photographic evidence of the fact? She said in other comments that the company is German, and that she is fluent in German. Given that she is commenting on a Guardian article and her username has Swede in it, it is not unimaginable that she is not German. Given that, why would she believe that it would be fruitful to go to the police about the actions of a company that is not even in the same country? Why would she want the trouble and unwanted attention that dragging the company to court would bring? Yes, this says a lot about the Guardian that they collected a bunch of comments and packaged them as a news article, but the Guardian not contacting the commenter to verify facts does not instantly mean that the commenter is full of bullshit.

Forget about the comment on the guardian website for a moment.

Okay perhaps she thought it might be too hard to sue a company in a different country to her own. But I'm sure if this happened to you, me or anyone they would be out for revenge.

It wouldn't take 5 minutes to post the information online (CEO email, screenshots, etc). Many gaming websites would have re-posted the news if she had the proof to go along with her story.
The internet is worldwide and pretty much without borders. If she really had this sort of proof, she could have named and shamed the game with almost no effort at all.

This is why I think this story is bullshit. A tech-savy MMO end-gamer player couldn't figure this out? Bollocks.
If this happened to you, you would be furious. You would read that email and go mental. Then see your details posted by said company and you would be out for blood.

Gender makes no difference, an end-game MMORPG player is more than conditioned to the ways of the web given the intertwined nature of the Internet and MMO's. Once upon a time I secretly filmed a Train-2-game ( http://www.train2game.com/ ) sales rep giving his sales pitch, and within a day it had spread to industry insiders who I had never even spoken to before ( http://www.bruceongames.com/2009/10/20/train2game-eversheds-and-reputation-management/. )

 

[DryvBy]

double/ sorry

 

[cosmicblizzard]

Rape threats are kind of a gender-neutral thing in online games in my experience.

However, that releasing real info part is disgusting if true.

 

[Fornaximus]

Was gonna say that as a man, I've lost count of how many times I've been threatened with death/rape in online games, and that sometimes you've just gotta grow thicker skin when playing competitively with strangers.

However, if the bit about being banned for reporting in-game incidents and the CEO releasing personal info is true, there should be some followup. That's not acceptable, especially the releasing of info.

 

[DryvBy]

Why are we just taking the word of this possibly crazed woman? Is the unknown company guilty just because a woman cried? I know in happy land, women never make crap like this up. So far, I see a woman with zero proof a company did something outside of her word.

You do realize that is still sexist right?

Or chivalry. But why stop the rage now?

 

[Beelzeboss]

This sounds super fake.

If this stuff happened in a popular game there would be no way to hide it. I mean a freaking CEO of a popular MMO getting involved and GMs posting personal info?

People would freak out. We would have heard about this before some random comment told us about it.

 

[Alebrije]

Critical thinking will lead you to realice this note is not realiable. Even could be fake.

 

[zhorkat]

Forget about the comment on the guardian website for a moment.

Okay perhaps she thought it might be too hard to sue a company in a different country to her own. But I'm sure if this happened to you, me or anyone they would be out for revenge.

It wouldn't take 5 minutes to post the information online (CEO email, screenshots, etc). Many gaming websites would have re-posted the news if she had the proof to go along with her story.
The internet is worldwide and pretty much without borders. If she really had this sort of proof, she could have named and shamed the game with almost no effort at all.

This is why I think this story is bullshit. A tech-savy MMO end-gamer player couldn't figure this out? Bollocks.
If this happened to you, you would be furious. You would read that email and go mental. Then see your details posted by said company and you would be out for blood.

Gender makes no difference, an end-game MMORPG player is more than conditioned to the ways of the web given the intertwined nature of the Internet and MMO's. Once upon a time I secretly filmed a Train-2-game ( http://www.train2game.com/ ) sales rep giving his sales pitch, and within a day it had spread to industry insiders who I had never even spoken to before ( http://www.bruceongames.com/2009/10/20/train2game-eversheds-and-reputation-management/. )

You're generalizing. Not everyone in her position would go mental or be out for blood. If she did want blood, she could have been one of millions of people that play MMO's and do not know about gaming websites. Even if she did know that she could set off a large portion of the internet by emailing a gaming website, she could have decided that it was not worth it. Maybe she felt that even if the internet raged against the specific company, nothing meaningful would actually happen. Perhaps she realized that by spreading her story to a wider gaming audience, that meant she would have to deal with heavy scrutiny on her and her story by those sympathetic to her situation and by those who would feel that she should just "grow thicker skin", "deal with it", and that she "probably deserved it anyways". She could have felt that it was a much better solution for her to say fuck it and just move on.

 

[Mory Dunz]

Or chivalry. But why stop the rage now?

When Chivalry doesn't work, it becomes sexism.