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The Ethics of Diplomacy - Part 4: Cyber-bullying

I suppose this could be placed withing the metagaming section because it often takes the form of bringing something from outside the game into the game, but it isn't necessarily restricted to that.


Let's start with what bullying is when it comes to Diplomacy or any other game.  What we're not talking about is bullying as part of the game.  In other words, some players can be quite... forceful... in their negotiations.  This isn't what we're talking about.

Cyber-bullying is about threatening people with things outside the game to get things done in the game or, in some cases I've seen simple threats of violence.

The most likely threat is when a player will threaten another with persistent attacks when they come across each other in games.  This is metagaming, really: it's no different to planning to work together in future games.

However I've seen threats of violence.  It's sometimes linked to people from the same school.  But I've seen threats to find and kill the other person, to kill their families, etc.  And a common one is to hassle people across other websites.

Now, I know we're talking about internet play and this means you're always going to come across these types of idiots.  Angry little people who don't know how to deal with difficulties.  Let's face it, if you get this angry over a game, there's something wrong with you.

Intellectually, we also know that these idiots wouldn't have a clue about how to do what they're threatening to do in the real world.  And they probably like the gonads to do it.  But it is in no way acceptable in a game.

It also isn't acceptable on a site's forum.  I've been on one site where a number of members were allowed to hassle others.  One example of this was where a member of the forum was posting verses from the Bible regularly and being targeted by at least one member.

Personally I can be very critical of religion and especially when someone is proselytising.  However, when this is consistent and was accompanied by harassing someone across the forum, as it was in this case, this is clearly bullying.  And it was the same people seeking to troll others on the forum with whom they disagreed.

That was a while ago, though, and since then the mods on that forum have grown a pair and stopped this behaviour.  Freedom of speech, yes, but abuse of freedoms should always be stamped on.

Bullying also includes racism, sexism, language which is aimed at abuse towards sexual orientation, etc.  This is something that some players either haven't grown out of: online sites tend to have a large number of younger members.  But there are bigots, too.  Nasty or scared little people.

Any form of persistent harassment shouldn't be a part of this hobby and the best sites won't allow it.  This might offend some people who simply believe you can say what you want.  Some people believe that there are no limits if it's about upsetting someone in a game.  There are... or there should be.


THE ETHICS OF DIPLOMACY series:

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