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[Messofanego]

UPDATE 2: RSI Response

Let me begin by stating what I’m surprised isn’t obvious: Cloud Imperium Games is not in the business of preventing women from playing our game. Part of the Star Citizen dream is to build a game that crosses traditional gamer boundaries and includes an experience that everyone can enjoy. Certainly, we are not sitting around in smoky boardrooms dreaming of ways to exclude 50% of the planet in our space adventure.

And then let’s go ahead and address the elephant in the room: obviously, a group from the Something Awful forums are using this as an opportunity to troll the forums. As always, this is extremely tedious. The user in question is also part of the Something Awful group, which made the moderator dealing with the issue believe the entire thread was a setup. This would not be the first time SA Goons have created an issue.

[...]

In the meantime, I am hereby instructing William, our lead moderator, to do the following:

- Return the ‘Female Gamers Group’ thread to the forums. The thread should be heavily moderated to remove sexist comments and ban users who make them. Let us try to have a serious conversation here.
- Unban Lauresh with a single strike (24 hours) rather than two (7 days.)
- Remove the moderator who banned her from the active roster pending further review. As I said above, I am confident that Lauresh was not banned because she is a woman, but I will not feel comfortable until we review all of this moderators’ recent actions.

And as if it even needed to be said, there is more than enough room for a female-only group in the ‘verse. Making connections like that is what our Organizations system is for, and there’s absolutely no additional room to argue with that.

http://www.lauresh.com/2014/05/sexism-in-star-citizen.html

Someone made a thread about wanting a female gamers group in the Star Citizen forums and now is no longer allowed to post there. I'm not a member there so I didn't get to see the OP or the thread. Either way, the way it's been handled by moderators and the community is not exactly sounding good. Where is the community manager in all of this?

https://forums.robertsspaceindustries.com/discussion/126101/female-gamers-group (can't access this)


UPDATE:

This is being investigated by Ben Lesnick (@banditloaf), one of the community managers:

And Will Lewis has responded with a sticky in the general forums:
https://forums.robertsspaceindustries.com/discussion/126424/regarding-female-gamers-group

Pics of the OP and further logs of the 7 pages:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/35305811/RSI/brownsea1.png
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/35305811/RSI/brownsea2.png
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/35305811/RSI/brownsea3.png
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/35305811/RSI/brownsea4.png
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/35305811/RSI/brownsea5.png
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/35305811/RSI/brownsea6.png
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/35305811/RSI/brownsea7.png

I don't think they were asking SC to do anything, they were suggesting the idea to other female backers. They mention building the infrastructure.

I transcribed the OP. Any typos are probably my own:

Hi SC backers and fans.

After a conversation today I realised there's not really a place for the females in Star Citizen to hang out and talk about random stuff in a safe environment so I'm starting one.

I have no idea what the group will be called yet as I'm bad with picking names so for now I'll just call it the Female Gamers Group of Star Citizen. (Yes, this WILL be changing).

To qualify to become a member you need to identify as a female (absolutely no guys) and that's it. There will of course be group rules such as anything said in the group must not be repeated outside of the group without the permission and such but generally it'll be a pretty relaxing place to hang out and chat.

Girls, If you're keen on getting involved please PM me here on the forums and I'll setup a voice interview with you and a general background check. I should have a jabber server setup for us to chat on soon.

Guys, once we have infrastructure setup, please feel free to get involved in the public areas but of course the private areas will be reserved for members only.

As a side note, i wanted to point out that this is in no way a Goonrathi program and is open to absolutely all organisations. Organisation politics is not welcome in the group.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I know it's not the developer's job, but the community manager should be responsible for how things go down on their forums.

Anyone a member of the forums got a better handle on this?

Star Citizen has it's fair share of sexist remarks including a thread asking for rape to become a part of the game because pirates should be absolutely disgusting people, and the rape culture is something that is joked about and discussed in a positive light within the community. Star Citizen has also had a number of other threads but not quite as disgusting as that one including an entire thread about sex in game, a thread about "space bikinis" and many many more.

Last night I made a thread on the Roberts Space Industries forum (full screen caps will be made available later) which is the official forum for Star Citizen, I expressed that I was making a community for female Star Citizen gamers to gather in and talk about topics that they might not be willing to talk about with their male counterparts and just generally have a safe place to get involved with the Star Citizen community. This idea was immediately and brutally shot down by some very vocal members of the community and not only that but I was also personally attacked for making such a thread. The idea that I would want females to talk to each other was an idea that some members of the community found absolutely reprehensible but I'm still questioning why this is the case.

The extremely innocent and honest thread I started survived for about 4 hours and lived to 7 pages filled with personal attacks, trolling and just general cynicism with no reasonable reason why the idea was bad. There was a few general comments such as the fact that women should be encouraged to be active members of the star citizen community and I wholeheartedly agree however the fact remains that females do not always feel comfortable being part of a community which promotes rape and has threads on sexist topics and sometimes need a place to talk to other members of the community with similar ideas.

Note: at no time did I say video chat would be required and I explicitly said that being an active part of the Star Citizen community would be encouraged in the group.

Another reason for being shot down was that the group was exclusive and people that used this line equated the idea to being the KKK for females and quite overtly said that gender was not a reason to create a community basically telling me that females had no right to a group because it was just the same as being a racist (again, equating the idea to that of white supremacists).

I and several of my guild mates questioned why there was so much hostility towards the idea and myself over this and this resulted in further attacks.

This entire thread I flagged some of the more serious posts for a moderator to review, the moderators decided to move the thread to a part of the forums where threads get buried very quickly but left all of the posts in tact and went about their way. Around page 3 or 4 I saw that this was very much out of control so I private messaged community managers Will Lewis and Ben Lesnick for assistance and expressed that this was a genuine thread and the community was something I was passionate about, Will came and closed the thread and left leaving me to wonder what the hell was going on. About an hour later (I presume after Will had read the thread) I found myself unable to log into the forums and was greeted to a big red banner stating that I had been banned for excessive use of the forum flagging option (which as far as I know, isn't even a rule) and for creating a bait thread despite the fact that I was not expecting so much hostility towards my quite innocent idea. The rules quoted were #3 No Trolling and #5 No Spam, how the staff came to this conclusion is absolutely beyond me as no explanation has been given.

After this happened my guild mates decided to express their concern and outrage via several methods, the first being an email to customer support and the second being posting about it in our organisation thread due to the fact that these threads are usually not moderated very heavily and the organisation is allowed to have more free reign than in other sections of the forum. My guild mates were treated to moderators deleting entire pages of their posts with no explanation as to why, when the moderators did post they informed my friends that they were not allowed to discuss forum moderation in any way and that by doing so they were in breach of rule #7 which is a blanket rule that says no-one is allowed to discuss the moderators actions on the forum, ever. When my friends questioned this and asked how they could express their dissatisfaction they were told that they were only allowed to contact either a moderator or Will and Ben and that by contacting customer support or a senior member of the company (such as Chris Roberts) that bans would be extended. My friends then questioned what happens if we have an issue with Will and Ben and were told to either remove themselves from the community or they could ask for a refund (note: you can't ask for a refund).

So far approximately 25 of my friends have received bans due to questioning the actions of the moderators and I am still left with a 7 day ban despite having tried to reach out to CIG through various methods. It's also important to note that when you get banned you lose all rights to the forum and chat functions which means that you're not allowed to contact moderators or Will and Ben.

The absolute least I am asking from CIG as a resolution here is:

1. The immediate reversal of my ban as well as the revision of my friends bans (some were justified however some were not).
2. A PUBLIC apology, not just in a section of the forums that no-one will read but a proper full apology.
3. For them to encourage and support my idea of a female community, and due to the inconvenience I don't think it's unreasonable to ask that CIG start a brand new thread on my behalf.

There's of course other things that I'd want but these three are the core.​

It's weird they're not allowing a female group to discuss stuff when we got GirlGAF here and similar groups in other male-dominated messageboards.

We already got an Islam GAF for people like me, and I could easily create a muslim group in gamespot/IGN/gametrailers and other more immature forums. In the Star Citizen forums, apparently even creating one isn't allowed.

 

[Messofanego]

Asked the person to get better resolution pictures of the original post and the logs, so will try to update if those get posted.

 

[MadJackChurchill]

This is gonna get messy real quick...

Unless you want a debate about gender politics and what is defined as 'sexism', I would probably remove this.

 

[CyclopsRock]

The community would exist outside of the official forum, right? Maybe she was banned due to her conduct in the thread? Without reading the thread it's hard to know if she had broken rules #3 and #5.

 

[Tomohawk]

Really sucks for the women, but i can see where people are coming from where communities restricted to one gender may not be the best idea.

 

[Buzzman]

Hardcore space-sim players are being sexist? Well there's a surprise.

 

[Big-E]

I tried getting into the link that you say you can't access and I can't either. Says I don't have permission.

 

[Qassim]

Hardcore space-sim players are being sexist? Well there's a surprise.

Yeah, there's a strong correlation between people who like space simulators and sexism!


............................

 

[BlitzBlake]

This is gonna get messy real quick...

Unless you want a debate about gender politics and what is defined as 'sexism', I would probably remove this.

Remove it? Why? Don't just lump it into the "too messy" basket and move on. If this is accurate, sounds pretty disgusting. Although considering the video I saw from PAX, this doesn't surprise me.

 

[caleb1915]

I'm not really the kind of person that likes to debate hot button topic issues like sexism in gaming....



But if any of that is true thats really fucking disgusting and horrible. I personally have friends who were the victims of rape, and reading about these guys who are basically hopeful of it to be included in a video game....it just doesn't make sense to me that people are willing to just be nonchalant about treating women as less than people.

 

[Ratrat]

Remember the 'people with skin' ot?

Maybe they didnt want to segrrgate the forum. The rape stuff is pretty disgusting though.

 

[epmode]

You'll see me in most Star Citizen threads but I won't defend the official forum. It's an awful place.

 

[chaobreaker]

I don't get it, did she break any rules?

 

[Striek]

The forum posts in the images don't seem outrageous or even unreasonable to me. Not that I'm saying they shouldn't be allowed to have a girls only discussion/club, but I don't see the sexism at all. Without being able to read the specific thread or the content of her PMs I have no idea whether she deserved a ban or not, but judging by her tone probably, yes.

Not seeing a controversy here tbh.

 

[caleb1915]

Really sucks for the women, but i can see where people are coming from where communities restricted to one gender may not be the best idea.

It wasn't like that at all, that's the problem when it comes to issues like this.

OH YOU WANNA HAVE A GROUP WHERE WOMEN CAN TALK ABOUT WOMANLY THINGS? MIGHT AS WELL JUST HAVE A WHITE COMMUNITY TO TALK ABOUT WHITE THINGS!


In no way are the two comparable. Someone is always going to feel left out, that's always going to be a problem. But no one should feel unsafe, or less than anyone else.

 

[CadetMahoney]

The official forum is an awful place.

this.

 

[Fantastapotamus]

So firstly (firstly sounds so fucking wrong) I think this a "no boys allowed" zone is rather weird. If you want to only talk with girls about something there have to be other ways than this, right? (Maybe not, I don't know) HOWEVER

More importantly though: The rest of this is sad, tragic and disgusting. Wether the request of the OP was "weird" or not is rather irrelevant, it was a simple and innocent request and turned into a shit show. Good job internet, you did it again. Fucking hell.

 

[Riddick]

Here come the double standards. I bet if they has allowed a men's only group though they would have been called sexists too.

 

[jon bones]

I can tell this game's community is going to be just a pleasure to play with.

 

[Messofanego]

You'll see me in most Star Citizen threads but I won't defend the official forum. It's an awful place.

I don't even get why those space bikini and rape threads are still viewable, compared to this person's thread.

EDIT: They were closed, at least.

 

[Big-E]

From what I have seen of the Star Citizen community this is most likely plausible but this is the case for a lot of gaming communities. The Star Citizen community here is fine but the official forums does not leave me with the sense that they are the most socially adjusted people in the world.

 

[Kem0sabe]

People take video games way to seriously, unhealthy even.

 

[Fantastapotamus]

I don't even get why those space bikini and rape threads are still viewable, compared to this person's thread.

Well, cause rape and space bikinis are obviously important. Duh!

Edit: Oh...well forgett what I said.

 

[lewisgone]

"Star Citizen has it's fair share of sexist remarks including a thread asking for rape to become a part of the game because pirates should be absolutely disgusting people"

I'm more amazed at this thread than the main one in the article! What goes through some people's heads sometimes? This is the most moronic thing I've seen in ages.

Anyway, I don't see any problem with setting up a group for just girls, or any other section of the community, if it those members idea. It's just a group, not the damn KKK.

 

[GhostTrick]

To be fair, while I'm not fond of excluding communities such as "X only" "Y only" "Z not allowed" which I think are a source of discrimination, I can understand why some group of people might want to discuss about things that may concern them only.

So, that ban thing seems overly exagerated. Worse than that, that rape thread is totally stupid imo. I mean, sure pirates were assholes, this doesn't means you have to go in that extreme. As an exemple, war is horrible. There are rapes, civil casualties, child murdering etc etc... this doesn't mean because it happens in real wars that I want those horrible things in my games.

 

[SmartBase]

You'll see me in most Star Citizen threads but I won't defend the official forum. It's an awful place.

Yeah, this. Reminds me of Bioware's forums.

Can't wait to play with these people.

 

[JDSN]

Equating it to racism is some funny stuff straight out of Rush Limbaugh.

This is gonna get messy real quick...

Unless you want a debate about gender politics and what is defined as 'sexism', I would probably remove this.

I hope you can see the irony of your post. Also, meta discussion.

 

[Corpekata]

Has there ever been an official forum that wasn't a wretched hive of scum and villainy?

 

[BananaSprinkles]

Star Citizen has it's fair share of sexist remarks including a thread asking for rape to become a part of the game because pirates should be absolutely disgusting people

While not exactly tasteful and something I would prefer not be included in a game, how exactly is that sexist? Men, women, and everything in between can be raped.

 

[Talyn]

This will sound cold but eh, their forum, their rules. Publicly arguing with mods over their moderation is a good way to get banned on any forum, including this one. Don't like it, go start your own forum somewhere else.

 

[Freeman]

While not exactly tasteful and something I would prefer not be included in a game, how exactly is that sexist? Men, women, and everything in between can be raped.

Not to mention they all can be killed already.Its a stupid idea regardless, but not sexiest necessarily.

 

[HariKari]

I can see the Star Citizen mods not wanting to deal with an exclusionary group even if it's a worthy cause. But why does it have to be a closed door club? I don't really see the justification. A way for female gamers to organize, be heard, and talk with each other is great. A sub forum really wouldn't hurt anyone. But why exclusive?

 

[Ratrat]

Oh, god. Just read through that rape thread. Wtf. I sincerely hope thats a troll. Its so pointless.

 

[Flatline]

While not exactly tasteful and something I would prefer not be included in a game, how exactly is that sexist? Men, women, and everything in between can be raped.

Some ironically sexist radicals have the delusion that only women can be victims of rape so they have claimed some weird-ass exclusivity.

 

[Apath]

There is no issue with a group dedicated to a specific minority of a forum. The reason why a "whites only" group is not comparable should be, I hope, quite obvious.

 

[fitzawesome]

Are we posting about communities now and not games?

I fear for the day you all find /v/'s community.

 

[jon bones]

People take video games way to seriously, unhealthy even.

Yea, it's sad at first and then really disturbing. Kids need help.

 

[Sakura]

It's hard for me to have an opinion on this if I can't actually read the thread. Maybe I am naive, but I have a hard time believing she would be banned simply for starting an innocent thread about wanting to make a girl group.

 

[Jackpot]

For people who err towards the side that a "girls only" club will foster division, there are reasons why sometimes women want to be only in their own company:

http://www.victoriacoren.com/main/blog/archive/pick_on_someone_your_own_size

I didn’t use to play in women-only poker events, or really approve of them - but I’ve written several times about why I changed my mind, so I won’t go into that again. But the WSOP ladies’ event was always an exception anyway. It’s got a long and sweet history

But if certain people had their way, it wouldn’t survive. I’m talking about the ten or fifteen… shall we call them wankers?... who have considered it clever, in the last two or three years, to insist on playing this tournament despite not being women. Of course men can’t be BANNED from this event, that would be against the law. It can only run as a women-only event by the grace and good manners of men, who choose not to buy in because that would spoil something nice - in just the same way that any of us choose to say thank you to a dealer or a waiter, or choose not to barge past another person to get through a door, which is nothing to do with the law and everything to do with being a kind and pleasant human being.

When I first heard, a few years ago, that men had started playing the tournament, I didn’t hugely care. I just thought they were idiots. I didn’t really think it was awful until I heard about an old lady who’d been bought into the tournament as a present by her son, who’d had her aces cracked by a man in drag and (as she walked away from the tournament) wiped away tears - because she felt humiliated and insulted, and because she’d been looking forward to a friendly day of girls’ poker and it hadn’t happened, and the treat had turned into something sour and disappointing.

He was young, sallow and hooded. He was the first person to join our table without smiling or saying hello. The mood changed immediately. It had been so cheery, everyone gossiping and laughing and swapping stories - the one tournament where, even if you get knocked out, the money feels well spent on a fun day. It was relaxed and giggly. At one point, when the air conditioning got even more ridiculously cold than usual, I put a pair of tights on at the table. I can TOTALLY see why women who don’t otherwise play poker, who dislike the aggressive mood or fear the wasted expense, feel safe and welcome and pleased to be in this one. But when this kid sat down, the mood changed. The sorority was broken. The fun stopped. The older ones on the table looked particularly sad. One of them asked whether he’d told his mother he was playing this tournament, and whether she had anything to say about it. He ignored the question.

“Why are you playing this tournament?” I asked him.

“Why shouldn’t I?” he said. “It’s not illegal.”

“But it’s a ladies’ tournament”, I said. “It’s a nice thing. Men gatecrashing it makes it less nice. Why would you do that?”

“Yeah but, yeah but”, whined the guy, like Vicky Pollard in a hoodie, “why should my friend be allowed to play it when I can’t, just because she’s a girl?”

“She can use the ladies’ restroom as well”, I said. “Do you want to use that too? Do you think it’s unfair that girls wee together and you’re not meant to go in? Do you want to go in, to prove a point?”

“That’s not the same”, sniffed the guy. “This is discriminatory.”

“Seriously?” I said. “You think men are discriminated against in this world? In poker? You think a few ladies turning up with sparkly handbags and aces for earrings, to play a game by themselves on the one day in two months when it isn’t a 20-1 male-female ratio in here, means that men are suffering and you need to take a stand?”

“Oh stop getting your panties in a twist”, said the little gentleman.

At this point, the floorman came over.

“I tell you what”, I told him, “I’d appreciate it if you could ask this guy to leave my underwear out of his conversation.”

“Yeah but she’s ATTACKING ME!” snivelled the chap.

The floor, quite properly for the information he’d been given, told us both to play nicely and walked away.

“I wasn’t attacking you”, I said. “I was asking you why you’re playing this tournament, when it obviously upsets people and I don’t understand why you’d do it.”

He screamed for the floor to come back.

I didn’t mind. She was really nice. I was happy for her. Before the gatecrasher got there, she’d been telling me all about fly-fishing at Yosemite. Once he arrived, she’d gone silently into her shell like most of the others.

“Now that I’m out and I can’t get a penalty”, I said to the guy, “I’m free to give you my opinion before I leave, which is that we were all having fun until you arrived, and when you sat down the fun stopped, and you knew it would when you registered. You’ve deliberately spoiled things for these nice women and that makes you what we call in England ‘an arsehole’.”

“FLOOR!” he shrieked.

If you think the world of poker isn't the most friendly for women think what a gaming forum is going to be like with all its "you're gunna get raped" jokes.

a blanket rule that says no-one is allowed to discuss the moderators actions on the forum, ever.

Always a bad sign in forums. The mods' decisions being infallible is more important than the rules being applied correctly? Never ends well.

 

[Fantastapotamus]

Has there ever been an official forum that wasn't a wretched hive of scum and villainy?

So what you are saying is that forums are basically Mos Eisley?

 

[Majukun]

I would avoid using the term "rape culture" so lightly..I have studied countries with a real rape culture,and that has nothing to do with a bunch of gamers using the term "rape" meaning "to destroy" or making stupid requests as to make rape a button prompt action.

From what i understood,you and your friends got banned because questioning the mod decision,not because of your proposal,so i wouldn't call that sexism,just a really badly moderated community,as long as you have questioned their decision through PM and not on a public thread.

As to whether their decision was right or not,i can understand that they didn't want the user base to be divided in groups,also it would be like admit that the male part somewhat unsafe for the female audience,and that is probably something they wanted to avoid.

given that,i suggest you to just make your own community and gather whoever want to discuss that kind of problems there..there's no way to win against moderation,since it's a private forum and they are willing to give you a refund.

 

[flatearthpandas]

I'll wait for screen grabs I can actually read before getting indignant.

However, it isn't like forum mods passing out unwarranted bans is unprecedented or surprising.

 

[BanGy.nz]

I hope the developers quickly take action against these moderators.

This is gonna get messy real quick...

Unless you want a debate about gender politics and what is defined as 'sexism', I would probably remove this.

How is this one of the first replays to this thread? Gross.

 

[Alienous]

Wait, wanting a group for just female gamers was the sexism, or the banning for asking?

 

[RpgN]

What a sad state of affairs. I feel very sorry that this female got banned, treated like scum and her friends getting banned too. It makes sense when females want a girl only community when you often read topics with opinions that might hurt them and not align with their opinions

 

[BumblebeeCody]

I think female sections aren't really necessary and will most likely cause unneeded debate but I also understand why they exist. But I'm not gonna call it sexist to have one (unless they restrict males form posting there). The responses the OP got are pretty pathetic and disgusting.

Edit:

For people who err towards the side that a "girls only" club will foster division, there are reasons why sometimes women want to be only in their own company:

http://www.victoriacoren.com/main/blog/archive/pick_on_someone_your_own_size

Interesting

 

[Loakum]

 

[Minsc]

Will be interesting to see the fallout from this, lol. I can definitely see it blowing up in their faces a bit if it continues to grow in to a bigger mess for them. I don't envy moderators on other boards, and going by the descriptions of the Star Citizen boards, perhaps them least of all.

I also think that it will bring trouble in the game down the road too, whatever guild they end up making if they play on official servers they will draw attention to themselves (probably as much bad as good unfortunately), and that may be a mess the Star Citizen devs don't want to deal with online, hence them not wanting to encourage people to split in to groups by gender.

 

[chrominance]

Some ironically sexist radicals have the delusion that only women can be victims of rape so they have claimed some weird-ass exclusivity.

I'm not totally sure but I'm going to guess that men who have been raped in the past are not exactly going to be happy about a game that lets them relive that horror in a virtual world either, somehow.

That said: rape victims are disproportionally women.

 

[Messofanego]

Updated with pics of the OP and further logs of the pages. The voice interview thing is...interesting. Maybe to avoid some incidents like here where people have lied about their gender and other weirdness?

There seem to be a few women gamers who chimed in, who weren't as happy with the idea but there seems to be at least discussion of how to do it in those comments until presumably it got raided by weirdos.