The Ongoing Harassment and Discrimination Problem

[Zen]

Introduction
Ever since I have joined this server, I have noticed, and many have experienced an ongoing problem with people on the server being very obviously discriminatory in various ways, whether that be sexism, racism, or any other form of unfair discrimination. This often leads to, or takes the form of, active harassment of community members simply based on their gender, sex, race, and various other characteristics. This happens constantly. I think anybody on the server who is a woman or otherwise feminine in any way can attest to the bullshit and weirdos they have to put up with on the server or by people in the community, and it's real fucking bad.

Just today, we have had a prominent member of the community outright leave and drop all of her roleplay and server positions because of this problem. She's been in senior roleplay positions for as long as I've been on the server, and this problem was bad enough for her to just decide to up and leave midway through ongoing roleplay storylines. And I don't imagine she's the first, nor do I expect her to be the last unless something changes.

And that's what this forum thread is about - something needs to change, and it's a big enough problem that it really needs Network Leadership and other senior staff to make changes that actually proactively prevent this from happen, and that actually work to resolve issues that people have around this. The SCP-RP Suggestions section of the forums is closed right now, so I can't post there, and I'm not sure it's even the place for that, given it likely affects the CN community broader than just these two servers, and is limited in scope to just the Content Team as arbiters.

Existing Rules and Enforcement
Under the existing SCP-RP rules, and I imagine this is similar across the other servers and parts of CN, we have this rule:

1.10 Disrespectful Conduct - Derogatory Language designed to target players in a disrespectful manner is prohibited; this includes racism, homophobia, and other derogatory slurs; jokingly being racist is not an exception to this rule.

This. Is not enforced nearly enough, and nearly severely enough. It is also very limited in scope, and the only other rule I can see (with my poor reading ability) that touches on anything directly related to this issue is the ERP rule. It doesn't cover anything other than direct derogatory language, and that's really not enough.

When it comes to enforcement, it's pretty easy to point out where even this limited rule is not dealt with severely enough. Right now, you will see every so often somebody decide to do something like spam the N-word in OOC comms. That sort of behaviour alone should indicate that that person is not somebody that will ever provide positive interactions in the server, and they have no intention to actually engage in the community at all in the first place. That's on top of the fact that they are spamming a racial slur. What does this result in? A short ban, come back in a week and do it again, or be more subtle next time which is actually worse in the long run for the community. And do you know what this says to players? That it's not that bad, you can get RDM bans longer than that, so it's not serious. Or from other perspectives: wow, the moderation team/owners really don't care. It's that kind of server.

Then when it comes to people just generally harassing members of the community? Nothing, because there's no actual rules against that, at least none that are publicly listed. You can get banned for toxicity, but that's only really if you've very obviously said a slur or are directly attacking people and being rude. Just casually harassing people because they're women, or anything along those lines? Nah, you're fine. A lot of it's likely just small things - one person does it once, so it's not that bad. Multiply that by the amount of people that behave like this, then again by how often they do it, and it really starts to add up. And that's just the smaller things - the smaller things aren't the only problems people face on CN. One person being a bit weird around someone on the server because omg, woman becomes on their side I can barely play the server because of all these fucking weirdos - and that's not a community we should strive to be.

If you've seen or experienced any issues around this, feel free to add them as replies to this - it might actually get NL to give a shit.

Changes
Right now, there's some very obvious gaps in the rules, and these issues aren't being taken (or dealt with) nearly as severely as they should be. The overall change would obviously be to simply not have people be like that, but that's also obviously not going to happen without doing anything. So my immediate suggestions would be:

• Add explicit rules around harassment and discrimination. Not just direct language, and not just directly hostile/toxic words and actions, but the base problems.
  • Individuals can be punished/dealt with in severity scaling with their individual actions, but if every person that did/said something discriminatory, or in any way harassed a member of our community, was punished/dealt with appropriately everytime they did it, it might start to get into people's heads that that's not okay.
• Increase the severity of punishments around existing and future rules around this issue.
  • Does it make sense to you that repeatedly using a slur, or constantly undertaking any actions that just generally create such a toxic community that people just fucking leave rather than put up with CN, should be punished less severely in any context than individual breaks in roleplay like RDM?
  • The point of rules and enforcement here is to make the server and community fun to play and keep it in a state where players actually want to come back - do you think this order of priority and severity aligns with that?
  • If somebody individually is causing big enough problems here, it might even be worth an outright community blacklist. What's the point of keeping one existing player around if they're just causing problems for the rest of the community to the point that other existing members might leave, and new players might decide to never come back.

Unpopularity
Even this suggestion, that we don't just let people discriminate and harass others, will likely be unpopular. It seems every time anything touching on this topic comes up, you get a bunch of people coming out of the woodwork to complain stupid shit like most of the people on the server are MEN, so why should we care about women? And to you, I say "Found one."

This problem is going to continue, and people are going to continue to leave or simply never truly join the community, until actions are actually taken to make things better. Do they have to be exactly what I have suggested? No. But you need to do fucking something about it, and I feel like "treating harassment and discrimination seriously" is not a big fucking ask.

 

[Painter]

:roosip:

 

[Zen]

I believe staff removed a comment of mine that was rude to someone that made an inappropriate comment, my apologies for that, my comment wasn't appropriate either.

 

[Ellie]

I don't want to take over this post, but I can empathise with Athena, Kayla, and the other girls in the community.

I was the target of a lot of harassment, especially back in 2019 when someone found my social media profiles and spread them around. It still happens now, especially on the other servers where I don't have a rank. CN has changed a LOT since 2019, when I came back I was really happy to see the measures put in place to prevent players from feeling uncomfortable. Punishments are harsher, staff have more training, and the rules are pretty watertight now.

If you have a complaint that you feel isn't being dealt with properly, I urge you to go up the ladder to NL. They are experienced in handling these types of situations.

If anyone would feel more comfortable approaching me, rather than the guys, about stuff of this nature - please feel free to message me on Discord, even if you're not a DRP player - my DMs are always open. While I can't promise a resolution, at least you know I've had the same experience and will help as much as I can.

 

[Deleted member 55]

With due respect, what the fuck. YOU are a COMMUNITY SUPERVISOR, last I check you are one of three member with authority over all server, I have always stated and uphold a belief that member of Server and Network Leadership have the duty to uphold a fun and safe environment for the player. It might not have been the job that leadership sign up for but it's part of the duty for being a senior member of the community. Every staff member is expected to enforce the rule to the extend that it's written and every staff member is expected to follow the core handbook for every staff member which states

I'm not involved in the slightest but I saw this comment which made absolutely zero sense and wanted to comment on it.

Being a Community Supervisor doesn't mean they can read minds or that they can control everything. At this point, they can only act as a reactionary force. which Winkie worded perfectly: "We cannot prevent such a thing and can only, as stated previously act as a reactionary force."

About the "doxing", if someone's streaming their Tinder swipes and throwing their face out there on the internet, it's like broadcasting it on the evening news and then asking the news station not to mention it again. If someone decides to spill their beans and share private stuff, that's on them, not on NL.

It's awful this has happened, but you can't blame NL for that in the slightest.

 

[Otters]

Reading this just saddens me, why cant people just behave normally...

 

[Hydro]

My views are my own
(And I'd like to express them before mine get lumped in with somebody else's)

I don't really understand what the problem is here, correct me if I'm wrong but somebody got doxxed and the person who did the doxxing was subsequently blacklisted (to the best of my knowledge). Also one other more nuanced minefield of concern that requires lighter footwork than I can do.

This isn't a gendered argument, I've personally been a victim of it before, alongside numerous high-profile members of the community as well as about half of the people who eventually reached senior staffing positions. Since being a victim of it, I've been unable/unwilling to share any of my socials with others, and the only one instance of even getting close to that I already deeply regret as it has left me vulnerable. I recall people I was friends with for years (and trusted implicitly) releasing my information, so my policy is now zero-trust to anyone. This isn't a roundabout way of victim blaming - it's almost common sense that I learned by making mistakes.

The issue that we're dealing with here isn't some systematic top-to-bottom mechanism of discrimination and sexism raging through the community, it's barely-aged teenagers who think it's acceptable to distribute other peoples' personal information around. There's also the problem of kids running around sniffing you in-game, but that's also not a gendered thing - it used to be the case I could barely go a few hours without somebody doing that to me on MRP or DarkRP. Granted, this does probably happen more commonly to women.

When it comes to enforcement, it's pretty easy to point out where even this limited rule is not dealt with severely enough. Right now, you will see every so often somebody decide to do something like spam the N-word in OOC comms. That sort of behaviour alone should indicate that that person is not somebody that will ever provide positive interactions in the server, and they have no intention to actually engage in the community at all in the first place. That's on top of the fact that they are spamming a racial slur. What does this result in? A short ban, come back in a week and do it again, or be more subtle next time which is actually worse in the long run for the community. And do you know what this says to players? That it's not that bad, you can get RDM bans longer than that, so it's not serious. Or from other perspectives: wow, the moderation team/owners really don't care. It's that kind of server.

This is nonsense. You can argue the bans should be longer, but you can't argue banning somebody is the same as saying the staff team don't care.

If you've seen or experienced any issues around this, feel free to add them as replies to this - it might actually get NL to give a shit.

This is just rude, and harassment in-and-of its-self. I do encourage people to come forwards if they have anything actionable that can be done though.

Then when it comes to people just generally harassing members of the community? Nothing, because there's no actual rules against that, at least none that are publicly listed. You can get banned for toxicity, but that's only really if you've very obviously said a slur or are directly attacking people and being rude. Just casually harassing people because they're women, or anything along those lines? Nah, you're fine. A lot of it's likely just small things - one person does it once, so it's not that bad. Multiply that by the amount of people that behave like this, then again by how often they do it, and it really starts to add up. And that's just the smaller things - the smaller things aren't the only problems people face on CN. One person being a bit weird around someone on the server because omg, woman becomes on their side I can barely play the server because of all these fucking weirdos - and that's not a community we should strive to be.

Issuing strict punishments for people being weird is also not a fair ask, nor is it realistic. The people doing that kind of stuff aren't mature enough to even know what they are doing is wrong, and it'll probably just cause more people to act up - and potentially even cause them to resent some of the players on the server who they think are responsible for the clampdown. Again, they're children and don't know better, they'll misplace their anger and take it out on whoever they want.

You also can't punish 1000 people severely for each causing 1 of a 1000 cuts. Just do what the rest of us do - complain when there's something that pisses you off (or in this case someone is harassing you), and make modest & meaningful suggestions for change when it seems appropriate. I don't want to say this whole post is invalid - because there are some points to consider - but something more thoughtfully put together and specific would be more helpful.

I do expect an unenforceable reaction as a result of this though - but with the accusations you've made I suspect NL have little to no alternate choices.

I am heading out now - so I look forwards to reading thoughts and responses later.

 

[Zen]

My views are my own
(And I'd like to express them before mine get lumped in with somebody else's)

I don't really understand what the problem is here, correct me if I'm wrong but somebody got doxxed and the person who did the doxxing was subsequently blacklisted (to the best of my knowledge). Also one other more nuanced minefield of concern that requires lighter footwork than I can do.

This isn't a gendered argument, I've personally been a victim of it before, alongside numerous high-profile members of the community as well as about half of the people who eventually reached senior staffing positions. Since being a victim of it, I've been unable/unwilling to share any of my socials with others, and the only one instance of even getting close to that I already deeply regret as it has left me vulnerable. I recall people I was friends with for years (and trusted implicitly) releasing my information, so my policy is now zero-trust to anyone. This isn't a roundabout way of victim blaming - it's almost common sense that I learned by making mistakes.

The issue that we're dealing with here isn't some systematic top-to-bottom mechanism of discrimination and sexism raging through the community, it's barely-aged teenagers who think it's acceptable to distribute other peoples' personal information around. There's also the problem of kids running around sniffing you in-game, but that's also not a gendered thing - it used to be the case I could barely go a few hours without somebody doing that to me on MRP or DarkRP. Granted, this does probably happen more commonly to women.


This is nonsense. You can argue the bans should be longer, but you can't argue banning somebody is the same as saying the staff team don't care.


This is just rude, and harassment in-and-of its-self. I do encourage people to come forwards if they have anything actionable that can be done though.


Issuing strict punishments for people being weird is also not a fair ask, nor is it realistic. The people doing that kind of stuff aren't mature enough to even know what they are doing is wrong, and it'll probably just cause more people to act up - and potentially even cause them to resent some of the players on the server who they think are responsible for the clampdown. Again, they're children and don't know better, they'll misplace their anger and take it out on whoever they want.

You also can't punish 1000 people severely for each causing 1 of a 1000 cuts. Just do what the rest of us do - complain when there's something that pisses you off (or in this case someone is harassing you), and make modest & meaningful suggestions for change when it seems appropriate. I don't want to say this whole post is invalid - because there are some points to consider - but something more thoughtfully put together and specific would be more helpful.

I do expect an unenforceable over-reaction as a result of this though - but with the accusations you've made I suspect NL have little to no alternate choices.

I am heading out now - so I look forwards to reading thoughts and responses later.

I don't expect, nor want, every tiny incident to result in a community blacklist or something like that. What I want is for those smaller incidents to actually result in a reasonable punishment for the offence - this would likely mean a lot of smaller punishments, at least at first, escalating with repeated offences or the severity of any individual offence (like any other server rule). Right now, there's no direct rules against broader things like harassment, disrespectful behaviour, etc. and I feel like those sorts of things being explicitly forbidden and appropriately dealt with would be a very good first step to improving things.

I also feel like some existing rules around toxicity and things like that could do with being more severely punished - again, to a reasonable extent, but more than it currently is - as the broader area of disrespect, harassment, discrimination, and general community toxicity don't seem to be dealt with well or as severely as they should be right now.

 

[Bob "Gustav" Smith]

People gonna be racist and people gonna be sexist, when people act in such ways it's not because the example that CN sets is that it won't get punished severely, but simply because they're like that.

 

[Zen]

People gonna be racist and people gonna be sexist, when people act in such ways it's not because the example that CN sets is that it won't get punished severely, but simply because they're like that.

If they're going to continue to act like that on CN despite being punished for it, they'd just get escalating punishments until they just get perma'd, and I have absolutely no problem with that sort of person just not coming back. I'd prefer they go over the people that haven't done anything wrong. Plus, I feel like even if people don't actually change their opinions, they'd at least stop actively causing problems on CN once they start getting punished for it, and that'd make the experience for a lot of people much less toxic even if it doesn't solve the route problem.

 

[Ventz]

Our stance on harassment and inappropriate behavior.​

I'd like to thank everyone in this thread for bringing information like this to light, the concerns that have been brought forward are issues the Network Leadership team and I were not fully aware of and we would like to make change in light of this.

We want our platforms to be enjoyable for everyone equally, and some of the information reported here has raised potential issues affecting this goal. So I'd like to make this post addressing all of the concerns that have been brought up in this thread, and to clarify our stance when it comes to moderating these issues.

First and foremost, many people have brought forward complaints about harassment that they have experienced from others here in our community. To all of those people, I would like to say I'm sorry you have had to deal with these situations. We do not condone or in any way support the actions towards you that have been reported. Every report that you make regarding this behavior is not an inconvenience. We appreciate reports of this kind of behavior, and without them we cannot possibly begin to inform our staff members on how to deal with such situations. Civil Networks does not tolerate harassment of any sort on our platforms, both in-game and in our general online community. Without reports of these incidents, we cannot begin to take the steps to combat this form of behavior.

Online safety​

The most pressing issue that has been raised concerns inappropriate sharing of personal information. To be clear, we do not and have never allowed this behavior under any circumstances, and have a zero tolerance policy to those who do. It is one of the worst offenses a community member can commit and should be swiftly and seriously dealt with once we are made aware.

Many situations like this can be difficult for us to deal with since it is very common for the perpetrators to be hard to identify. In cases like these, it is common that we can't take direct action in punishing those responsible because we require compelling evidence. It is also common for these situations to be in breach of various harassment laws, in which case the victim could consider raising the issue to the relevant authority, such that it can be appropriately dealt with by the right people. It is important to remember that we usually cannot do this on behalf of a victim, with the exception of situations that we believe to be severe or urgent enough for that to be necessary.

As a community, the best we can do to protect our selves and others is to be reminded of the importance in maintaining good online safety and privacy at all times and in all settings. You should always think carefully before sharing information with anyone online, never share information that could be used against you, and take special care in situations where you may be inhibited from thinking as clearly than usual. Anything you share online can be available permanently, and although you may not be worried at the time, this can come back to bite you in the future. I strongly encourage those of you reading to also remind your friends and other members of the community, especially if you think someone may not be sufficiently aware of these dangers.

Discrimination​

Discrimination towards others is not tolerated under any circumstances. This refers to the unfair treatment, unfair opportunities or offensive behavior portrayed towards someone based on their appearance, sexuality, gender, religion, nationality and so on.

There are rules available to staff to deal with these cases, such as disrespectful conduct, however many of you have requested we instate more rules to clearly cover situations like these. Although I agree with those requests, adding rules to cover these issues is very difficult due to the subjective nature involved. We are committed to protecting all members of the community, and this is includes protecting all members from unfair, bias or inconsistent punishments for their actions ingame. We will begin working on a new set of rules or guidelines to assist staff when dealing with discrimination ingame, however we must ensure that we implement clear, concise and unambiguous rules which will be interpreted equally by all staff and players, rather than blanket rules which could be interpreted wildly different by each person.

Inappropriate conduct​

Many instances of inappropriate conduct have been mentioned in this thread, including examples of offensive language used in chat and inappropriate/unwanted behavior towards other players. I would like to make clear that we do not allow this on our platforms and we do not allow players to act towards others in ways they have made clear are uncomfortable to them. This could include unwanted persistent creepy/weird behavior towards someone, unwanted uncomfortable or strange comments towards someone, or otherwise depraved comments towards people.

Behavior like this can be extremely subjective when being dealt with, and staff should deal with these situations by ensuring the player is aware of their unwanted behavior, aware of the harm it is causing, and will cease their unwanted behavior. Understand that usage and context of certain language can greatly impact the way it is perceived, the person's intentions when saying it, and the severity which a staff member might treat it, which can make it very difficult to fairly moderate.

The behavior reported in this thread has never been tolerated in this community, and to reinforce this we will also be working to revise our rules to reflect a clearer stance on the issue. It is important to remember that the staff on our platforms are voluntary members who we greatly appreciate their time and work towards moderating the community, with this said you must be aware that subjective situations can be difficult for some staff to conclusively deal with, and you should treat them with respect and consideration in all circumstances.

Conclusion​

I hope this has cleared up any ambiguity on our stance towards the issues raised in this post. We will continuously work to improve the community and its environment by hearing your feedback, so never be afraid to raise concerns or make reports about issues you are facing. Staff reading this post can also use this as guidance for the sort of attitude they should take to situations ingame.

If you have further questions or concerns please DM them to me on discord, thanks.