http://www.xbox.com/en-US/support/...
http://www.xbox.com/en-US/support/...

Any parent who lets young children talk to random strangers online is completely negligent (Terry especially, turning a 5 year old loose on XBL!?).

Yeah, I’m sure that’s real cost effective. You know, hey, let’s just stop making games and start recording every single conversation so we can stop thirteen year olds from being thirteen year olds. I mean, why don’t cops do this if it’s so easy. I mean, just record everyone’s conversation so if anyone commits a crime and talks about it, we can catch them.

As far as Blizzard swinging the ban hammer, we’re talking about two different systems here. WoW is TEXT BASED. If you file a report, it sends a teeny tiny 5kb file, if that, of your chat log. Much easier to prosecute than anything on XBL. If you’re playing WoW on Teamspeak, I don’t think there is a thing Blizzard will do about you’re complaint. They certainly don’t tell you the results of an individual complaint. They just say “We banned 3000 people today.” forgetting to mention that 2000 more copies of the game got sold the next day. At least with XBL they can ban an actual system and not just an email address or account number.

Also, just because Blizzard flaunts their banning numbers around, most of the time it has nothing to do with racism, it’s for gold farming or using third party software. If anything, ask WoW players and there is a running sentiment that they ban too quickly.

As far as banning players for using a mod chip, that is something that can be scanned for. It can be automated. It’s not like you can have a mod chip for fifteen minutes and then not. You wanted an automated system to determine whether or not a person gets banned? I sure don’t want Max figuring out whether I’m finding a good restaurant on Zagats or if I’m calling people Fagots.

As far as these people relating to actual threats on XBL to threats in real life, I couldn’t agree more. If I’m threatened in real life, I call the cops. I don’t see what MS did here. If Terry, or anyone else, feels threatened they should call the police. What is MS going to do? They could ban the guy, that how is that protecting Terry. CALL THE FUCKING COPS. I don’t see how that is up for debate. If the cops show up maybe they would have called MS and MS might have taken it seriously.

I really don’t think that XBL is nearly as bad as everyone makes it out to be. I mean, I hardly ever hear this kind of language EVER, certainly not on a regular basis. What games are people playing that you run into this kind of thing all the time?

@Adam
I don’t think it’s Microsoft’s job to clean up society. They do what they can on their service but it really comes down to parents doing their god damned job for a change instead of expecting everyone else to do it for them or blaming something else for their kids being stupid assholes. If their parents were there to see what was happening, it shouldn’t happen. At the very least, the parents shouldn’t be raising a racist piece of crap anyway. I guess Microsoft should send over a counselor to ever subscribers house and make them take sensitivity courses before they can play online? I mean, what do you want them to do, and don’t just say “Kick off bad people” because if it was that easy there wouldn’t be any crime in the world at all. I again want to point out how extraordinarily easy it is to file a complaint against someone whether they actually did something or not, which hogs up the system with false charges and slows the process.

I also want to point this out:

http://www.xbox.com/en-US/live/guide/gamerzone.htm

Now, I don’t think that works 100%, but it’s a start, and it helps me illustrate my next point, what I enjoy doing in a game and what you enjoy doing may be polar opposites. Maybe I like playing games with a lot of trash talk. “Man, you aim is worse than my Grandmothers, and she has palsy!”. I certainly don’t mind swear words having spent a number of years in the army. Some people may have a problem with that. If you go to the gym to play basketball, do you blame the gym if the other team talks trash? Probably not. I guess it depends on your gym’s policies, but chances are you just don’t play that team anymore. If I’m annoyed by someone in a game, at the very least I mute them. If it’s more than one person I leave the game and go find another server to play on. If I’m getting annoying messages I block the player sending them. It’s the equivalent of walking away and ignoring them, which is much easier to do on something like XBL than it is in real life.

I also think it depends on what game you’re playing. I mean, if you’re playing something like Gears of War, I don’t know what is wrong with your brain. Somehow it’s perfectly okay to explode someone into bloody chunks but god forbid someone says The “N” word. I’m not trying to say it’s perfectly fine, because it isn’t, but how can you be so sensitive about that when you are cutting people in half with a chainsaw? I’m not saying you should be okay with it, it’s still offensive, but to cry about it like it’s some kind of punch in the face? Mute the jerk! Go out of your way to make his face explode (in the game). If you have the ability, kick him out, or ask whoever does have the ability to kick him out. If he’s the host or for some reason can’t be kicked out, leave the game yourself. Now, if you’re playing Uno or something then yeah, it’s a little different, but not that much.

I really REALLY don’t know what more Microsoft is supposed to do about people being dick heads. I don’t mean to be insensitive, but stop crying about it. Microsoft kicks people off XBL all the time, but as their policy CLEARLY states, they don’t tell people about the results of complaints. File your complaint, mute, block, avoid or leave or whatever, and get on with your life.

@Bryan
I don’t think he should grin and bear it. That implies he do nothing. File his complaint and then mute, block, and avoid the offensive player. If he runs into a new guy every week it will take up 2 minutes of his time every month.

Isn’t there a way in XBox Live to flag players so games you’re about to join with people you’ve flagged as abusive show up in red or something?

Alternatively, what about an optional private ‘clean gamer’ flag on accounts, so players who agree to be held to a higher standard can play in both ‘clean’ and non-clean games, and if a complaint against a player is found to be valid he loses his ‘clean gamer’ flag for a day, then a week, etc.

I imagine a lot of players and player’s parents would pay a little extra if it turned out to be expensive to, say, temporarily cache the audio of someone if they get a couple complaints.

Am I crazy, or is the world crazy?

“I know where you live(insert address)and I’m coming.”,

Microsoft is a business doing what they believe is most profitable, which means that without a fundamental change in the system beyond the control of Microsoft, in my opinion, one should “Grin and bear it, or get out of town.” I emphasize this especially because of the ease in which you can mute racists just as you mute obnoxious, nasally, prepubescent, microphone spammers.

However, if you are threatened (by legal standards), then feel free to contact your federal policing monopoly, the FBI.

What bothers me is that people cannot cope with the existence of racists, sexists, and homophobes and thus would like to distribute the cost of Microsoft’s increased vigilance to all users rather than bear their burdens alone.

In other words, I am not going to pay more for XBox Live so that you do not hear free speech. If that is your aim, then fuck you gay nigger bitch. (Disclaimer: I am one or more of these and/or a stupid kid, so I can say it, Amiright?)

Actually, if people are threatening to lynch him, it very well could be.

“when you sign up for XBL, you agree to the fact that “game experience might change online”.”

so i guess racist attacks (as well as sexist, homophobic and xenophobic attacks) are okay as long as there is no one there to call you on your crap to your face? Nice, dude, glad to see where you stand on equality. Don’t claim to support it unless you’re willing to take a stand.

“but Sony and Microsoft are going to have to find a way to better control it if they want to win over a larger segment of the public.”

You obviously dont play on XBL. XBL has so many subscribers that half the time we cant even get into a game cause the XBL network is hammered. I dont think that they are hardup for subscribers.

That being said, here is my counter-argument…

Imagine if this was our attitude towards real world racism.

This is not just generic shit talk, these are specific and personal threats. If you think someone should just put up with racism and that nothing can be done about it then you’re as racist as the people threatening Terry.

As a former teacher I understand that impulsivity of youth, but that alone does not warrant the level that the problens that are on XBL.

I myself was a target of the reverse side of this problem. I sat quietly (on mute) playing the game. Since I was on mute I couldn’t hear the inane chatter. Several players must have decided to mess with me by reporting me to XBL CS. I was kicked off XBL and called at home by secuirty asking my side of allegations that I had made sexual advances and off color remarks to players. Luckily I had several people who were in the game back me up that I had become a traget of some idiot teens bent of messing with someone. They were booted (three days later they had new accounts and harrased me to the point I had to change accounts).

So something must be done to control these issues, and it is within MS “domain” and business practice to offer a safe and realitively secure forum to play games in.