Matt O’ Rama

players who have advertised their guilds as “GBLT-friendly” have lately been warned off by Blizzard moderators, who cite a rule against sexual discrimination in censoring the players. When pressed for explanations, they offer the genuinely bizarre excuse that if queer players are allowed to tell other players about their sexual orientation, that it might arouse discriminatory or unkind remarks from those players, and that would violate the anti-discrimination rules of the game.

This is just ridiculous. So people who want to advertise their groups as being friendly to certain people aren’t allowed to because some idiots might taunt the members? I would assume that WoW has an age limit and doesn’t allow kindergarten age children on their game so why are all players being treated as children who can’t either control their bigotry or be called names? I guess the real question is why doesn’t Blizzard have a way of dealing with people who actually discriminate or taunt other players? They know what’s going on in the game at all times. If somebody calls me a name because I’m a member of a certain group I should be able to tell an admin and the admin should be able to look at the logs and see what the other person said. Then that person should be kicked from the game immediately. Since the threat of physical violence and jail is removed in an online environment, there needs to be another way of keeping bigoted cowards in line and not let them define the acceptable behavior for the group.

This reminds me of what I read about the recent riots in France. Apparently the French position on multi-culturalism is to ignore differences between everyone. That sounds good in theory but in practice what it really does is erase the culture of people who aren’t the mainstream group. So you have people who have had all expressions of their cultural individuality suppressed in favor of the majority. This obviously causes some problems in the long run. If these online games keep pretending that real world differences don’t exist, it’s just going to piss those people off and they’ll find somewhere else to spend their time and money. As these games grow in stature and importance, the ones that find good ways of dealing with the idiots will be the ones that thrive.

Tags: grommes, games, discrimination, glbt, bigotry, warcraft

What kind of courage does it take, for mercy’s sake? The majority of the American people (55 percent) think the war in Iraq is a mistake and that we should get out. The majority (65 percent) of the American people want single-payer health care and are willing to pay more taxes to get it. The majority (86 percent) of the American people favor raising the minimum wage. The majority of the American people (60 percent) favor repealing Bush’s tax cuts, or at least those that go only to the rich. The majority (66 percent) wants to reduce the deficit not by cutting domestic spending, but by reducing Pentagon spending or raising taxes.

The majority (77 percent) thinks we should do “whatever it takes” to protect the environment. The majority (87 percent) thinks big oil companies are gouging consumers and would support a windfall profits tax. That is the center, you fools. WHO ARE YOU AFRAID OF?

I like Molly Ivins. One of the perpetual problems of the Democratic party is the members’ inability to stand for their beliefs. Too many Democrats think that everybody is sympathetic to Republican ideas so they run after, trying to make sure everybody knows they support those ideas too. Nuts to that. We need Democrats who are proud of the name. People who aren’t trying to be just Left enough of Right so they don’t alienate either side of things. The Right is running this country into the ground. We need more intelligent, pragmatic people on the Left who don’t cow-tow to anybody and who can stand up and say they are really a Democrat, not just Not-A-Republican.

Tags: grommes, politics, molly+ivins, democrats

9. SMART IS COOL. Having a Geek for a father instills the message into your children that smart is cool. They idolize Daddy. Hopefully, they’ll want to grow up to be just like him.

Except for #3 (Geeks are good at Math), this fits me pretty well. Of course I think the kids will be teaching me a thing or a million about technology in the coming years, it’s good to have a head start. I’d hate to be one of those parents who just can’t for the life of them understand why kids want to do Instant Messaging or have a cell phone at age 8. It’s going to happen, you better be ready for it.

Tags: grommes, kids, parenting, geeks