I've recently posted two videos from Extra Credits (Harassement and Toxicity as topics) on /r/DotA2. To my astonishment, only one person showed any sort of willingness to produce a constructive conversation on those subjects.
Granted, I haven't been very informative myself: I merely posted the videos without any commentaries along, so I can see how a mindless product can get mindless reviews. I should have added some of my own thoughts on the subjects rather than simply point at the videos and say "Guys, watch that! It'll be good for ya!". Still, reading the comments makes my heart ache because of the rational and well-meant conversations I've had on Hubski.
I mean, shit, what kind of a pit I must have been in to see the highest-upvoted comment being "i always hated these fuckers"? I know the game isn't known to have friendly playerbase (I've been peer-pressured into becoming the worse part back when I was playing), but what the hell is up with those people? I love the game and I enjoy the fun times it brings (not merely a few of those there are, either), but many of the players make me want to shed a tear at their merciless narcissistic behavior in a game that's supposed to be about cooperation and teamwork.
(Here are the /r/DotA2 posts, by the way: one and two)
I've heard plenty of time that there are always bad apples in the barrel. I find it a weak excuse to tolerate and even accept this kind of behavior and null of an explanation in this case. Surely, there will always be people willing to boost their frail egos by verbally denigrate others, but this is not the case with the community.
If you're here on your own, you probably know what I'm talking about: a stranger is willing to slur over your every mistake if you don't play perfectly and don't put your team to victory while protecting everybody else from harm at the same time. In short, for some, you have to be not just a perfect player, but a perfect person; as we've all learned by now, perfection doesn't exist, and neither do those ideals of human beings the slurmasters take care to imagine in all beauty. Tolerating such behavior by replying to it or saying nothing against (both implying that you're fine with it, and with time, you start to believe it) is what gave it rise in the first place.
I know that this game is not the only one to have such communities. I've played plenty of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare in my time, and there, too, were more than enough of such dirtmouths. What makes Dota 2's special for me is that the game is very good on its own: it has strategy and tactics, it requires both good planning (picks and counterpicks, how to win runeraces, Roshan attempts etc.) and good thinking on one's feet (especially in teamfights where a mess might happen twice a second). I will be as bold as to consider Dota 2 a fantasy version of chess, with its own format of playfield and its own extensive rules of interactions. You can see how such a game can be attractive, and how its community can become important.
What I can't wrap my head around is - what drives such a community? What drives such toxic players? Why didn't we drive those away already? Has it anything to do with the phenomenon of Eternal September (10M active players, as far as I remember, and those had to come from somewhere)?
You've proven my point with this comment. Calling me a moron or a liar to discredit me instead of providing any sort of insightful critique - constructive or destructive - on the commentary I've made about the community is nothing but an ad hominem attack. I don't think you disagree, either, which is why you went for it in the first place: you're offended by the accusations. Fair. You couldn't also guess that I have almost a thousand hours of gameplay or that /u/ThatFanficGuy is not my first Reddit account, with around three years of active lurking and commenting on the backburner - but you could have asked. You want to defend yourself or the community to me? Fine, but do it in ways that are more productive, thoughtful or effective. It doesn't matter if I feel offended by such behavior, which I am and I've admitted it on the reply to Elros' comment, - this kind of behavior is exactly what repulses people from DotA 2, an otherwise outstanding videogame.
Here's the thing. If you're into social justice, as in you've made it something of a hobby, these videos will be just fine from your perspective. If you spend your time thinking about social inequality and political correctness they'll seem inoffensive, definitive, immanently relevant, and even obvious. If you don'tspend your time thinking about these things, this sort of thing seems standoffish, condescending, completely irrelevant, preachy, and annoying. "You guys should really check out these videos on harassment" reads as "I think you guys are assholes and need a video to tell you not to harass people". Armchair social justice advocacy is basically a rogue HR department and isn't generally considered to be a good thing by the communities who fall prey to it. Often because it's in the form of someone who has only a peripheral connection to the community if any at all imposing their standards of behavior. At some point along the way a group of people decided that tolerance means thinking and acting exactly like them. Whatever they want to call it, people tend to frown on actual intolerance.
I sympathize somewhat with your intention. The DotA community is definitely one of the most toxic, rude, immature, and downright racist communities I've ever experienced. Not that everyone, or even a majority of players have these qualities, but the prevalence of these traits is disproportionately high. However, I think the way you've attempted to tackle these problems is not productive for a couple of reasons. I hope you don't take the following as a personal criticism, but instead as just a comment on how your dialog may be perceived by some others. The other commenters hit several of the major points: As thewoodenaisle points out, these sorts of posts are emphatically not the sort of thing that people browsing the DotA subreddit are looking for. As aidrocsid touches on a little bit, the tone with which you present these videos comes across as "standoffish, condescending, completely irrelevant, preachy, and annoying." It feels like you're targeting an attack against people of that community (and maybe you are), and in general people don't respond well to being attacked. Furthermore, such discussion is draped in a culture that many in the DotA community would find alien, and so it makes you like an outsider hurling criticism at the community. Additionally, you respond to people's comments in a way that is standoffish, melodramatic, sarcastic, and condescending. Again, while these sorts of things may feel good, they're very likely to cause the listener to stop listening and attack back. Frankly, you sound like you've had some bad experiences with the game -- something which I can absolutely sympathize with -- and you've come to pass judgement on the people who might have contributed to those experiences. I agree in general the community has issues, but I'm not sure what response you expected.
I think this is the key. I realized way too late how ignorant I was about doing those things. It felt that I was doing the right thing - educating the public about a better culture of behaving - and the response felt inadequate, out of place for such an intention. My mistake was to assume those people want to be educated in the first place, which must be the main criterion for any sort of sharing - and I've forgotten about it for the time, letting arrogance of mine take higher priority. Exactly, and I realized it way too late as well. I felt offended by such ignorance; I'm not to justify such behavior with that reason, but it will explain why I acted that way. Overall, it was fruitless effort fueled by barely much but my ego. Sure, I had good intentions, but I never considered where I apply them to, how I apply them and what might result from it - which, combined, made for a very bad show of character, which I regret afterwards.such discussion is draped in a culture that many in the DotA community would find alien
Additionally, you respond to people's comments in a way that is standoffish, melodramatic, sarcastic, and condescending.
Really all you need to do is get better, or just play with 5's. You'll find that if you're actually playing with competent folks the arguments are generally cogent; albiet a little hostile. At the lower tier matchmaking you get to deal with all sorts of unwelcoming teammates who are frustrated and still learning. I have a tough time agreeing with the opinion that developers and gaming communities have a moral obligation to take it upon themselves to enforce some code of conduct policy. Policing people's speech is a slippery slope, especially when the fundamental tool (the grand 'ole mute button) already exists to appease those that feel violated. Multiplayer games that are inherently competitive bring inherently competitive people to them. These types of people generally don't enjoy losing and if you're the cause of that, they'll probably let you know. I'd rather have someone angrily yell at me in an attempt to correct my play-style than me mope in my private chat channel during a game because some algorithm labeled all my teammates as "Toxic Meanies". If what they're spewing in nonsensical garbage, then you mute them; this all seems very melodramatic to try and blow it into the proportion that I think you're attempting to get at.
These videos that you linked simply don't apply to DotA2, because there is a mute function, so that if someone is being mean to you, you just mute them. Not just that, but if enough people report someone for communication abuse, they are muted completely. Considering that and considering the videos you posted (including the titles you chose, especially "I believe Dota 2 community might find this message useful[...]") gives the impression that you're an outsider to the community and preaching to them, because if you can end all the harassment and toxicity that could occur in DotA 2 by pressing one button and clicking, what are you trying to accomplish with this message?
Trying to communicate effectively with a community that shares views different from yours is very challenging. I don't really have any advice that guarantees success. I usually try to listen more than I speak, and be ready to change my opinion no matter how obvious to me I am right. As an example, when talking to Christians who strongly oppose homosexuality, I discuss how the bible emphasises love and compassion repeatedly while the new testament has only 1 passage that can be interpreted as antihomosexual, and many christians don't interpret it that way. It doesn't usually work.
It's not like this is me giving a lecture - it's more like a conversation. Like any conversation topics drift. But maybe to give an example, If I say "I don't think homosexuality is wrong according to the bible" then the response is usually either "why? What about..." or "you are wrong." If it's something like the first - great we can have a conversation about this! If it's the second, I say "we'll maybe you're right" then depending on the context either shrug it off or justify my position with a short sentence such as "Romans chapter 1 is ambiguous." That allows the other person to discuss or not discuss the topic as far as they are comfortable with it without hurting the friendship.
No, I think that friendships with people who believe differently from me are valuable. For me, I view a persons beliefs as a result of upbringing and culture plus biological tendencies. If I isolate myself from "bigots" not only do I lose access to people who might actually be right (albeit partially) I also lose the ability to help change their views. EDIT - in my personal story, people who took the time to befriend me in spite of my bigoted beliefs changed my values, albeit after many years....
I don't follow Dota 2, but if /r/dota2 is anything like /r/leagueoflegends, people go there to: 1. Post dank memes 2. Follow esports drama 3. Complain about Valve (might not be as applicable since Redditors tend to be Valve fanboys and Riot is hilariously incompetent) Plus, TI5 is going on right now, so the entire subreddit is focused on the tournament. And in my experience, people who are into Dota 2 don't like the word "toxicity" because they see it as a meaningless buzzword pushed by Riot, so the downvotes might be a kneejerk reaction against the word, among other things.