Presenation on Cyber Bullying

[Flickalado]

My first time running AK as a WAR. I read guides and understood the fights. I was a fresh 50 in full AF and had on ilvl 40-55 jewelry on. The three others I got put with via DF joined together as a group (so it was three of them and me). I leveled to 50 doing dungeons and quests, and never had problems with aggro up until this run. Instead of taking it a little slower and following the target marks, the dps were aoeing and the healer started to just let me die. Then the harsh remarks start:

"You're incompetent"
"Kill Yourself"
"Uninstall the game dumb***"

Usually I'm the type that presses caps lock and fights back, but instead I took a deep breath and asked what I'm doing wrong. I was told to leave the dungeon so they could get a more "competent" tank.

Personally, I'd like to get the best gear, and be the best player I can, but I want to get there with the best reputation.

[Allyra]

Cyber bullying is more effective in more personal areas like Facebook. How can someone cyber bully an avatar in a game? Some one being extremely rude or insulting shouldn't be considered cyber bullying. A bully IRL can find ways to get at you. In game you just /ignore and grow up.

This is somewhat true. If the harassment is repeated and is something along the lines of spreading gossip about the person's irl, then it could be considered cyber bullying.

With that said, I think OP your friend is going to find it rather hard to find real instances of cyber bullying in mmos vs. "some guy said something bad and it hurt my feelings!"

I help students with papers on the side, and I would suggest your friend pick a different topic. Don't unnecessarily pick such a hard topic to find info on. I don't know the specifics, but I would imagine he or she could find a lot of other cyberbulling-related topics that have a lot information (fb/myspace).

[Muzy]

Stories like that "Outcast Warrior" one actually happen quite a bit more often than you would think. I myself actually almost wound up in a situation similar to that when I first started playing MMOs, if it wasn't for a few friends sitting down and helping me to properly understand some basic mechanics I could easily have been that guy. Yes I grew up playing video games, but single player game experience does not truly translate over to MMO experience.

[Flickalado]

Cyber bullying is more effective in more personal areas like Facebook. How can someone cyber bully an avatar in a game? Some one being extremely rude or insulting shouldn't be considered cyber bullying. A bully IRL can find ways to get at you. In game you just /ignore and grow up.

I agree for the most part also. Some girls at my school made a blog about my friend and were writing some really personal things on there. When it's personal and something about your actual day to day life, and can change how people you see face to face think about you that's some rough stuff to deal with. On the flip side, like you said you can /ignore whoever on an mmo, and most of the time it's harassment cause you didn't dodge an aoe (silly stuff really).

[statikcat]

You'd be surprised how you can be bullied in game. In ff11 a friend and I had a falling out and she bullied me unmercifully. All over a guy I wasn't even interested in. I was kicked from my Linkshell, she shouted I bought gil, and constantly harassed me about the guy in question.

She wouldn't stop no matter how many times I told her that the guy and I were only friends. We were more like brother and sister than anything else. The guy and I both ended up quitting the game though he did return for a bit and ended up changing servers and names to escape her and the damage she did to his reputation.

That sounds more like spamming and drama. Can't you /ignore someone in these games (I have not had to so assuming)? If they are saying things not appropriate can't you contact game support and they can review the logs and suspend an account for harassment of some kind?

[Teon]

I wouldn't use that story. More and more people are saying that story was made up, and you shouldn't risk using a fake story for your school work.

Fake or not, mentors became a reality on korean community, and playerbase understood they was just a bunch of douches. At least korean players changed into better as community..

OP , if you need a direct experience of cyber bulling, it's very easy: tell your friend to sit near you while you que on DF , E language. 1-3 runs should be enough to meet the douchebag of the day.
Take screenshots so your friend can write his report about the attitude and reason behind it.
The funny part of his report will be how senseless and non sane minded was the attitude reported lol

Then, more in-depth , after ff14 you can try to log on wow for a couple hours.
Both games are noawadays nearly on par about douchbaggery.

[Anandra]

Unfortunately, I've met my fair share of cyber bullying throughout my MMOs. A few communities have been notorious for bad behavior and that has put an early end to my playing of those games.

Saddest case of cyber bullying happened in WoW to one of my guildmates. She was a healer and pretty fragile mentally. Unfortunately, she was a pretty weak healer and when I partied with her, I inwardly cringed, knowing there were going to be plenty of wipes. She started going through a particularly rough time--problems in her marriage, general deterioration of her mental state. Then we had some nasty guild drama happen where some not so nice stuff was going on and things were getting downright mean. As she started doing more runs outside the guild groups where frankly we had carried her, people started getting increasingly mean to her. Some of the WoW PUGs seemed to attract the dregs of humanity. After a string of bad runs where players were actually encouraging her to kill herself, they finally got their wish. After a culmination of guild events, toxic community dealings and problems in real life, she had a nervous break down, suicide attempt, and ended up in a psych ward where fortunately she got help. She gave up MMOs---got a bit addicted to FB games from what I could see. I think that she got better but haven't been in contact with her for quite a few years. I hope that she has stayed away from MMOs since they seemed to be a dangerous place for her mentally. I could tell that after every bad run in a PUG, she was crushed. Absolutely crushed.

I've come across so many people like this actually. Some find MMOs to be a refuge from whatever is troubling them in their lives. I met terminally ill people, mentally unstable people, people going through significant life events. I know that a standard come back would be---"This is the internet, grow a thicker skin." On the other hand, you never know what someone may be going through and it is best to always be kind. Just my opinion. Frankly, if a player tells another player to kill themselves, threaten them, etc, I would love to see HARSH action taken. Ban the account or give them an extraordinarily long time out from the game. Some harassment is over the top and should be dealt with accordingly.

I do have to second what Allyra said above. Perhaps look at other cases of cyberbullying where you can collect more data. As a parent of a middle schooler, cyberbullying is foremost on my mind. Our last school had some horrendous problems with this where the school district had to get involved. With so many social media sites out there, it is always a challenge for a parent.

[Gucci_Charms]

The cyberbullies and trolls I come across usually get insta-blacklisted if they're in my server. The ones I meet in DF don't bother me since I use my own specific LS chat tab panel and talk to LS friends instead.

Amazing how people feel "powerful" behind their TV/Computer monitors and keyboards. These types of people are typically anti-socials, have no friends, or nothing going for them IRL so they vent out their anger on others in the online world to make themselves feel relevant to society.

Such a sad life.

[Rhysati]

http://www.mmomeltingpot.com/2012/03...ger-reactions/

That would probably be the most well-publicized story of recent date. One of the players on the CCP panel made comments encouraging the players to harass another player into committing suicide.

[Teon]

http://www.mmomeltingpot.com/2012/03...ger-reactions/

That would probably be the most well-publicized story of recent date. One of the players on the CCP panel made comments encouraging the players to harass another player into committing suicide.

Sad how widespread is this kind of junk human being huh? Funny thing is the abuser is the only one who deserve to die
I wonder why that guy didn't got some years of jail for attempted homicide using a media.
Don't we have laws protecting us from this junk of our society? (a hint for the report of OP's friend )