Board Game Arena

I was recently verbally abused in a racist/vulgar way in the BoardGameArena chat during gameplay. When I tried to report this abuse, I discovered that my "Karma score" was too low to report abuse.

I emailed BoardGameArena detailing the incident. They expressed no concern about the abuse, citing my low "Karma score." They took no action to rectify the abuse.

BoardGameArena is making "low Karma" players into easy targets for cyberbullying and online abuse. Cyberbullies can abuse "low Karma" players with the confidence that:

1. Said players cannot use the official abuse reporting system
2. If said players report the abuse via email, their report will be discarded

This is very disturbing. I would like to demand that BoardGameArena prohibit abuse against all players equally, regardless of their "Karma score." This would mean that all players would be able to report abuse, and those complaints would be taken seriously.

I would tend to agree with you, assuming everything you're saying is actually true. Someone having low karma in and of itself is not really an excuse to abuse anyone, nor do I find it a reason to not be able to report someone. (Especially since yours seems to be from abandoning almost 10% of your games... which is not too cool. I wouldn't play with you. As opposed to, say, having too many red thumbs, though that may be the case as well.)

That said, I have noted that most of the people who come to the forums to make complaints about issues like this are either not being totally honest, or there's good reason not to trust what they say (some things make it difficult to trust people even when they are honest), or some other such thing. In other words, it's usually hockey pucks.

Now, that doesn't automatically mean you belong in that category, except I can say for sure that "demanding" they do anything will not go over well. I gave it the benefit of the doubt and looked to see if English was a second language. Nope - it's the only one you have listed, so I'm going to assume you actually do know what the word means.

This brings me to another element of BoardGameArena's policies that encourage abuse: the use of the word "karma." Having "low Karma" implies that someone has done something wrong and is therefore deserving of negative outcomes/treatment. It suggests, as you have indicated, that the person is dishonest or is otherwise not deserving of equal respect. This means that such players are more likely to be targets of cyberbullying.

Note that people have a variety of disadvantageous life situations that could lead them to be unable to complete games, including, physical or mental disability (e.g. dementia, short-term memory loss, etc), unstable devices or internet connections, or adverse living situations. This does not mean that they should not be able to report abuse against them, or that when they report such abuse, their integrity should be called into question.

That's not to mention another contributing factor to abuse on BoardGameArena servers: the fact that the people marked as "low Karma" are unable to communicate using the in-game chat, point out abusive behavior, or denounce bullies. This further makes them into easy targets for cyberbullying.

The restrictions that 'low karma' confers would lead to what you describe, yes.

Having unconventional reports be dismissed merely because of the 'low karma' of the report author would be highly disappointing too.

N_Faker wrote: ↑13 October 2020, 18:59 The restrictions that 'low karma' confers would lead to what you describe, yes.

Having unconventional reports be dismissed merely because of the 'low karma' of the report author would be highly disappointing too.

Yes! Not only are the reports dismissed, the reports from said users aren't even allowed in BoardGameArena's system. I would expect a "Karma score" to merely indicate the likelihood that that player will drop from a game, and not that said user would have no recourse if abused/bullied in the chat system. Simply inexcusable on BoardGameArena's part.

This restriction likely came about because of report spam or some other report function abuse.
As to if it is still necessary, I cannot say. But the report system has had an overhaul, so the restrictions may very well be more detrimental than helpful.