Protection against harrassment and unsollicited messages

[sourisdudesert]

On BGA, we have a very open policy on private messages: you can basically speak to anyone.

However, what is cool for most of us is not for others.

We receive a lot of messages from players suffering from harrassment or unsollicited messages from other players, mostly because of their gender. The "report this player" is unfortunately not so appropriate in many cases and is not sufficient to protect you :/

Some social platform choose to restrict the possibility to chat, for example by requiering an explicit acceptance before the conversation start, or by limiting the discussions with your "friends".

However, we think that the possibility to PM everyone is important on BGA and we found a compromise to keep this possibility while making players more responsible.

We introduced 2 protections:
- a warning is displayed when you start a new conversation, to remind you that writing innapropriate stuff will lead you to receive red thumbs.
- when you receive a first message from someone, you can choose to accept or block this person.

We hope that these 2 features will make everyone more responsible with this feature and allow us to keep private messages on BGA.

[Recyclops]

On BGA, we have a very open policy on private messages: you can basically speak to anyone.

However, what is cool for most of us is not for others.

We receive a lot of messages from players suffering from harrassment or unsollicited messages from other players, mostly because of their gender. The "report this player" is unfortunately not so appropriate in many cases and is not sufficient to protect you :/

Some social platform choose to restrict the possibility to chat, for example by requiering an explicit acceptance before the conversation start, or by limiting the discussions with your "friends".

However, we think that the possibility to PM everyone is important on BGA and we found a compromise to keep this possibility while making players more responsible.

We introduced 2 protections:
- a warning is displayed when you start a new conversation, to remind you that writing innapropriate stuff will lead you to receive red thumbs.
- when you receive a first message from someone, you can choose to accept or block this person.

We hope that these 2 features will make everyone more responsible with this feature and allow us to keep private messages on BGA.

[Babyrhinorainbows]

Please make it possible to block a person's chats when they are in a game with you.

[GeraldineMerida]

On BGA, we have a very open policy on private messages: you can basically speak to anyone.

However, what is cool for most of us is not for others.

We receive a lot of messages from players suffering from harrassment or unsollicited messages from other players, mostly because of their gender. The "report this player" is unfortunately not so appropriate in many cases and is not sufficient to protect you :/

Some social platform choose to restrict the possibility to chat, for example by requiering an explicit acceptance before the conversation start, or by limiting the discussions with your "friends".

However, we think that the possibility to PM everyone is important on BGA and we found a compromise to keep this possibility while making players more responsible.

We introduced 2 protections:
- a warning is displayed when you start a new conversation, to remind you that writing innapropriate stuff will lead you to receive red thumbs.
- when you receive a first message from someone, you can choose to accept or block this person.

We hope that these 2 features will make everyone more responsible with this feature and allow us to keep private messages on BGA.

I appreciate this step and for listening to the community. I look forward to seeing this site take more steps to building an inclusive and safe community for everyone.

Unlike Recyclops, I think this is horrible.
I finally persuaded my guy to create a profile here, and excitedly messaged him, welcoming him to the site and suggesting some games he might enjoy. And I got a warning message about potential harrassment. It ruined what should have been a happy moment, and made me reread my message, scanning for potentially offensive words that might have triggered this response. (Of course, there were none.)

Almost all the messages we receive as women are friendly ones from those we have already played with or know IRL. I agree that something needs to be done about the creepy minority, but a heavy-handed warning to all to reconsider what they are posting is NOT the way. I'm not even sure it will have much effect in deterring the tiny minority who do send unpleasant messages to random women.

It's like the CONSTANT warnings in private chats with my friends, when someone is flagged for saying they have had a 'crappy' day.

I don't feel this is a safe space for women: I feel it is an over-policed one.

[Waddington]

SUGGESTION:

In the user profile, could possibly choose to activate full chat access (where the user shall be aware of the exposition, and whatsoever, or limited chat.

This limited chat would allow only "pre-defined" messages, that already exist. The usual, Hello, have fun, good game, etc. Of couse, if the user selects "limited chat", he can only communicate with other users who use pre defined messages.

This is a good solution for underaged people, whose parents, or responsibles can rest assured this could reduce harassment.

I am promoting BGA to a group of many people who has also kids, and the adults who do not know BGA already raised the concern of creating an account to their kids with such free access to chat

Thanks for the innitiatives so far!

[SFIrish1]

Unlike Recyclops, I think this is horrible.
I finally persuaded my guy to create a profile here, and excitedly messaged him, welcoming him to the site and suggesting some games he might enjoy. And I got a warning message about potential harrassment. It ruined what should have been a happy moment, and made me reread my message, scanning for potentially offensive words that might have triggered this response. (Of course, there were none.)

Almost all the messages we receive as women are friendly ones from those we have already played with or know IRL. I agree that something needs to be done about the creepy minority, but a heavy-handed warning to all to reconsider what they are posting is NOT the way. I'm not even sure it will have much effect in deterring the tiny minority who do send unpleasant messages to random women.

[/quote]


I completely agree. When I first saw this message as a female English speaker, it made me think that the person I wanted to message had somehow set up their profile with this message. Then I tried messaging others and realized it was on everyone's profile. First of all, it is bad English. One correct way it could read is, "Unsolicited messages may lead to you being blocked and/or affect your reputation." And, yes, the word only has one "l".

However, even this is ridiculous. In English, unsolicited means unrequested, pure and simple. So it made me think that now we can't freely speak to someone unless somehow they had requested the conversation.


Please make this message more clear.

Thank you

[Cullich]

OK, first @GeraldineMerida and then I'll move on - you've made two assumptions. You have assumed that the harassment being related to "gender" means the recipients are women. That assumption is probably at least partially correct, but not only can men be harassed (not near as likely or they ignore it), but other non-binary genders, and that could be common if someone knows about it. Second assumptions is about the messages "we women" are receiving being mostly friendly... I, as a woman, am not receiving any harassing messages either, and even if I do, I don't really care cause I can ignore it. (Unless it gets out of hand.) But I'm waiting for some women to jump on this and say they most definitely are having issues.

I do, however, agree with everything else you said. I tried to message one of my friends on here, an IRL friend that I've already exchanged several messages with (!) and saw the warning pop up before I even wrote anything. It's definitely very off-putting. And I have to agree it's sort of the same problem as the chat picking up on certain words and assuming it's a "bad message." (We're not discussing the chat, but it's still a problem.)

I also agree that it won't stop anyone who wants to send the message, and I think that's a pretty important point. I would sort of assume if I sent a harassing message that I could be reported for it, get dinged for it, blocked, or even banned for it, at any site.

I don't know what it looks like from the other side, i.e. on the receiving end. Does it mention blocking them before you've even read the message? Cause there are people who will just start blocking people even if they haven't been harassed. Although that's their prerogative, I don't think it serves in trying to keep the "open communications" idea going.

And SFIrish1 is right that the grammar is not right. Simply changing "be" to "being" will fix it easily. Incorrect use of an infinitive. (Unfortunately over the past couple of years, this incorrect usage of infinitives has spread to native English speakers.) But regardless, I agree that it sounds more like an "unopen" policy, not a policy that still encourages freely speaking to people.

So I guess you need to decide what your real purpose is. If you want to keep the open policy on messages, this doesn't seem very open, and seems opposite to that. I agree it's a good idea to stop anything harassing, but you can already block a user - doesn't that work for this? If not, add a "Block User" to incoming messages.

[Cullich]

This limited chat would allow only "pre-defined" messages, that already exist. The usual, Hello, have fun, good game, etc. Of couse, if the user selects "limited chat", he can only communicate with other users who use pre defined messages.

What about people who never use those prefabricated messages?

There's already complaints around here that people aren't very friendly on chat.

[Waddington]

This limited chat would allow only "pre-defined" messages, that already exist. The usual, Hello, have fun, good game, etc. Of couse, if the user selects "limited chat", he can only communicate with other users who use pre defined messages.

What about people who never use those prefabricated messages?

There's already complaints around here that people aren't very friendly on chat.

Chat is optional. Not using, or not replying, although I don't like, is not an indication of misbehaviour. Maybe the person simply don't like to use chat. And that's ok.

Another idea would be to add a setting in players profile to select between:
- Enable full chat mode
- Enable predefined chat messages only
- Disable chat

then, when matching an oponnent, you can see in the screen if the player is not replying to you because he selected either to disable or to alow only predefined.

get the ideia?
I just don't know the level of complexity to do this stuff, I'm no developer ... Just a player full of ideas!!

[GeraldineMerida]

Opting out of the constant messages reminding us about BGA's policy on harrassment would seem much more useful to me than opting out of chat entirely or being limited to empty phrases like 'gg'.