EPTIntroducation
Let me first state that this is completely subjective, and that although I understand the overall vareity of the viewers, I would like to share some of my thoughts on this topic.
Disregarding my account, it was made recently because I have a lot of free time at work (go figure) and I wanted to begin blogging about building a PC. But now that I have an account perhaps I'll spend some more time discussing certain aspects of the SC2 community that I have distaste for.
The broad sense of the topic is Stream Chat and it's abusive nature. Normally, I would be one who would say "just turn it off" and forget about it. But, IPL was a pretty large event, with a fancy UI so I was intrigued to see the chat. Not only that, but the abusive remarks flooded over into Reddit, TL.net forums and even the offical Starcraft 2 forums.
Stream Chat
I am somewhat knowledgable in pyschology, taking a lot of courses in college to have a degree in education (geoscience teaching, not my current job at the moment) and I am boggled by the fact that stream chat and open LR threads even exist. These sources of communication encourage the use of harrassment, "trolling" and maliciousness. They are overun with subjective 1-liners where the majority are breaking the rules layed blatently in front of their eyes. As much as I'd like to think these users are ignorant, it's not the case. People are deliberately abusing the fact that they are anonymous, and that they can have an effect in an open forum by being eccentric, witty and "cool".
Take for instance, the IPL stream chat. It was an abrasive echo of what was happening on the stream. Constant disregard for politeness. Constant race bashing. Constant homophobic, racist and generally insulting remarks streaming line after line with no thoughtful peice of input. There was just too much for the few mods to handle.
The issue is, stream chat does not reward conversation whatsoever, except for [streamers] to [small moderated viewerbase] where the streamer has full control of chat and is looking for input. In situations like the IPL, the only reward to stream chat is to submit your one sentence comment, the more eccentric (controversial, all caps, derogatory) the better the chance for it to get noticed. Why even have a stream chat for events such as this?
Live Report Threads
So perhaps this is where my complaint really hits home for me as a user. I'm sitting here at work on a very primitive PC, on the slowest internet possible with no Flash software. I love to keep up-to-date on the GSL and lately the IPL. Where do I go to do that, well the wonderfully crafted LR threads created individually for each event. I'm all for the encouragement and support for players before the event and when a player has won (it almost simulates an excitement of a crowd). And, even I am guilty of cheering for someone in an LR thread. But, sometimes a "Live Report" thread doesn't feel like a live report thread but more of a stream chat... which I've already conveyed as being abusive, irrational and out of place.
For example on Thursday, day 1 of IPL. IM_Megan was doing the LR, but IPL was having small technical issues. I'm sitting here at work going through each page looking for IM_Megan posts about actual updates in the games or what is happening on stage. Between these posts of his/hers, are 15 pages of "stream is lagging", "is the stream down?", "wow IPL failing day 1" etc.
Yes, this is a personal, subjective issue I am having. But why is this type of immaturity allowed, especially on a website that excels in high-standard discussion. I just read through the automated bans and there simply was not enough. And how can we expect there to be enough with 900+ pages for each day?
Perhaps I'm doing it wrong and there is a better way to follow actual live reports and I would be greatful for any information regarding that.
Conclusion
This shouldn't affect me, yet it does. I tell myself everday, "this is a small minority of the community". Yet these communities are plugged constantly at events. Granted TL.net has a much smaller abusive community because it is moderated convincingly more appropriately, places like stream chats, reddit and live report threads poison my idea of the gaming community. As much as I'd like to ignore it, these are outlets for spectators to get more involved yet they are used in a poor format that highly rewards people that get a kick out of being malicious when it doesn't affect them in real life.
I don't want your sympathy or your agreement. Tell me, do you disagree with me and why? What do you have in mind that could possibly transform these community outlets? How do you change your mindset on how much of an impact these have on your view of the community as a whole? Do you think all the negativity affects the person it is directed at (casters, players, moderators)?
Thank you for taking the time of reading this. I hope maybe with more discussion and perhaps more polite involvement I can dampen the affect of negativity that is spread in online community forums/chat rooms.
