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For people who think it's reasonable to remove it because it 'resembles' something you don't like...How about you go travel abroad and tell the numerous cultures / countries to take down their symbols because they look Exactly the Same as the one on snipers ridge.
For that matter lets remove anything that offends or resembles something that offends people from everything. You get the idea here, by the time we get done there will be nothing. Lets make an example just in case you don't get the idea, something that hits home.
Vegans don't like meat and find eating animals repulsive. So lets remove all those soy meat like products from grocery stores so that the Vegans don't even have to see a meat like product on the shelf. Of course meat has to go too.
Nazi's were a hate group (still are largely), so not allowing that symbol makes sense. Removing anything similar to (see soy burger example) is taking political correctness way to far. Especially considering in our global world, many people use that exact same symbol in a ton of Asian cultures to mean good things.
TLDR: Being overly politically correct is really just as bad as being racist, sexiest, etc. etc. in my book.
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In the Spirit of this thread, Here is a message i received from Blizz over 2 years ago. The comment I made was IN A PRIVATE PARTY CHAT WITH FRIENDS, not in game.
Greetings,
Account Name:Hidden
Character Name:Hidden
A user of the above account has recently been involved in actions deemed inappropriate for StarCraft II by the In-Game Support staff of Blizzard Entertainment. This decision was made after a thorough investigation of the situation as a whole.
Though we are unable to discuss the outcomes of our investigations due to privacy concerns, rest assured that this incident has been looked into very thoroughly, and the appropriate actions have been taken on all involved accounts.
Any disputes or questions concerning the following account action can only be addressed by Account Administration. If you have any further enquiries regarding your account status, please use the web form at the following address: https://us.blizzard.com/support/webform.xml?locale=en_US.
Account Action:Education
Offense:Inappropriate
This category includes both clear and masked language which:
Is a mildly inappropriate reference to human anatomy or bodily functions
Is otherwise considered objectionable
Details (Note - Times are listed in Greenwich Mean Time, GMT):
2011-12-21 08:27:52 Hidden#453 Player I LUV FUCKING HAWT CHOCOLAT
For further information, please view StarCraft II Policies and Terms of Use Agreement: (http://us.blizzard.com/support/article/SC2policies) and (http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/company/about/termsofuse.html). Please be aware that additional inappropriate actions may result in further disciplinary action, up to or including account closure.
We understand that these policies may seem harsh, but they are in place to ensure that every player is able to fully enjoy their time in StarCraft II. Thank you in advance for respecting our position.
Regards,
Blizzard Entertainment
www.blizzard.com/support
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On April 11 2013 07:53 WigglingSquid wrote:
Perhaps you could try playing around with the tileset to alter the colors so that the svastika-lookalike is not as prominent.
Given that Blizzard wrote "Further violations will result in harsher suspensions or permanent closure." I would be careful about trying to pass through what would seem like a camouflaged swastika. Blizzard are not exactly known for the leniency when it comes to stuff like this, and I don't think I have ever heard of them undoing a ban/suspension. In any case the situation is frankly a bit silly.
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Sorry, but reverse or not it looks an awful lot like a swastika, something which simply doesnt "need" to be in the game.
I could go on the "ra ra ra but it meant something else 200 years ago" , but the fact is that here and now it is a symbol associated with the nazi party and the atrocities they commited (Though eventually it will hopefully go back to its old symbolic meaning). im not offended by it, but my grandma would be.
Also it seems likely that a user reported the map and the CS guy just acted on the report & what he's seen, it makes alot more sense for blizzard to remove potentially offensive content & ban the user than it is to refuse to take action and instead end up int he papers as a company that "condones this type of stuff"
7 days does seem harsh, but if you arent harsh then people will just try and abuse that.
PS Passive aggressive OP ftw.
Edit - EU Customer service- does it not make sense for him to interpret it in a way relevant to european and not old asian culture?
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On April 11 2013 07:52 jinorazi wrote:Show nested quote +On April 11 2013 07:49 SgtCoDFish wrote:
If I showed that map to anyone who's never played StarCarft (any version), 100% guaranteed the first thing they'll notice will be how much it looks like a swastika.
Given it's a remake of the original I'd say the ban is harsh and should be removed, but I wouldn't expect the guy who decided to ban to know what a BW map looked like and as such I agree with the ban in the first place given that they won't have known. there is nothing wrong with seeing that as a swastika, the problem is everyone is associating it with nazi and ignoring/overlooking manja or symbol of old indian/budhist symbol that existed for thousands of years before hitler.
And there's nothing wrong with calling someone a "faggot", because it means a bundle of sticks! And there's nothing with with "fag" either, that means cigarette!
And "queer" means strange! "Gay" means happy! "Wicked" means evil!
Things change in meaning. When the Nazi party used the swastika as its symbol, the meaning changed.
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On April 11 2013 07:57 rasnj wrote:Show nested quote +On April 11 2013 07:53 WigglingSquid wrote:
Perhaps you could try playing around with the tileset to alter the colors so that the svastika-lookalike is not as prominent. Given that Blizzard wrote "Further violations will result in harsher suspensions or permanent closure." I would be careful about trying to pass through what would seem like a camouflaged swastika. Blizzard are not exactly known for the leniency when it comes to stuff like this, and I don't think I have ever heard of them undoing a ban/suspension. In any case the situation is frankly a bit silly.
Well, of course he should contact Blizzard first. They already know that his intentions are not to play around with nazi iconography, as they confirmed that he was merely replicating the original map, so it would be reasonable to expect them to collaborate.
Of course, being reasonable might be outside the realm of Blizzard policy. 
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On April 11 2013 07:56 ma5ta wrote:In the Spirit of this thread, Here is a message i received from Blizz over 2 years ago. The comment I made was IN A PRIVATE PARTY CHAT WITH FRIENDS, not in game. Greetings, Account Name: HiddenCharacter Name: HiddenA user of the above account has recently been involved in actions deemed inappropriate for StarCraft II by the In-Game Support staff of Blizzard Entertainment. This decision was made after a thorough investigation of the situation as a whole. Though we are unable to discuss the outcomes of our investigations due to privacy concerns, rest assured that this incident has been looked into very thoroughly, and the appropriate actions have been taken on all involved accounts. Any disputes or questions concerning the following account action can only be addressed by Account Administration. If you have any further enquiries regarding your account status, please use the web form at the following address: https://us.blizzard.com/support/webform.xml?locale=en_US. Account Action:Education Offense:Inappropriate This category includes both clear and masked language which: Is a mildly inappropriate reference to human anatomy or bodily functions Is otherwise considered objectionable Details (Note - Times are listed in Greenwich Mean Time, GMT): 2011-12-21 08:27:52 Hidden#453 Player I LUV FUCKING HAWT CHOCOLAT For further information, please view StarCraft II Policies and Terms of Use Agreement: (http://us.blizzard.com/support/article/SC2policies) and (http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/company/about/termsofuse.html). Please be aware that additional inappropriate actions may result in further disciplinary action, up to or including account closure. We understand that these policies may seem harsh, but they are in place to ensure that every player is able to fully enjoy their time in StarCraft II. Thank you in advance for respecting our position. Regards, Blizzard Entertainment www.blizzard.com/support
lol @ hawt chocolat. i got banned for using masked profanity (i.e., #$#% #$#$) on a battle.net thread about how people should sue blizzard in a class action related to diablo 3.
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Eh. This map isn't that good anyways since high ground doesn't really give you an advantage in SC2.
It's essentially a flat map.
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On April 11 2013 07:55 Nerski wrote:
For people who think it's reasonable to remove it because it 'resembles' something you don't like...How about you go travel abroad and tell the numerous cultures / countries to take down their symbols because they look Exactly the Same as the one on snipers ridge.
For that matter lets remove anything that offends or resembles something that offends people from everything. You get the idea here, by the time we get done there will be nothing. Lets make an example just in case you don't get the idea, something that hits home.
Vegans don't like meat and find eating animals repulsive. So lets remove all those soy meat like products from grocery stores so that the Vegans don't even have to see a meat like product on the shelf. Of course meat has to go too.
Nazi's were a hate group (still are largely), so not allowing that symbol makes sense. Removing anything similar to (see soy burger example) is taking political correctness way to far. Especially considering in our global world, many people use that exact same symbol in a ton of Asian cultures to mean good things.
TLDR: Being overly politically correct is really just as bad as being racist, sexiest, etc. etc. in my book.
I'm not defending blizzard here, but I have to register my strong disagreement with your final statement. "Political correctness" is all about trying to NOT offend/hurt other people. Racism and sexism in many cases are used to do just that. I'm not sure how anyone can honestly equivocate the two, except out of ignorance brought on by privilege.
Your Vegan analogy is also quite poor. Vegans don't eat meat exclusively because they find animals repulsive, in many cases it's because they think eating meat is immoral, so it's not really analogous to this case.
Should Blizz allow a map to be on bnet if it looks like a swastika? Probably not. As much as it sucks, the swastika can be an incredibly offensive symbol. I'm pretty sure the opportunities such a map allows for anti-semitism and racism outweighs any marginal benefit there is in it being on bnet.
That said, blizz should obviously not ban this guy on sight. More than likely no one has really evaluated this case, they're just going by the book, which really doesn't work well in this specific case.
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Removing the map makes sense, banning the user without prior warning does not.
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I'm with Blizzard on this one. This is something too controversial from either perspective and not even considered good for "bad publicity" by the populace. Blizzard doesn't need this kind of publicity for their games/brand. The original map should have been banned too.
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On April 11 2013 08:08 Starp wrote:
I'm with Blizzard on this one. This is something too controversial from either perspective and not even considered good for "bad publicity" by the populace. Blizzard doesn't need this kind of publicity for their games/brand. The original map should have been banned too.
Do you agree with the 7 day ban for the user? I'm just curious as to how that would be justified
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Mah... I'm not offended by the map but I certainly understand why Blizzard would rather not have the map. It's much easier to remove it than dealing with all the complains and worse.
Though I agree the ban is over the top.
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That just shows that the account/Battle.net management teams are almost a completely separate entity from the actual Blizzard staff.
Anyone in their right mind would see the old map, and realize there was a mistake. Instead, they're like "you're right...but we're still not going to do shit."
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Germany3691 Posts
Really blizzard really? I played on the map with my gf the other day and really enjoyed star bow with some bw nostalgia. How up tight can you be? It's been almost 70 years and the symbol is way way older than ww2. I find their ignorant quick responds even worse, wtf is wrong with them these days? Videogames have become so fucking ridiculous. You get banned for everything, I feel like developers treat every user like he is a 6 year old who gets deeply hurt by every insult and can't deal with hearing swear words, or in this case seeing something that reminds of a symbol used by nazis. And on top of that they couldn't care less about starbow being a huge mod in our community, but oh well they didn't know about sc2bw either, guess they just enjoy being ignorant...
Can someone please finally come up with a private battle.net server so we can stop dealing with blizzards bullshit?
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In my history dealing with Blizz support (mainly D3, unfortunately), the head GM, who usually are the mods active on forum, are really nice to deal wit hand will get things solved, but majority of them (and some most likely are outsourced) seem to unable read plain explanation or follow simple instructions. They do nothing but give you the run-around, might as well talk to a phone book.
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Removing the map is okay, since it does look like a swastika. Sorry, but the first thing that comes into mind when seeing this is "oh, hitler used that", everyone stating different things is either blind or does not want to see. But, punishing the mapmaker for basically copying it, is just wrong. I lol at blizzard, once more.
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On April 11 2013 08:02 SgtCoDFish wrote:
Things change in meaning. When the Nazi party used the swastika as its symbol, the meaning changed.
Only if you're so dedicated to creating an atmosphere of fear and cognitive dissonance that you immediately jump to the 'nazi' meaning and focus solely on it.
It's a popular Brood War map, for fuck's sake. Are the leagues and players using it all Nazis? Had they even stopped grinding games to consider that they might seem like it? No, because that's fucking stupid. This is the kind of thing that only happens in the west, where we 'make jobs' by paying idiots minimum wage to ban nerds from games and forums.
On April 11 2013 08:20 boxerfred wrote:
Removing the map is okay, since it does look like a swastika. Sorry, but the first thing that comes into mind when seeing this is "oh, hitler used that", everyone stating different things is either blind or does not want to see.
What if I make a map with the confederate flag in it? Or the American flag?
Or the jolly roger? All of these things offend different people from different eras. Does that mean we should give a fuck about a custom map in Starcraft?
It's not like the map renames the marine to 'Stormtrooper' or some shit. Although this game is about different alien races destroying each other in scenes reminiscent of the holocaust (except with worse writing)...but I digress.
Most courts throughout the world (in areas that aren't beyond hope) wouldn't stand behind a decision like this, but because it's a video game map the people making the decision are basically worthless.
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I see why the map got pulled down, I'm not sure if i agree with the 7 day ban (could have at least asked wtf the guy was thinking and give him a chance to explain himself first, and it would all be cleared up) but the map kind of has to go. You might argue that the blizzard stuff shows some amount of narrow mind or something, but in this case they kind of have to. People who see this map can and will get offended about this, so they kind of have to act on it.
And... for everyone who says "man this isn't even the nazi symbol, it faces in the wrong direction" - this might be true, but you really have to keep in mind that that might just have been an oversight by the mapmaker... people who genuinly believe that the spreading of the swastika is a good thing are stupid enough to produce stuff like this:
![[image loading]](http://funtimeshad.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/rj96A1.jpg)
I'm sure _just_ getting them backwards would be considered a "stroke of luck" to those kinds of people
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I can't wait for Kespa to bring it back through PL Fighting Spirit style.
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EPT
