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Six Months at Riot Games

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Re: Six Months at Riot Games

#251

Post by noelsusman »

inertiatic wrote: post #144

I'm a male software developer that cringes hard when hearing things like that, and I can't imagine using that sort of language in the workplace. In fact I'm part of an all male team at work and things like that get thrown around all day long, and I find it annoying at times. At the same time I detest the forced political correctness. And most of the time, all of those terms aren't actually hateful, but used in an pla…

They are opposing goals, and personally I come down squarely on people not being free to express themselves however they want all the time. Work is a special place with special rules because we're forced to be there and we generally have little control over who is around us. There's a very high barrier for somebody to be able to walk away compared to just being out at a bar or something, so the behavioral standards should be more strict to compensate for that.

Basically, I think women should be able to work wherever they want without having deal with coworkers commenting on their tits. I'm extremely fine with limiting people's speech in the workplace.

Re: Six Months at Riot Games

#252

Post by noelsusman »

ecshafer wrote: post #79
lsmarigo wrote: post #40

Interesting that this one is doing well compared to the longer in-depth kotaku article a few days ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17710188 - fwiw that piece has since been corroborated by a ton of former riot employees on twitter. At the risk of sounding overly cynical, this is all true and everyone knows about it, people feign disgust at these articles but we're all complicit and understanding that this is…

This isn't the way things are though, at least no where I've worked. I work in the finance industry as a software developer and if any of that stuff happened, there would be a huge outcry and some serious reprimands and firings. In most of America things are nothing like that. These are immature people that got lucky and rich and still act like frat boys.

It's true that the majority of workplaces are not like this, but it's also true that damn near every woman has stories about behavior like this.

Re: Six Months at Riot Games

#253

Post by madengr »

cmonfeat wrote: post #216
madengr wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who’s the “we’re”? I don’t agree with YouTube banning Alex Jones and numerous gun channels. I’ll probably cancel my YouTube red subscription over it. 25 years ago you would find the KKK show on NYC public access cable. A round table of guys in hoods, with an AK-47 table piece, talking about African Jews. That was there due to governments freedom of speech protections. Government is now turning a blind eye while corpo…

> If I were the FCC, I’d be shutting down YouTube. Why? I get why public access would have a mandate to allow people with unpopular (imo hateful) opinions on the air, but not YouTube. I was under the impression, they're a private network and under no obligation to allow you to post content they don't like. They are free to change their ToS at anytime and ban who they choose, right?

Their data is carried over the same right of ways as cable TV. It’d be like the power company refusing to sell you electricity because you manufacture legal firearms, or the phone company censoring your conversations.

Probably the reason why Google split into so many companies, so they can insulate themselves when pulling shit like this. A network provider separate from a content provider, when in reality it’s the same.

Re: Six Months at Riot Games

#254

Post by shard972 »

Djvacto wrote: post #63
shard972 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there is something wrong with a culture that feels the need to supress what is effectively amateur comedy going on within small groups. Targeted harassment sure, that's not something to just blindly protect but as a homosexual, i see more harm in trying to police jimmy calling his friends faggots playing CoD than I see in allowing people to speak their minds. Until someone can posit a great explanation for wh…

Your statements don't seem to line up with each other, so I'm a bit confused as to what side you're arguing for. However, assuming you are defending the use of homophobic or racial slurs as "amateur comedy" then I have to disagree. There is absolutely zero reason to defend it. There's no important discourse being suppressed by encouraging people not to use these words, and as a society there is a lot to lose by allow…

> Just because something doesn't offend you specifically (even if you are part of the group something offensive is being said about) doesn't mean it isn't offending anyone.

I couldn't care less if someone is offended. This wasn't a serious problem before the internet and with it is even less of an issue because it's just on the computer or your iphone.

Just turn it off, there, problem solved.

> It's very common in countries like the US, for you to have a lot of rights, but their coverage always ends where others' rights begin.

Yes, you don't have a right to not be offended. That is insane.

> and free speech does not cover hate speech

Where in the bill of rights is this covered? Or even the federalist papers?

Re: Six Months at Riot Games

#255

Post by shard972 »

exelius wrote: post #31
shard972 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there is something wrong with a culture that feels the need to supress what is effectively amateur comedy going on within small groups. Targeted harassment sure, that's not something to just blindly protect but as a homosexual, i see more harm in trying to police jimmy calling his friends faggots playing CoD than I see in allowing people to speak their minds. Until someone can posit a great explanation for wh…

It’s more that you shouldn’t use that word in the first place — it doesn’t matter if your friends are gay or not; the fact it’s a hateful insult that tells gay men they are lesser is enough. Imagine the young little gay kid who hears “f\ t” screamed 20 times an hour — how will that make him feel for the rest of his life? Are you just cementing in his head that it’s wrong to be gay? I hate to say it, but the days of a…

> it doesn’t matter if your friends are gay or not; the fact it’s a hateful insult that tells gay men they are lesser is enough.

I didn't say that, you said that! Why would you think gay people are lessor to straight men?

> Imagine the young little gay kid who hears “f\t” screamed 20 times an hour

I would ask why a little boy identifies as gay in the first place, a bit young to be making such a big life decision.

> how will that make him feel for the rest of his life?

You tell me, I'm asking for some empirical evidence to stop doing something humans have done for centuries.

> Are you just cementing in his head that it’s wrong to be gay?

Why is it wrong to be gay?

Also you take on free speech is just simply wrong, these tech companies can be easily classified as natural monopolies like bell telecom was.

It's the same problem of the scaling increase of value with every customer but on a whole other level, this is not just a small collection of totally private companies.

You would have to be living under a rock to think google is just a little private company with no strong relationships with the US government.

Re: Six Months at Riot Games

#256

Post by shard972 »

pjc50 wrote: post #132
madengr wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who’s the “we’re”? I don’t agree with YouTube banning Alex Jones and numerous gun channels. I’ll probably cancel my YouTube red subscription over it. 25 years ago you would find the KKK show on NYC public access cable. A round table of guys in hoods, with an AK-47 table piece, talking about African Jews. That was there due to governments freedom of speech protections. Government is now turning a blind eye while corpo…

> 25 years ago you would find the KKK show on NYC public access cable. A round table of guys in hoods, with an AK-47 table piece, talking about African Jews. If I were the FCC, I'd be shutting down those guys.

And break your oath to uphold and defend the constitution?

Re: Six Months at Riot Games

#257

Post by eksemplar »

stickfigure wrote: post #151
eksemplar wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not the way things are though. I’m a manager, and I wouldn’t tolerate any of the painted stories for a second. In fact, none of the people in my network, which includes numerous large Scandinavian tech companies would tolerate anything of the sort. You do see that stuff, of course, but you see it mainly in children aged 10-15, and otherwise only in private, because anyone who keeps it up after that will be un…

If this is commonplace in America workplace, then you truely are an odd country. This statement seems odd in this context. While Riot may be headquartered in the US, all of the events in the article took place in Ireland.

You’re right, I should’ve said Ireland, or maybe “in game development” as these kind of stories often seem to originate from there.

Re: Six Months at Riot Games

#258

Post by jack9 »

ethbro wrote: post #234
shawn wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're quite cocky. That's not an insult. I think if you cut your teeth on this problem for a couple months, you'd look back on this comment with some mixed feelings. When a system is inherently toxic, there is no way to make it not-toxic short of coming up with a different substance. We can't make nuclear waste pure just because we wish it were. This is a very similar situation to this particular type of game. When…

Toxicity is learned and reinforced (or not) behavior. In the same way that HN comments are generally pretty constructive and charitable towards each other (and substantially more so than similar forums), so does negativity spread. I'm not expecting any company to be able to turn their community into a paragon of empathy overnight. But I do believe that putting systems in place that punish poor behavior and reward goo…

> Toxicity is learned and reinforced (or not) behavior.

Not solely in a single game. That's some hubris.

Re: Six Months at Riot Games

#260

Post by mrunkel »

bradhe wrote: post #247

> urther examples of disrespect include when I argued that we shouldn’t let a cosplayer in blackface on our stage for a parade, keeping in mind that Riot is a global company. I was repeatedly called racist by my colleagues, who tried to convince me that it was an acceptable practice and I was overreacting. This...can't possibly be true. Is this true??

In Europe in general, blackface is more "acceptable" than in the US. It doesn't have the same cultural overtones, but I can't imagine that dark skinned people enjoy seeing it here either.
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