Representing the Community: Learning from the European Championship

StimHack.com
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This is the first I heard of the commentary of the final of the Euro Nationals, and so I took it upon myself to watch the whole thing to get some context.

Let me just say, I found it eye rolling’ly boring; largely comprised of inside jokes; boys locker room talk, and just generally inappropriate and unprofessional conduct by some well known personalities within the community. It’s an embarrassment to those involved, and because of it’s public nature, does give a poor impression of the Netrunner community.

However:

It is largely unnecessary to turn this into something bigger than it is. It’s as clear as day that the general reputation of the two guys has been tarnished in the eyes of many, however the two commentators do not represent my local Netrunner community. More importantly, they don’t represent me; me as an individual.

Let’s keep things in perspective here. We’ve moved from two people who are clearly sorry for the fools they’ve made of themselves, and the potential embarrassment or offence they’ve caused to anyone; to now providing guidelines on how we should all act generally.

These sort of parental statements, about our use of language; what we should say when; the fact we may say things that could offend others and hence, we shouldn’t say them; are condescending; misguided; and potentially dangerous.

We are all adults, and we do not need a hobby website dictating our behaviour as individuals, in a very prescriptive manner. I do understand the sentiment, that we should treat each other with respect - that I can absolutely stand behind. This is as far as this article should have gone. But Stimhack isn’t the Netrunner communities Bible. We aren’t paid to play Netrunner, we don’t sign a code of conduct as part of a membership, we are free individuals to do as we please.

If an individual feels like using the term guys to represent a group of people, they can. If this upsets someone, they can address this, and talk about it. No individual player is under any obligation to reach out to a minority, or underrepresented group. General respectful conduct is of course a social norm, in any group setting, but if any one person doesn’t feel like reaching out to anyone in particular, minority or not, they are under absolutely no obligation to do so. Likewise, a minority shouldn’t feel obligated to reach out to a majority. Either group can do so if they wish; if they don’t want to, don’t.This may raise or lower their standing within any group; this may create conversation or questions about why any one person acts one way, and why someone else acts another; it may have no impact what so ever. This though is for the two people involved in the conversation. If we are to bring people together, we are also bringing ideas together, and likely points of view that run counter to each other. This is a good thing, and encouragement of the sharing of ideas should be encouraged.

This should not be squashed by censoring speech, because it results in people harbouring views which may be faulty and are never seen to be faulty because they are never exposed. Alternatively, ideas which have merit may never be known for fear they could offend someone.

General respectful conduct is to be encouraged, and especially so in a joint hobby community like Netrunner. However, pushing things to directing which minority groups we should reach to, or what specific words can or cannot be used is a bridge to far, and will end up alienating a swathe of people who actually want to be free and open individuals.

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A largely unhelpful reply.

Anyone here could quite easily find a group dominated by women, locate some unruly or crass behaviour and paste it up to this forum.

I’m pretty sure @bardofsnow was making a generalised statement about his experience with his netrunner community. This post about the behaviour of the commentators has been put up, because it is an exception to the norm.

Your agreeance with him being a male, and not getting it, is also sending mixed messages, and appears somewhat contradictory. One may just as easily apply such stereo types to a woman, and say she doesn’t get it because she is female. It’s just blunt and unhelpful.

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@FightingWalloon I couldn’t have put it better myself.

I’d like to also point out that i’m confused as to why there seems to be this rush by some to call out that this disparity in representation by gender, is actually a problem?

There are no institutionalised barriers to entry into the Netrunner community, for any one group. Nothing is codified to say this group or that, can’t enter. I’m yet to see a single example presented showing a direct cause, and how it prevented women from playing Netrunner. All I have seen are vauge notions of social issues which ‘appear’ to prevent women from playing. Where are the specific examples, that we can actually act on?

I’d love it if more women played, however I don’t see it as an actual problem that they don’t. I haven’t had a single women come up to me and confide they are upset they can’t play. If they are out there, please speak up, and tell me why you are being stopped, so we can action it. If people want to run events to bring more women in, go for it.

But the fact that a tiny minority of men quilt; or play Netball doesn’t present a clear problem to me, in an of itself.

If women are so upset about this situation, of course they may start their own Netrunner league encouraging women to play. However they aren’t doing this either. I’m yet to be convinced that women are interested in playing Netrunner, but are being barred from it.

Of course, if Women are not interested in playing Netrunner, well we shouldn’t fool ourselves into thinking they are, and trying to flog a dead horse by bringing people in who aren’t interested.

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The above comment is so blind. Could we please, please stop going through a cycle of new people coming in and saying “I don’t see the problem”?

The case we’re talking about is something that was said during the livestream of the finals​ of one of the biggest tournaments in Netrunner. It most definetly does represent us as a community. If you feel that the comments have nothing to do with you, the only logical response is that you’re not part of the Netrunner community, and should stop posting in a thread about how we as a community deal with it.

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Have you read what Scoogsy wrote?

Just because his opinion differs from yours? Really not cool.

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You’ll need to be more specific here. I did point out clearly that those in the stream reflected poorly on the Netrunner community.

I don’t see the problem, is a specific response to points being made about the representation of women playing Netrunner; this is not directly related to the issues presented in the stream.

I’ve made a number of points, specifically addressing the issues around applying prescriptive ways in which we should act, other than just advocating a general level of respect for one another.

If you could more clearly point out the sections of my responses you take issue with that would be helpful.

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I’ll admit I was somewhat dismissive in that post, however there is nothing wrong with suggesting somebody who is male might have a limited understanding of the way women experience the elements of sexism in this community.

I think we both agree that people should be respectful towards each other within the community. Where I see a point of contention is that in my view, language can be disrespectful. When you use “guys” to refer to a group that includes women, you are implying that they are the exception, or outsiders. That is not respectful.

I accept that by taking this stance, some people may actually feel excluded from the netrunner community. But I have no problem excluding people based on their individual behaviour if it means people who are currently excluded based on their gender, sexual orientation or race feel more at home here.

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I’m going to go out on a limb here, but I didn’t get that intent from the article at all. Something happened, and I think the article does a good job of outlining why that was a problem and how to avoid similar pitfalls. Obviously you are an adult and nobody can tell you what to do - I don’t think you will be DQ’d from an ANR tournament because you say ‘guys’.
However you have to realize that you might be called out on that, or might impact the future of your meta negatively by saying or doing certain things even if people don’t call you out. I currently have a meta of three players. I doubt any amount of different language use would make my meta bigger, but I do firmly believe that if I had brought playmats with half naked anime girls to the meetup for the last few years, my meta would have died a long time ago. People do have problems with certain things, and they won’t always voice their complaints - they might just stay away.

Ultimately, with stuff like this, the cost to changing my actions is so damn low that I can strive to do better even without 100% buying into the reasons for doing so. I don’t know how or why women feel bad/weird when I include them in ‘guys’ but if all it takes to avoid the situation is to not say guys, why not just use another word?

Hope this makes sense, I haven’t had coffee yet.

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The reason I was so harsh and dismissive is that, at this point, it’s the time to be dismissive. We’ve already covered a lot of this. Posting another wall of text about how and why things are not a problem deserves to be summarily dismissed. Discussing ad infinitum if there even is a problem is part of the problem.

Yes, women are uncomfortable in male dominated spaces. If we want everybody who likes Netrunner to join our community, we have to take special care.

That the same applies to knitting circles only confirms this. And that’s the problem of knitting enthusiasts, not us.

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This sort of response, unfortunatly, is exactly the type of sentiment which is unhelpful.

It is quite clear this is a contentious issue, because of the regular back and forth we are seeing across this entire comment thread, and the over 100 responses we’ve seen so far.

This issue clearly has not been settled, and we are clearly not in agreement.

An attitude of general dismissivness of points of view can be applied by anyone to anyone else. Working together to understand one others grievances is what is important here.

I’ve already alluded to this previously. No one individual or group owns the Netrunner community. You can operated your own meta however you wish to. You can choose to include or exclude which ever points of view you like. However, simply handwaving and saying this person or that persons point of view can just be dismissed merely puts you in an echo chamber.

Addressing the particulars of an argument will actually take the conversation forward. If you don’t want to do that, thats up to you. However, don’t expect attitudes or actions to change, as dismissivness simply leads to division.

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You’ve taken one small quote from a much larger response I provided, which directly address many of the concerns you raise.

As for your comments on whether you want to use play mats with sexy anime girls on it. What would happen if you did? Who knows, some people wouldnt like it, and some people would. If you don’t want to play with those play matts, don’t do it. Furthermore, don’t assume women, for instance, all think the same way. How do you know they too aren’t into the same type of anime art you are? Finally if you wanted to do it, and someone complained, talk to them. Understand why, come to an agreement, and respectful understanding. What if you are all anime artists, and draw stuff like that, is it permissible then?You know your meta, and the people you play with. If you choose to follow the ideas set out in this post, that’s completely up to you.

The primary issue here, is this general obsession by some people (I’m not directing this at you personally @Labbes) to put the group before the individual. This ends up turning into identity politics, that this entire group is offended by X action, and it’s perpetrated by Y group. However, quite obviously this is not the case, and ironically ends up being the very sort of discrimination and sterotyping these groups are so desperate to avoid.

Let’s let people be free thinking productive members of society, and arm all of us to deal with these issues ourselves. We are capable of that I can assure you.

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You are putting the burden of complaint on another party and are missing the implicit meaning of behavior. I think we fundamentally disagree on this position. It gets tiring if you are the complaining party all the time so I’d rather avoidputting someone in that position (and my girlfriend is certainly happy about this change in my behavior/thinking about behavior).[quote=“Scoogsy, post:115, topic:8970”]
If you choose to follow the ideas set out in this post, that’s completely up to you.
[/quote]

Yes, it is. I don’t see anyone disagreeing with that. As outlined above, you have to live with the consequences of not doing so. I think that these consequences (as outlined by commenters, not the article) make you feel like the article/behavioral outline is prescriptive, am I correct in that?[quote=“Scoogsy, post:115, topic:8970”]
We are capable of that I can assure you.
[/quote]

You may be. Not everyone is equipped the same.

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Sadly I do know women who have withdrawn from the netrunner community or don’t attend events because they feel uncomfortable or unsafe.

On a wider note, people saying there isn’t a problem when discussing diversity and inclusivity in the community does not help when others already feel unsafe or likely to be dismissed.

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You’re putting up a straw man argument here which misrepresents what we are saying. No-one is arguing that women are being barred from netrunner. We agree, there are no signs on doors that say ‘no women players tonight.’

But to argue that ‘there are no institutionalised barriers to entry into the Netrunner community, for any one group’ negates the reported experience of women, non-binary, and non-white players as well, who have found themselves patronised, hit-on, and otherwise made to feel unwelcome at events. Again, we are not saying that non cis white men can’t play Netrunner. We are observing that they don’t join in, and working to ensure that if any of those reasons are down to our behaviour, we need to change that behaviour.

Help me out - why do you think that there are so few not(cis white men) in the Netrunner community?

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My issue with this attitude is that you’re considering a scenario where the meta is some closed group of people that you can always know well enough to gauge what is and isn’t okay. Ultimately, if you and your friends want to play netrunner on skeevy anime playmats in the comfort of your home then fine, go wild. Nobody can stop you. But what we’re talking about here is growing the community. If you use that playmat (or exhibit other exclusionary behaviour) at a casual meetup, or at a large tournament, or on a stream then you don’t know who is going to be there, who’s going to see it and how they will react to it. If this is somebody’s contact with some new portion of the netrunner community, or their first netrunner event, you have to consider how that’s going to affect their perception of the people who play this game.

If you’re so concerned with your ability to display these behaviours in public that you don’t consider the impact on other people then I don’t really know how to convince you otherwise. This is an issue of empathy.

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Ok, of course we could have a serious conversation about all of this. My point was more like: What has all of this to do with playing Netrunner? Or some drunk dudes on a stream talking shit? I´ve been to many tournaments, played a lot online, stopped 1,5 years ago because I had too much and now got back to find all this hatred on online forums after a great tournament. I think people knowing me mostly think I´m a relaxed, open-minded guy who just loves this game and that´s about it. When I´m talking I might be a rather direct guy though I guess.

More on topic: I just never experienced anything like a woman or some other people perceived as a minority or whatever getting excluded or made feel bad or unwelcome. I also still don´t see what´s so unbelievably bad about that stream that many are still going on and on about it. Even after apologies were offered in very open way. I even get the impression some people expressing very strong (I would even call them extremist but ok) opinions on the topic haven´t even watched the full vid because they already “know” it´s super bad.

Furthermore, I wanted to show some support for a guy I don´t even know but expressed some thoughts I´m having too: Is it possible that it´s not “our fault” that there´s not enough women in Netrunner or might it be that many members of the female sex (or whatever they are called nowadays, I get really confused with this polical correctness thing) just don´t like doing stupid things and can´t see any reason to spend their time and money on something like Netrunner?

Obviously I don´t know the answer but is it forbidden or bad to ask that question?

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If by that question you mean “why don’t more women play netrunner” then I highly encourage asking that question. But what I discourage is jumping to “well I guess women are just like this and men are just like this” because that is sexism at its most basic level.

It is my belief that there are a number of factors keeping women away from netrunner. Some of these are hard for us to affect as a community - gaming, or at least competitive gaming is still perceived primarily as a male activity throughout society and our impact on that is going to be minimal (which doesn’t mean we shouldn’t at least try). Similarly, I feel that cyberpunk as a sub-genre of science-fiction carries similar baggage - again, we are a drop in the ocean.

But where we can make a difference is the direct interactions within the netrunner community and the way we treat women and other traditionally excluded groups. This is why I want to talk about this. I’m not trying to tell you what you can and can’t do - I don’t have that power. But I can tell you what I believe you should or shouldn’t do, if you care at all about the other people who play this game, and about the health of this community. The community is what keeps this game alive. It’s what keeps people going to tournaments and making content.

Being asked to change your behaviour isn’t a personal attack. I’m not saying it’s your fault, I’m saying it’s our fault. Toxic behaviour pervades society. I do it, everyone I know does it. That doesn’t mean we can’t change things for the better. But we don’t do that by sitting around and ignoring problems when people voice their concerns.

I’m also curious about the extremist views you’ve seen, most of the discussion in this thread has been pretty civil as far as I can tell.

P.S. going to answer in good faith regarding the use of “female” this is fine to use as an adjective i.e. female netrunner players but not as a noun i.e. “females”.

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It has been said at least once already but I suppose it bears repeating: those in the majority will not be able to see these behaviours. That is how privilege works. There is tons and tons of information on this if you are interested in learning more.

I am a cishet white male. There are a vast number of behaviours, actions and attitudes that are off-putting to women and other minorities that I simply don’t see. And I’m looking for them. The best that I can do, then, if I want to make the community more welcome is to listen to those minorities and what they say. Moreover, if people are saying “I have experienced these issues” then my response of “well I haven’t seen any of that” is utterly irrelevant. It doesn’t mean that they haven’t happened; it means that I haven’t seen them. Because I’m in an extremely privileged position in this community (and in life, for that matter).

This isn’t abstract, either. Not that we should need first hand experience in order to engage with these issues, but in this case I do: my girlfriend is a Netrunner player too. The first time we went to a local meetup I thought everything was fine and the people were nice, but afterwards she told me about the amount of patronising behaviour she had to put up with that I just did not notice. Similarly, when she comes into competitive spaces like tournaments, whether she’s competing or not, people stare. Or avoid eye contact. Or talk past her to me. Or talk over her. And that’s just the stuff that I notice! It is the exception when she leaves and hasn’t encountered any of these behaviours.

Can you see why that would be off-putting, or intimidating, or just frankly not worth your time? Why that would discourage someone from participating in community events? Why the sum total of those behaviours means that you don’t need a “NO WOMEN ALLOWED” sign on the door to create an enormous barrier to entry?

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[quote=“moistloaf, post:103, topic:8970, full:true”]I personally believe these are the only two responsibilities a game community has. I disagree that we should be concerned with the number of non-WCHM. I disagree that we should actively try to recruit people to the game. Both of those reek of colonialism to me, which is problematic for a host of other reasons. Think about what you say, how you act, and lend your time and resources when you can to include others who don’t have the privileges you do.
[/quote]

As always, there are good and bad ways to do things. I would like it if we had a more diverse community for many reasons. It would be cool if these reasons were 100% selfless, but I doubt that they are. That said, I have yet to speak to (for example) a woman Netrunner player who didn’t express concern about the number of non-WCHM players, so I’m gonna lend my privilege to amplifying their voices, even if bystanders might occasionally mistake this for colonialism. That said, if someone does say “hey, this makes me feel colonized,” then I’ll listen to them too.

These are complex issues that don’t always have clear-cut answers, but a little openness and humility go a long way.

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I’ll have to largely disagree here.

There factually are no institutional barriers. They are not documented and enshried in a formalised structure. That is an important point I believe is being missed here by some.

As for reported instances of exclusion by X or Y group, I have no doubt all sorts of people from all walks of life, including men, have come to ‘any’ number of events and felt excluded. I do not think Netrunner has a clear issues here, other than anecedotal evidence that some pope have reported seeing instances of poor unsociable behaviour. This is not a Netrunner issue, it’s a human relationship issue. Can you provide specific detail with the example of the issue you talked about regarding the person who felt excluded, and how it was resolved? This will help us identify specific methods of dealing with those issues.

As for why more women don’t play Netrunner, that’s a question you’d have to ask them. I can ask a number of my female friends (many of which I have) and they are simply not interested in the gameplay dynamics, generally they find it overly technical and too hard to be bothered learning.

I’m yet to see a problem with Netrunner, and it’s community as the cause of this. Please see my previous posts for further information here.

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