Gamers who harass women are literally losers

[marurun]

According to a recent study, online in-game harassment of women may be an attempt by low-ranking males to preserve some standing within the game when women "disrupt" the existing hierarchy.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the ... ?tid=sm_fb

[J T]

So am I friendly towards women because I am not a misogynstic asshole, or because I am awesome at video games? Hmmm... probably both.

[MrPopo]

I pulled up the actual study. I'm really rusty on my statistics; JT, can you give a translation to the meaning of the columns on the tables in the study?

[Xeogred]

People who harass anyone are losers.

[prfsnl_gmr]

I am not sure a study was necessary to prove that point, but I am glad that it exists.

[Gunstar Green]

My girlfriend sometimes gets the backhanded compliment of, "You're such a great raid leader for a girl," in MMOs. That's usually the only time her gender comes up.

I get that it's less common for women to be leading MMORPG endgame raids but that's the kind of attitude that will keep it uncommon.

[Ack]

My girlfriend sometimes gets the backhanded compliment of, "You're such a great raid leader for a girl," in MMOs. That's usually the only time her gender comes up.

I get that it's less common for women to be leading MMORPG endgame raids but that's the kind of attitude that will keep it uncommon.

Perhaps this is because women are smart and understand that the true endgame is always glorious PvP?

[KalessinDB]

My girlfriend sometimes gets the backhanded compliment of, "You're such a great raid leader for a girl," in MMOs. That's usually the only time her gender comes up.

I get that it's less common for women to be leading MMORPG endgame raids but that's the kind of attitude that will keep it uncommon.

I remember in WoW when Burning Crusade was current, raid leading as a healer because our main tank (female) refused to do it. I can only assume she had dealt with some shit before joining our guild, because on the rare occasion we got her to actually talk on Ventrilo her voice was amazing.

Raid leading as a healer is Fucked. Up.

[J T]

I pulled up the actual study. I'm really rusty on my statistics; JT, can you give a translation to the meaning of the columns on the tables in the study?

χ2 = chi square
p = significance
β = beta weights

They are using a generalized linear model to adapt for non-normal error distributions and to allow comparisons across predictors on the response (positive/negative/neutral comments in-game).

In the tables, you're looking for bigger chi square values with p values less than .05. This lets you know whether the predictor values (such as gender of their opponenet, i.e. the experimental manipulation) made them more likely to give the response (either positive, negative, or neutral) depending on which column of the table you are looking at. They have used bold-faced type to emphasize the significant stats.

In the written portions of the results, they also highlight the β for each variable combination, which gives you a sense of how the variables contribute to the correlation within the larger general linear model. These range from -1 to 1, where 0 is no correlation. In other words, the farther away from 0 and therefore the closer the result is to -1 or 1, the stronger the relationship.

As an example, when they write:
"The maximum skill level achieved by focal players was negatively correlated with the number of negative statements (β = -0.18, χ2 = 3.99, p = 0.046)."

This means that players with less skill tended to make more negative comments to other players, and people with more skill tended to make fewer negative comments to other players. This was a small correlation (β=-.18). There were more negative comments varying by skill level than you would expect to find of negative comments in general (χ2 = 3.99). And, when you test the significance of these results, you find that they are not likely to happen by chance (p=0.046), or in more common english, there would only be 4.6 times in 100 instances where this particular result would show up by chance.

[Exhuminator]

I am not sure a study was necessary to prove that point, but I am glad that it exists.

This is how I see it as well.

People who harass other people do so to mask their own feelings of inferiority/insecurity.