- x Foman123 x
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- Master Forum Ninja
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I agree with many of the above statements, but wanted to add a few things that have not yet been said.
Sadly, Raven, the behavior on XBox Live is rarely much different than that which can be found in the Halo 3 Forum. There, you can find that some people are polite and respectful, others are foul-mouthed and obnoxious, and the majority are somewhere on the very long, very broad spectrum in between. All of these people are part of the Bungie.net Community and part of the Bungie Community in general.
As has already been noted above, many of the XBL players who have the Septagon symbol next to their names bear little to no connection to the Bungie.net Community or the 7th Column. I feel bad calling people out, but take, for example, this person, whose sole, singular post on Bungie.net has been a question about how to get the 7th Column logo next to his name in Halo 3.
Clearly, I can't speak to whether this guy is a trash talker or not -- I assume that like most people, he's probably a polite and respectful player. He has a 5-star reputation on his gamercard so I can assume nothing else. But he is indisputably a person who does not participate in the BNet Community and yet has the Septagon logo next to his name. If respectful and polite individuals like this guy can do it, so can anybody else. Thus, all we can infer from the Septagon logo is that the person displaying it is a Bungie fan. Nothing more. Bungie fans can be polite, rude, talkative, quiet, or any other variety of things that have no effect on whether or not they enjoy playing Bungie's video games.
You noted that "Seventh Column members are supposed to be better than some of the absolutely horrid things I’ve had to listen to in the last few days. . . . To me, that icon says that I am part of a very special community. It says that I love Bungie, the community, and everything that we stand for. It says I play fair, respectfully, and above all else, am an example of what makes the Bungie community the most amazing out there. That icon is a privilege, and it demands respect."
I'm not sure where you got this rather idealistic impression. You certainly did not get it here on these forums, unless you have been miraculously lucky in the particular threads you choose to visit. Frankly, I would love to see the Community act in the way that you suggest they should be acting. I've posted in this Forum several times about ways to improve what I call the "forum culture" in places like the Halo 3 Forum, in order to make respectful, intelligent discussion the norm instead of the anomaly. Sadly, however, the current state of affairs is far from ideal and many Community members are not respectful, do not play fair, are not an example of what makes the Bungie Community great. Some Community members are downright mutinous in this respect.
Allow me to go off on a very slight background tangent before coming back to the point. We humans, like most animals, deal with the constant sensory overload of being alive by stereotyping and allowing our unconscious or semiconscious minds decide what merits attention. As a simple example, when walking down hallway of a building, you do not tend to think about whether the floor will collapse under your feet. The floor ahead of you looks like the floor behind you, and thus you "stereotype" it into being solid footing. This basic process is natural to us, and thus we apply it not only to the day-to-day world around us, but also to groups of people. Sometimes, it's fine -- you see a group of teenagers wearing backpacks and you assume that they are on their way to school; you see a guy and a girl with a kid and you assume that they are a family; and so on. Sometimes you might be wrong, but for the most part, your assumption is often-if-not-usually right. Obviously, there are stereotyping situations that are not so good either -- assumptions about people's personalities, skills, intelligence, abilities, or tendencies based on race, color, religion, gender, and so on. I am definitely not trying to start a discussion about stereotyping -- merely trying to prove to you that, whether benign or malicious, it happens and we can't (and probably shouldn't try to) do anything about it.
So to get back to the point, my opinion is that, like any Community you choose to join, you have to take the good and the bad when you choose to identify yourself with Bungie. If, in the real world, I go to a foreign country and tell people that I am American, I am forced to deal with all of the connotations -- negative and positive -- that implies. If I tell people that I am an attorney, I am likewise forced to deal with all of the impressions that people have of lawyers -- some positive and some quite negative.
It is no different when identifying yourself with the Bungie Community. If you say that you're a Bungie fan, or a Halo 3 fan, then you thus subject yourself to all of the impressions that others have of the Bungie Community. As you mentioned, it would be ideal if the Bungie Community was perceived as being, on the whole, upstanding, respectful people. But I don't think that it is. I personally see the Community as being filled with an extremely wide variety of people from every country, age, gender, race, walk of life, and, especially personality. Sure, there are tendencies towards certain sectors in each of those categories, but except for the category of "hobbies," (for which, to be a member here, you are almost required to list "video games"), there is certainly nothing exclusive about any of those categories. This obviously, means that you will get a wide variety of people entering and participating in the Bungie Community.
Now, if we are talking about improving the Bungie culture, that is something entirely different. That is a project that will take, if not "a lot" of effort, at least "some" effort and is certainly not yet complete. As you have so adequately learned and pointed out here in this thread, our mere statement that a community is something (respectful, disrespectful, nice, mean, whatever) does not necessarily make it so.
I will not make this post any longer than it already is by giving a detailed description of why I disagree with your idea of removing the Septagon logo for impolite or rude trash-talkers. I disagree with the idea for the reasons that other people have described in more detail above me. I also disagree, for those same reasons, with implementing a "Code of Conduct" in order to display the logo.
Conclusion/Short Summary for Those Who Routinely Skip to the Bottom of My Walls of Text
Displaying the Septagon logo means absolutely nothing more than that you are a fan of Bungie. Attempting to make it mean anything more (such as that you are respectful or polite) would involve changing the entire meaning of having the logo next to your name. Therefore, although I feel for you and your situation, I must respectfully disagree with your idea.
[Edited on 12.06.2007 11:29 AM PST]