A guild has encountered issues due to its name “GAY BOYS” in WoW Classic. Too many players reported them, and they were automatically renamed. Many of the reporters were not exactly friendly. However, the guild fought back.
What kind of guild is this? The guild “GAY BOYS” plays on the official Classic servers of World of Warcraft that opened a few weeks ago. According to some member statements, it is not a troll guild (via ArsTechnica).
Instead, the guild’s goal seems to be to create a community of gay players who can experience WoW Classic together. LGBTQ+ community actions occur in World of Warcraft and other MMORPGs frequently:
Why was it reported? The guild has now been reported multiple times by other players due to its name. According to one of the members, Ahmil Jilani, the reports were quite homophobic and toxic:
If you look at my chat logs, you would see multiple messages from people […] writing “F*** the gays, reported,” alongside other extremely hateful and discriminatory comments.
According to Jilani, giving in to this demand would be a sign of being on the side of toxic players. Nevertheless, the sheer volume of reports from other players was enough to activate WoW Classic’s automated system and rename the guild.
System Renames Guild, Blizzard Apologizes
This is what happened to the guild: Blizzard’s policies prohibit expressions “that may be considered vulgar or offensive by other players.” After the many reports, the guild was renamed to the machine-generated name “Guild ZFXPK.”
This is how the guild reacted: From the players’ perspective, there is nothing offensive about the guild’s name, which would warrant a report. After all, it is truly about a guild for gay players, and it is outdated to report this:
To say that there is something inappropriate about the words GAY or BOYS is, in itself, inappropriate, childish, and discriminatory. People who found the name inappropriate should take a look in the mirror, as it is 2019, and we have the right to exist as a community.
Therefore, resistance was also shown against the renaming through support tickets. And Blizzard even sided with the guild. The guild should regain its original name. However, it could very well happen again, as the automatic system would react again to increased reports.
This is not the first time this has happened: In 2016, another guild with the name GAY BOYS landed on the radar for renaming. The response from support in the forum was that it might be better to express oneself in one’s guild name without using words that give other players a reason to be offended.
