On Self-Policing Societies

An interesting phenomenon that I have seen occur on several occasions within the World of Warcraft community is the development of a self-policing society. While there are GMs that help regulate the game and police rule breaking players, for the most part their role is observational. The greatest punishment that they can give out is banning a player’s account. However, this punishment can be easily circumvented by purchasing a new account altogether. (It is a bit costly if you have to do it multiple times, but completely doable) So how does one control a society in which the figures of authority cannot punish wrongdoers in any meaningful way? One leaves the burden of judgment on the players themselves.

The key to success in WoW is your reputation. How other players know you will greatly affect how well the server respects you. While you may think that a character can get lost among the thousands of players that log in every day, the server feels a lot smaller than you might think. Once you hit the level cap, you typically bump into the same players quite frequently. Yet, if you have a reputation of being an obnoxious player that ninjas or don’t know how to play, you will be shunned by the community. This results in the ultimate punishment that can be given online, social-death. Once branded with a bad reputation, it can be quite difficult to shake it off.

There was one time that my guild leader left the guild bank unlocked after some weekly maintenance. Typically only the guild leader and his officers have complete access to the guild bank ( I was the third ranking officer after our guild master and her husband, though the ranks had little worth), but he had unlocked it so we could have some other members help reorganize. The next day we logged on and found most of our bank to be empty. A low ranking member had taken almost everything out of the bank and had placed the items up on the public auction. While I do realize that it was our guild leader’s fault for leaving the bank open, it was quite disrespectful for our new member to take our hard earned items for his own gain.

We contacted a GM about the situation and the next day we had all our items back. However, while we waiting, I began chatting in the public channels warning people about this character and his behavior. I found it interesting to find that he had quite a reputation. Many random players that I had never spoken to began messaging about how he had ninja’d them before and that he had several other characters that I should be wary of. It was fascinating how many people had something against him. So even though the GM was the only player that could actually punish him by returning all the stolen items and removing most of his items, the rest of the server took on the role of making his reputation known.

This sort of collective criminal rap sheet is quite effective in making it difficult for disrespectful players to interact and succeed in game. The information spreads virally and like most information on the web, doesn’t ever truly die. (Nothing on the web dies...) The society as a whole determines what is socially acceptable and who should be punished for tramping on the social norms.