Part 1: A Letter to the Dota Community
Desoladies has been following the recent sexual harassment disclosures with heavy hearts. We support the brave community members who are speaking up about harassment, exclusion, predatory behavior, and sexual abuse in the Dota 2 scene. Some of these are deeply seeded hurts from an industry that blurs the personal and professional, friendship and business, to the detriment of everyone involved.
Desoladies has always existed for a singular mission: to unite and uplift women in Dota 2. We don’t speak for all women, but over the years, we have had a lot of women share their experiences of in-game and at-event harassment. These incidents were almost invariably downplayed, glossed over, or straight-up ignored by the larger Dota 2 community.
Hollow apologies only make predators bolder while confirming the worst fears of the victims: your pain isn’t as important as everyone else having a good time. There is no reason for anyone to behave better because there are no consequences for failing to do so.
The lack of accountability is not okay. It has never been okay, and it should not be tolerated any longer.
While women in Dota regularly face gender-based harassment, we are not the only targets. Gamers of color, queer gamers, disabled gamers, non-English speaking or ESL gamers, and people who exist at the intersection of these identities are regularly made to feel unwelcome in Dota 2 because of who they are, not how they play.
Increasing accessibility for one type of person creates a better experience for everyone. We stand with our friends and partner organizations to continue working towards a safer, more positive environment for all players.
Desoladies has always existed for a singular mission: to unite and uplift women in Dota 2. We don’t speak for all women, but over the years, we have had a lot of women share their experiences of in-game and at-event harassment. These incidents were almost invariably downplayed, glossed over, or straight-up ignored by the larger Dota 2 community.
Hollow apologies only make predators bolder while confirming the worst fears of the victims: your pain isn’t as important as everyone else having a good time. There is no reason for anyone to behave better because there are no consequences for failing to do so.
The lack of accountability is not okay. It has never been okay, and it should not be tolerated any longer.
While women in Dota regularly face gender-based harassment, we are not the only targets. Gamers of color, queer gamers, disabled gamers, non-English speaking or ESL gamers, and people who exist at the intersection of these identities are regularly made to feel unwelcome in Dota 2 because of who they are, not how they play.
Increasing accessibility for one type of person creates a better experience for everyone. We stand with our friends and partner organizations to continue working towards a safer, more positive environment for all players.
Part 2: A Letter to the Industry
At Desoladies, we’ve been thinking hard about how we can help beyond the reaches of our own community. We assembled a list of actions that major stakeholders in Dota (Valve, tournament organizers, personalities, and independent communities) can consider in their efforts to increase safety, accountability, and inclusivity in the Dota scene. Many of these suggestions are based on member feedback, based on their experiences both in-game and at events.
Suggested Actions for Valve
IN-GAME
- Improve the reporting options in-game, with specific subcategories for sexist, racist, and homophobic chat abuse.
- Increase the number of available reports, removing the artificial time-gating of reports and ensuring every person who violates the rules gets reported.
- Add automatically generated reports for any chat instances of the most offensive slurs.
- Take disciplinary action against any player with a history of rule-breaking, including pro players.
- Update and expand upon the Steam Online Conduct policy, including adding resources to report violations of Steam policies.
AT EVENTS
- An official set of Community Safety & Conduct Standards for Dota LANs and events, posted in visible locations on site.
- A private, secure area for cosplayers to get into cosplay and store their belongings.
- Expanded cosplay support staff to facilitate easy movement around the arena and respond to any dangerous situations that might occur.
- A PNG List: Persona non grata. The opposite of a VIP list. Those people with a proven history of severe misconduct at Dota events cannot be allowed back.
- An on-site Safety Standards office with trained safety advocates.
- At the Safety Standards office, attendees can report incidents, seek medical or legal help, and find emotional support for facing harassment or abuse on their own, potentially thousands of miles from home (an extremely stressful and isolating event).
- Depending on the incident, the safety advocate may help the victim with filing a police report according to local laws.
- Tighter security to limit access to restricted areas, such as the cosplay staging room, VIP section, and event afterparties.
- Increased accountability for attendees of restricted areas with stricter guest lists and/or ID-connected passes.
- Increased security presence at after-party or off-site events.
- A standardized reporting platform so tournament organizers have access to valid incident reports from all Dota 2 events.
Suggested Actions for Valve, Teams, Tournament Organizers, and Established Orgs
- Post a public Player Code of Conduct and Professional Code of Conduct.
- The Player Code of Conduct should address the personal conduct of players, similar to the Personal Conduct Policies in traditional sports
- The Professional Code of Conduct should address how all employees conduct themselves in internal dealings and public-facing interactions
- Create a hierarchical system of accountability for the overall scene.
- Consider the structure of traditional sports where responsibility escalates from the individual to the team to the overseeing organization.
- Provide guidelines for reporting infractions, as well as clearly defined penalties for failing to do so.
- Establish policies and personnel to investigate and act on reported incidents in a timely manner.
- Penalize teams that are complicit or negligent in appropriately managing players with documented incidents of conduct violations.
- Provide diversity, inclusion, and anti-harassment training materials to all members of every team who qualifies for a major Dota LAN.
- Materials should cover both perspectives: how to interact appropriately and professionally as a public figure, and how to protect yourself from increased scrutiny, harassment, and interactions that come with being a public figure
- Critically evaluate hiring policies and the demographic makeup of the people you choose to put in power. Ensure equality at all stages of the hiring process, from job postings and interviews to hirings and promotions.
Suggested Actions for Dota Communities
Each Dota 2 community has its own needs. The path to improvement will not be one-size-fits-all. Desoladies suggests setting a goal to empower the average player while removing bad actors. Then, evaluate your organization to find specific ways to move towards this goal. To get started, we suggest to...
- Move away from traditional three-strike warning systems to Watched/Warned/Limited/Banned (blog post on this coming soon)
- Create a Code of Conduct for both members and moderators.
- Create a task responsibility list with clearly defined hierarchical duties for community moderators and leaders.
- Add additional moderators from a wide range of backgrounds to improve organization responsiveness and safety.
- Configure chat filters to ban the most obvious and blatant slurs
- Seek community feedback regularly to identify weak spots and adjust policies.
These suggestions from Desoladies should be considered a starting point, not the end of the conversation. We welcome communication from other Dota groups to help refine and implement these suggestions.
The bottom line is that something has to change. Many things have to change. We all need to step up and do the work to improve ourselves and by extension, our communities. Each of us has a meaningful contribution to make, no matter how big or small it might seem.
Your voice matters. You matter. And together, we can create change.
The bottom line is that something has to change. Many things have to change. We all need to step up and do the work to improve ourselves and by extension, our communities. Each of us has a meaningful contribution to make, no matter how big or small it might seem.
Your voice matters. You matter. And together, we can create change.
Special thanks to superphrenic, labac, and louhigg for the initial draft of this community letter