One more cup of coffee

abusing racists online

The other day, while playing on the Counter-Strike server I help admin, someone joined named 'nigger killer'.

Counter-Strike servers have a variety of admin commands that you can use on them to help control the server, and keep things from getting out of hand. One of the more popular administrative tools, admin-mod, provides admins with a wealth of commands, including commands that are designed, essentially, to abuse people. Two of the more popular are 'slay', which causes the person to instantly explode, and 'slap', which causes the person to take 5% damage and get smacked across the screen a few feet. It even comes with a cool slapping noise. Even more fun can be had when you set a key to slap a specific person, which allows you to slap them half way across the map in a rapid-fire succession of slaps from the invisible mighty hand of the admin. The latest version also includes 'bury', which lets you stick someone in the ground so they can't move. This affords people the opportunity to experience a slightly different version of shooting fish in a barrel. For the real idiots, there's always the good old admin_ban command, which keeps them from ever coming back to the server.

Normally, of course, we try to be very careful about using these commands. Admin abuse on some servers is rampant, and it drives good players away faster than anything else. So we try not to ever use these commands.

Until, of course, someone with a name like 'nigger killer' logs in. Then the only question is how many different types of abuses you'll get at once from the admins. What does happen, anyway, when three different admins simultaneously start slapping you across the board, burying you, and slaying you?

The most amazing thing to me isn't even that people log in with names like that. People do all too often, using names ranging all over the place. One group logged in once, all with KKK in front of their names. Various other racist names are used, targeting blacks, Jews, Muslims, Arabs, Christians -- you name it.

So, as incredible as it seems, it no longer shocks me when people come into the game with names like that. What still amazes me is the shocked incredulous responses they have when they are instantly abused. "What, me? Why is this bad?" The 'nigger killer' did change his name, then asked, "Why are you upset? What did I do wrong?". The KKK group tried to convince the admin at the time that it stood for something else entirely (he had none of it). To a person, these people are always shocked and amazed that we have a problem with their choice of names.

So what happened with 'nigger killer'. Well, he changed his name to something innocuous, and we ignored his protests of abuse for a few rounds. Then he changed his name again: "nigger".

Time for admin_ban.

Sigh. So many idiots...

Posted by Mike at August 26, 2002 10:03 PM