What Would You Do?

[Captain Del]

I'm sure you've all seen at one time or another ABC's show What Would You Do?, where they create situations using actors in public places, to see how people respond. I decided a few months ago to try and experiment within POTCO, and then publish the results in my blog - but I decided to bring it to another level today.

Unlike last time, I decided to use other actors this time (portrayed by my very own Partners) in order to spruce things up a bit. These four pirates would go and mock an innocent, basic, level 1 pirate - vulnerable to online bullies in any way possible. This player would be played by myself. And the scene of this conflict, took place in various parts of the Caribbean, all where bystanders went about their business. Now, who would step in?

Our first spot was Tortuga, Antik, populated with around ten pirates just standing around, chatting. The group made fun of my pirate's chat options, pirate, name, and so forth.



In the 10 minutes we spent there, and the five times I pleaded them to stop, nobody stepped in.

We then turned our attention to a more populated location - Tortuga, Andaba. Because my partners were uncomfortable being mean, two of us switched roles - Crestshot now played the role as victim, and I played one of the aggressives. We viciously tore Crest apart, but just when it seemed nobody would step in, one lone person did.



I didn't get many screenshots, because I was amazed by this pirate's actions. He not only confronted us, but he explained to us how it is a responsibility that we teach the newer pirates in the game how to play, instead of mocking them. He defended our victim sternly, not even giving in to classic bullying techniques that not many people know how to combat.

When we revealed that this was all an experiment, we were even more stunned by his humbleness. The pirate purposely asked us that we not show his name in this post, as he doesn't like the attention. We ended up having a long conversation about online bullying, with him concluding, "It's a shame not many pirates stand up."

Thousands of people every day are confronted with cyber bullies - even the smallest of conflicts can often lead to somebody undergoing emotional distress, regardless of that person's intent. Today, we have seen that not all hope is lost, when it comes up to standing up to in-game griefing.

I plan to keep up with this experiment for a while now, to help bring all of us to the realization that bullying and griefing in this game is as much of a problem as anywhere else. And, I leave you with this question - if you were standing by, watching us dig in to this innocent player - what would you do?

*Specific screenshots have been left out or edited to protect the identities of the subjects in our experiment.