Xbox Live is generally characterized as a Wild West of sorts, but full of racists and bratty children instead of outlaws and cowboys. Microsoft does its best to filter out the bad players from the good, but it can only do so much. For the next iteration of Xbox Live, Microsoft is turning to the community to help them moderate.
Last week, Microsoft announced Xbox Live Enforcement United. In short, it’s a program that allows Xbox Live Gold members to moderate the Xbox Live community. In the beta that started last week, members of Enforcement United can vote upon whether or not a gamertag violates the Xbox Live Code of Conduct. In other words, members will be voting on whether or not your gamertag contains any offensive language.
In theory, it’s a pretty good idea. Some aren’t fans of the program, however, as they think Microsoft is pushing moderation duties onto its player base. Some also aren’t comfortable with the idea that players are essentially paying Microsoft to moderate Xbox Live as only Gold members can participate.
There’s a lot to take in here. It’s a good thing then that everybody’s favorite Taiwanese animators are here to explain it all to us:
While I don’t think Microsoft will replace its own in-house moderators with the Xbox Live community, it does bring up the downsides of crowdsourcing. There are plenty of people on the Internet who will gladly do somebody else’s job for free. Will companies start to push these jobs onto their communities and fire their own employees all in the name of embracing their communities?