@Zombiedude101
Hold on, ok. I understand we want to discuss these things and you're welcome to it, but it has made some people uncomfortable with you sort of spilling out all of these slurs/buzz words so next time try not to use blatant examples, or at least put asterisks in there. And when the new rules come up, I won't be able to just give you a talking to. So just keep it in mind.

Whoa, slow down. I'd really rather not people get in trouble for using words in descriptive contexts, especially not in a situation like this where it's relevant to mention them.

Censoring with asterisks does nothing to prevent the mental association with the words, unless you blank out the letters completely at which point it's an implicit bias test. You're not tackling the root cause of the problem and all you're doing then is stifling meaningful discussion if we can't even mention the things we're supposed to be discussing.

It's not like Zombie's gone on a 15-page long tirade dropping slurs left and right; it's one single post used to illustrate examples. He should not get in trouble for something like this, or even a warning, new rules or not. If the person in question isn't being a bigot, they shouldn't be treated like one either.

Context in these cases is very important to me, and this particular context makes me feel it was warranted enough. If the words merely being mentioned without being used for any kind of attack is upsetting people, then that is a step too far.

Reserve the censoring of speech for people who abuse their free speech to be cruel. Do not harm those who act in good faith.

<Snipped quote by POOHEAD189>

Whoa, slow down. I'd really rather not people get in trouble for using words in descriptive contexts, especially not in a situation like this where it's relevant to mention them.

Censoring with asterisks does nothing to prevent the mental association with the words, unless you blank out the letters completely at which point it's an implicit bias test. You're not tackling the root cause of the problem and all you're doing then is stifling meaningful discussion if we can't even mention the things we're supposed to be discussing.

It's not like Zombie's gone on a 15-page long tirade dropping slurs left and right; it's one single post used to illustrate examples. He should not get in trouble for something like this, or even a warning, new rules or not. If the person in question isn't being a bigot, they shouldn't be treated like one either.

Context in these cases is very important to me, and this particular context makes me feel it was warranted enough. If the words merely being mentioned without being used for any kind of attack is upsetting people, then that is a step too far.

Reserve the censoring of speech for people who abuse their free speech to be cruel. Do not harm those who act in good faith.

Don't worry, there's no action against him. He's getting no reprimand. I'm just doing what is apart of the job description. He's not in trouble at all, but people did say they were uncomfortable with it. But the objection is noted.

Hi All,

Long term lurker of the forums I just wanted to get some information on what the listing would specifically involve. I wanted to know if white individuals would be apart of this list and if transracials would also. I have a feeling that if it didn't list every group that in theory those groups not listed would then become marginalized. I am worried about the openness of this community.

Thanks,
Hughie

see, like this guy! Making a sockpuppet to inflamate discussion is exactly the kind of person you don't want in your forum hemisphere.

<Snipped quote by Hugh G Rection>

see, like this guy! Making a sockpuppe to inflamate discussion is exactly the kind of person you don't want in your forum hemisphere.

Imagine having so little spine you must make a sockpuppet account just to inflame...

As for the rest of this, I've stated my views on the Discord, so I don't see much point in mentioning them again after so much discussion and debate elsewhere.

And when the new rules come up, I won't be able to just give you a talking to. So just keep it in mind.

So the rule changes are coming forum side as well?

@Zombiedude101
Hold on, ok. I understand we want to discuss these things and you're welcome to it, but it has made some people uncomfortable with you sort of spilling out all of these slurs/buzz words so next time try not to use blatant examples, or at least put asterisks in there. And when the new rules come up, I won't be able to just give you a talking to. So just keep it in mind.

I think it's pretty obvious I was just giving an example (and I was giving tame examples from personal experience as an admin elsewhere) of the difference between someone saying "aw nigga that's just gay" (and again I find that cringey myself) and saying "man I hate trans/fags/INSERTETHNICSLURHERE" - one facetious twat I knew kept intentionally bringing up the high suicide rate among certain demographics to intentionally provoke trans members.

Deleting the post or using asterisks to censor it doesn't change the fact that it's out there and that there are some egregious cunts out there. Nor should people have to be subjected to it, but you're missing the point I'm trying to make.

Again, use the rules as a guideline and employ common sense to deal with shitmonglers who like to point their shitstained fingers at the rules and gobber "b-but it's not against the rules, I'm only talking generally!!" and context to deal with people joking around/being harmless. I'll happily offer to help moderate for RPG if such assistance was needed.

TL;DR
Rules aren't infallible, don't treat them like laws - toxic people who try to skirt around the spirit of them should get the boot while those dicking around harmlessly with comments like "you gay" should be left alone.

I really don't understand what's so difficult to follow here.

<Snipped quote by POOHEAD189>

So the rule changes are coming forum side as well?

Discord rules and site rules are the same ruleset you can find on the guild. They're not exclusive from one another.

<Snipped quote by POOHEAD189>

I think it's pretty obvious I was just giving an example (and I was giving tame examples from personal experience as an admin elsewhere) of the difference between someone saying "aw nigga that's just gay" (and again I find that cringey myself) and saying "man I hate trans/fags/INSERTETHNICSLURHERE" - one facetious twat I knew kept intentionally bringing up the high suicide rate among certain demographics to intentionally provoke trans members.

Deleting the post or using asterisks to censor it doesn't change the fact that it's out there and that there are some egregious cunts out there. Nor should people have to be subjected to it, but you're missing the point I'm trying to make.

Again, use the rules as a guideline and employ common sense to deal with shitmonglers who like to point their shitstained fingers at the rules and gobber "b-but it's not against the rules, I'm only talking generally!!" and context to deal with people joking around/being harmless. I'll happily offer to help moderate for RPG if such assistance was needed.

TL;DR
Rules aren't infallible, don't treat them like laws - toxic people who try to skirt around the spirit of them should get the boot while those dicking around harmlessly with comments like "you fay" should be left alone.

I really don't understand what's so difficult to follow here.

while I agree with the sentiment, the incessant cursing isn't really helping your case be any more convincing.

<Snipped quote by Zombiedude101>

while I agree with the sentiment, the incessant cursing isn't really helping your case be any more convincing.

??

<Snipped quote by Ammokkx>

??

"one facetious twat"

"egregious cunts"

"shitmonglers who like to point their shitstained fingers"

There's perhaps slightly more level-headed ways to phrase these things without being quite so overtly hostile about everything.

I hold no respect for people like you describe, either, but no matter who inflammatory language is aimed at, the only end result can be heightened tension and nobody actually listening to each-other. Phrasing things just a bit more neutrally goes a long way to convincing people, I've found.

All the same, I can understand Zombiedude101's frustration. He was just trying to discuss things (albite more passionately than I would), and he was publicly told by a mod that he "won't be able to just give you a talking to" next time for simply arguing his point with examples.

And this is really the crux of what I was talking about earlier. All someone has to do is get upset that someone used a word they didn't like and then the mods will show up to "correct" what would be a non-issue in any other case. I don't like it when people talk about straight white guys like they are all privileged ass holes. Nor do I like it when people bash anime fans, men/boys who like to do girly things like knit and cook, etc. But I tolerate it because if we made a rule against anything that could possibly offend someone, regardless how small the minority, we wouldn't be able to talk to each other.

I mean, yeah, I said I agree with the sentiment.

I just also said that optics matter a lot if you actually want your arguments to be heard.

That being said I'm not going to continue derailing the topic by going after individuals instead of the actual topic at hand. I haven't really gotten any new insights since my last long post in this thread, so until people actually come in here to argue the topic, I won't have anything new to contribute.

Well, except for maybe one thing, though it's not exactly a "new thing".

I find it slightly worrying that people are just kind of... expecting us to go read the discord, as if the discord is the website. Discord is a third-party app that not everybody has and not everybody wants to engage with, even if a sizeable chunk of this website uses it. It absolutely does not reflect the community at large, especially not when it has its own moderators. Therefor it is a distinct enough entity to where changes to it should not affect the forum, even if changes to the forum should affect it.

Discord is an extension, not the website itself. I disagree with fundamentally changing the rules of the guild for something that happens off-site, if I may be so bold.

And if you're wanting to discuss why the changes should be made on-site as well, I'd really like more people to follow in Yankee and Franken's example and actually bring the argument into this thread rather than blanket expecting everybody to go read the discord.

I can only speak for myself, but if there is even just one other person like me, then they would just not care about what happens on discord. It only partially reflects the site. I'd like incidents on the website dictating moderator policy, not incidents off it.

<Snipped quote by POOHEAD189>

I think it's pretty obvious I was just giving an example (and I was giving tame examples from personal experience as an admin elsewhere) of the difference between someone saying "aw nigga that's just gay" (and again I find that cringey myself) and saying "man I hate trans/fags/INSERTETHNICSLURHERE" - one facetious twat I knew kept intentionally bringing up the high suicide rate among certain demographics to intentionally provoke trans members.

Deleting the post or using asterisks to censor it doesn't change the fact that it's out there and that there are some egregious cunts out there. Nor should people have to be subjected to it, but you're missing the point I'm trying to make.

Again, use the rules as a guideline and employ common sense to deal with shitmonglers who like to point their shitstained fingers at the rules and gobber "b-but it's not against the rules, I'm only talking generally!!" and context to deal with people joking around/being harmless. I'll happily offer to help moderate for RPG if such assistance was needed.

TL;DR
Rules aren't infallible, don't treat them like laws - toxic people who try to skirt around the spirit of them should get the boot while those dicking around harmlessly with comments like "you gay" should be left alone.

I really don't understand what's so difficult to follow here.

"I want to be able to use slurs without thinking" is not the argument you think it is.

I think the point there was that replacing harmful words with **** in a harmful message doesn't make the message not harmful.

If you took a racist/sexist/transphobic/homophobic/whatever diatribe from a particularly virulent hater of whatever group it is they are hating and replaced each instance of whichever specific derogatory term, meaning N word and the like, but the message remained it would still essentially be the same message with the same impact.

Reading Mein Kampf with every use of an anti-Semitic slur replaced with a series of four asterisks would still be reading the same hateful tripe. Listening to a "sermon" from the West Borough Baptist Church wherein every usage of a homophobic slur was replaced with "Homosexual Individual" would still result in the same hateful message just ever so slightly less incendiary.

<Snipped quote by POOHEAD189>

So the rule changes are coming forum side as well?

The entirety of the discussion was about the site, so yep.

Hi, it’s Chai, and I’m one of the Discord moderators. If it matters to you guys, I’ve been on RPG since 2010 and it’s related iterations of chat clients for just about that long. Throughout my ~2 years of helping to keep the Discord safe and secure, we’ve had numerous issues regarding the use of racial/ethnic/gender-based/sexuality-based slurs, discriminatory language, and also just some abhorrent statements that don’t belong in a community that values the safety of its members. They’re also things that don’t belong in polite company. Think along the lines of certain groups shouldn’t have rights, or conspiracy theories that perpetuate hate of certain ethnic groups… you get the idea.

My job on Discord is to keep the community safe; my job is to promote a healthy environment in which all members feel welcomed to come chat about their lives, their roleplays, or whatever else. That’s my priority. By all means, please use whatever language you want in your private life, in your private messages, in your Discord DMs — that’s not my business. But in the same way that administration in schools and HR in workplaces limit the use of damaging language, I believe I also have a duty to show that same care to the community that I’m a part of. It should also be common sense not to use slurs and hateful language in a room full of diverse people, most of which are strangers, yet here we are having this discussion.

Another thing to consider is that, on Discord at least (though I have seen cases of it on site as well, particularly in the status bar), it’s been common to see sexist, transphobic or whatever else content said casually. And because it’s not directed at another member, the offenders will argue that it doesn’t break the site rules of “be respectful.” I personally am no longer willing to play the game of “show me where it says that in the site rules.”

I hope this can shed some light on what is happening.

Thank you.

I personally am no longer willing to play the game of “show me where it says that in the site rules.”

and, see, this is the weird thing that's bothering me.

Why are you following the site rules, and only the site rules, for a discord server?

Discord is a real-time chatroom service, not an internet forum. Many discord servers, even for official communities, have their own rules tab. In fact, many discord servers often have less rules than the guild and are able to operate just fine while still being able to filter out unwanted people.

I really think the solution is as simple as "just set up a rules tab in the discord you force people to read before they can access the rest of the server" like... pretty much every discord handles it.

You can say

(though I have seen cases of it on site as well, particularly in the status bar)

and you'd be absolutely correct, considering I pointed out an example case one page back.

I also pointed out how the mods dealt with it perfectly fine given our current set of rules.

If you are having trouble enforcing the discord, just change the way you're enforcing the discord. Make me an argument why the site rules need to change based on just the merits of the site alone.

So far, Yankee's been the only one to make an argument that actually convinced me in any capacity. They argued the merit of adding the rule blanket just so the cases of moderation on-site could not be contested, which is regardless of the situation in discord or not.

The moderators on the guild are good. I don't know how it's like on discord, but if it's such a recurring problem when the site doesn't seem to have these issues, then I'm gonna go out on a limb and say it's not the forum rules that are posing a problem here.

We are creating a consistent standard for the community conduct for both site and Discord. The Discord is an extension of the site community. These rules will hold staff accountable for making consistent decisions for the entire community, not just part of it. I’m also a fan of holding staff accountable in all areas where we have failed before, which would include the site since unsavory content also exists on the site.

Last I checked the rules on the Discord are the same as on here, but that didn't stop certain individuals from being a problem. Then again the Discord also had a dedicated politics channel until recently, which is where most of that kind of stuff got dumped, so with its deletion I assume it'll help stop the problem. Or at least make it easier to tell which users are being bigoted and which aren't, since they can't hide it behind a political dissertation anymore.

Anyway, mini tangent aside, the rules are the same but the problem remained regardless. Hence the desire for clarification and specification.