Ammokkx

Call To Action: Marginalized Groups Must Be Recognized In The Rules

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

@Hugh G Rection

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

Call To Action: Marginalized Groups Must Be Recognized In The Rules

@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.

@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.

Call To Action: Marginalized Groups Must Be Recognized In The Rules

So, I know I said I wasn't going to mingle overmuch in this thread anymore (as in, engage in the discussion at all) and I'm still not really intent on picking much of any sides here. That being said, I think I have a... somewhat new angle to tackle this from, considering current progression of the discussion?

So, basically, the issue as I see it right now is "There's nothing to really protect members against generally vile statements not targeted to any specific users", right? And I do agree there- the rules don't cover ideas, they only cover individuals. That being said, there was an incident on the status bar yesterday that reminded me of the discussion, which I lampshaded at the time. Notorious shitposter Gorgenmast made a status saying something along the lines of "Awww yeah, can't wait to take my estrogen pills. BABY WANTS XER BREAKFAST 🍽️😍" which, in my humble opinion, was pretty poor taste even by his standards. Now, I thought "okay, yeah, statuses like these make me see the case for why the rules could be changed..." since I had no grounds to report it.

Thing is, though? When I looked to grab a screenshot of it for posterity for this very post, it was gone.

Make no mistake for anyone not in the loop; a status along the lines of what I typed above was right underneath my own. In fact, I would've never made my joke if it hadn't been there. This leaves me... conflicted. Gorgen is not the type to delete his own statuses, to my mind. It is entirely possible he took it down by himself, but I find it unlikely. Much more likely is that either a mod saw it spontaneously or someone reported it and, in either case, the mod deleted the status.

This shows that the mods do, in fact, not tolerate rather obvious cases of bigotry or otherwise nasty behaviour. While one case is hardly representative of the site as a whole, it reinforces my intial belief of "People are safe and welcomed on this site". After all, there was a problem and the mods took care of it.

That being said, I do agree that the incident in question is not actually covered in the rules. It's more of an implied, common sense thing to be generally nice to each-other, a real "Fonz cool" moment. Fonz cool, nebulous as it may be, seems to still be the core philosophy behind moderation. On one hand the problem expressed in this thread does get taken care of (on-site, at least), on the other, the rules do not accurately reflect what actual moderation policy is.

I'm not entirely sure what side to take, myself. I'm naturally more inclined to my original position of "There's no problem, therefor the rules are fine" but I'm not entirely convinced of my own stance given the, admittedly singular, incident.

I do however agree with broken; if the issue primarily occurs on the guild discord and does not reflect the attitude of members on the site, then the guild discord should be the one to change. I propose a more general "Keep the status bar clean." rule, instead. Something more along the lines of "Do not post any excessively controversial, disgusting or otherwise abrasive messages in the status bar. It is the front page of the website; we do not want to turn away members at the door."

Granted the exact wording I use is most definitely not the right way to go about it, but it's merely an illustration. I think a rule like this is a fair compromise and also more in-line with how the moderators have historically handled the status bar.

Video Games: The General Discussion & Community Thread Number Two

Yeah, Unite has been in the works for a while now. It's being made by the Chinese conglomerate that is Tencent, so there's that. A lot of people really didn't like this idea, so much so that the YouTube announcement video for it got taken down and re-uploaded to get rid of all the dislikes. (Presumably)

I personally don't think it'll work very well. If it's like any other pokemon game, it'll be geared towards kids, and when older fans come to play, they'll probably completely mollywop the young kids that think the game looks cool, completely alienating them. The only thing I can hope for is maybe something like different "leagues" for younger players, and older players. Though even then, there's no telling how many older folks would just join the younger league just for free wins. I just don't really see it working out very well, all things considered. Though it's entirely possible that there's an easy solution, and I'm just really stupid.

@Lord Orgasmo

Pokemon MOBA just sounds like one of those bad ideas on paper and while it's not impossible to make a good game out of it, well...

The fact it's meant to support mobile devices means the game's going to be designed around being playable entirely by touchscreen. This means that the game will naturally also lose a degree of precision, and if there's one thing I really want in a MOBA, it's tight controls. The mere idea of it getting a mobile port kills any and all hope in me that this'll be a good game.

That's not to say you can't make good games for mobile clients, but this isn't going to be it. Anything designed with mobile in mind first is inevitably going to suffer for it; it isn't a situation like runescape where the mobile client was made to emulate the PC experience.

On top of MOBA just generally being a really fucked market to try and break into at any point.

Here's to hoping that it'll be good, even if I don't have any actual hope it will be.

Nexus: The battle for one's memories.

"That's good, Rui."

Those three words, said on impulse, shot like a bullet through Rui's heart. Rui froze up a bit, pausing her rummaging. When Sora decided to change his sentence to be a bit less direct, only then did Rui quickly pull her hand out of her bag and looked up to meet his gaze.

"Ah... n-no, it's fine." she replied gently, if a bit shaken. "I'm sorry, I just kind of acted on my own. I didn't ask if you even wanted to see them after all, haha..." she nervously laughed to try and play it off.

'Sora doesn't want to talk to you.'

Rui turned her head to look back at their house. "We probably shouldn't talk outside like this," she said, but added on "though I don't really want to go inside either." at the end.

'Stop bothering him.'

Rui folded her arms behind her back and gave her brother the most confident smile she could. "...So! Forget about what I've been up to. Was your day anything special?" she asked of him, then turned her sights Wolf to give him a wink. "Don't keep anything a secret or I'll get Wolf-kun to tell me all about it!"

Video Games: The General Discussion & Community Thread Number Two

pokemon MOBA.

what.

Call To Action: Marginalized Groups Must Be Recognized In The Rules

I don't see why adding it in the rules should be a contentious topic.

@Nytem4re

I'm not contesting the suggestion. I'm contesting the motive. If you say "there's harassment and mods aren't acting on it" I'm willing to accept that, but not without proof. Otherwise it comes off as well, if I maybe a bit crude, drama baiting.

The other common argument I've seen is that "bad people will be bad", but at that point why does anyone have any laws passed in the real life? The constitution also says there are certain unalienable rights, but there was still the civil rights act among others that needed to be passed down the line, despite the constitution saying "all men are created equal". Sometimes things have to be outright stated, even if we are to assume common sense is common.

@Nytem4re

But bad people are going to be bad, and are going to be punished for being bad. Same here. Report the guys harassing and the mods will deal with it- unless you claim they won't, in which case, citation needed.

Saying that you have not seen any harassment towards marginalized groups is great, but I could easily say that I have seen people share some extremely bigoted views towards race and LGBT people on my time here, so I don't think that's also a good point to put across.

@Nytem4re

You could say that, and I'd like you to prove it.

If I haven't seen it, I can't give you any proof either because it doesn't exist for me. If you've seen it, then you can prove it too.

Then, once you have your motivation, we can discuss about whether or not the problem is widespread enough to be a problem. If it's people going out of their way to harass you over private DMs in discord then, well, yeah, you should probably screenshot that and forward it over to the mods so they can tell them cut it out or eat a ban.

Am I advocating for narcing? yes, yes I am. If you don't report a theft to the police, the police cannot get the chance to act on it.

And if you have reported it and they didn't act on it, then you should probably mention that incident.

I believe putting it in words makes sure there is no ambiguity in the guild's views on bigotry, and is a step forward in ensuring that better/more accountable moderation is put in place. The action taken to help marginalized groups feel safer can't just be the words added to the rules sure, because in the end those are just words. People have to enforce them, but having it in writing has little downside other than a more wordy rules section. Of course more needs to be done, but the guild should start taking the steps to do so.

@Nytem4re

Only if there is actually a problem in the first place. Sure, add it to the rules, but if it's the moderators being unwilling to enforce, then the problem isn't the rules, but the mods.

TLDR; citations or bust

EDIT: and, quite frankly, I already tire of this topic so I'm gonna head on out now. I really don't care enough if it's added or not either way.

Call To Action: Marginalized Groups Must Be Recognized In The Rules

Y'know I was about to quote

• Respect all members. Be pleasant to each other and treat people how you would like to be treated. Remember that respect comes in all forms and should be applied in everything that you do. When disagreements arise in discussion be sure to address them in good faith, ensuring that you avoid escalating them into any unnecessary conflict.

as being an anti-harassment rule but, as it turns out, this one is worded super lax. Still, I think the spirit of a rule called "respect all members" naturally umbrellas into "also respect the members of a more marginalized identity", don't you?

Otherwise I mostly agree with Dagger here; if there's harassment, I haven't seen it. If it's private enough, then I'm sure the members in question should be reported and dealt with accordingly. The mods on this site are pretty open folk; I really doubt it's a systemic problem. I'd also really like not to be stalked on this site; people can report me if my conduct is out of line (though most of my warnings come from the status bar, so I'm basically painting a target on myself, really)

I'm not ruling out the possibility of there being nasties on this site, but I really doubt they're ubiquitous enough to be much of a "root cause" problem.

Grimoiric Heart - A Magical Girl Adventure

Robin's arrow pierced clean through the titan's hand, yet that did not stop it from crashing down. Disbelief, shock and despair was on Robin's face, but it was only for a brief moment. She instinctively raised up her arms to protect herself and closed her eyes, bracing for the shine-shattering impact that was to follow ... except, that impact never came. Robin felt a shockwave for sure, but came from above her rather than on her. She slowly opened her eyes and looked at what's shielded her from the blow, only...

"What... in the world...?" Robin muttered with disbelief and disgust. Large, boney wings had formed a barrier and prison around Robin. No, not just Robin. She looked to her side. "Boundless!" she yelled in concern. Robin scooted over to check on Kanata, but the younger girl was fine. What wasn't fine was their surroundings. Though any damage inside the barrier would not normally translate into the real world, Yuri's actions were still much too reckless. Part of the construction was torn down, the machinery knocked over and dented. Yuri was going completely out of control without any regard of what's around him.

"...Even if it's you..."

Robin raised her weapon upwards, somewhat towards the giant. She began to concentrate her energy again.

"I promised... to protect everyone. That no matter who I had to fight, I'd definitely..."

Robin took a deep breath. She took aim at her target. One thought raced through her mind, just a split second before she settled on her decision.

'I'm sorry.'

Robin's arrow fired, right towards Yuri's back.

Grimoiric Heart - A Magical Girl Adventure

One, two, three- each time a Pageless was knocked back from the mochi, Robin's arrow pierced through them shortly after. The mission was going smoothly, but then Yuri made his entrance. Immediately apparent was that there was something very, very wrong with Yuri today. The aura oozing around him- it wasn't the usual warmth of his grimoire. It was cold, heartless and empty, much like the Pageless they were fighting. Even worse; Yuri was going on a rampage. And he was not helping the situation.

"Monarch, slow down!" Robin shouted towards her ally, but it fell on deaf ears. The Pageless, the humans, his teammates- everything in front of Yuri was just a nuisance. Robin had to watch as he started to turn the Pageless on her master. In fact, he was getting in the way of Robin's arrows. She tried to warn him: "I said- stop that!" she said, but then her voice started to trail off. "You'll get yourself... hurt..."

Robin's mind went blank for just a moment as she witnessed Yuri's butterflies take a hold of normal people and possess them. "Y-Yuri!" she yelled, completely disregarding his codename. "Stop that, Yuri! You're hurting those people-!" she yelled in vain. The boy wasn't listening. A new threat emerged and started sweeping aside Yuri's troops. Robin's legs moved on their own. Those humans would be unable to run in their zombie'd state and Robin knew this. She had to save them, in some way, no matter what. Strategy, tactics and her team be damned- she needed to save those people!

"Watch out!" she yelled as she managed to tackle one, and only one human out of the way. She'd be much, much too late to save another. What's even worse is that Yuzu's tackle, though it got the human to safety (and seemed to have dispelled Yuri's curse), had caused Robin to lay prone. Her mind was panicked, flustered. Spread across her knees, she aimed her bow upwards at the giant's hand. Robin focused, as hard as she could, to gather as much magical energy as possible into her arrow.

"Please... please work!" she desperately begged, firing off a much larger-than-usual projectile, but it seemed far from enough to stop the hand from crashing down.