I'm really surprised this didn't happen earlier in the discussion. I'm out for now, only so much I can handle.
?
Are you saying that there's no racist terms for whites?
He's trying to imply that certain folks are exempt for qualifying as targets of discrimination based on their demographic's privilege.
Partyboy, stop being racist and entitling your racial and sexual-orientational viewpoints to discriminate against other demographics based on the unquantifiable idea that because certain classes of people are richer/in the majority/entitled to something others don't have they are immune to insults based on characterizations intrinsic to their being.
You can't just pick and choose which races to treat properly, if you want to eliminate racism you
stop treating races unequally.
I think it's pretty close minded when people can't identify with any feelings other than their own, tbh. But that's kind of privilege in a nutshell, when the person in question doesn't have to worry about things other people have to. I mean, either that's the case, or the person just doesn't care. But that's when it crosses the line to being a sociopath.
Such as when you dismiss the opinions of someone based on their supposed "privilege".
I wasn't here when they decided saying the n word was against the rules, but I imagine there were a ton of tears and people swearing the game would lose half it's population and FREE SPEECH
Quite. It's in a similar position as particular homophobic slurs, in that it has a specific derogatory meaning that is hurtful and that still really gets to some people when said, but is also on the verge of being co-opted by people for a different, less specifically discriminatory usage. One could say, in fact, that because "f
ag" is still used in a negative light it's worse than the "N-word" because its meaning is not being changed to a form of mild endearment, or at least a more general expression of subject. For some reason the consensus is more often that the "N-word" is never allowable because its context tends to be less subject to interpretation... possibly because of the more prevalent alternative past meaning of "f
ag". It's easy to see why context matters more than the word itself, considering the extent of the possible use of language. Unconditional authority to punish people for using specific words goes against all reason, maybe we should be
more lenient towards chat abuse?.
I was only banning for a specific slur, much like the rules against racism are only for one specific slur.
And that is one of the reasons why you lost admin already. The rules are
not only against "one specific slur", it just happens to be that one slur is agreed off-hand to cause the largest amount of grief, whether that's true or not. Arbitrarily deciding that since one potential playerbase/demographic has been unrepresented by the enforcement of the rules and taking an extreme approach to curb offense against that one group is dismissive of the problems chat abuse actually creates and is probably missing the point of why there are chat abuse rules in the first place. It's also hypocritical and just as unfair.
It's rarely ever going to be the case that you can find an insult that someone, somewhere, hasn't been ridiculed with throughout their life, and are thus more sensitive to the term. Race, creed, gender, etc, doesn't matter. If we're going to enter into this discussion and actually try to fix the problem, then we need to actually fix the problem. That is, we as a community do the intellectually honest thing, and we deem all derogatory, hateful statements, as being 'wrong'.
Alas, I don't think this community is up for the task. Few communities on earth would be able to, as a whole, practice complete understanding and respect for one another. But any alternative to this, will either be hypocritical or intellectually dishonest in its implementation.
Furthermore, being offended and having specific offensive terms that apply to you do not entitle you to anything automatically. A "safe" gaming environment is a myth, you can be offensive and make a person feel horrible through entirely legitimate use of chat pertaining to things that by rights are fair and true to say and that no one would ever deem disallowed in chat. If a person feels discriminated against because of their actions or their personal characteristics, they're not necessarily the victim of a "privileged" conspiracy to keep people in the minority from feeling good about themselves, and they don't necessarily have the right to be exempt from being taunted or made fun of. To pick and choose which classes of people
are exempt from being taunted and made fun of based on a limited selection of derogatory terms is exclusionary, arbitrary, and unfair.
Simple solution:
Unban Farmer Nate and SpookIsland and use them to set the bar in terms of insults. Anyone that manages to be more offensive than them gets the ban-hammer.
SpookIsland is the only person I've encountered on cRPG that has been
legitimately homophobic through in-game chat. Incidentally, he's permabanned for his abuse of chat.
It's too much to ask to "end casual racism/homophobia/misogyny/discrimination against ___" but does that mean we shouldn't try? If it comes down to enforcing draconian chat rules that
restrict a large minority or even a majority of the server from playing the game, then yes, even if only through their own stubbornness. Banning five people in a span of five minutes over in-game chat, even as an example for the server, probably does not make the server a better place. I'd rather we focus on things that are objectively objectionable, such as specific, targeted intentional attempts to alienate players using offensive terminology. It may be that it makes for a more subjective style of administration and punishment, but the result is that people willfully breaking chat abuse rules are dealt with and players who don't
mean any harm are not punished
solely for their ignorance and inconsideration. If you'd like them to change their ways, be polite and approach them as an equal, not as a rulebreaking scum whose privilege makes them your unequal, warranting immediate admonition and punishment. Don't confuse your cause with the law, be civil and discuss problems and the people causing the problems might just respond positively. Of course, it's just as likely they'll troll you in response by using offensive speech again, but in that case if all they're trying to do is grief using chat they're in a less defensible position, rules-wise.
Conclusion: We can do better to stymie the most negative effects that abuses of in-game chat can cause, but "policing" chat and punishing people should not be our priority in dealing with it. If the end result is that we are subjectively dealing with chat abuse on a case by case basis and therefore exclude some underrepresented groups and administrate unfairly, it's a better situation than unfairly determining which groups get represented based on some arbitrary notion of "privilege" and past plight, literally discriminating against other groups in the process.
