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Let me just state beforehand that I am not going to discuss this particular rule with you as this is not some debate or academic setting where we're contesting ideas - it's a free mod in which the devs and admins have given me a free hand to reshape this specific rule as I see fit in order to combat a rising and troublesoume tendency in NA servers that was reported to me by both admins and players, and also frequently posted on forums (alone during those 2 weeks I saw 2 collages of NA chat being uncivilized). Therefore I made an authoritarian use of my power and did as I pleased, naturally asking for opinion from a few other admins and Dupre, but in the end, it was not a democratically or openly discussed change. We want to uphold a certain standard in this mod, but it goes beyond that in my opinion.
The rule itself is not up to debate and I appreciate that you can respect it, and to be honest even if you're lowkey baiting me you raise a valid point so let me go in hook, line and sinker.
I'll try to explain my reasoning without sounding like a cunt, thought as long as I get my point across that's irrelevant to me))
Your question actually inspired me a bit to look into why I treated racism and homophobia differently, only expanding upon the racism rules - and I also ignored things like sexism, pedophilia jokes, transphobic jokes.
I'm a hypocrite here, as yes, I don't treat those forms of discrimination equally, as you can clearly see from my OP. I believe I have my good reasons for that, and that in the end, the result will be a net positive, at the very least the situation will not become worse.
To start off, there's a reason why the rule itself remained unchanged for so long, and for the longest time, we thought it was enough that it said "No abuse of in-game chat (racism, insulting, griefing, spamming...)", because it was simple, and concise. So what was the problem? That it had probably 100 meanings according to 100 people. Such is the issue with seemingly "simple" rules. I felt the need to make it more precise, with the intention to cull a rising trend of frequent usage of racist slurs in NA servers. I know there are other slurs in use, but the quantity of racist ones was a bit shocking to me at first.
Ramsey Clark wrote a simple yet profound paragraph once regarding why having rules or laws is almost never enough, and I'll quote him:
"The law can only express a goal. It cannot fulfill that goal. We impose too much on the law because it seems easy to say that something shall be and then expect it to be. But life does not work that way; it never did and it never will. It takes people and institutions and hard work to make things so. "I didn't expand on that rule because I believe it'll end the discrimination issue once and for all in cRPG; I wrote it hoping to start some tendency, a possibility for change of the behaviour of people in cRPG. As Clark wrote, it requires people, institutions and hard work to make things so. Laws and rules shouldn't never be reduced to just being scarecrows for people - they should teach, show how to act, and guide them.
My main reason for tackling racism alone is the practical reason - there's just a much higher quantity of racist content in chat compared to other types of slurs or chat abuse, and I'd wager to say that majority of mutes and bans ever handed out for chat abuse were due to racism. Of course, it could also mean that possible chat abuse that didn't include racism wasn't as reported, or was possibly ignored or downplayed, but I'm not omnipotent to know that. It is however fair to assume that not everything is treated as equally "bad".
Also, related to this, is that racism is much less ingrained in the online culture than, say, words like "bundle of sticks" or "retard". I think it's important to not let it grow roots now, while we still can firmly stand against it, in turn putting up with the homophobia and other forms of discrimination.
I am not a fan of this status quo, but let's be frank here with each other - some offensive words have became part of the online gaming culture, and I am not going to wage war on that, instead I want to target something that I find inexcusable.
Not related to multiplayer gaming at all, but racism is, along with sexism, one of the "easier" forms of discrimination. You don't need to know much about the other person - it's enough to see them once and if you know their skin colour, your racist tendencies can arise, unlike say making fun of their sexual orientation which would require you to know a little more about them.
Another thing is that racism and sexism is hating a person for things they have absolutely no power over - you do not choose your sex, you do not choose your skin colour. I know the same thing can be said about your sexual orientation and other traits like mental condition et all, but those two stand out as something that you cannot hide - again, it does not completely apply to online interactions as you can just keep your mouth shut and never mention either of those things.
We talk of what we can do - "we', as in the admins. But what can
you do? Change starts at the bottom, with the players in this case, showing that they are not ok with behaviour that contradicts the rules. Insulting is already against the rules, must we go into detail here as well and list out all the instances in which insulting is "indeed, not ok"? We can, but remember what I said earlier - law can
never fulfill a goal. It can express it, it can express it much more clearly, or leave it open to interpretation. I decided to narrow it down in case of racist slurs, but that's it, at least for now. I had my practical reasons to do this, and trust me, I wish I didn't have to do it. I'd much rather leave the field open to admin interpretation to avoid silly situations in which a concrete rule causes a illogical situation, but sometimes we just can't have nice things.
I don't want to delve into human dignity in this wall of text, it's a very expansive subject with many contradictory points of views which don't make as much sense in online setting. I hope at least some of that made sense to you, in the end, it is (I want to believe) an adequate response to a problem. It's not a solve-it-all, but it's a start. However the rest is not up to me, it's up to you guys.
