“Words”

Hello,

I have been reading the forums, lots of things about offensive words and bans...

I have opinions on how and why these may have been changed, however I think there needs to be a fine line between what is acceptable to say and what isn’t, 

Also, I assume all Permanent Bans before this relating to words we no longer find offensive will be reverted as Time Served?

just want to make sure it’s across the board,

cheers,

Now this does not mean you can use every other word under the sun because this report said something else. The staff team will retain the ability to deal with this on a case to case basis and issue punishments to the degree that we see fit.

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•  From a case by case basis we will introduce the Fair Ban System into the C1.2. Excessive use and so forth will and can still lead to a permanent ban but as stated before, case by case.
  

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Inline with what Stavik said, it depends on what is said and the context you find yourselves. Should you be using phrases or words that may be acceptable in character, ingame, they may not be acceptable in the liaison room after the situation.

Because of this, any C1.2 ban issued since tuesday that are similar to this case, will be reverted to a 1 day ban, and unbanned as time served. The next ban issued will follow the normal proceidure of the fair ban system.

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We've dealt with the handful of bans that were made from the day we made the decision until now, bans issued before we looked at the rule are still valid, for the same reason we don't retroactively ban people for new rules when they are introduced.

In my opinion, we either make it completely fine to say words like "Retard" ect. Or we make it perma bannable. 

The issue i find with our community, is there's no nuance. "You said this, you broke a rule". People rarely look at the context which is shameful. 

Also, using a word, doesn't mean you support the meaning. I call my mates "Fucking idiots", i don't truly believe this, it's something that's said in the right context.

Jayray Holder said:

In my opinion, we either make it completely fine to say words like "Retard" ect. Or we make it perma bannable. 

The issue i find with our community, is there's no nuance. "You said this, you broke a rule". People rarely look at the context which is shameful. 

Also, using a word, doesn't mean you support the meaning. I call my mates "Fucking idiots", i don't truly believe this, it's something that's said in the right context.

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If you don't support the meaning of words that are cast down from racial or discriminatory backgrounds into what you might consider slang, or colloquial language my advice is, don't use them. As many figures throughout the history of literature have said, words are powerful. It is not "Being a snowflake" to take offence from words that take specific lineage from discrimination and indeed are still used for discrimination today, just because those words might have fallen into the regular vocabulary of others. 
You are fully aware of what you are saying and the context of which it is said. Where it is meant to cause personal offence (i.e. what could be considered non-roleplay), and/or offence was received we have taken action, as always to protect members of the community. 

Qrow said:

If you don't support the meaning of words that are cast down from racial or discriminatory backgrounds into what you might consider slang, or colloquial language my advice is, don't use them. As many figures throughout the history of literature have said, words are powerful. It is not "Being a snowflake" to take offence from words that take specific lineage from discrimination and indeed are still used for discrimination today, just because those words might have fallen into the regular vocabulary of others. 
You are fully aware of what you are saying and the context of which it is said. Where it is meant to cause personal offence (i.e. what could be considered non-roleplay), and/or offence was received we have taken action, as always to protect members of the community. 

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I agree partially. 

We are an adult community. Adults use adult phrases, again, it's all in context. 

I totally words are powerful, they've caused massacres, wars and more, but again, context. You can be offended, no one is saying they can't, but i don't understand how we can't say the word which i quoted above, but i can say "You're an absolute fucking idiot" within RP. Both end up meaning the same thing, which is "Lacking of intellect". The only thing that's different is the wording. 

If someone said "Don't use that word in front of me" or "Don't call me that", i'd stop. But members should be given the benefit of the doubt to use adult language. Again, saying a word doesn't mean agreeing with the definition. We've all said the word "Nazi". Yet i doubt none of us would ever say we agree with the ideology. 

If i say to you "You are mentally delayed" or "You are slow" or "You are an idiot". All of those words can be sacrified for the word "Retard". Yet i doubt any of those previous sentences would net you a ban. So really, there needs to be a rule of "Don't be rude", which limits roleplay. 

In my opinion, if it's said in RP, it is fine, within reason. It's not an easy thing to decide, i am not saying the current rule is right or wrong, i am just putting forward a point.

Everything in moderation

I understand that banning a group of words is alot easier than looking at every individual case. 

Jayray Holder said:

If i say to you "You are mentally delayed" or "You are slow" or "You are an idiot". All of those words can be sacrified for the word "Retard". Yet i doubt any of those previous sentences would net you a ban. So really, there needs to be a rule of "Don't be rude", which limits roleplay. 
 

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Okay, so what I say to you, is that it is precisely that reason why that particular word would, in my opinion, be unacceptable. 
It has always conjoured the imagery of being an idiot, being mentally delayed, etc but these people who were at one time described as "Mentally Retarded" were not slow. They were not idiots. They were suffers of learning difficulties, or people who had succumbed to mental illness. Or even people who had been treated for mental illness in a quite barbaric methodology. 
The word is discriminatory against those groups, and legally speaking people with learning difficulties fall into a protected group in exactly the same way a person who is part of an ethnic minority would. I don't think we'll see anyone arguing for the use of the N-word because saying "That person is black" carries similiar meaning. 

Qrow said:

Okay, so what I say to you, is that it is precisely that reason why that particular word would, in my opinion, be unacceptable. 
It has always conjoured the imagery of being an idiot, being mentally delayed, etc but these people who were at one time described as "Mentally Retarded" were not slow. They were not idiots. They were suffers of learning difficulties, or people who had succumbed to mental illness. Or even people who had been treated for mental illness in a quite barbaric methodology. 
The word is discriminatory against those groups, and legally speaking people with learning difficulties fall into a protected group in exactly the same way a person who is part of an ethnic minority would. I don't think we'll see anyone arguing for the use of the N-word because saying "That person is black" carries similiar meaning. 

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I agree, and would love to PM you instead of potentially causing drama with my next comment.

Qrow said:

Okay, so what I say to you, is that it is precisely that reason why that particular word would, in my opinion, be unacceptable. 
It has always conjoured the imagery of being an idiot, being mentally delayed, etc but these people who were at one time described as "Mentally Retarded" were not slow. They were not idiots. They were suffers of learning difficulties, or people who had succumbed to mental illness. Or even people who had been treated for mental illness in a quite barbaric methodology. 
The word is discriminatory against those groups, and legally speaking people with learning difficulties fall into a protected group in exactly the same way a person who is part of an ethnic minority would. I don't think we'll see anyone arguing for the use of the N-word because saying "That person is black" carries similiar meaning. 

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So why don’t we keep the rules the way they are and say if you say “retard” or any offensive term (discriminative, phobic, etc) you are removed from the community. I appreciate people call each other Retards in real life, however if you said a lot of things IRL you’d find yourself in trouble with the police.

In my brutally honest opinion, and please do not ban me for my opinion, it feels like you (staff team) were happy to Ban and remove Tojkat from the community entirely (both servers) instantly. 
 

but when it appears that a senior staff member may have acted similar, the rules were changed, which seemed to fit,

Completely my opinion, however it does look like one rule for one and the rule changed because of the other...

If it was up to me, both would be gone because using terms like that are said to victimise and damage people, it’s the same as using any offensive term that you’d be banned for, racism, homophobic, sexist, ageist, etc...

TLDR: Just because it’s within Roleplay, doesn’t make it ok. Otherwise you can’t draw the line, One could RP a homophobic, racist American?

I highly suggest that you once again read what was posted.

It’s easy to say the changes were already in motion and that the two cases are unrelated.

but the facts we see as a community, was one member perma banned. And only after an admin was reported for the same offence was his ban overturned. From an outside POV it seems like one rule for us and one rule for you guys. (Not unlike you in the BZ actually )

in terms of the actual rule; context is everything IMO. I think it should more focus on this, rather than the actual words being used. A word itself cannot be offensive, only in the context it’s used do they generate meaning.

An example of the n-word, probably the most terrible word to be used, but it’s used as a greeting between friends within certain communities, and sometimes used without malice. But even the thought of the word is blacklisted on the server.

Aiden said:

Inline with what Stavik said, it depends on what is said and the context you find yourselves. Should you be using phrases or words that may be acceptable in character, ingame, they may not be acceptable in the liaison room after the situation.

We've dealt with the handful of bans that were made from the day we made the decision until now, bans issued before we looked at the rule are still valid, for the same reason we don't retroactively ban people for new rules when they are introduced.

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So at the time of this incident, it was a ban-able offence. Why is @DELETERstill a staff member if he broke a community rule?

obviously like you say, can’t deal with it retrospectively, but in line with what stavik said.

deleter broke the rule before the rule change? So should he not be community banned? 

YoCo said:

So at the time of this incident, it was a ban-able offence. Why is @DELETERstill a staff member if he broke a community rule?

obviously like you say, can’t deal with it retrospectively, but in line with what stavik said.

deleter broke the rule before the rule change? So should he not be community banned? 

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I think he got a “24hr” ban, from the servers, which doesn’t really make a difference...

Can we as an open and honest community also understand going backwards, how many people have been banned for saying the term that is now over ruled? I can see 368 mentions of the word “Retard” in the Forum Search, however I expect some of them aren’t relevant and also some won’t be captured as the person put re**rd or some shit.

anyway, I think they should be reassessed as I assume some people have even had unban appeals rejected.

my unpopular opinion: “either reinstate permanent bans on anyone using the word and treat ableism the same as you would racism, sexism, homophobia, etc.”

OR

”Remove that from the rules, along with most other things related to verbal conversation (apart from maybe racism) and then rollback 1.2 bans that are no longer covered”

@YoCowhat are your views?

I must admit, it's brilliant how we are a community against "Discrimination" (As you said context is everything)

Yet we now dish out a 1 day ban for something that is apparently viewed as abhorrent.

As i said, it should either be fine and unbannable within the right context, or it should net a perma ban. Makes no sense how people claim it's a terrible word, yet a 1 day ban is all that's received 

Well, we went from

“I took this excerpt because I feel it voices the feelings of the community perfectly and adequately. Whether you agree with it or not is up to you, but you won't be back until you change your tune. 1.2 from both GTA and Altis.”

to

“This being said, as this is the first offence of DELETER in the Fair Ban system he will be banned for 24hrs.

There will also be internal staff punishments.”

a day apart, it just doesn’t make sense. 
 

id like to reiterate that I think the context should always be key, and should be incorporated more into the rules to demonstrate this.

If that's not hypocrisy, i don't know what is.

@Jayray Holder@YoCo, I'm glad we agree on something!

Tbh i agree with you boys as well. A rule is a rule easy as. Staff or not......

Tbh it just seems like an unfair system. If the word "retard" is just as bad as the "n word" then why is the punishment different?