Also, to reiterate what I said before somewhere: If you're using the word that is a homonym for both a homophobic slur AND a cigarette, you realize that it's technically two different words right? One is shorthand abbreviated of a full word - that word IS the homophobic slur in itself. The other is a full noun that is slang for cigarette. If you're literally saying "brb gotta find my pack of f-gs" that's quite obviously different than saying "so and so is such a f-g". We DO take context into account. However, regardless of if it's slang for another word (like the N word has become slang among some people to mean "friend" SOMEHOW), any usage of slurs or derogatory words or phrases has no place on our server. An interesting read about the usage of the N-word itself in today's culture Why "Free Speech" does not apply online I've not had a chance to really read through the entire thread. However I wanted to point out those two things.
Since we're mostly talking towards the same point I assume most of this is directed towards previous comments, but I do still think intent is really important. Especially when we're talking about what kind of community we're trying to build on this server. I agree that intent doesn't excuse offensive language, which is why I'm not suggesting that we remove the zero-tolerance policy. But I do think that intent should definitely determine what sort of "penitence" we want the offender to feel--in principle. But at the end of the day, like we've both said, we can talk about principles all we want, but the (im)practicality of implementing something like this definitely seems to be the main setback (which was more along what I was hoping to discuss in the first place). Especially after heated discussion in the shoutbox earlier today, it seems like the relevance of this issue for this serer has already been fully laid out multiple times, and the remaining discussion just seems like circular social commentary that people have been having for a long while. So unless anyone else has insights on the specific system of applying punishments to Harassment offenders in this server, maybe we should call it a rest on this particular topic.
Right, well continuing to argue philosophical differences on the use of words ultimately gets nowhere. I'll propose a compromise. Instead of banning a player outright for the use of inappropriate language, let's use the same protocols that we use for dealing with killstealing. The player warns them once and informs them that it is against the rules to use such language and MapleRoyals has a zero tolerance policy towards inappropriate language. If they fail to comply then you make a report which will ultimately lead to a 3 day ban. If we can follow this protocol for killstealing there is no reason we can't employ the same protocol for the use of inappropriate language. On the upside this may reduce the number of reports filed against players. I've noticed a fair amount of those complaints were filed against new players who were genuinely not aware of server rules.
No, I mean it's great. I can call someone an angry hateful slur and as long as I only do it once, they can't ban me.
In response to recent posts, it shouldn't be argued at all. I hate the word and hate it when other black people use it as a term of endearment to me. All derogatory slurs should be avoided. In the same world people want to use it as endearment to me, people have tried to have me killed or beaten up while screaming it like it's the ultimate battlecry. I don't often talk about derogatory terms but seeing derogatory terms overtime be used as a term of endearment makes no sense to me. Maybe it's coz I'm not dead yet and the next generation of people haven't taken over. But are people gonna pretend that something doesn't mean something when it does? For anyone's information, I take high offense to the word. From since when I was educated about it and experienced it (and I'm pretty sure until I die) I will forever hate the word. I don't speak on it because I don't expect to, because I personally see it as common sense to not use the word and anyone who doesn't just doesn't know any better. To whoever is concerned, even some of my friends who still use certain terms as endearment, don't take offense. I just 100% believe that there is no need for the word. And I vehemently disagree with its use in any way shape or form. In regards to the rest of the post, situations that require more of a moral input are best left unecountered. Set rules are easier to follow and cause less confusion. In fact, the only reason why people are complaining about it is because they didn't read it in the first place. Instead of changing terms and conditions maybe emphasize the ones that cause most controversy so people will know where the server stands.
But the point is rennac the person will not say racial slurs infront of you. The next time he/she/it says it in your vicinity you can report them. Isn't that the same logic behind banning slurs in all chat but not in whispers/guild/buddy?
That's not how kill stealing works though. There's a whole process that if the reportee misses something like a time stamp it won't be taken. It's a lot of work, and it should not be used for something like this. A single screenshot, regardless of how it was said, should be sufficient. As it stands, they get a 3 day ban for the first offense. I believe that is sufficient, more so, to teach people a lesson and prevent people from doing so in the first place. If we make it more complicated, people will abuse that. It's common sense to not call someone the N-word, kill-stealing however was rampant in GMS/EMS/AllMS and it's a lot more believable that someone might not know it's not okay here... hense the process, and explaining to the person it's not okay before measures need to be taken. The offenses on their own are also nothing alike. And what's that about allchat? I don't really get what you're saying.. the logic is zero tolerance, so people can't say it, period, in all chat. The buddy/guild thing is if they don't like it they can delete you. I can't remove some guy in all chat. All I can do is screenshot it and make a thread. You can choose you hang out with via buddy/guildies, you cannot do the same in all chat, hense how it's currently set up. Also, Do tell, who are the it's in your scenario?
No, I'm not suggesting you would need a timestamp to report someone for hate speech. Simply inform the offender once you see the hate speech that MapleRoyals has a zero tolerance policy on such behaviour and if she/he/(whatever pronoun the wish to be called) continues to ignore you, you make a report for a guaranteed ban. 1 screenshot thats it. Even with the current policy set in place you'll hear the word until the offender is banned. With the above policy it would be the same except new players who are not aware that hate speech is not allowed would have a chance to fix their mistakes. It's not just the n-word its all forms of ethnic slurs that falls under the zero tolerance policy. I'd also like to point out if a zero tolerance policy is the goal then you should be banning hate speech from all forms of chat whether public or private. Just because you delete someone from your personal chat, how does that excuse the person from the fact that they uttered hate speech? They should be banned for it as well. I said "it" because I wanted to be politically correct here. I'd rather not offend people that wish to be identified as something other then he or she.
The correct term would be "they" not "it" for what it's worth @Dawg. "It" is used for objects not living beings. The English language already has "singular they" in everyday speech.
I want to start by saying thank you for this wonderfully written and insightful post. I am personally a fan of walls of text, if you haven't been around for long enough to have noticed, so it fills me with joy that other people make them too. I want to address a couple of points that you've made as a bit of a summary, in case other posts in this thread haven't properly explained them. First off, the graduated objectionable language idea, and generally the concept of context and use of words. I can fully understand, as someone with a background that relates to old Britain and a few wonderful friends from the current day UK, that there are absolutely cultural differences when it comes to the use of some words. The slang term for a cigarette is one that is particularly interesting, as it is not only entirely contextually different from the far more negative derogatory homophobic slur, but it's even a generally different form of the word, three letters as opposed to six. Yes, I'm aware that the three letter form is also used to perpetuate homophobia. As such, context is key in understanding when someone is being truly negative as opposed to someone simply being that guy who still uses the old slang word for his pack of stogies. That being said, we want that contextual decisionmaking to be the only stress on our Game Masters when responding to a situation, rather than also having to determine a ban length as well. In my experience, the more complications a situation entails, the more likely an error will be made, and we'd like to avoid that wherever possible. There is also the point that it opens up more opportunity for ban appeals solely based on comparison between the judgments on their situations versus other situations in the past, which take away from the fact that a rule was broken, and are more the attempts made by people who are attempting to loophole and lawyer their way out of repercussions. To conclude, we like to keep this area simple because, as far as we're concerned, the use of these trigger words are just not acceptable, and we'd like to impress how strongly we feel about it by disallowing it wherever possible. Next, a short point on explaining that killstealing breaks our Terms and Conditions as part of the requirement to make a successful abuse report resulting in a penalty for the offending player; you're not the first player to raise concern about this. The original intent for adding that particular requirement was to ensure that meaningful discourse was expressed between the victim and offending party, rather than just one "cc pls" but in practice, the statement is correct that it conflicts with our otherwise universal statement that ignorance of the Terms and Conditions is not an excuse to break rules. We're looking at alternative policies to replace this outdated one, so thank you for the reminder, as well as a thank you to everyone else who raised the same concern. Now, a point on members of staff in general, beginning with a point on forum moderation. Believe it or not, many of the members of staff we have moderate the forum quite a bit, myself included. We are hit by quite a few spam bots on a regular basis, and they're cleaned away promptly enough that most regular forum users are none the wiser. Historically, I believe we have only ever had two members of staff specifically designated as Forum Moderators, both of whom eventually moved on to taking up a different role; @Andreas is now a wonderful developer for us that we're lucky to have, and @Katsuruka eventually moved on to becoming an Administrator before stepping down and retiring. The void is there, and we are definitely looking at applications regularly to fill that role. The same could be said about Game Masters in general; here at MapleRoyals, we've always been very particular about the Game Masters we hire, and have never had a very large staff compared to some other circles out there. Truthfully, we are very stringent on who we take. We do extensive searches into the history of a player who is applying to join us, and once taken on, we groom our Interns to be the best that they can be before graduating them to fully privileged Game Masters. We are fully aware that our server is returning to the high daily population that we enjoyed during 2016, and because of that, I'll amend my previous statement; we are not only looking at applications regularly to fill the forum moderation requirements, but also the requirements in-game that we have. I hope that that, along with informative posts from other members of the community and staff, answers your feedback and gives you some confidence that we are either patching the holes you've pointed out, or otherwise have good reasons for leaving things the way they are. Thank you for your feedback!
