Since my first website, I’ve known how powerful technology can be, especially when that technology is used to connect people. It seems to amplify our connections, to tie us into a wider world and give us context and perspective. Gaming communities have a wonderful air of belonging to them, because no matter what, we’re at least all gamers.
Yes, there is also quite a bit of “I’d hit it,” Nazi accusations, a fundamental misunderstanding of what the right of free speech actually means, and cat videos, but I’ll bet even a shining city on a hill has a sewer. Can’t know daylight without the dark, etc. The darkness is at least our choice. The internet is the great leveler where all of us are judged by what we choose to share, not the things we can’t help. Most of all, it allows us to not be alone.
Anyway, I was watching some YouTube, because, you know, Maru, and I followed a chain of links until I got to some stuff that choked me up. I’m not ashamed. I defy you to watch many of the It Gets Better Project videos without choking up. Personally, I couldn’t watch more than three without wanting to freaking DO something, as long as that something was not “yet another straight girl making a blurry video.”
There’s something I’ve been doing already. Gaming forums, being somewhat dominated by young straight males, tend to be one of the last places in our culture where you can toss around homophobic (and misogynist) slurs with abandon. I don’t mean there’s always evil intent. When you ask one of these kids why he said “gay” when what he meant was “stupid” or “contemptible,” most of the time he’ll just blink at you. A few of them mumble an explanation that basically goes “I didn’t mean gay, like, GAY. It’s just a word on a gaming forum, it doesn’t mean anything.”
Well, it’s not just a word, it does mean something, and I don’t allow it to be used in a derogatory way on any channel where I have mod powers. If you do allow it, you’re basically saying to every kid who is LGBT or questioning that his or her kind isn’t really welcome in your community, and that the only way they can stay is if they pretend they don’t care. Just like you don’t care if some mouthbreather uses “gay” as the very worst possible insult.
Wanna know something interesting? It will cost you nothing to change this paradigm. It doesn’t take very long, or many repetitions of “do not use that word” before people find other, better insults. You don’t even have to ban, or get agitated. You just have to say no. I’ve proven it on multiple forums ranging in size from hundreds to tens of thousands of people. So much for “it’s just a word gamers use.” Gaming forums do not have to be ruled by the worst our genre has to offer.
So, speaking of help: Help me, fellow mods and CMs. (And help me, players, by reporting and not responding when you see it.) We’ve got to stop tolerating homophobia in our communities. I’m not saying we have to go and get gay married. You don’t even have to support an agenda of any kind. All you have to do is say that you will not permit one of your customers to call another one of your customers a faggot.
Here is my pledge:
If you’re young and LGBT, I want you to know that gaming is getting better. In any community that I run, you will not be called names if you choose to be open about your identity and orientation. I will not allow the use of homophobic slurs, either at you or near you. I will not work for an employer who does not have my back on this. My forums are a safe place where you are not “other.” You are not alone. You are, always and forever, one of us.
Laudable pledge. But you can only offer justice, not prevention. What I mean is that as a Moderator, your powers are reactionary. Once the word/thought/idea has been published, and read, the damage is done. Yes, depending on the reader’s thickness of skin, words can and do hurt. Sure, you can be proactive toward prevention, but you cannot guarantee 100% success.
As an older gamer from way-back, I don’t tolerate homophobic communities. Heck, I don’t tolerate a lot of what kids these days do … *shakes fist* Get offa my lawn! My point though is that LGBT has become more present and accepted by the general public over the years. And that carries into gaming culture by default. I agree that (small minded) gamers tend to be more homophobic and misogynistic, perhaps because they’re ingrained with the ideas of “do what it takes to win” or “win at all costs” … which can lead to demeaning others in order to build oneself up. Not going to armchair-psychoanalyze further (*collective sigh of relief*). But close minds will never completely go away, and words will always continue to hurt.
Laudable.
We might not be able to prevent it but we teach our communities that it is not acceptable. And you know what happens? The community doesn’t accept it. They report it. They ignore it. And soon it is only those new to the community who don’t know any better and the troublemakers who don’t care and find themselves removed eventually.
As a moderator for a community with thousands of posters and posts per day, the amount of homophobicslurs I have to remove are so few that it is a rarity now.
Reacting quickly and to the appropriate degree is a (not 100% effective) form of prevention. People respond to incentives and disincentives, and when it’s clear that “I won’t be accepted in this community if I use this language” as evidenced by reactions to other people who have tried, then that behavior is effectively discouraged and prevented in a way no word filter could achieve. You can find strong correlations between increased law enforcement for a crime and decreased occurrence in real life data. I think it’s logical to conclude that it’s causal.
Ergo, reaction IS prevention.
Exactly, chanell! When I was moderating forums for an MMORPG, I found that people who used “gay” or “f@#” as a slur were overwhelmingly not homophobic. They just had picked it up along the way as an effective insult. I didn’t have to ban anyone on the forums, a few warnings was all it took to explain that this particular insult would not be tolerated, because it made things worse for actual gay people. I actually got several apologies that seemed truly remorseful from ESL users who didn’t know the other meaning.
I did have to ban two homophobes in-game who really did believe what they were saying, but they didn’t take their venom to the forums, they spread it in the game world where they thought they wouldn’t get caught. Of course, they were. Even though they weren’t officially reported, when feelings are hurt word gets around.
This is worthy goal. I’ve tried to do this with the forum and guild that I’ve run in a few games. It’s hard sometimes, people can be clueless and just think you’re being draconian when you try and stop it. But it can work. No one in my guild uses “gay” as a slur anymore. At least not on our forums or any time I’ve ever been with them in game. Granted, we’re a small group and it was never very prevalent to begin with, but it can work.
Amen sister. It gets so much better.
I’ve never understood why ‘gay’ came to mean what it means in the above context. Just like I never understood why calling someone a feminine word as a slur was an insult. I’m female… am I not supposed to be? Is being female a terrible awful nasty bad thing? Is being queer a terrible awful nasty bad thing?
No. I don’t take part in any discussion along those lines, and hate to see conversations devolve into that. So I say ‘Thank you’ to all moderators who work to prevent that devolution from happening.
As the caretakers for a Community that has a history of being supportive of GLBT Communities, our team is fortunate to not have to put up with this nonsense on a regular basis. Due to the work of those that preceded me in shaping this wonderful group of players (ohaithar April), we work with a Community that’s largely accepting and mature. Not to say it doesn’t happen from time to time, but it’s the exception rather than the rule.
We don’t tolerate this type of behavior within the Community and, most importantly, our Community doesn’t tolerate it amongst themselves. Chanell is 100% correct that an ounce of encouragement and prevention goes a long way towards shaping a positive environment for all participants.
@Ditchinit I disagree about not being able to prevent it. I have run many communities and their forums, and created a censored word list including those named above (and others), as well as set a certain tone of respect and asked my community members to follow it. It’s not as difficult as one might think to create, foster and manage a community where these words and attititudes are absent. Thanks, Sanya.
Thanks so much for this post and for the sentiments. I teach and work with GLBTQ teenagers and people like you taking a stand DO make a difference. Kudos.
Thanks again.
Policing communities is difficult. Different people have different understandings of what is acceptable and what isn’t.
Case in point: I’d consider “Gaming forums, being somewhat dominated by young straight males, tend to be one of the last places in our culture where you can toss around homophobic (and misogynist) slurs with abandon.” to be a discriminating statement, while you obviously don’t.
How do we resolve that disagreement?
Doing it your way because it says “Moderator” next to your name seems arbitrary and despotic, but giving in to anyone with a complaint runs the risk of creating a community where virtually every word is forbidden, making communication impossible.
Most people would agree that using “gay” as an insult is wrong, but what about other forms of discrimination?
Is every sexual orientation/fixation sacred, or just the presentable ones? Do you step in against ableist comments? Can your community members call something retarded? idiotic? crazy? lame?
Am I allowed to say that you’re treating one of your products like a “redheaded stepchild”? Or that orphans are inferior?
Since its probably impossible to allow freeflowing communication while also protecting every sensibility, I’d feel more comfortable with not banning any words rather than selectively banning a few.
In general, I’d prefer to see consequences for meaning, not word choice.
Insulting someone should be a punishable offense, no matter how exactly the insult was phrased, complaing about a game mechanic or class should not be, even if they call it “gay”.
I’m sure that plenty of communities exist for you which will allow you to call whatever you want gay, and will continue to meet your needs. I’m very glad, however, that there are community managers thinking about what kind of a community they want to manage.
Thank you, Ms. Weathers. As a 31 year old gay man, I’ve long gotten over feeling insulted when someone says “that’s gay.” However, it still frustrates me, and I always report posts that use “gay” as a universal adjective for “bad.” It’s comforting to know there are mods/CMs like you out there, who will at least take it seriously… If not for me, then for all of the LGBT kids out there who are alienated by the negative usage of the word every day.
Yes. Moderators: you can fix this. Back when I was a sprout moderating a VNBoards Asheron’s Call server board, I decided not to put up with “gay” as an insult. It took a couple of weeks, I had to ban one person, but it ended.
Thanks, Sanya.
So many names I know! And given that ALL of us have proven that it’s doable – some of you on bigger communities than I’ve run – and doesn’t require some kind of crazy crackdown, it kinda says something about the complacency that lets this run rampant elsewhere.
@Reaper: Because saying someone is “gay” (using the word to mean something negative) is clearly discriminatory. Saying that gaming is dominated by young straight males who toss around the word “gay” (using the word to mean something negative) is an observation with no judgment whatsoever.
The reason gaming is dominated by that group is because forums without anyone shaping the tone tend to throw around words very carelessly – words that send a subtle message about who the speaker is and how much respect that speaker has for other people and what the dominant speaker type is.
Words MATTER. They are the only thing that matters in text-based communication!
Reductio ad absurdum does not make homophobic slurs acceptable. Would you allow a player to run around screaming “nigger”? Has anyone ever committed suicide after being called a redheaded stepchild?
And yes, intent matters. Someone who says a class mechanic is “gay” may not have evil intent, as I said. He may just be from a forum where such things were tolerated because the mod thought it wasn’t worth fighting. (“Everyone does it and no one actually means GAY gay.”) I don’t ban that kid or even suspend him for a first offense. I just edit his post with the public message “we don’t use that word here.”
You seem to be suggesting that the word “gay” is meant in a trivial sense. Well, if it’s so trivial to the speaker… and you now know that it isn’t trivial to many listeners… why not pick a different word?
I care about making my forum into a home for all types of people. I think a community last longer when there is a range of ages, genders, religions, races, and attitudes in general. (That’s right, this isn’t just liberal hippie treehugging, this is BUSINESS.) It’s no skin off the young straight guy’s nose to use a different word for a dumb design, and by NOT letting him use “gay,” or my favorite, “carebear faggot,” my forum is that much better for 10% of the population.
As a retired Marine it always annoyed me when people cant live the way they choose here in the States. I spent a life time defending a document that still only covers about 90% of our population, so the use of various words tends to irk me. I never allowed my Marines to use any type of slur whether the intent be harmful or not. It sets a bad precedent and allows the user leeway to use other actions that are detrimental to life in general.
@Sanya:
You say forums are the way they are because they are populated with young, straight males.
Implying that all young, straight males are homophobic and misogynistic sounds like judgement to me.
Further, dismissing the main thrust of my argument as “Reductio ad absurdum” seems evasive.
The central point of my argument was that any action taken by a moderator should be just, using the rules to protect one specific group while excluding others is decidedly unjust.
So, if you punish users for using the word “gay”, you should also punish them for using the word “lame”.
You seem to believe that the examples I gave were meant to be exessive in order to make a point, while actually, they are all examples I have personally seen in online communities (the orphan one was something of a portal reference, but people actually DID complain about that).
Needless to say, the communities that actually enforce the “no ableist, x-ist, y-ist, z-ist” rules are practically incapable of having a conversation beyond “ME TOO”.
In the end, it comes down to personal preference. For my part, if I could not come up with a rule that can be sensibly applied to everyone, I’d rather not have the rule at all.
Implying that all young, straight males are homophobic and misogynistic sounds like judgement to me.
I agree with this, it seems like “common sense” or “common knowledge” but as Einstein said “Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen”. I certainly have no doubt young women can be equally vicious and gang up on smaller groups. And there is no research indicating whether young men seem homophobic because they are truly prejudiced, or if they pick on gay teens for the same reason they pick on other small groups.
There is not really enough research to know it’s because “they are young and male and therefore homophobic” it’s just an ignorant (as in unsupported) statement.
using the rules to protect one specific group while excluding others is decidedly unjust.
On one hand yes you are right, but in the real world, the answer to this is “you have to start somewhere”. I doubt any game company really has the money to hire enough moderators or even advanced AIs that can be trained to recognize possible insults instead of just recognizing words. The task is far too expensive and too great, and they would lack the money to spend on creating new games.
I would say, special attention to protect kids who don’t have social support, especially groups where the community is not self policing. A community may tear apart anyone who uses racial slurs, that community may not need special attention paid to racial slurs, except for banning the worst offenders, since it polices itself well. But if they do not protect gay or handicapped or other members, then the moderator needs to take up the slack and police it for them.
And the truth is gay kids have it worse than most minority groups. Gay teen suicide is far higher than suicide among other ostracized groups. Because of that alone, if we are going to start somewhere, we need to start with the most vulnerable kids.
Any other minority, whether mentally or physically handicapped, “nerds” or other groups, or racial minorities, can easily find like members to commiserate with and support each other. Gay kids cannot, because it requires them to out themselves. I think this is a major reason why gay teen suicide is so high compared to other ostracized groups, since they are quite literally alone, instead of feeling all alone like most teens do.
My large, multi-game, gaming community will not tolerate any racist, sexist, or otherwise bigoted speech, either on our forums or within the areas of game over which we have control (i.e. chat functions, voice com). Homophobic slurs have never been acceptable, and new members who use “gay” as an epithet for bad or stupid stuff are quickly informed that such language is unacceptable. Repeated use is bannable.
Your column, though, challenges us to go beyond what we’re already doing. We need to let the GMs know that we think that what most perceive are “minor” homophobic slurs are just as unacceptable as what some perceive as “minor” racist slurs.
Oh man. Am I to blame for your recent Maru addiction? If so…I’m so not sorry. He’s awesome.
As for people throwing around the word “gay”, my brother-in-law uses that alot and he’s still a net kiddie type even though he’s almost 30. Makes me want to punch him in the face, but since he’s a troll that’s probably the reaction he wants. Sigh.
@Reaper
Telling someone that he cannot call someone else a “faggot,” or dismiss an argument as “gay,” DOES NOT protect one group and exclude another group. That is nonsense. How is the one group excluded from protection? How is a young straight male HARMED by using the word “stupid” or “ridiculous” in place of “gay”?
Show me where I said that all young straight males are homophobic and misogynistic. I didn’t. I was very, very clear that the words are in most cases being used without malice, because the people using them don’t know any better. They have never been told that the words are hurtful. I said, several times now, that the usual explanation from the people in question was that the word has no meaning beyond a vague negative.
Saying that a word has no meaning does not make it so!
I said that a forum dominated by that group is a place where such attitudes are tossed around without consequences. That is an observation based on ten years of this kind of work, backed up by decades of research. If everyone around you is purple, it is hard to conceive of green.
Saying that you shouldn’t stop people from throwing around vicious, hurtful slurs because those slurs are the moral equivalent of “lame” or “idiotic” is about as r.a.a. as it gets. Sorry.
I also can’t believe you’re suggesting that the choice of whether or not to permit vicious, hurtful slurs is a matter of “personal preference.” This is basic human decency.
I will grant that, because insults fall into a range, the choice of where to draw the line is up to personal preference. Within the last hundred years, perfectly nice people said “nigger” with no malice intended. Of course, the use of that word denoted an entire system of assumptions, a framework resting on the assumption that dark skin was bad and that people with dark skin were of less value and lesser consequence.
Using “gay” as a casual insult denotes a framework, a societal attitude, that “gay” is negative. If you say using it is personal preference, you’re saying you either believe or you’re totally okay with the idea that something that is gay is something that is negative.
“Telling someone that he cannot call someone else a “faggot,” or dismiss an argument as “gay,” DOES NOT protect one group and exclude another group. That is nonsense. How is the one group excluded from protection? How is a young straight male HARMED by using the word “stupid” or “ridiculous” in place of “gay”?”
I didn’t say it harmed the young, straight male.
What I said was: Censoring slurs refering to homosexuality, but allowing those refering to (for example) disabilities, obviously excludes people with disabilities from your protection, which is unjust.
“Show me where I said that all young straight males are homophobic and misogynistic. I didn’t.”
You said that a forum full of young, straight males will be homophobic and misogynistic. I don’t see any other way of interpreting this other than the implication that young men are homophobic and this influences the communities they congregate in.
Mind you, I’m not saying it might not be true, I’m just saying its discriminating even then.
“Saying that you shouldn’t stop people from throwing around vicious, hurtful slurs because those slurs are the moral equivalent of “lame” or “idiotic” is about as r.a.a. as it gets.”
This may be the most important part here:
“lame” and “idiotic” ARE the moral equivalent of “gay”, the only difference is that you personally don’t think so. Sorry, but that just isn’t good enough to justify making it company policy.
“I also can’t believe you’re suggesting that the choice of whether or not to permit vicious, hurtful slurs is a matter of “personal preference.” This is basic human decency.”
You are right, preventing vicious, hurtful slurs is basic human decency. Thats not what you are talking about however, you are talking about preventing slurs against groups that you personally deem worthy of protection.
This, once again, was the main point of my initial argument that you somehow seem to miss:
Protecting certain groups against slurs while not protecting others is unjust. On the other hand, protecting everyone suffocates communication under a thick layer of political correctness.
Both choices are (in my opinion) so flawed that the only solution I would personally feel justified in implement would be “neither”.
I am not telling you (or anyone) how to run your community, I’m simply expressing that I would personally feel uncomfortable to say “You can’t viciously attack those, those and those, but these people over here are fair game”.
Your argument seems to be essentially:
1. You can’t prevent all harm, so you’ll be unable to prevent harm to some groups.
2. Choosing to prevent harm to one group rather than another is unjust.
3. Therefore, attempting to prevent harm is unjust.
On the other hand, practical civil society is based on the argument:
1. There certainly are groups that we wish to prevent harm to.
2. There’s a limit to how many groups we can protect this way.
3. Therefore, we will do what we can because we must.
If that makes you feel uncomfortable, having to make choices, welcome to being a human being. It does not, however, eliminate the need to make those choices.
Please see my reply to Sanya further down, I hope it also addresses your points.
P.S.: Portal references are fun
Derailing for Dummies is a fun game, I’m sure. This strawman you’re knocking about in this conversation is a variant of “Oppression Olympics” http://www.derailingfordummies.com/#oppression whether or not you’re claiming to be part of another marginalized group that you seem to think is being ignored because we want to help LGBT kids.
Nice try, but only a 2.0 on execution for Oppression Gymnastics. Better luck next time.
I approve of this policy wholeheartedly, but I’m also glad to see you giving gentle warnings before laying out the banhammer.
The word “gay” is in an interesting state of flux – many kids nowadays call something “gay” in the exact same way I would have called something “dumb” when I was a kid. I wasn’t making fun of mute people, and in fact I was only vaguely aware that “dumb” was a reference to such a person. But as our language has evolved, the literal meaning of “dumb” has taken a back seat to a more generalized expression of (as you put it, Sanya) “stupid” or “contemptible.” So it seems to be going with the word “gay.”
Still, it needs to be fought off now while we still can. Despite not always being intended as a slur, it too often IS intended as such, and therefore should be squashed whenever possible. Equating “gay” with “bad” is too hurtful and damaging to our culture to let slip past us as “one of those things.”
Sanya, I accept your arguments about such phrases as “Red-Headed stepchild,” or “lame,” but give me your stance on the word “retard” or “retarded.” Is it worthy of the same pledge?
It is a word that is thrown around all-too casually nowadays, and is just as hurtful as “gay” in my opinion. I disagree with plutodad’s argument that “gay” is especially bad because gay kids have less social support. A mentally disabled kid has less than that – they often can’t simply understand that the person using that word is not directly referring to them. I have close friends with a disabled child. Believe me, she knows that word and she gets that it’s referring to her. And when you’d be amazed how often she hears it, even when it’s just someone a few tables over at a restaurant, not knowing that they’re deeply hurting the feelings of a very special little girl.
-CJ
The use of “dumb” to mean deaf has always been an unacceptable term. It was never the correct word for deaf (or what we now call “hearing impaired”).
I love this woman. The Carbine Studios Team will take the same pledge.
@Reaper – Okay, let me back up and figure out where I’m missing the turn. In my mind, I haven’t said anything about who is or is not worthy of protection. (Also, the ironic thing about this whole conversation is that I’m not particularly politically correct. I am rude. I am socially unacceptable pretty much everywhere but the internet.)
I’m not trying to grant “special” protection to anyone. Saying “this is basic human decency” means just that. It’s basic. No one should ever be attacked for things they can’t help, things that are a part of them.
I think one point of disconnection here is that you seem, to me, to be arguing that if someone uses a slur as just a word, then it’s okay. I’m saying that *hearing* a slur, even if it’s not directly referring to someone’s orientation, has a corrosive effect on the community. I am further arguing that given that corrosive effect, and given that the people using the words don’t actually care and are just as happy to use “contemptible” et al, this is a no-brainer.
@CJ So, mod-wise, I handle “retard” as I do gay/faggot etc. If I see it, I edit the post with the suggestion that the poster use a different word. I do the edit/suggestion route because as with the main topic of this conversation, I think people don’t REALIZE that it’s hurtful and I might as well be the one to tell them.
I do admit I am less concerned about it on a gaming forum, and I’m less likely to ban and suspend for repeated usage, mainly because the people who would be most hurt, like the child you know, are not on the forum being directly affected the way my LGBT players are affected. The key for someone who has to prioritize is “directly affected.”
When I’m acting in a professional capacity, my first concern has to be for the greatest good of my players. 10% of my players are LGBT. The other players on the forum will not know who they are hurting, because seriously, how often does orientation come up in a discussion of crowd control?
I don’t have any stake to add here, but misunderstandings annoy me.
Reaper is arguing that there are many groups and many words that qualify for “cleaning up”. He stated his personal preference that cleaning up some and not others is uncomfortable.
You are arguing that GLBT-related terms have significance the people fail to grasp when they use them negatively. In this comment, you point out that “retard” is similar. That’s most of his point right there. Ironically, you dismissed “lame” as R.A.A.
So my answer to Reaper is to agree that selecting some groups to protect and not others is unjust in an abstract, theoretical discussion. Ethically, avoiding any such move may keep you from doing explicit wrong, but it will definitely keep you from doing right.
“So my answer to Reaper is to agree that selecting some groups to protect and not others is unjust in an abstract, theoretical discussion. Ethically, avoiding any such move may keep you from doing explicit wrong, but it will definitely keep you from doing right.”
Very well put.
I hope my last replay makes it clear that I was not actually suggesting handling the situation like this in reality, merely conducting a thought experiment.
After reading through the conversation once more, I realize that my replies sound more confrontational than I intended, so, let me back off and try to explain my train of thought:
I agree with your initial premise that using the word “gay” to describe something undesirable is discriminating and should be penalized.
However, that got me thinking about other slurs that are commonly used and why we seem much less inclined to censor those expressions. I thought that the most decent thing to do from a moral perspective would be to ban all words that could be considered offensive, yet it was also immediately obvious that this could severly hamper communication.
In the end, I agree that outside of such thought experiments, you need to draw the line somewhere. It just seems to me that where the line is drawn is often more of a gut reaction than a deliberate choice, which made me wonder if it might not be better if those responsible for setting and maintaining such boundaries (people like you) would do so as a conscious decision, aware of the fact that there is no single “right” answer, just a sliding scale of slurs tolerated.
My primary intend was not to tell you how to run your communities, only to make you question why “saying retard is okay, saying gay isn’t” is the immediate reaction for so many people when it comes to the question of “where do we draw the line against discrimination?”.
Fucking. A. Gogo Sanya.
Thank you, Sanya. Though I’m straight, I’ve struggled with this for years. It can’t go on and change begins with maturity — the maturity to stand up and say, “Hey, that’s wrong” even when you know idiots will mock you. And they will. And they’re idiots.
Meh. I’m about to be very unpopular in this crowd but so be it.
Reality is this is like a pain med. You’re treating a symptom not the problem. If it makes you feel better like you’re doing something fine go for it but lets be honest, its a sham. Reality is until you identify and treat the core problem the words and phrases will change and the problem will remain the same. That said I think this whole decency thing has gotten out of hand. We’re overly sensitive in general. Still message boards are a cesspool of scum and villainy on an epic scale. Think Penny Arcade had a formula to explain the why behind that.
Also back in the day long ago even your teachers would call you a retard if you did something wrong/dumb. I still remember being in the principals office with my parents and being told what I did ‘was retarded’ and if I wanted to do that they could ‘put me in the tard classes’ to keep an eye on me. Suffice to say I didn’t repeat the problem causing event.
Frankly I think these guys have the right idea for society in general:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgvM7av1o1Q&feature=player_embedded
Overall the concept of being hurt by words of some stranger, somewhere in the world just strikes me as so weak as to be a liability.
@Xaldin – I don’t see why that would make you unpopular.
But I do disagree that treating the symptom is bad. I am not trying to change anyone. That’s not my place as a community manager. It is my place to make my communities welcoming. Reducing latent and unintentional hostility is one way to be welcoming.
I also disagree that communities online HAVE to be hives of scum and villainy.
For example, you and Reaper disagree with me. Are you personally insulting me? Are you calling me names? Why not? Why are you being courteous and respectful about telling me you think I’m wrong?
Well lets keep apples to apples. This is your blog, in some ways similar to coming to your porch and having a sit in the rocker to chat. It isn’t a high traffic public location with lots of strangers. Most of us here either know each other professionally (or know of), have been around/met or otherwise interacted prior to or are (at the risk of assuming) moderately older and advanced in our career paths of choice which by its very nature pushes one to be a bit less blunt.
I met you back in EQ when you helpfully solved a problem I was having, you’ve helped my wife back in DAOC several times. So even though you couldn’t put a face to a name there is a bit of courtesy demanded by society because of the interaction. I’m going to be polite. My upbringing says to be polite, my professionalism says to be polite, my prior interactions with you demand that I be polite because you’ve done that with me. To be any other way would break norms in a manner inconsistent with what makes me, me. Those same constraints are not present in the vast majority of the population anymore in general and have really broken in the online world. Familiarity breeds contempt is the old adage, the opposite is true in the online world. The more familiar you are with people less likely you are to be rude, less the nastier you can get without it impacting your social circle. Even though I’m typically the model of politeness I’ll still tell some stranger who does something dumb in a random game that they were stupid. Course the level of irritation that I have to be at to do that there’s a good chance I’d be close to doing it face to face too.
Norms are the missing link to cleaning up message boards: society doesn’t shun someone who is tea bagging (not the political party version) you in an FPS or who is crude to you on a message board. Sure the post may be deleted. Maybe even a ban from that one board but the society that enabled them to feel comfortable in posting won’t even blink and in fact the more moderated a message board the greater the prestige (street creds in the virtual world) for violating the rules and being evicted from it. As long as that link is missing I believe that online communities, once they grow beyond a ‘warm cozy’ group almost always have to degenerate into places even Jabba would cringe at.
Additional rules that go beyond what a society itself enforces just results in more breakaway communities outside your control then you’ve lost ground not gained it. Going and trying to enact rules to protect a given minority just puts the victim stamp on them and an identifying symbol for others to persecute harder because now they’re ‘being treated specially’. You may view it as helping but to me it looks more like tossing a log on the fire.
“It is my place to make my communities welcoming. Reducing latent and unintentional hostility is one way to be welcoming.”
Exactly.
“I also disagree that communities online HAVE to be hives of scum and villainy. ”
Spot on. My hope is that my community feels welcome always. I’ve learned it is much better to reinforce positive behavior, as in “If you feel that X (game mechanic, decision from company, experience playing” is stupid, you are welcome to say so. However, we do not accept you calling other community members or our staff stupid.”
By responding in a similar manner when someone uses “this is gay” or “ur gay”, it sets the expectation that all participants will get respect and a welcoming vibe when participating.
I’m quite fond of “Be excellent to each other”.
I agree with what you propose to do 100%. I hope your policy both works and is widely copied throughout the MMO industry.
That said, I think that despite the increased use of the word “gay” as a generic negative modifier, attitudes in-game to players professing a non-straight outlook or orientation have improved considerably since I started playing in the late 1990s. At least in the MMOs I play regularly, that is. There are some well-known ones where that may not be the case.
Discourse on MMO forums is often, in my experience, orders of magnitude more offensive than even the worst global chat channel in the same game. I’ve always suspected that this is because forums tend to be played as a game in themselves by a very particular subset of a game’s actual playerbase.
Thank you, Sanya.
Sadly censorship really is an effective way to change attitudes.
But it is just a word. It’s meant various things over time and homosexual isn’t it’s original meaning. Why is using gay as a pejorative any different from using gay to describe someone as happy? Do all words have to lock into a definition the moment they describe an oppressed minority? Is there a buffer room where we can only change the meaning to something positive before it can describe something negative?
Words have no power, ideas have power. If the word gets a new idea attached to it, the impact of the word has changed. You’ve solved a problem that didn’t exist, that’s like excising the N word from rap music and claiming you’re a champion against racism.
Sanya,
I certainly accept your reasoning there – it is less likely that a mentally disabled person would be directly affected by reading such a thing on a gaming board, but I’m happy to hear that you actively edit out the word. I hope that the other community folks reading this will consider enacting the same policy.
After all, take your nicely written summation:
***
Using “gay” as a casual insult denotes a framework, a societal attitude, that “gay” is negative. If you say using it is personal preference, you’re saying you either believe or you’re totally okay with the idea that something that is gay is something that is negative.
***
Replace “gay” with “retard” and you can see where I’m coming from. It’s not just about a mentally disabled person directly reading a post and feeling bad about themselves. It’s also about letting people know that “retard” is also a word that hurts and it shouldn’t be a part of their casual vocabulary if they can help it.
-CJ
Essentially every pejorative term could be construed as an insult by some group of people somewhere because at sometime it was originally metaphorical.
Pretty much the only mean things that arent slurs is a scatological or animal reference.
For instance any terms that insults people physical or mental competence should be considered insulting to people of limited competence.
Any term that insults the way people look(even ugly) is insulting to people who really look that way.
Any insult related personality traits insults everyone with those traits.
Essentially all of us agree its bad to insult people for their own traits whatever they are.
I think I disagree with everyone however in saying that we need to HTFU when people arent talking to us and the target of the insult isnt offended.
On the other hand you could just – no insults at all.
Its pretty hard to argue with that.
Thank you, Sanya. Well said. /salute
(for old times sake: Halga, Bonedancer, Mid/Pellinor)
Proud of you.
As for it being good business, I have a tidbit for you: In 1997, WAY before it was cool to tell people “don’t use that word,” take a guess what corporation had training for its employees to treat LGBT customers with utmost respect?
Marriott. A hotel chain owned by a powerful Mormon family. Morals aside, they didn’t want to alienate customers. And neither should gaming companies.
I am continually amazed at how young people are when the come out these days. I’ve met several people in their twenties who told me they were completely out of the closet in high school! Meaning, they are in your target demographic, and if they don’t find respect in your forums, they will find other ways to spend their time and money.
We’ve moderated rpg.net’s forums along these lines for many, many years.
It turns out that it’s possible to talk about games without insulting anyone’s sexuality, gender identity, race or creed. And in the overwhelming majority of cases, when people are asked to stop using a particular word as a pejorative, they do!
It’s not difficult, it’s not a slippery slope, and it’s the right thing to do.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IFloXOuLgA&feature=youtube_gdata_player
I’ll be more sympathetic to your cause when you put in this kind of effort to stop people from discriminating against the obese and the mentally handicapped.
@Reaper
As it happens, now that I understand what you mean, I agree with you that the line is often drawn in response to a gut level feeling, and when people do that, the result is arbitrary and spins out of control. I also see how you might easily think I made my choice based on the same feeling – after all, this post came almost ENTIRELY from a gut feeling: my emotional reaction to the It Gets Better videos.
As Dan Savage says, the point of the IGB project is to say “Hey, LGBT kids, don’t kill yourselves.”
But! I’m describing something I chose to do a long time ago, acting consistently within a code of ethics.
No longer @Reaper:
I DO draw lines in my professional capacity. (Freak, you may want to read my response to CJ.) I choose those lines. I don’t apologize for that. I’m not trying to save the world when I’m on the job. I’m trying to do a job and do it well for the benefit of a specific community. I cannot possibly buy the whole world a coke and make them sing in perfect harmony.
I’m sorry some of you seem to think this isn’t worth doing unless I can ALSO eradicate every possible kind of mockery. You’re wrong, and that was the argument I used as an eight year old to keep from having to clean my room. “I don’t have a closet, so I can’t put away my clothes, so why bother picking up my Legos?”
My point: my specific community, wherever I’m employed or volunteering, benefits directly by the members not attacking each other, and I’m willing to use the moderator powers of suspension and banning to get rid of people who willfully choose to use homophobic slurs. Those slurs directly affect many of my players, and have a corrosive effect on the rest.
Where there is corrosion, and no direct affect, I choose to edit, make suggestions, or just say “I am personally not comfortable with this.” That also has power – but that gets us into personal ethics/responsibility… and at the end of the day, this post was in the context of my job.
As a person who suffers from nasal valve collapse and is forced to breathe through his mouth, at least at night, I’d prefer not to see the term mouthbreather used in a derogatory way. The stigma made me not want to admit this to my doctor, which delayed treatment.
Noted.
Not really. Why don’t you just admit you have your pet causes and others have theirs? Nobody cares that you’re on the LGBT bandwagon, sweetheart.
I care, and a lot of the other responses on this thread show that others care, too. I think what you meant was, “I don’t care”. But what makes you so sure that anyone cares about *your* opinion, sweetheart?
Derogatory terms that define any group of people are offensive and painful regardless of the size of the group. LGBT slurs will hopefully be phased out of our vocabulary, like racial slurs have been for the most part, primarily because they are such a large percent of the population. However, slurs that impact much smaller subsets of the population will still be used without the realization that they are still offensive and painful for people in that subset.
This proves the point that we are all guilty of the same basic sin and ignorance will still provoke harmful speech unless people stop using derogatory terms that define groups of people.
“I agree with you that the line is often drawn in response to a gut level feeling, and when people do that, the result is arbitrary and spins out of control. I also see how you might easily think I made my choice based on the same feeling – after all, this post came almost ENTIRELY from a gut feeling: my emotional reaction to the It Gets Better videos. ”
It just feels to me that one group has decided its more special than all the others groups and they happens to have a great PR campaign behind it.
I guess I resent that.
Its better to just say “no insults.”
And if thats too hard you cant do that tell everyone ‘HTFU.”
I just wanted to thank you for writing this article. I am not a member of the LGBT community, but I have gay friends, and I see nothing wrong with it. I have, however, been the butt of a lot of gay jokes, and joking about me being a woman (I’m a guy). I just recently decided enough is enough. Even if it’s in good fun, it still hurts someone, whether you realize it or not. I’m not tolerating it from my friends anymore, nor will I be using those insults myself. All change starts somewhere, and this change has started.
I agree. Words can hurt. They can destroy lives. People can lose their jobs over words very easily today. And I’m not talking about the less-than-two-percent of the population that you are so keen on protecting. You know, gay people. I’m talking about all of the commenters families: your brothers, your fathers, your sons, and your husbands. One would hope, without expecting much, for you to protect them more.
First, I don’t like them being called “rape-supporters” by feminists. This feminists list classifies pretty much every man as a “rape-supporter”, which is obviously the point of the list:
http://evebitfirst.wordpress.com/2011/05/18/a-man-is-a-rape-supporter-if/
So could we please tone that down? Not stop mind you, that would be “judgmental”, and we should all avoid being too “judgmental”. Just tone down the screaming insane hate. A little. Not to much though, of course! Your father doesn’t deserve it.
Also, the attitude of this woman towards a fairly polite advance on her:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKHwduG1Frk&feature=player_embedded
Is exactly the kind of attitude that could get your male family members fired.
Also, when hooker/drug-user/prostitutes like “Crystal Mangum”… who appears to have actually killed someone at this point…. claim a “rape” occurred, could we all take a deep breadth and resist the urge to call obviously innocent men rapists at the top of our lungs? Especially when the woman is obviously insane and her story makes no sense at all?
Notice I said try, because I expect you to ban this because your tolerance is deep, but very, very, very narrow. So narrow I would never expect to receive one single piece of it ever in my entire life in any way shape or form.
I see no need to ban someone who is so clearly and deliberately twisting things that his words speak for themselves. Nor have I ever banned anyone but spammers from this blog. But good effort at the straw man, and nice try at making a completely unrelated topic all about you.
I’ll just ask you nicely to take it – the veiled accusations, the drama llama, the pouting, the attempted topic hijacking, and the selective reading – elsewhere, and off my personal blog, because you so painfully clearly know nothing about me or my track record.
It is getting better – gradually. I saw a lot of rabid homophobia in the 70′s and 80′s, (I went to high school in the 70′s, when being out of the closet was not an option unless you were hoping to get expelled and beaten up) a bit less in the 90′s, and while I still see some of it online, it doesn’t seem to be as acceptable to the general MMO population as it used to be. Internal community adoption of a new standard is a positive step, in my book.
The use of the word “gay” as a pejorative doesn’t bother me, personally, in the absence of actual homophobia. Attempts to be offensive go out of style just as fast as any other kind of fashion. In ten years kids will be saying “Dad! No one says “gay” anymore. That’s so embarrassing.” However, it’s become obvious that to get any kind of civil discourse out of most online communities, you really need to moderate or ban attempts to belittle and insult people – otherwise those become the predominant forms of communication. We’ve all seen it happen.
(It interests me that this isn’t always true. I’ve been part of great communities – Corpnews comes to mind – where just about any personal insult was acceptable as long as it was part of a post that was amusing or made a point about the topic under discussion. Of course, those communities also had draconian rules about being permanently banned if you persistently refused to contribute to the topic at hand or irritated a moderator by being too much of a jackass.)
Saying ‘lame’ and ‘idiotic’ are okay, but ‘gay’ is verboten is still… not okay.
Either you are arguing that there are not enough gamers with disabilities for them to matter, or they are not oppressed enough to matter.
Ick. Not true.
@Shaed So when your car AND your laundry are dirty, you don’t wash your laundry until your car is clean, and vice-versa, leading you to do nothing?
Doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.
That would be a great metaphor! …If it was only possible, or even more efficient, to fight one oppression at a time.
Since you’re not working anyways, it’s kind of an empty (and stupid) promise.
“Since you’re not working anyways” – huh?
I’ve either been a director, or setting policy for consulting clients, or modding for other clients, since 2001. Or, put another way… I have been in a direct position to enforce this for ten years.
What are you talking about?
Sanya,
I love you and your blog, however in this post I have to disagree. I feel that the word gay is just that, a word. I am Polish, yet I don’t complain when people tell Pollack jokes. They don’t hurt my feelings. Because the jokes are just a joke. I can laugh at them because I understand what they are. They are not a slight against me personally. The use of the word gay in the way you describe has nothing at all to do with homosexuality. Though I admit it might have at one point. Now it is just another word.
Use of the word gay has changed a lot over the years. It originally meant happy.. Now it means the exact opposite. Since the word has multiple meanings, who are you or anyone else to say how it should and should not be used? It is a word, nothing more.
I guess what I am getting at is that the word has no power to harm, speaking it has no power to harm unless the person hearing it makes it so. I feel that sentiments like this are tantamount to censorship by peer pressure. I feel that someone as enlightened and talented as you should understand this. I think your idea is noble, but I feel we have enough in the way of censorship already.
I guess I just don’t agree that it’s censorship except in the loosest possible definition of censorship. And I do believe that there are some words that have power, and serve as weapons even if the wielders don’t understand the sharpness.
No one who has ever moderated a forum would say that everyone should be free to use every possible word.
While I will agree with the person who says it is censorship. I also agree words don’t hurt unless we choose to let them hurt. But it is every forum owners right to censor content they choose. While I am not innocent of every example of using words like this. I do think most examples usually shows ignorance or the lack of the ability to make your point intelligently so not usually worth reading.
I agree that in a forum, there are restrictions that can and are put in place by the owners of the forum. They should be respected. However, to me it is a matter of free speech not a matter of forum decorum. Forums are communities owned and run by private individuals/companies. They have the choice to allow/disallow whatever they wish in their forum. But if you are talking about free speech as I was, you can’t go around banning certain words just because they are unpleasant to hear or hurt your or others feelings. Free speech is as much a protection as it is a pain in the ass. While I think the idiots at the Westboro Baptist Church are imbecilic, I believe they have the right to speak what they believe. Letting them talk, to me, showcases what serious ignorance really is. Same goes for the Neo-Nazis, Black Panthers, Jehovah’s Witnesses, etc…
Thanks for the response though, I really enjoy the discussion.
It is censorship, there’s no question, as long as you’re using English.
But censorship is only fundamentally bad if it’s done by the government. You have a right not to be censored by the government. You have a right not to be censored when you’re alone. When you’re in control of the medium and the message, you hae a right not to be censored. When it’s someone else’s medium, censorhip is fair game.
This is only “censorship” if you think of the ways in which our speech and actions are constrained to achieve goals involving other people on a daily basis as censorship.
For instance, if I go to the supermarket, grab something off the shelf, shove my way to the head of the line and shout obscenities involving the government and the people in line at the clerk, I’m unlikely to be allowed to get what I wanted when I set out.
On the other hand, if I head to the store, wait patiently in line, hand the clerk my items and cash and say “Wow, the government had better do something about the economy, these food prices are breaking me.” I may get some strange looks, (Particularly if I’m buying a case of Cup-O-Noodle) but I’ll probably accomplish my goal and say what I want about politics at the same time.
Clearly these rules are being imposed on my speech and behavior from outside – censorship at its worst!
Different forms of communication require different rules to get along. Sometimes these rules need to be topics of communication themselves. The fact that they’ve become spoken rules rather than unspoken doesn’t magically move them into the category of censorship.
This is laughable. Words are simply words, and context is everything. Words are simply that: words. Context is everything. Typical bleeding heart standing on her soapbox and complaining about the status quo. Yawn. It’s not going to change, so why bother getting worked up about it when they are powerless to re-engineer the communication of an entire demographic? Sanya, your idea is moronic, and to offset your blatant Orwellian censorship of the word “gay” I will use it twice as much in my daily communication.
You obviously missed the point where she points out it *can* change, and *has* changed.
Words, as you point out, are words. And context is definitely everything. That is why, by establishing the proper context for a community, you can control and guide the community in certain directions. Newcomers will pick up on the community norms and adjust their word choice to the context they find themselves in.
This should be the key take-away: there is no “endemic” behaviour on game forums. They don’t sling “gay” around due to some inseparable sociological wiring. They do it because the owners of the forums, either moderators or the trendsetters, have chosen to allow it.
“Censorship by peer pressure” is another way of saying “polite society”. Being polite isn’t about caving into others, or showing weakness, or being all high brow. Polite behaviour is the grease that oils the gears of human interaction, allowing us to talk and mingle without growing heated and angry. So count me in for this form of censorship! I talk to people to get stuff done, not just to hear my voice.
I just wanted to repost this from a forum I frequent, hopefully it will help you realize exactly what you’re doing here
“Stupid shit like this makes the issue worse, not better. Most people don’t think about homos when they say gay or call someone a fag. Idiotic actions like this cause the opposite. So if you want to make sure the words will be used MORE as insults against homos, then yeah, start banning for it and proudly call yourself part of the problem. But if you want things to get better, stop being such a goddamn drama queen about everything.
ps.: Nothing worse to gay people than straight white knights trying to fight for their right without them asking. You are to homos as wiggers are to black people.”
Interesting that you’re too chickenshit to use your name. Just saying.
Also, interesting that any attempt at decency and inclusion is “white knight” behavior, or “drama queen.”
I made my point simply and clearly, and stood behind it with my name and reputation.
I hope you realize exactly what you accomplished here.
You’re nothing more than a political correctness propagandizer who is the larger part of the problem in the world. I bet you think it’s okay to give trophies to every kid who participates in a sport instead of just the winners too.
Get fucked you stupid loud mouthed cunt, go make me a fucking sandwich.
Nice name calling btw, thanks for coming down to my level and showing us who you are….while using your real name.
Oh, no. I’m going to leave this. Because I want absolutely everyone to see that you’re so frightened, so terrified, so completely unmanned by the idea of justice and compassion and love, that you just spew nonsense.
Honestly, kid, I laughed. Gotta bring a bigger gun if you’re gonna play with the big boys.
Do you have contacts with community management types in various games? Since you have his IP address from his blog comment, you could easily put him on a “do not allow into your game” list…
It’s hardly worth it.
What’s that saying? You can judge a person by their friends, but you can judge them even more accurately by their enemies?
I think I’m okay with the kind of judgment on view here.
This is my last response. You are trolling a private blog. Yours are the only comments I have deleted, and I only deleted the effective duplicates because it was spamming. As I even noted in the original post, you have a fundamental misunderstanding of what free speech is. Furthermore, every reputable polling organization has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that you are so outnumbered that you have to resort to lies and threats to even get noticed.
Fuck off.
It’s her blog, dude. You don’t like it, you don’t have to follow her crusade.
She got you mad first. Make your own damn sandwich.
This guy here is a perfect example of why free speech should be allowed. He’s obviously not very bright, or at least slightly ignorant. However, he is a shining example of how not to act, speak and conduct yourself in a society. I’m glad you put him in his place where he belongs.
His thoughts are similar to mine, but he obviously does not have the intelligence to carry on a conversation with civilized people. Let him be heard and subsequently laughed at by the rest of us. That is the only real way to combat ignorance.
No kidding. If you’re going for a concern troll angle, shouldn’t you at least pretend to be, uh, concerned? Dude drops racist, homophobic AND sexist language in the span of two comments, but expects us to believe he’s the expert on ending social justice. Oh-kay.
*ending social INjustice, even my fingers don’t believe and refuse to type the right thing. WTG
Wonderfully written, I’ll take that pledge aswell.
Great entry, Sanya. I couldn’t agree more as a community moderator and a student of language. Words absolutely have power. Words and behavior inform each other. Keep up the good work.
Ahhh, the old ‘Free Speech’ ‘Hate Speech’ chestnut.
You make a convincing case for, well, nothing mate.
Try more Meds.
Y’all, don’t feed it. That’s what it wants. Just post your own comment and ignore it.
Hi, don’t piss me off.
Scott Jennings
who
a) hosts this web site
b) takes attacks on his friends personally
c) eats chumpwads like you for breakfast and gets paid for it.
Comments like YourWayIsn’tMyWay’s are proof that the net is chock full of anonymous asshats, and I think if people were required to give up anonymity and be held accountable they might be less asshatish.
But conversely, because the internet is chock full of asshats (both individuals, and corporations), I am not willing to relinquish my own anonymity (catch 22). lol
(Plus I don’t want anyone to know about the prOn.)
Sadly, after reading a few comment threads on Facebook I think anonymity is far from an essential part of asshattery.
Also, great post. Just because someone doesn’t intend to be harmful with what they’re saying doesn’t mean they can’t be given a subtle nudge to act better. Don’t think it was as common back when I played (possibly wrong side of the pond) but I know I always told people to rephrase if they used “gay” or “rape” for things that were neither. Rarely got anyone’s back up…
True, just as the non-virtual world has no shortage of asshats, but it might make them somewhat less rampant/common. lol
I think that depends on where you are Imp.. Honestly I see just as many asshats in the real world as I do in the virtual world. The only real difference is the anonymity. I can’t point at them and laugh in the virtual world. It gets a real nice effect in the real one though.
I have a dream. A dream that one day everybody on the internet will treat eachother with the respect we are due as fellow human beings, who possess feelings.
Posts like this bring us one step closer to that distant ideal. Godspeed.
Very admirable.
I’ll admit that I’m one of the people who use “gay” as a negative but not meaning homosexual. I grew up around “chavs” who used it alot and I seemed to have integrated that term into my vocabulary.
Granted, I have nothing against anyone of the GLBT group. I have close friends who fit those first three groups, and even a handful who are into “furry”.
I agree that words as previously mentioned need stamping out. I’m so used to the word that I struggle to lose it but I have been teaching myself proper vocabulary and pronunctiation to get rid of that mindset.
I run a SWTOR guild so as you can imagine, I will be forming a community. I will explicitly outline the restriction of such words and show that my guild supports anyone of any race, disability or sexual preference.
I’ve run a few communities ranging from games, to general computers, photography and art. I know how things like this can offend and get out of hand.
I’d be glad to have a community manager like you in any game forums I play.
Hope to see more of you around. You would make a good idol for any community representatives.
I’d rant a bit about stupidity or e-hate or something here, but really I’m just here to throw in a “+1″ for Sanya. I can’t believe I’m saying this to you, but “don’t let the trolls get you down”.
Everything in gaming is better by our common values for the art, the business, and the experiences that we all share in the pursuit of fun. Hurting people in the real world is not the kind of fun we should accept, ignore, or abide by in silence…. speak up and confront the crazies, or we abandon our most precious childhood gift, the ability to have fun with other kids.
Hey Sanya, just popping in from the weekly Meeting of the Gays. As you know, it’s the time when all the gays get together and plan our next society-rending political strategies. Sounds like we’ve got a bigot on this premises dropping c-words and being generally charming.
Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that they gays all voted, and it was unanimous: We’re on board with your representation of what gays identify as abusive and inflammatory, so we’re mailing out your complimentary Gay Card.
If someone tries to tell you that defending gay people, especially young gay people, from trends of abuse will only “make things worse for the homos”, you can flash the Gay Card and anything they have to say is made invalid in a cloud of glitter and 1000 unicorns farting rainbows.
Contrary to what some folks might think, growing up gay, with the terms “fag”, “you’re so gay”, “that’s so gay…”, etc, is more than tough. Anyone who argues against the notion of respect doesn’t get… or even worse, they do.
Either way, fuck ‘em. You have your Gay Card, so use the shit out of it.
I’m happy and proud to work at THQ, which actually created a unicorn that farts destructive rainbows! Thank you Troy Hewitt, and thank you unicorn…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxHhBx1FtLQ
hahahaha- best! Why haven’t I seen this before?
I take that pledge!
I run a WoW forum with a fairly large proportion of people who are not young straight white currently-abled males. Yes, I know – it amazes me too.
We have a fairly strict policy on word usage. Outside of new members – and despite a lot of pretty normal squabbling – we have relatively little trouble with the most common types of othering language.
I’m proud of my community and I pledge that in any community I run, I will *not* put up with othering bullshit.
The Gay Card also exempts me from any criticisms related to typos.
If that’s true, I know a lot of people who need The Gay Card.
Do you get any circumstance bonuses for having the card in the San Fran area?
The card grows stronger the farther you get from the mother ship.
@Sanya, kudos for the post and your handling of the comments. I’ve moderated national scope lists/boards, so I got the importance of your post right away. This is the first time I’ve come by your blog, but you’ve clearly got the skills to handle putting your views out and dealing with the trolling. By the way, excellent job with letting some of it just speak for itself.
Back to the point, though… It’s worth saying that it does make a difference to actually react to the derogatory use of “gay” and to foster While I’m proud of folks who can deal with slurs without broader community support or who have learned to live with it, it makes a difference to have more than only you on your side, to have more than your gender or sexual-orientation on your side, and to have others expect and ask that the broader community pay attention and take responsibility for how we describe each other. It’s part of our community getting better, not just expecting that the experience of gays will get better. While there were a few off-topic examples here, mostly brought up to make the issue about the commentator themselves or to turn a similar example of discrimination into a criticism of you, ya did good to raise this, stick to your guns, and get back to the point.
As someone with a linguistics background, I don’t agree that words are not just words. Think politics, religion, and law if you need to see how they have huge influence on our day to day lives. And we only need to re-read your post to see it on the personal level.
So…thanks for making a difference. IMHO, you are a part of making it get better. It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance. *tip of the hat…
Greenwapiti (and friend of Cosette)
I don’t always agree with Sanya on every level. Sometimes right is just right.
If you don’t think that the word has intent, correct someone in a group you are running with in an MMO and see what happens. Most of the time you are ridiculed and the verbal assault is joined. Often there is an escalation. This betrays the “doesn’t mean anything” argument, as if it didn’t it wouldn’t matter if they DIDN’T say it, either.
I never tolerated slurs of any kind on my forums, and the community always soon followed suit. People who tried were seen as trolls and corrected, or they were summarily shouted down for being ignorant.
Over time, the community normalizes, and the slurs become outliers instead of the norm. That is a win for everyone.
I don’t like political correctness as a rule, but arguing that using a slur is OK is just an indefensible position. People that use these either have an intellectual or social deficit. Maybe standing up and correcting this behavior will eventually turn the battleship, so to speak, and we eventually don’t have to be subjected to this over and over again.
Thanks Sanya. You know I fought this battle myself way back when, when things were much worse than they are now. It was bad then and still bad and all you need is 5 minutes on any WoW general chat channel to know gaming is still filled with people who think misogynist, homosexual, and racial slurs are just fine. They aren’t.
For all you morons out there crying OMG CENSORSHIP — put a cork in it. This is a private friggin blog not a government entity and therefore it isn’t censorship. Furthermore Sanya doesn’t have the power to keep you from being a homophobic asshole. She only has the power to keep you from doing it here. On her blog. The blog she owns. I dare you to argue with her about what she has the right to do with her own property. I’m sure you are free to go to your favorite homophobic website and use the term gay as much as you like. You are hardly being censored. Get a grip.
Gaming is getting better but I fear its a long slow path. Hopefully as society becomes less and less homophobic, gaming will follow along. Its still kind of sad because instead of bringing up the rear it really should be leading the way. Ah well.
Good on you Sanya.
It’s important to take a stand against all forms of discrimination.
If you’re autistic, you’re still a person and deserve to be treated humanely. Same if you’re developmentally challenged, handicapped, have magenta hair or have more piercings than a pin cushion. Whether your differences are trappings you’ve adopted, were born with, or caused from some eternal force, just because you’re different doesn’t mean you’re no longer a person and don’t have to be treated as such.
Also, like it or not, words not only have meaning, but they also have effect. No, it’s not a weakness of the person being affected by it, it’s a social reality, and if you don’t buy it, that’s fine, you’re certainly entitled to your opinion, just understand that others are affected by words that apply to them when used in a derogatory fashion.
How would you feel of those words were applied to you? Think about it, don’t just answer right away, and more importantly, answer honestly, even if only to yourself.
One of the universal tenets held by religions found all across the world is to “treat others as you wish to be treated”. This is thought that should be one of the foundations of all societies and certainly not limited to any particular religious belief (I certainly know more than a few atheists that adhere to that).
Words are the instruments with which we convey thoughts. In turn, our thoughts are influenced by the words that we use. Using ‘gay’ to denote something bad ties, in our mind, a connection between ‘gay’ and something negative. This in turn influences our thinking whether we know it or not. Language is not a innocuous thing.
Hi Sanya,
I think you have a great idea and I hope people that are in charge of gaming forums as well as the posters themselves put it into practice. I’m a typical straight white male and I hate the way slurs are thrown around in our community. I’ve never gone out of my way to call people out for it before however, but I plan to change that from now on.
I was originally going to post something completely different than what follows because what follows is what happens when I take a look at situations from both sides instead of just going with my gut instinct.
Originally I was going to say that I agree with those who say “words are just words and it’s all in how we use them.” It doesn’t matter if I call someone a douchebag or a duck. What matters is what I mean when I say that. In my mind, “duck” could have just as much meaning or even moreso than “douchebag.” But remember that just by saying anything derogatory to someone, the point is to make them understand you’re being derogatory. In that fashion, words do hurt because we WANT them to hurt. We need them to hurt in order to make our point.
Now, what I think some people are getting confused on is that Sanya probably doesn’t give two shits about whether you go home and hop on Xbox Live and call people kikes or niggers or faggots all night long. That’s your thing and more power to you. What she’s saying and something I came to agree with after thinking about it, is that gaming companies create these communities for people to have fun in. They offer up forums as a place for people to collaborate and “talk shop” as it were. How many times over the past decade or more have you personally thought “man, gaming communities were SO much better back in the day. Everyone was close, people had reputations” etc., etc., blah blah. Or even “haven’t communities gone down hill? I blame WoW!”
The degenerative effect anonymity has on people is amazing and our gaming communities spotlight that very well. What Sanya is saying is that gaming communities should be a place where EVERYONE who enjoys the game or gaming in general can come together and hang out without fear of personal attacks. Doesn’t matter what the attack is or who it’s aimed at, on the community site or even in the game, it shouldn’t be tolerated. Want to have a private bitch-fest over Skype with someone? Go for it. Slur til your heart’s content. But while you’re active in the community, it’s everyone’s job who’s participating to make sure that the community is inviting and in a condition to stimulate thoughtful, non-hateful discourse between those who enjoy whatever the community represents.
When I look at it like that, I agree 100% with what she says. I can go home and watch American History X and cheer on Edward Norton in the beginning of the movie or dress up like Hitler and pretend to exterminate minorities over the weekend on my own time with my own friends in our own privacy. But should I be able to bring that to a community of people who are trying to enjoy a game that’s been put out there for the very purpose of providing an enjoyable atmosphere? No … and I should be punished if I do.
After reading this great post, I will no longer use the word gay.. I will use the word duck from now on. Thank you, and yes I am serious.
I’m sorry – I KNOW you said ignore it….but one thing jumped out at me . . .
“ps.: Nothing worse to gay people than straight white knights trying to fight for their right without them asking. You are to homos as wiggers are to black people.”
I can only speak for myself (and sometimes possibly my small group of friends) but *I* GREATLY appreciate anyone willing to take the time to stand up and just say “No, that is not acceptable”
Kudos to you Sanya – and to all the other CM’s/Mods/Website owners etc who are willing to take a stand!
Rob
The pen is mightier than the sword. That’s how the saying goes.
And it’s true. Know why? Because a person can kill another person, but words embody ideas, and can far outlast and outmatch an individual’s ability to cause good or harm in this world. The misguided folks in this thread that rail against the horrors of censorship seem to miss the point completely – this isn’t about censorship. This is about inclusion. Yes, you may use your words, whether they be racist, homophobic, sexist, or any number of other base and vile bigotries in places where you control the tenor of discourse. But in areas where we are responsible for the tone, shepherds of the facets and functions of community – these words will find their power revoked. That is the very definition of moderation; ensuring that the venue for communication is safe, secure, welcoming and accepting.
As for those raising false alarms about authoritarianism in the crowd, how precisely is it that you came by the understanding that it is wrong to call a black person by the N word? You were taught. In many instances, you were forced. You didn’t get to stand up in class during High School and start lobbing it at your fellow classmates during a book report. Would you rail against that kind of “censorship”? The people setting the tone are responsible, and this is very much like that.
You are quite welcome to head to your local mall and shout the “N” word at the top of your lungs in front of the food court – and see precisely what occurs to what you incorrectly believe is your right to free speech. These venues, like the forums community managers administrate, are not yours. Their use, as very, repeatedly and clearly defined in the Terms of Use (cleverly named!) for nearly every damned one of them is a privilege, and at our leisure.
Moreover, regarding the handful of people who maintain that using the term “gay” in a derogatory fashion but not meaning actual gay people – yeah, not so much. Regardless of context, it is hurtful to use the term as a slander despite whatever your intentions are. “No, I don’t mean Jewish as in actually Jewish, I mean like Jewish as in BAD. Like something terrible, evil. You know…jewish. Nothing personal meant by it.” No, the derogatory intent is built-in from the get-go in casual conversation, and however skilled you may feel your use of epithets, you are no Dave Chappelle. To label something as “ghey” or “homo” and pretend that they are interchangeable with “bad” is to empower the words further, and assume that because no malevolence was intended, no harm done.
Problem is, others are listening. In our forums, in our day-to-day lives. Kids and even some adults who, after witnessing years and years of societal hate and intolerance constructed into the very bedrock of our social systems cannot buck up the courage it takes to acknowledge the fundamental truth of who, and what they are. Some of them kill themselves, because our world tells them they can’t get married to the ones they love, they can’t serve in the military openly, can’t adopt, can’t give blood. It is legal in the majority of states to fire someone from their job or kick them out of their apartment because they are gay. And for kids who grow up in fundamentalist homes and can’t resolve how God made them and what their pastor tells them and everyone in their family every Sunday… suicide is often viewed as a viable alternative to spending an eternity in hell. “God, make me straight.” they plead, to silence. In another time, it may have been “God, make me white.” “God, make me right-handed.”
As a Community Manager who has previously been responsible for hundreds of thousands of young kids in an online game, I can say with great certainty that there is a body count because of the use of the the derogatory mention of the word “gay” and homophobic slurs in online games. I know this because I’m the guy the Lead Moderators called at 2 a.m. when there’s an escalation report and the authorities have to be notified. There is a hard cost in blood.
Because you don’t mean gay, gay. You mean gay, as in bad.
+1
I didn’t realize for quite a while (i.e. until sometime last month) that “lame” was a slur against the differently abled. Now that someone has pointed it out, I won’t use that word any more. I think that the “gay-doesn’t-mean-stupid” campaign can bring attention to other words that are insensitive and end up helping a lot of groups.
Although I’m not a mod for anything, I have similar ground rules for people who want to be in my personal space. I recently stopped the neighborhood kids who were playing on the sidewalk in front of my house, calling one of the kids a “retard” and explained how I don’t allow that word in my yard. They can go next door, if they want to use that word.
I will admit that when I was a teen, I used the phrase “gay” to mean “absurd” or “ridiculous.” My friends used it. I didn’t really think about it. But when my beloved cousin came out to me, it started me thinking about what it meant to be gay in a world that so clearly demonstrated its disgust or out-right hatred for anything that might indicate non-heterosexuality. I started to think about how the one “weird” kid in my school was probably also homosexual and how hard it must have been for him to go to school every day to face that kind of atmosphere.
I don’t care what people believe in their hearts. But if you want to spend time in my presence, I demand a basic level of respect for all people.
You can’t change a Homophobe… they were born that way.
I can see your frustration, but how much of the english language will we have to ban so every possible person does not hear something that offends them?
I see this is your hot potato, but already someone has suggested also protecting the obese and the handicapped.
The use of the word ‘faggot’ is not the problem. The problem is one person’s intent to hurt another by calling them something they find offensive. They could have just as easily called them a ‘nigger’, ‘democrat’, ‘blond’, ‘origin developer’, or ‘drunken friar’.
Moderation for Intent is far more sane than Moderation for Content.
So why target one set of possible offensive words? Shall we make a list of 7 words you can never say on national forums?
If so, I vote one of the seven should be that people cannot call anyone a ‘geek’. It offends me. (Unless the person calling me that is a hot girl who like to grind geeks…that’s okay)
Ah, but maybe the problem is not that the word is offensive… but that it offends US.
Well, then the problem isn’t the word. It’s why we are offended by it.
Oh.. and Sanya.. you are defintely a geek. In the hottest defintion of the term.
While I understand the thought behind everything. Where do we draw the line as to words that are offensive and to what groups to protect? People need to understand it is the person who is offended who chooses to be offended by a word.
People who choose to use certain words it says something about them but when I choose to let those words offend me says more about me. I think instead of focusing on the group you can’t change. People should focus on strengthening and supporting the people who need it. Name calling doesn’t stop when you make a rule against it. It stops when it doesn’t get a reaction. It’s like trolls if you ignore them. They eventually are trolling themselves.
Ant and James,
This isn’t about sanitizing the interwebs for any scrap of potentially offensive material that might trouble some delicate little flower’s sensibilities. This is about the measurable effect of a label operating orders of magnitude in the negative, and not permitting its use in forums where a community manager controls the tone. No, we don’t allow the use of the “N” word on our forums – and it isn’t fucking open to debate. No, we will not allow the use of the term “gay” in a derogatory fashion on our forums – and it isn’t open to debate.
And if the point being maintained is that intent is difficult to parse for text, with intonation and nuance… well, yeah. That’s one of the reasons community professionals and moderators are paid for what they do in the first place.
Also, don’t bring Carlin into this. George was funny. The overwhelming use of the word “gay” in a derogatory fashion is not funny. It is tragic. It incurs literal, actual damage over time and as I mentioned earlier there is a price in blood. Gay teens are five times more likely to commit suicide than their straight peers.
“Where do we draw the line as to words that are offensive and to what groups to protect?” Right there. See that big line in the sand this side of the bodies? That’d be it.
Joe well I respect your opinion. You are saying that gays are 5 times more likely to commit suicide because of the use of a word. Now there is no proof of this since other groups have had similar things and have no had higher suicide rates but lets assume that is true.
I would argue your focus on where to address the suicide problem is miss focused. If you want to fix the suicide problem you need to reach out to at risk people. You have to teach them to be strong and secure in who they are. This would be a lot easier and a ton more effective than trying to teach mean people not to be mean.
I have a daughter who is 10. I can tell you kids are mean especially girls. I don’t raise her to go around telling people to stop being mean. It would only make the problem worse not better. I teach her that some people are mean. If someone is mean to you they are not your friend and you should ignore them and play with someone who is nice to you. If they keep being mean to you over and over that the problem is with them not you. You keep being yourself and being nice to everyone. It can be hard on her at times but it is my job as a parent to give her the understanding and the strength learn to rise above it.
Pure and simple no matter what words you banned the mean people will come up with new words. People need to stop giving mean people the power and stop being victims. If some random stranger can hurt your feeling by a word you have more issues than any community moderator can help.
Now like I said before I agree privately owned forums are free to pick and choose what they allow. I applaud her effort. I just feel in the long run it won’t work or help but never know I have been wrong before.
I think what you may be missing is the concept that it is the self-identifier that is being used in the highly negative sense. Faggot is a curse/insult most of the time, and while that’s not great, the bigger issue is ‘gay’ being used as a negative since that came about directly due to it becoming the self-identifier.
Would you say ‘that’s so black’? Would you say ‘that’s so tall’? One can argue (and many here have) that gay is more of a choice than either, but on the supposition that it’s not, you’re taking an adjective and directly making it negative.
Ultimately, you’re right, inasmuch as the true answer is self confidence and thicker skins. It’s more of a question of assigning value to a word which is used as a state, making people heavily disinclined to use that self-identifier (even up to and including suicides, though that could well just be corrilation). The phrase ‘you people’ can be easily more venomous, but the object is not to remove venom (this is impossible) but to help stamp out the concept that being gay is less than being straight (or normal- think about how little one would blink to read that instead).
It’s a step- a small one- that stops people from being so incredibly uncomfortable with their sexuality online- even if they never come out. As has also been said here, few people need to come out (cue discussion about the incredibly heavy hetro bias in ‘unimportant things), but not having it entirely blasted in your face that you’re worthless every time you game helps.
Oh, I think we can bring Calin into this – he did fight against government censorship, but he also said this:
***
“But, when it comes to changing the language, I think [the feminists] make some good points, because we do think in language and so the quality of our thoughts and ideas could only be as good as the quality of our language. So maybe some of this patriarchal shit ought to go away. I think spokesman ought to be spokesperson. I think chairman ought to be chairperson. I think mankind ought to be human kind,”
***
And before anyone accuses me of quote mining, here’s the conclusion:
***
“but they take it too far, they take themselves too seriously, they exaggerate. They want me to call that thing in the street a personhole cover. I think that’s taking it a little bit too far. What would you call a lady’s man . . . a person’s person? That would make a He-man an It-person. Little kids would be afraid of the boogieperson. They’d look up in the sky and see the person in the moon. Guys would say come back here and fight like a person. And we’d all sing ‘for it’s a jolly good person.’ ”
***
George’s point, I think, is that we are intelligent enough to see the difference between rampant political correctness and legitimate injury in how we use our words. It starts with people in a position of authority pointing out and enforcing a policy that recognizes that certain language is unacceptable on a particular private forum.
+1 this as well.
22 But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister[a][b] will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, ‘Raca,’[c] is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.
I wouldn’t be a part of a community that did this because it sounds like it promotes the GLBT agenda and that’s something that’s just morally wrong on it’s own and I would never contribut to something that I did not believe in. I just don’t care how loud a loud minority gets. To me right is right and wrong is wrong. That being said however, I run a guild. I have for many years now. I don’t allow the use of the word “Gay” in our forums that we keep because it’s one of those words that’s considered a “swear word” and to be honest we keep swear words off of our boards and we keep the topics clean. No one would ever know if anyone was GLBT or not because it really has nothing to do with gaming or the games we play and to be honest, that should be left in the bedroom. Not flaunted out in the open where some little kid could potentially see it.
There’s no agenda here. All this is boils down to “don’t call people names.”
Now, I ALSO believe that you’re wrong to ascribe a moral value to sexual orientation. I mean, I cannot possibly disagree more with you. But that’s not the issue. The issue is strictly one of allowing the dominant group to abuse others, even inadvertently.
But you do realize that in your original post you are elevating the LGBT sub group over other sub groups by means of differential protection simply because of your personal values.
Er… the context for the original piece was my desire to contribute to the It Gets Better Project – a project that has as its stated goal to prevent young LGBT people from killing themselves. I even said so.
The conversation evolved, as conversations do
And sure, it touches on value systems and ethical judgments. But if you want to go back to the original post, remember that the point of the pledge was to add my two cents to the IGBP.
When online kiddies start throwing around “kike” as a huh-I-dint-mean-it slur for all things bad, then feel free to pick on Sanya for unfairly elevating LGBT gamers and their interests over, say, Jewish gamers ditto.
That would have come across alot better if you hadn’t of made it a point to single out LGBT people and elevate them above all else, at least that’s how your initial read goes. We’ll have to agree to disagree when it comes to morality. I just cannot and will not excuse that sort of conduct. That’s a private issue as is, which belongs in the bedroom; not broadcast for all the world to see.
If the blog had been more on “don’t call people names” I would have made a completely different post here. I do however think that message boards for communities by and large are very much out of control. I can still remember back during Neverwinter Nights on AOL and when Sierra had their own online games network that moderation was a strict thing. If you even cursed it got you a warning. Usually three warnings and you were banned. Sad how far we’ve fallen.
It’s not yours to “excuse.” That’s really the crux of the issue. Of course you’ve got the freedom of thought in your own mind. No one (sane) would argue that. But it seems to me that “your right to swing your fist ends at the beginning of my nose” applies here, and further, that there are a lot of ways to swing a fist.
I’m old enough that I got sent home with a note from kindergarten complaining that I insisted on holding my crayons in my left hand. My parents threw a fit, and the teacher agreed to “allow” me to be left-handed. Even though it was wrong, or something. I don’t even know what the deal was, she had to be one of the last teachers still working who thought that.
She felt pretty strongly about it, though. Visibly reacted every time I so much as stuck my left hand in the fingerpaint. I knew the score, even if she “allowed” me to be left-handed.
Me, I was kind of an oblivious asshole even at age five, and it didn’t bug me. Or it could have been the support of my parents. Either way, I didn’t care about her permission/disapproval because it wasn’t her call to make. But I remember the one other southpaw crying a lot and my parents talking about it. Can’t remember anything else.
But I digress, I suppose.
But you do see that their is an “agenda.” You went out of your way(in response to a PR campaign.” To give special protections to one group.
You didnt say “No more names.” To paraphrase you said “no more names for gay people.” Your original post is rather clear.
“contribute to the It Gets Better Project – a project that has as its STATED GOAL to PREVENT YOUNG LGBT PEOPLE FROM KILLING THEMSELVES. I even said so.”
Quoting from Sanya, caps are mine.
If this is an agenda, is there something wrong with this? Is there something wrong that even though other abused groups can be applied to this, she was originally contributing it to the It Gets Better Project?
Failing to see what the nitpickin problem is let alone what any silly ass nitpickin proves.
*linked here from Borderhouseblog*
The “agenda” would not be in showing respect for picked on kids(including gays).
The agenda is in only encouraging respect for a select group of oppressed kids. A select group that is being promoted by a professionally run PR campaign.
A LGBT focused group focuses on LGBT issues; an LGBT focused article concerning a LGBT issue–this is a surprise somehow? This is a problem?
Of course it wouldn’t have a great mention of other groups because it’s about LGBT people!
But if it makes you feel better, some of us other oppressed kids are also LGBT. Better?
Not good enough, then please do something to help out us other oppressed groups if you feel Sanya excludes us too much.
The problem is that Sanya explicitly described the idea of protecting other oppressed groups as “reductio ad absurdum.” Which is fucked up.
*blinks*
I am in a bit of a hurry today, but I could have sworn I said r.a.a. to someone whose argument was essentially that if I don’t allow “faggot” then I must therefore never call anyone any name ever. Which is completely and utterly ridiculous.
I called someone else a chickenshit asshole in this thread, and I make no apologies to any chickens, even though the chicken is a noble bird providing sustenance in many awesome ways.
Elsewhere in this thread from hell, I explicitly stated that it is not okay to make fun of people for things they cannot help. Someone choosing to be an ignorant chumpmonkey is not entitled to any protection, but someone who was born with Down’s *is.*
Sadly, it seems I didn’t manage to make my point after all..
This has dragged on long enough, so suffice it to say: No, that was not what I was saying.
We tried, at least. I am sorry I did not understand.
Well you managed to nicely bury the more general concerns about personal in a long thread.
If that was actually your concern, it seems like a rather basic point that would have ended up in the original post.
It sure looks to me like this thread was created in response to one group of people only.
I have about as little against gays as is possible, will vote to let them get married and adopt kids and whatever else everyone else already gets to do, but I balk at self-proclaimed language police and am not giving up the word faggot.
Well, it’s your choice…just like on a forum where I’m a mod, I choose to not allow it. The glory of free speech means you are welcome to start your own forum, eh?
While I kinda understand where you’re coming from (some people out there are really..hostile), I’m always kind of on the side of the guys defending their right to say whatever the hell they want, and against people trying to restrict that because they think they got a reason to.
If you restrict the use of some words you don’t like, you justify others restricting other use of words (including some you might like) and that kind of shit can go bad really fast…
Since it’s all morality based (and therefore subjective to your social context and culture), you’re gonna end up with millions of small communities, completely separated from each other, each with their own little word filter list, nobody talking to each other. And that usually leads to violence because to prove a subjective moral point, you usually need everyone to agree on it and that pushes you toward extremes, instead of bring everyone closer to a middle ground.
To me free speech isn’t everyone living in their bubble saying what they want to people who agree with them. That’s just burying your head in the sand.
Instead, free speech is to me the ability to hear what you don’t want to hear, and take it into account.
My all time favorite phrase has been “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it” from Beatrice Hall. And I’m that kind of guy…So sorry can’t realy jump on the band wagon here.
And finally, for people who use the words faggots and gays instead of what they mean (as you said usually idiot, wuss, etc), well, if someone calls an apple an orange, I don’t forbid the use orange, I teach the word apple…But that’s just me
Have a good one tweety
“Politically incorrect” is the PC term for what, in a less euphemistic time, we called “loudmouthed bigot”.
Thanks for this, Sanya.
I reported a post in the Warhammer Online forums for hate speech (the word, Faggot) 13 hours ago. And nothing’s been done about it so far as I can tell. I often wonder why I’m paying a subscription for that game.