Racism/discrimination policy

[Tarnished]

Hey, been putting off registering here for a long while now, mainly because too many internet forums just fill up quickly with flamewars. But I had a little issue I thought it was important to bring up.

Why is it that whenever staff see someone use a racial insult (typically the "n" word), they're very quick to give them a warning, and other players to report the offender, but whenever one player calls another a fag, or another non-racial discriminatory offensive term, nothing gets done?

The fourth item on the list of illegal things is "discrimination". Now fair enough, treating someone differently because of something like their skin colour, gender, age, etc, is a bad thing, and we don't want it. But if discrimination includes name-calling, shouldn't you at least be consistent?

Personally, I don't think discrimination includes name-calling. Words only have power if you give it to them. When it comes down to it, if you see a word on a screen in front of you, it's your choice whether to be offended or that. And if I call someone stupid, aren't I discriminating against them for their lack of intelligence? Shouldn't that be illegal, then?

Lots of young black men call each other the aforementioned "n" word (I've got no problems saying it in a neutral sense like this, but it'd be kind of ironic if no one even read this because it was insta-deleted for including the word), using it in a non-offensive way, and people accept that. So does that mean it's only discrimination if used with hurtful intent? Kinda ties in with the above - if you're gonna play it that way, then ALL name-calling is discrimination. A similar thing happened with the word "queer". Used to be a bad insult based on one's sexual preference, but then gay people started using it, and it got de-stigmatised. That word's used a lot on TW, and in the above respects, it's no different from the n one.

I asked someone to give this a quick readthrough for me, check for mistakes etc, and they said a possible answer could be "How do we know when they call someone a N___, they're doing it in a friendly way?". Maybe they're not, but if you just look at pub chat for 5 minutes you'll see reams of insults and hostility. I can call a friend, or a stranger, a stupid dick, on TW, and no staff bat an eyelid. What's so different about that word?

Might have written absolutely loads for something with a really simple answer that'll fit on just a couple of lines. Well, if so, I asked two mods and they didn't know why, either.

[Shas'la T'au Kais]

I think Tarn has a point here - until I started playing this game I considered the "n" word no worse than any other "swear" word.

Perhaps I'll add more when I think of it, but right now I can't really phrase what I'm trying to say -_-

[Mr. Peanuts]

how come you referred to it as the 'n' word, but when speaking about the 'f' word, you wrote it out in full?

Surely you should be banned for this yourself?

[Volny]

how come you referred to it as the 'n' word, but when speaking about the 'f' word, you wrote it out in full?

Surely you should be banned for this yourself?

Thats common problems on many forums. ppl dont read whole htreads/replies

I've got no problems saying it in a neutral sense like this, but it'd be kind of ironic if no one even read this because it was insta-deleted for including the word

[Mr. Peanuts]

And you obviously didnt understand me. My point still stands, why didnt he say the full n-word?

[Leaf]

Umm, I don't know if you think calling another guy stupid should be illegal, but imagine if fag or you fucking dick would be illegal. We'd have to ban a LOT of people. Eventually it would stop, but not in a long time, agreed? Sure the n word could be saying to another black guy or anyone, just friendly. But, how could we know, I could say "NI**ER" then after that start with "Yo sup ma ni**a, you're my bro fo shizzle (don't blame me for the bad slang)" And it would suddenly not be illegal. Even now, you can find tricks around racism and still use it. Not just evading bots. And if you said it would be legal if it just would be friendly, everyone could at first be racist then pretend. You do realise how much more racism we would get in?

People know the rules, no racism. Are you in need to say "yo what's up my ni**a" in public or even in the game? I think not.

Though, I did not get if you thought it should be changed or if it even was your opinion, sounded like that though. And this is mine I guess. B)

The rules are fine now, it's a game, play it and have fun, why do you or anyone need to change it or critisize most things. :P

[Tarnished]

People know the rules, no racism. Are you in need to say "yo what's up my ni**a" in public or even in the game? I think not.

Though, I did not get if you thought it should be changed or if it even was your opinion, sounded like that though. And this is mine I guess. B)

The rules are fine now, it's a game, play it and have fun, why do you or anyone need to change it or critisize most things. :P

The reason I wrote this was because I saw somebody get warned for saying "(name), you black person". He was warned for racism by a member of staff. Apparantly, I'm the only person who finds this ironic - but I think if anyone was being racist in that case, it was the staff member, for acting like black person was a racial insult. And that's the point. It's not. It's the equivalent of me saying to someone, "You brunette". Whether the person is or not, what the hell is insulting about the colour of their hair? OR their skin. And Leaf, yes, lots of people would get banned if it were illegal to call someone a retard (discriminating against intelligence) or homo, or whatever. I wasn't trying to get this to happen - I was trying to change the rules on racism. Because people say the N word for a reaction. They know that everyone makes a big deal out of it here. If no one made a big deal, they wouldn't have a reason to say it. In real life, no one has the power to stop me using that as an insult in normal conversation, or anyone I know. NO ONE I know uses it as an insult in real life. But because of the attitude on TW, that word is seen as a very offensive term, and is therefore used often.

And btw, it isn't racial discrimination. Do you honestly think players go hunting through the TW gallery, find a black player, and then spam him with "N___"? People get spawned, or teamed, or want to insult someone for whatever reason, and so they try to say something hurtful. Sometimes it's "lame newb", sometimes "omg fag", or sometimes when they want a bigger reaction, it's the N word. If people weren't conditioned here to go hysterical every time they heard a word like that, they wouldn't use it to cause a reaction. The only people that would use words like that would be the real racists - whom thankfully are quite few in number - and there's nothing you can do about them anyway. You can't change people's attitudes like that just with an online game. If anything, you're making things worse, by teaching little kids that N_ is a great word that they can say to really offend people who piss them off.

So yeah. I'm proposing that you stop the hysteria every time someone says a racial word. Hell, I'm British, what's a slang term for that... limey. Yeah. So, say I spawn someone, and they call me a limey... So what? I feel like I'm missing something big here, but I don't see any reason to actually give a damn. They could call me a N too, for that matter. Maybe I'm wrong about this... I mean, Leaf, say you kill someone, and they get angry and call you a 'tard, or a N_. Do you honestly get upset or hurt, either way? Anyway. Yeah. People insult each other all the time, for a variety of reasons. That's not discrimination. Now, looking up a player in the TW gallery, finding out they are of a certain subset (black, female, whatever), and then repeatedly insulting them based on that - that would be discrimination. But if someone were to actually do this, isn't that already covered under the harassment rule? (Yes).

Anyway, sorry Leaf, I just don't understand your point. Why can I call someone a fag, but not a N? I mean, hell, I could be wrong but... it sounds like YOU'RE (I mean the establishment - not meaning to single out Leaf here, he doesn't make the rules) the ones being discriminative. Either make both illegal (bit of a stupid thing to do, IMO) or both legal (more sensible), but the double standard is quite daft.

Oh yeah... I offer a critical opinion because I like to try to make things better for the community. That's why. I'm not a subscriber to the "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" school of thought.

[Send]

Whats the n word

[foobarz]

I think he makes a good point. I think the distinction between words like the n word and fag and words against religious minorities are that they target specific groups of people, generally minorities. And in the real world these people get discriminated against a lot because of this, just see lynchings in the past, the Matthew Shepard thing, people denied the chance to buy houses in certain areas or maybe not getting a job because of one of these things, or attitudes that exist toward certain groups of people in parts of the Middle East and places like Malaysia (I'm referring to a statement their President made). Whereas other words like dick are just normal obscene words that don't have a specific history or target minority groups.

One difference though between the n word and the word fag though is that in our society there is a lot less toleration of discrimination against blacks than against gay people, due to attitudes that exist in a lot of areas. I think people still have negative attitudes against black people in a lot of areas (one of main reasons the Democrats have declined in the South since the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and see things like Nixon's Southern Strategy and Bush's consistent references to "quotas," a race loaded term, in regards to affirmative action; also see the chart on which states Bush won here) but they have been driven underground, whereas people still use religion to justify discrimination against gay people (though interestingly enough, there are a lot of parallels between arguments against gay marriage and those against interracial marriage; arguments about these things causing collapses in society or leading down a slippery road to mayhem, or even a judge's ruling against interracial marriage that quoted part of the Bible).

[sexy wooden spoon]

It dosent matter what words are illegal in trench wars. People will always push the limits no matter what they are.

[Sarien]

I will never understand the need for some people to try every way they can think of to justify shitty behavior if I live to be a million.

Attempting to put "stupid" or even "fag" on the level of a racial epithet is like trying to put a slingshot on the level of a shotgun. I think being politically correct is about as moronic as can be when it is used to edit out and censor people that would otherwise convey something meaningful. You call somebody a fag, hey whoop.. big freaking deal, it is personal? Yes. Is it discriminatory? Yup. Is it a violent and personal attack that happens to be linked to years upon years of pain, shame, and misery? No, it isn't. Do you want to be able to say that shit so that you can create some masterpiece of literary vision? No, you want to say it so you can freely insult people as you like.

Let me try to spell it out for you, simple and clear: Too Fucking Bad. Find something else to say, or better yet, as your mother should have told you:
If you can't say something nice, keep your goddamned loud-hole closed, you little shit.

If you have a problem with racism being banned, you're a fucking retard. Yeah, I wrote the word retard in post against racism.

If the anger in this reply seems to be over the top, it's that this is a touch point with me, and again, I'll never understand why some people have to draft this elaborate Rube Goldberg device of "logic" to try to do away with a rule that only serves to keep the place from degenerating into deeply offensive idiocy. It irritates me.

[freddie]

Didnt read all posts so I can be repeating something but...

Why people use racism? Who knows, maybe to show others that he/she is a real gangsta. Anyway, we cant make them to quit. In internet people always finds away to sneak around and ruin others fun. They need to realize it themselves that they are acting like idiots.
So we shouldnt really have rules against racism, rules always just persuade people to break them. In a long run racism could disappear. Well not in TW, TW has too big (and not mature enough) playerbase for that. Just some random guy who playes hour in month wouldnt propably really care what he/she says.
But if we who play constantly act somewhat well, racism could stay away from non-pub arenas.

[Tarnished]

Attempting to put "stupid" or even "fag" on the level of a racial epithet is like trying to put a slingshot on the level of a shotgun.

Why? There really seems to be an attitude here of "You can call someone a paedophile, a motherfucker, a dyke, a whore, or tell them to go and kill themselves: But bring race into it, and that's really bad!", and I just don't understand it.

Let me try to spell it out for you, simple and clear: Too Fucking Bad. Find something else to say, or better yet, as your mother should have told you:
If you can't say something nice, keep your goddamned loud-hole closed, you little shit. If you have a problem with racism being banned, you're a fucking retard. Yeah, I wrote the word retard in post against racism.

.

For the record, if you'd read my post, you'd see I wasn't against racism. If anything, I'm trying to reduce the number of times people say the word. Like I said, they do it for a reaction. Not letting a player into a squad because of his race? That's racism. Harassing someone because of the colour of their skin? Yeah, that's racism. But name-calling? In an online game where 99% of the time the person saying it has no clue of the race of the other person, and in all likelihood doesn't really give a damn? That's no more racism than calling someone a random person who pisses you off a whore is discrimination against women.
To tell you the truth, it kind of reminds me of those Harry Potter books, where everyone is afraid to say Lord Voldemort. There, it's just a name. I think the book says something like "You shouldn't be afraid of a name - it gives it power". Well racial insults are just a word, like other insults. Perhaps the reason you say putting racial epithets like that on a par with things like "fag" or "retard", Sarien, is because attitudes like yours are making them into powerful words? Example... if I were to raise a child, and say the word "spud" every so often, in place of a curseword, and my wife/anyone present were to get very offended and act like it was a really bad thing, then the child would say "spud" any time they wanted to get a reaction out of someone. I honestly think the policy we have atm is just encouraging more people to say words like that, both in real life and on TW.

Btw, Foobarz, I agree with you. In the real world, there is very shitty behaviour against minorities of all kinds, and it's a shame that people are like that (prejudiced, not minorities). But on TW, we're pretty much free of minorities like that. Most of the time, people are anonymous. You'd think at least here, we'd be able to get by without creating problems like this. But no. And your point about how there's less tolerance against racism than other types of discrimination was interesting - TW seems to reflect that. It's like they're giving off the message "It's okay to pick on one minority [though, again, , but not another.". A great message to give to children.

Oh, I just thought of another point. I thought of real racism... not where a random person is called a racial slur, but the real deal - WW3. If you ever watch when that's hosted, it's FULL of real racism. Generally negative comments about the French and Canadians. Inciting racial hatred, etc. Thing is, staff never do anything about that. Strange...

Anyway, fine, Sarien. It wasn't my intention to cause offence to anyone - I assumed people would be mature enough to talk about an issue like this without trying their best to get offended and to brand me a racist. I'll give it up, though.

Oh yeah, and SWS:That was kind of my point. People seek to push the limits... yes. So get rid of the limits. When you make something illegal, people do it all the more often. You have to remember that a lot of TW players are children. You tell a kid not to do something, it just makes them ten times more likely to do it. Or in this case, say it.
They're only words, after all. Why should we be afraid of a word?

Edit - Read a post that was posted while I was writing mine. Thanks, Phred. It seems someone understands what I'm trying to say

[tahkis]

You really think someone is going to read this?

Why? There really seems to be an attitude here of "You can call someone a paedophile, a motherfucker, a dyke, a whore, or tell them to go and kill themselves: But bring race into it, and that's really bad!", and I just don't understand it.

.

For the record, if you'd read my post, you'd see I wasn't against racism. If anything, I'm trying to reduce the number of times people say the word. Like I said, they do it for a reaction. Not letting a player into a squad because of his race? That's racism. Harassing someone because of the colour of their skin? Yeah, that's racism. But name-calling? In an online game where 99% of the time the person saying it has no clue of the race of the other person, and in all likelihood doesn't really give a damn? That's no more racism than calling someone a random person who pisses you off a whore is discrimination against women.
To tell you the truth, it kind of reminds me of those Harry Potter books, where everyone is afraid to say Lord Voldemort. There, it's just a name. I think the book says something like "You shouldn't be afraid of a name - it gives it power". Well racial insults are just a word, like other insults. Perhaps the reason you say putting racial epithets like that on a par with things like "fag" or "retard", Sarien, is because attitudes like yours are making them into powerful words? Example... if I were to raise a child, and say the word "spud" every so often, in place of a curseword, and my wife/anyone present were to get very offended and act like it was a really bad thing, then the child would say "spud" any time they wanted to get a reaction out of someone. I honestly think the policy we have atm is just encouraging more people to say words like that, both in real life and on TW.

Btw, Foobarz, I agree with you. In the real world, there is very shitty behaviour against minorities of all kinds, and it's a shame that people are like that (prejudiced, not minorities). But on TW, we're pretty much free of minorities like that. Most of the time, people are anonymous. You'd think at least here, we'd be able to get by without creating problems like this. But no. And your point about how there's less tolerance against racism than other types of discrimination was interesting - TW seems to reflect that. It's like they're giving off the message "It's okay to pick on one minority [though, again, , but not another.". A great message to give to children.

Oh, I just thought of another point. I thought of real racism... not where a random person is called a racial slur, but the real deal - WW3. If you ever watch when that's hosted, it's FULL of real racism. Generally negative comments about the French and Canadians. Inciting racial hatred, etc. Thing is, staff never do anything about that. Strange...

Anyway, fine, Sarien. It wasn't my intention to cause offence to anyone - I assumed people would be mature enough to talk about an issue like this without trying their best to get offended and to brand me a racist. I'll give it up, though.

Oh yeah, and SWS:That was kind of my point. People seek to push the limits... yes. So get rid of the limits. When you make something illegal, people do it all the more often. You have to remember that a lot of TW players are children. You tell a kid not to do something, it just makes them ten times more likely to do it. Or in this case, say it.
They're only words, after all. Why should we be afraid of a word?

Edit - Read a post that was posted while I was writing mine. Thanks, Phred. It seems someone understands what I'm trying to say

Or this?

The reason I wrote this was because I saw somebody get warned for saying "(name), you black person". He was warned for racism by a member of staff. Apparantly, I'm the only person who finds this ironic - but I think if anyone was being racist in that case, it was the staff member, for acting like black person was a racial insult. And that's the point. It's not. It's the equivalent of me saying to someone, "You brunette". Whether the person is or not, what the hell is insulting about the colour of their hair? OR their skin. And Leaf, yes, lots of people would get banned if it were illegal to call someone a retard (discriminating against intelligence) or homo, or whatever. I wasn't trying to get this to happen - I was trying to change the rules on racism. Because people say the N word for a reaction. They know that everyone makes a big deal out of it here. If no one made a big deal, they wouldn't have a reason to say it. In real life, no one has the power to stop me using that as an insult in normal conversation, or anyone I know. NO ONE I know uses it as an insult in real life. But because of the attitude on TW, that word is seen as a very offensive term, and is therefore used often.

And btw, it isn't racial discrimination. Do you honestly think players go hunting through the TW gallery, find a black player, and then spam him with "N___"? People get spawned, or teamed, or want to insult someone for whatever reason, and so they try to say something hurtful. Sometimes it's "lame newb", sometimes "omg fag", or sometimes when they want a bigger reaction, it's the N word. If people weren't conditioned here to go hysterical every time they heard a word like that, they wouldn't use it to cause a reaction. The only people that would use words like that would be the real racists - whom thankfully are quite few in number - and there's nothing you can do about them anyway. You can't change people's attitudes like that just with an online game. If anything, you're making things worse, by teaching little kids that N_ is a great word that they can say to really offend people who piss them off.

So yeah. I'm proposing that you stop the hysteria every time someone says a racial word. Hell, I'm British, what's a slang term for that... limey. Yeah. So, say I spawn someone, and they call me a limey... So what? I feel like I'm missing something big here, but I don't see any reason to actually give a damn. They could call me a N too, for that matter. Maybe I'm wrong about this... I mean, Leaf, say you kill someone, and they get angry and call you a 'tard, or a N_. Do you honestly get upset or hurt, either way? Anyway. Yeah. People insult each other all the time, for a variety of reasons. That's not discrimination. Now, looking up a player in the TW gallery, finding out they are of a certain subset (black, female, whatever), and then repeatedly insulting them based on that - that would be discrimination. But if someone were to actually do this, isn't that already covered under the harassment rule? (Yes).

Anyway, sorry Leaf, I just don't understand your point. Why can I call someone a fag, but not a N? I mean, hell, I could be wrong but... it sounds like YOU'RE (I mean the establishment - not meaning to single out Leaf here, he doesn't make the rules) the ones being discriminative. Either make both illegal (bit of a stupid thing to do, IMO) or both legal (more sensible), but the double standard is quite daft.

Oh yeah... I offer a critical opinion because I like to try to make things better for the community. That's why. I'm not a subscriber to the "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" school of thought.

And this too? Geez..

Hey, been putting off registering here for a long while now, mainly because too many internet forums just fill up quickly with flamewars. But I had a little issue I thought it was important to bring up.

Why is it that whenever staff see someone use a racial insult (typically the "n" word), they're very quick to give them a warning, and other players to report the offender, but whenever one player calls another a fag, or another non-racial discriminatory offensive term, nothing gets done?

The fourth item on the list of illegal things is "discrimination". Now fair enough, treating someone differently because of something like their skin colour, gender, age, etc, is a bad thing, and we don't want it. But if discrimination includes name-calling, shouldn't you at least be consistent?

Personally, I don't think discrimination includes name-calling. Words only have power if you give it to them. When it comes down to it, if you see a word on a screen in front of you, it's your choice whether to be offended or that. And if I call someone stupid, aren't I discriminating against them for their lack of intelligence? Shouldn't that be illegal, then?

Lots of young black men call each other the aforementioned "n" word (I've got no problems saying it in a neutral sense like this, but it'd be kind of ironic if no one even read this because it was insta-deleted for including the word), using it in a non-offensive way, and people accept that. So does that mean it's only discrimination if used with hurtful intent? Kinda ties in with the above - if you're gonna play it that way, then ALL name-calling is discrimination. A similar thing happened with the word "queer". Used to be a bad insult based on one's sexual preference, but then gay people started using it, and it got de-stigmatised. That word's used a lot on TW, and in the above respects, it's no different from the n one.

I asked someone to give this a quick readthrough for me, check for mistakes etc, and they said a possible answer could be "How do we know when they call someone a N___, they're doing it in a friendly way?". Maybe they're not, but if you just look at pub chat for 5 minutes you'll see reams of insults and hostility. I can call a friend, or a stranger, a stupid dick, on TW, and no staff bat an eyelid. What's so different about that word?

Might have written absolutely loads for something with a really simple answer that'll fit on just a couple of lines. Well, if so, I asked two mods and they didn't know why, either.

[Dim]

The only reason staff are percieved to be obsessed with anti-n word is because it has been overused for such bad purposes in the past. Perhaps if someone only used it once a year we wouldn't have a big orgasm about banning you it*

*although we probably would.