For me, as a mod, the key is that we are a community. People come back here repeatedly over a long term, and that breeds familiarity. People feel comfortable enough to say whatever and not feel like they can only "talk shop", and that's a good thing. But on the other hand, we have to keep this place friendly and respectful, not just to new members, but to all members. If someone has a problem with something like this, they shouldn't feel like they're going to get flamed to hell and back over it.
In that vein, we don't particularly have to have a clear-cut list of what is and is not acceptable. There's some leeway involved because this is a community of, for the most part, adults. Being an adult-centric community doesn't just mean it's ok to drop the occasional f-bomb or send each other racy Christmas presents, it also means accepting that there's a lot of other people here, including younger people, and not everyone's views on everything is going to mesh. There's a sense of responsibility to make sure that this site is both respectable and relaxed. Sometimes that means mods have to step in and sometimes it means letting things slide.
This right here is what distresses me. As far as "officially ok" discussions or terms, what exactly makes my opinion, or MiRai's, Svper's, Lax's, Vecter's or any other "higher ranked" poster's point of view any more valid or important than Blast3r's or anyone else who raises an issue? Is it really so important to you that you have to use a term that you know full well upsets someone just because it's not spelled out verbatim in the rules?Originally Posted by Owltoid
If we're really arguing the rape thing, I'll go there. As Luxlunae stated, yes, there are women that are regular members on this forum. Hi, how ya doin'? I'm Kate. And as Luxlunae also pointed out, things like sexual assault unfortunately aren't a far-removed concern for women in general. Sadly, it's rather a sick rite of passage in my family - out of 6 female members of my generation there's only 2 who have made it to adulthood unscathed, and I'm not so sure about one of them. I am not among the unscathed.
In my case, I kind of consider myself lucky because I was very young when it started and it wasn't really violent. I suppose you could say it was something I was groomed towards, so it wasn't traumatic for me in the same way that your typical as-seen-on-tv incident is. But, yeah, it messed me up. It's been more than 15 years since I last had to deal with such things and I've got a pretty good dissociation from it. I've had a lifetime of practice with biting down on my issues and refusing to let it be everything that defines me. But it wasn't always that way, and like I said, I consider myself lucky, and even with all that I still can't stop myself from shaking, chain smoking and trying not to throw up while writing this post.
I don't know Blast3r's situation or anyone else's for that matter, but I do know what I've been through, so, yeah, I do know exactly where other people are coming from and what they have to go through in this situation or any other situation where people are using an ugly term as something innocuous.
For me, personally, it's water off a ducks back mostly. I've been "one of the guys" long enough that very little phases me and to know that in most cases it is innocuous because most people don't have to think of things like that as anything more than a stupid trendy term. Generally I ignore it when I've seen it here and try to stay out of it altogether both "professionally" and for my own sanity. But in this case, I've been moved from turning a blind eye to becoming upset and angry. You don't want your threads to be interrupted? I'd rather not be reminded of my past and then had it pointed to and mocked because there's no explicit rule about it and everyone should just get over it because it's just a word to you. It isn't just a word to me, it was my life for more than 10 years, not just some stupid thing pixels do to each other in a video game.
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