Use of "offensive" language on the forum

[zenga]

My first reaction was 'grow a pair, but 'someone' might find that offensive as well. There is little to add to shodokan his post. For being 16y old he shows a lot of wisdom!

[Shodokan]

I find myself trying to avoid using terms that I consider demeaning or reprehensible; gay, rape, nigger, fag, cunt, etc (only typed here for example) While some may feel using "rape" in gaming situations is socially acceptable, I feel it is not. Placing the severity of what rape is into something that is generally done in a fun environment (such as gaming) just diminishes the impact that using "rape" should have. Almost like a cry wolf type thing. It is a serious situation around the world. As a community I feel we can rise above these so called accepted behaviors and CHANGE them.

But as a moderator I place freedom of expression above my own personal feelings. Unless rules are developed people can choose to express themselves how they want as long as doing so is on topic and is not done so to elicit responses that just create more drama or infighting.

Most of the time things like that (rape in specific) are used are to describe the demoralization of the opposition, which i guess in essence is part of the feelings that one has when something as unfortunate as that happens to someone.

That being said though from what I've seen and how I've used it (or others) was never to elicit responses that create drama... more along the lines of someone decided they didn't like the usage of the word PERIOD and let their opinions be known on the matter which then frustrated people because of the adherence to the wishes of one/few person(s). It's a double edged sword really.

I mean we can all try to refrain from derogatory/demeaning words... it is someone else's forum and we don't have free speech if they decide against it.

@Zenga I'm 24 man.

[Multibocks]

TBH I don't really care for the mods editing swear words out of my posts. I feel like I'm back in Sunday school.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

I don't really find words like the ones noted above personally offensive when encountered on the great Fount of Wisdom that is teh interwebs.

Conversely, I agree that using those words as overly-obvious literary hyperbole or emphasis tends to indicate a crass and/or lazy approach to vocabulary, though I will admit to being guilty of occasional pedantry with regards to peoples' communications skills.

Then again, I don't re-read the entire meaning of something someone wrote purely because they used a particular word where I might have selected a more widely-appropriate (and possibly even more descriptive) term or phrase.

Ultimately, it is up to the end user to police their own input. People make invalid assumptions _EVERY_ _DAMN_ _DAY_ about the state I was born in, the state I live in, the country I am proud to have served, and my mental capacity to decide what objects, substances or behaviors will cause me good or harm. I don't knee-jerk respond to every one of them with flame rants, regardless of how much I might like to -- I just ignore the post and move on. For really offensive things, there are any number of moderation contacts if it's really bad, or for general applications, various word- or content-filter options available to any end user with enough brains to figure out how to multibox. (Just so I'm not being misconstrued here, I am NOT calling out anyone on these forums in the previous paragraph. I'm actually agreeing with folks like blast3r and others from a moral standpoint. I just disagree on whether we as a forum need to globally filter every single technical violation of policy and couth versus handling the more egregious violations when individually brought to the mods attention.)

DemolitionMan.jpg
Be well!

[Mosg2]

I generally don't get involved in any sort of opinion posts that don't have to do with something I'm terribly familiar with--The good news is that I'm a linguist by trade

There's a vast gulf between derogatory words whose sole purpose is to demean a particular group (eg faggot, nigger, spick) and a descriptive word that has a particular connotation. I love saying things in interesting ways. It's one of the reasons I enjoy my work as much as I do. With that in mind, using the word rape to describe what I did to some hapless Horde who were making trouble for friends is totally acceptable. Calling them niggers, on the other hand, is pretty insensitive.

[F9thRet]

Meh, The only two definitions I know are sexual assault, so I suppose I could just train my mind, that it is a lesser abuse, like in the middle ages, when it was more a crime against the man who owned the woman. Or just think of Mustard. I think I'll do that. next time someone uses it, I'll just figure they have some weird fetish for Rape oil from mustard plant leaves. :P Stephen

[Khatovar]

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.

Until such time that there is an official post requesting me to not use that language, I will continue to do so... I'd just like threads to stop being interrupted.

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?

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.

[zenga]

If I see someone in trade chat selling a Jewelled Panther for 20k, while the mats alone cost more than double and he is basically selling a duped item, and I see he has no clue about the origin, I just whisper the guy, explain him why I believe it's a bad thing for the game and point out the risks. Rather than calling him out in public for idiot. And a good bunch of them understand it, which hopefully makes them aware for future items that are too cheap for being true.
= raising awareness

It would have been as simple as sending me a simple PM on this forum, explaining why you think it's bad to use 'rape' in that context. Rather than calling me out for it in public typing in capitals, projecting your morals as fact/truth. Why would one deliberately use words that will hurt someone, when that person put an effort into explain his/her reasonings? Can't guarantee that I'll never happen again, definitely not for a non native speaker who translates on the fly as he/she writes a post, influenced by both his/her native vocabulary and the foreign language one. On top of that a lot of non native English speakers are influenced for a large part by what they hear on TV, movies, shows, music and whatever else they read on the internet. I'm almost inclined to say that it's utterly disrespectful to expect non native English speakers to be able to gouge every context of a word. I truly wonder if most native English speakers are able to communicate at the same level in a foreign language as most non native English speakers communicate in English. And then imagine that you put an effort into writing proper language in that foreign language and someone all in a sudden calls you out in a dramatic way for using a word (and turns to be projecting his/her own idea about the usage of the word, rather than what a dictionary or linguists say).

[Oatboat]

My thoughts on the topic are this. Would you say these things in the real world to strangers? No... then why would you say them to strangers on the internet?

[Owltoid]

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?

Threads were being derailed by this subject and neither side was willing to change. I was simply saying that the behavior was not against the "rules" and it would continue until an official request to stop. Sensitivity vs censorship is a lengthy debate, and not one that needs to happen in every thread that has "offensive" language.

And yes, it is important to me to be able to express myself as I see fit. I value liberty a great deal. However, I am willing to abide by the rules - I just want the derailing to stop if nothing is in actual violation.

ETA: it's important to note that none of the "offensive" language was used to hurt someone and it was all used in the way gamers often use slang. I find others using the phrase "that's gay" to express something is negative as offensive, but I do not derail threads on my crusade. I simply ignore them. If they were using the term to expressly attack another poster, then I'd report it to the mods.