It’s currently unclear, especially when what is considered as a slur changes over time, what is covered by the automatic ban rule. If you want to make it so something that was previously OK to say is now an automatic week ban then write it down don’t just enforce and ban with no recourse.
When the method of attempting to appeal this is immediately locked with “you cant appeal these bans” even though that isn’t in the rules or guidelines for an appeal it’s very difficult to even argue.
If you wish to enforce such things go ahead but make it clear when things have changed and the policy around the associated bans. And for the love of god please don’t just boot people and close their appeal without any ability for them to respond.
Be nice if there was a more reliable way to discuss bans and appeals directly with staff too.
Said it before and I’ll say it again, I tried to contact management the same week as my ban (and last week too) not to reverse it, but just to discuss it so we could come to an understanding and I could explain myself and I’ve actively tried to ask how I could redeem myself in the eyes of said management and I have been denied that “privilege” of a simple non-confrontational conversation.
Be nice to have clarification on how to go about actively demonstrating what management wants to see to give everyone a fair chance at an appeal.
Fair enough on the link to the appeal rules, I was looking at a different section mistakenly when verifying Ban Procedures.
Going to be real with you though, a 2 line addition the MOTD that most people will glaze over (it’s all red text that normally doesn’t change) isn’t really fair with a 2 week grace period. Especially when the difference is going from completely allowed to an un-appealable week ban. The MOTD doesn’t indicate it’s considered a slur either just that is has been banned. Not everybody is on the discord or checks the announcements either. What other terms are also banned now too?
“If you believe the ban was wrongfully issued, contact management.” Isn’t that the entire point in a ban appeal?.
If there is going to be a change such that a single word, which is only recently and subjectively considered a slur, leads to a week long ban you really should issue warnings first and slowly switch it over. Or better yet do what other servers do, regex for the words and block the users text and send them a big red warning.
It’s frustrating to be punted off something for an offhand comment that wasn’t even directed towards a player with limited warning, then to be told I can’t appeal it and not even be able to respond. ~
I am going to give my two cents. I think an automatic 7 day ban is dumb. Note then escalate as needed. 1st time offenders should be noted. Obviously, if you spam the gamer word you should be banned. Context should matter.
I still rember i got a 7 day ban for the “kill all preds” copy pasta i had, even thought Celarian approved of it like a couple of days before, since at that moment it had stuff that SHOULDN’T be in (I just took a “Kill all xenoes” someone made, and converted it to preds, without realizing it had gamer words in it).
Slurs are slurs. Re–rd. ni–er/a, and fa–ot have been words used to insult someone’s identity or have been insults because of the implication that there’s something wrong with resembling those remarks for decades going on centuries.
It’s not like re–d started being a slur a couple weeks ago: it’s only recently been enforced as one. The safe bet is that if you couldn’t use that word to describe a certain group of people and couldn’t drop it on television, you’re better-off not testing your luck.
i’m 100% with you on this, i’ve always been in favour of stuff being posted first on the forums and crossposted to the discord - expecting people to use the discord is ridiculous. a more
it was a two week period of warnings for usage. the length could always have been longer, what was picked was picked
i can appreciate that it’s frustrating, but it is what it is. fwiw, a mechanical block list should
be added soon, i just haven’t had time to get around to it yet
I mean, i got noted by it, and made sure with celarion before posting it again that it was good, so I thought I was in the clear. Then morrow saw me post it a couple of days later, and instantly gave me a 7 day ban.
I can appreciate that a MOTD message is not sufficient warning for an upcoming rule change, and I can also appreciate that a large section of our community doesn’t interact with the discord or forums at all.
Furthermore, the r-word is a word I believe is considered more acceptable to use. At least in comparison to slurs like the N or F words.
Personally, I’d be willing to accept if someone did not believe the R-word is a slur.
The issue herein I believe is that almost any time someone throws out words like the F-word, or N-word, that there is almost no situation where using such a word would be socially acceptable.
Compared, there are far more ways to use the R-word in an acceptable manner.
Then there are words like the c-word. If I am talking about the “c/hink” in their armour, that’s fine. But if I change the context to talk about an Asian character…
However, the current rules do indicate an automatic ban for slur, and technically the r-word is a slur in any context.
But the c-word is not a slur in certain contexts. Would a Medical Doctor be banned if they used the r-word term in a medical context? What if someone gets offended I used “c/hink in their armour”?
Previously this was the case for the R slur being discussed and remains the case for other offensive language.
However the prevalence of the term, it’s almost colloquial usage and ultimately the failure of context based enforcement is why we stepped enforcement up.
A mechanical block would be nice yeah, Also I think the MOTD would be more effective if it was its own window that popped up on the lobby screen with particularly important updates only.
Yeah. Personally, the fact that an automatic 7-day ban is the punishment for saying the r-word is probably why the vast majority (at least, in my opinion) of people I know are against it. It’s just weird to have it be on the same level as the n-word.
I’ve already seen countless people fail their filters, or say it without knowing the word has been banned (discord isn’t universal, and to be frank- I didn’t notice the in-game warnings about the new policy change at all until it was pointed out in this post, so it’s fair to say that a significant chunk of people wouldn’t have either).
The mechanical block sounds like an absolutely fucking incredible idea. I wished we waited until the mechanical block was ready before enforcing the rule. God bless you Harry, I honestly don’t know where the server would be without you investing so much time into making it better.
I think the mechanical block will basically solve this entire issue. Management gets to curbstomp r-word usage, and the community doesn’t get vaporised whenever they let it slip, whilst obvious malicious use by the few bad apples can easily be caught. Everyone wins! Finally, the end of this month-long drama is in sight!
This is my big issue with it though. People can make mistakes and most of the usage i’d say isn’t targeting any group. It sucks that a policy like this will get a lot of people punished for mistakes or minor infractions rather than it being used exclusively to remove bad actors.
That doctor would have to be a time-traveler or incredibly old-fashioned as the r-word has been defunct as a medical term and diagnoses for over a decade.
Similarly, you could roll the dice on using something that doubles as a slur to describe a Crack, Fissure, Weak Spot, Cleft, or Hole in your armor which all mean the same thing without having the potential for misunderstanding.
There’s no positive way to use the word. Nobody’s complimenting their fellow marines by telling them how ret—ed their takedown of a Predator was. “Great job leading the op XO, that was the most ret—ed strategy I’ve ever seen: and you can tell the councilors that for your CO application!” Anybody using a disability or identity as a pejorative is doing so in bad faith, it’s why they’re using that word.
Again, you can absolutely try and weigh the “impact” of certain slurs and try to chart-out exactly which ones are the worst and where the line is drawn on a Slur Quotient that exceeds community standards, but at the end of a day someone who’s schizophrenic isn’t going to be any more comfortable with someone calling them a sch–o than tossing the n/f-slur at their target demographics, and nothing is lost by just using a different word that isn’t dependent on characterizing a population of people as undesirable and bad for the purposes of dunking on someone or insulting something.
Trying to employ grace periods so a panel of Slur Sentinels can weigh your heart against a feather every time someone lets a gamer word fly or having yet another unpaid, volunteer coder put in a mechanical block has the same energy as complaining that it’s staff’s fault you got banned for PB-bursting someone in the head during briefing. “Why should I - a grown adult - moderate my own behavior? The babysitters left me unsupervised, so of course I stuck a fork in an outlet!”
