Allow me to begin by addressing the “I’m not racist, but…” argument. I am not. I fully believe that IC and OOC racism has absolutely no place in this game. Calling people n____r, c_____r, s__c, c___k, etc, etc - absolutely not acceptable. It makes zero sense in the context of a humanity which has unified to the point of allowing the mass-colonization of space. OOC, it disenfranchises and offends players. I fully support the move away from that direction, and further enforcement.
My complaint is regarding the inconsistent enforcement of IC (and only IC) speciesism. For example - I am a human, you are a lizard, therefore you are bad. That makes full and good sense for some characters in the SS13 universe. If the host, administrators, and other staff wanted to do away with this - they would have folded it into the recent rule change. Since that is not the case, I argue that the word “ligger” is still acceptable.
The argument against boils down to “it sounds like word we do not allow”. Okay. Fair. However, I would argue that the meaning of a word more applies to its application than ancestry. I am allowed to, over the public comms - and without being boinked, call lizard people a variety of colorful names. But I’m not allowed to say this one, specific word. If I ran around calling characters with a black skin hue “liggers”, to avoid the word censor, that would certainly be grounds for a ban. That is not the case. I want to continue to utilize a timer-honored IC speciesist name for a species which has been around, essentially, since the inception of that species.
In this thread, I would love further elaboration by the staff as to why I am not allowed to say the word “ligger” IC. I did ask an admin in-game regarding the logic of this new rule, but did not receive a satisfactory answer.
It seems this thread was moved to the “Player Input/Player Reports” section. I’m curious as to the reason for this move, since this thread is neither. It’s meant to be an open discussion for the logic behind the administrations particular course of action, not input regarding that action.
EDIT: It’s possible I accidentally false-flagged with the above post. I did try a couple times to put this thread in the “General” section, but for some reason it kept popping up with an already-written message relating to an unposted, unneeded player report. Forgive me. I do want to have legitimate discussion about this topic.
IC speciesism, as you call it, is not going away for good, and the decision to move forward with banning this word (and the felinid counterpart as well that’s gotten far less attention) was a mixed decision but was ultimately agreed upon because of how closely they parallel and can replace what we’re trying to remove from the community.
Just like we currently won’t allow someone to run around calling each other Niger (despite being a country), we don’t want ■■■■■■ and ■■■■■■■ allowed as direct parrallels for the same reason. It’s too easy to directly correlate them to the intolerance we don’t want. We’re welcome to new words for use that don’t parallel so closely.
They have different connotation to those who have gotten used to SS13, but from a new player/welcoming community perspective it looks really bad until you get used to it or have it explained.
TL;DR
IC racism between different species is still and will always be allowed as long as it doesn’t extend beyond this.
The words were banned for the same reason we don’t let people filter evade with other very-similar-to words as insults.
Sidebar: The fact that this is more of a hot-button issue that enforcing MRP on Sage is slightly depressing.
I already addressed the “it sounds similar to another word” issue in my original post. It’s not the same word. It doesn’t have the same intent of the similar word. N____r =/= Ligger. N____r =/= Nyagger (though, that is a fun one, and I hadn’t heard it before). N_____r is stupid bigotry. Agreed. Ligger and Nyagger apply to people playing as a different species. Equally stupid, but allowed by the rules as written, and contribute to the atmosphere of a game where space is primarily human dominated.
Is there another legitimate argument besides this one, that makes a little more sense?
EDIT: If people are using the above two slurs to filter evade - ban them. I specified that in my original post as well.
No, there really isn’t. We just wanted to remove the parallel without giving the chance for it to be abused. We are seeing that L in particular has gotten near 100% negative feedback (even among a lot of staff)
I can’t make any promises about it at this moment though.
This is a good point to make too, since Niger isn’t banned or filtered.
So that’s literally the only argument that’s popped up? It sounds like another word?
Yes, of course a slur against another species is going to get negative feedback. It’s a slur. It’s inherently negative. I realize fully that making this thread is so much pissing in the wind. Censorship that is hard-coded to do away with any chance that someone will be offended by a fantasy word for a fantasy species which resembles another word, is bad. The resemblance is strong. I see where the staff is coming from. I do not agree. I think this approach, as I posted in the thread title, is a rather shotgun-method.
The easy solution is not always the best solution. Maybe this thread will spark some sort of revelation regarding that, but I doubt it.
EDIT:
We just wanted to remove the parallel without giving the chance for it to be abused.
Do the staff not see why this approach is a bad one? I hate to make the slippery slope argument, as it so rarely applies. But, come on. These words aren’t hurting anyone, unless someone is using them as a means to escape the word filter, which is against the rules already.
Where is it written that fantasy speciesism not allowed? If that’s the other argument, I’d say that’s a rather lazy passing of the buck. If it were truly against the policy of those platforms, then the staff would do away with fantasy speciesism altogether. My complaint also focuses on the inconsistency of enforcement - hence “Shotgun-Blast Enforcement”. They seem to have, at random, selected a few words which too-closely resemble others, regardless of context, and blacklisted them.
It’s not that it sounds like another word. It literally was created as an analog for the n-word. Not only that, but it’s used in the exact same way the n-word is used (as a means of intolerance). While I’ve always been generally on the fence about banning that word specifically, it’s ignorant to say that they are without doubt fully different and independent entities. The intent behind its inception is pretty obvious, to have an IC alternative to the n-word that still invokes the exact same feelings.
It’s unoriginal and boring as far as IC racism goes. There are much better alternatives out there, but people insist on this one because it’s close to the n-word and has a long standing position in SS13’s history. (the last bit I can somewhat understand)
I’m happy to create a character which dials the IC speciesism up to 11, all shift, every shift - if that will help the staff complete their word filter list. Miggers, Liggars, Squiggers, Fliggers, Ligs, Liggs, Ethiggers, and so on. Probably should just do away with any word that ends in “igger”, right?
If you believe someone is using ligger as a means to evade the word-filter for n_____r, ban them. Blacklisting certain words that aren’t racist to begin with is lazy, and disturbing to see as a player.
There are a million ways to evade the word filter while carrying the same intent. I recently saw someone say the word “1488” as a method of detonating a voice-activated explosive. Will that particular combination of numbers be stricken from the code? It certainly carries a racist intent, arguably much more directly than “ligger”.
An “analog” implies that the word carries the same meaning. It does not. One is racist against a certain faction of humans, another displays disdain for another species.
The method prescribed for striking certain words from usage is very attractive to staff, because it is very easy. It’s very simple to say “Huh, we don’t like that word, let’s get rid of it!” - while ignoring the consequences of that action. Removing people’s ability to say ligger won’t have any meaningful impact on actual racism in the game. People intent on being racist will just find another way to express themselves. The staff is essentially punishing everyone, but the actual offenders.
EDIT: Oooh, had an even better idea. Instead of a word blacklist, y’all should institute a word whitelist! Let’s reduce the game down to a word-wheel of phrases that people are allowed to say. That will effectively reduce the ability for people to be racist to nill, right? Much more effective than doing away with certain words. That’s the intention, correct?
Shoot - I did forget about paper. And signs. And custom named food items. And hand labellers. And every other method of the dozens available for getting past that particular measure. I’m sure your crack-squad of coders will figure out something!
Im pretty sure when ruko says
“We are seeing that L in particular has gotten near 100% negative feedback (even among a lot of staff)”
he means negative feedback about banning the word, not about the word itself. Not all of the staff are 100% happy about the new policies. Censorship is a slippery slope after all.
Please yell at me if im reading this wrong ruko, but thats what I would read in that line.
Bumping this thread, since I got boinked for saying “Migger”. I’ve said similar phrases for the last three days, and have yet to receive a boink before this one. Is it solely based on whether I trigger people or not with my IC specisism? Seems that way. Because otherwise, I haven’t seen a single admin enforce it. It’s almost like admins pick and choose what rules they actually enforce, saving for when they recieve an ahelp for a broken rule. Probably why Sage is LRP, and Golden is NoRP, as well.
So, words that sound similar to other words, despite the entirely different meaning and context are being censored? Can you explain that logic?
EDIT: Given the span of time that has passed, despite reassurances, I highly doubt this issue is still being debated among administrators. It’s ludicrous. Side note, the number of times I’ve been brushed off with the excuse of “I just enforce the rules, I don’t make them” is more than a little depressing. Administrators have direct influence on what rules are made, and enforced. Act like it.
EDIT 2: The enforcement of rules seems to be entirely arbitrary. MRP on Sage is rarely enforced. “Word filter evasion” is even more rarely enforced. I haven’t looked at the ban page, but if one can find a single instance of a ban relating to the new rule regarding “racism”, I’ll eat my hat.
EDIT 3: I’m more than happy to be the first ban on that front, though. If only to force an issue that the staff seem to have abandoned. It’s very easy to go with the flow, instead of working against the grain on an issue that is extremely illogical, and risk being labelled as a racist.
As above, so below. I’d love an explanation on that logic.
EDIT: I was informed in game by Bloon that using Migger, Ligger, or the like would be met with a similar punishment to being overtly, unironically racist. That amounts to a perma ban. But, someone who blatantly metagrudges on top of six months of bans and notes receives a one day ban. The variance in actually enforcing rules which improve the game by removing offensive players is nothing less than frightening.
The reason that we treat saying words that sound like slurs as saying the slur itself is because we have players who want to use the slurs but cannot because of the filter. So they alter the slur slightly enough to get around the filter, and use that as the slur instead.
They then claim that they didn’t say or intend the slur, it’s just a word that happens to be spelled that way (even though we all know what they meant by it).
Seems pretty cut and dry, in my eyes. It harkens back to my previous arguement of easy versus hard enforcement. IC specisism is allowed. IC racism is not (and I fully agree with that). It’s more difficult for administrators to examine words like Ligger, and Migger, on a case-by-case basis, but generally speaking - those words will only be applied to people who are playing Lizards or Moths. Those who are utilizing those words to evade the word filter, and apply to players who are utilizing dark-skinned characters, will just evade the word filter anyway.
Who does this rule help? Who does it hurt? I’d argue it hurts legitimate IC specisism more than than it hurts illegitimate IC racism.
EDIT: Yes. Enforce people evading the filter to be racist. No. Don’t enforce the rule on people who are being specisist. I’ve addressed this multiple times through the thread.