Let's try some constructive critism...

[GM-Scott]

Ok, so let's get this straight to the core : a couple of people have been profoundly harmed by what another couple of people have said on the main chat a couple of days ago. Those comments have been marked as "racist" by the harmed people and while the "harming" people could argue that, it was indeed technically racist.

While nearly nobody here must have heard of this and don't have a clue of what I'm saying, here are my conclusions on this : people are narrow minded. Now, if you are part of this story, read on before hitting the reply button to flame me.

Why am I not defending one side or the other? Because while I don't agree with those "racicst" comments, I do not agree with the victimisation of the denfenders part.

First off, joking about slavery is not necessarly wrong. Joking about another race to some extent is not necessarly wrong. Joking about children is done everyday by everyone. But combining the 3 of them in a back and forth discussion on main about a sale of them is not what I see as fitting for a multiracial online community. What I am saying is : don't joke about selling young [insert race here] slaves when other people can see it!

I have a twisted sick sense of humor. I can undestand how people can find it funny to exchange absurd comments. But I do care enough to keep it between me and my close, non threatened, friends.

What I find was a mistake from the part of the offenders is the fact that they did not thought theses jokes could affect anyone. People on heRO comes from anywhere in the world. A player's joke could be another player's living hell. Joking about young children slavery might not be a hot topic in western culture because we have laws against these situations and have the ability to have them enforced. In other countries, like the one the offended people came from, do not all have this ability. Joking about children slavery affect these people as much as joking about hitting your prostitute mother while being drunk over here. It's not cool. Don't do it.

What I find a mistake from the part of the defenders is the fact that they ignore the way the offenders did not meant that to be a serious offense. The defenders did not accept the apologies from the offenders on the basis that they were "not sincere enough". Let's think about it shall we? If children slavery is not rampant in our culture and we joke about it, how far can we be sorry for it if it is not important? If I joke about the size of the nose of a person and this person is sensitive about it, how should I know and why should I make a federal case out of it? It's a given I should not have offended that person but why should I have to yell at everyone in the restaurant about how I am sorry about it? How far should I get the sincerity of these excuses if, at the beggining, this was never meant to be overly offending? Ignoring a cultural state just to try to enhance the victim status is not cool.

What am I going to do about it? Right here, right now, about this particular occurence of the offence : nothing more than what I have already did. I talked to the offenders, asked them to contact the victims. The offenders did offer the apologies that they saw fit for the gravity of their offence and the defenders did not accept them because "they were not sincere enough". Well, I'm sorry, but the offenders walked over their pride and over the fact that in their heads this was a mindless joke, and did offer their apologies with the degree of sincerity it deserved for them, which is more than the usual "f*** you assface" you would normally get from many other persons on the internet. The fact that the defenders rejected those is sad but it's their choice.

Now, for the future, an advice : don't do it anymore. There is a rule on the server that we enforce and it's :

Code:

Be respectful to everyone
Insulting, the use of swears, discrimination, [b]racism[/b], sexism or [b]any other offending comments[/b] will result in jail or ban.

The jokes you could find funny and non threathening MAY be so for someone else. heRO is not a USA-Only (or any western country) server and the laws that protect your "Freedom of speech" are not viable here. Sick humor can be used in private chat, guild chat, party chat, whatever chat. But if someone else finds it offensive enough to report it, you will get it coming, sorry.

That is all.

[_Wind_]

One question, br means brazilian for those that didn?t know, just because you say f*** to someone but then add br on the on so its f****ing br doesn?t make it a racist comment does it?

[GM-Pandora]

What planet are you from? Of course it does! It's offensive /swt, it may not be considered "racism" because br is not a race, but it's definatly discrimination.

We don't wanna go and moderate what everyone says and become the "paranoiac police", we dont wanna have to remove Main, we don't wanna make our a server a place where people are afraid to speak. If everyone could just try to moderate what they say a little then we should not have anymore issues like this.

[Balmung]

Already saying 'F***ing someone' is already concidered an insult to someone, which breaks one of the server rules which say 'Respect everyone all the time'.

Also, saying 'F***ing Br' (for brazilien, sorry for the bad language but it must be made clear) is also concidered as Racist which is also prohibited by the server rules.

You can say you hate someone, but its not alright to generalise and everyone should be able to understand that. Its not because a single Braisilien does something bad that all Braisilian are like him.

I can say I have seen on this server peoples saying 'F***ing Canadian' or 'F***ing Braisilian' and I personally dislike it.

Everyone is different, we're all human and unique, thats all there is.

[Alexander]

See, but one problem with that is that you're putting a "no-stamp" on anything that anyone might find offensive. Blonde jokes are out of the question. People are bound to be blonde here(Well, I do have blondish-brown hair). We probably have many races too, can't do that. We have males and females, so no gender-oriented jokes. How about school jokes? No, someone's bound to be too poor to go to school and will find it offensive people would make fun of an educational system. Ok, fine. Dogs! A joke about dogs! No, someone lived in a country where dogs were outlawed and shot on sight, and the persons poor old yeller took buckshot to the face. Ice cream cones?! No, someone got in an unfortunate accident with a snow cone and lost their eye sight when they were five. It's not funny to joke about ice cream with that person around. There's bound to be someone to find just about anything offensive. So new rule: No jokes. Period.

Sounds a little crazy and maybe things won't go quite that far. But none the less the inevitability will stretch along many different subjects. Quite honestly, I think people just need to remove the stick from their rears and lighten up. Before I get flamed for that one too, I'm by no means speaking blindly here. I may not come from a country with national slave-problems, but I do come from a home with horrible alcoholic problems. And by horrible I mean "lifetime movie" special. But if you want to make a joke about howwww I "drive worse then a drunk with one eye and three wheels." I'll laugh. Er...did I just offend someone? If I did, pre-emptive apology, but I'm trying to make a point and as you can imagine, I'm not approving of alcoholism or saying it's ok.

I could go on, but really, I think some people just need a sense of humor about things. Getting all stuck-up about everything solves...what?

On a closing note though, I by no means don't respect what Scott has said. I do, and if this is what it comes down to, then whatever. Just my perspective on the whole issue.

[GM-Scott]

"But if someone else finds it offensive enough to report it, you will get it coming, sorry."

Nobody will find blonde, school or dog jokes offensive. I haven't jailed anyone on this matter? I haven't banned anyone on this matter? No.

You are taking this radically. If someone says that women are complicated and then a feminist complains, too bad. This is not what ANYONE considers an offensive joke. But make a complete sexist degrading joke about women and you will get punished.

Don't try to make me look like Hitler, we ALL use common sense.

[GM-Pandora]

GM-Scott Wrote:common sense

EMPHASIS

[Sodo]

What about jokes that affect what you actually are?

I make jokes about me being 100% Middle Eastern daily. As my friends do, because I don't get offended. If a joke was pointed twards me, but somebody else gets offended, and makes it a problem, what do we do? I call myself a terrorist daily, I don't call anybody else a terrorist, but sometimes I make jokes about "people from my country." Hell, in the old server, I had a guild of all alchemists, called Al Chyda (alchy + al queda, and we specialized in bombs. This isn't made to offend anybody, it's just a personal thing.

My little piece of random information.

[GM-Scott]

In those situations, we try mediation and we use our common sense. This is not about getting a new radical joke police department, it's about asking people to be understanding of other, getting people to realize that some things are not fitting on a world based community.

There are a million ways to name an alchemist guild why use a controversial name for it? I don't particularly find "Al Chyda" to be overly offensive and I don't really think anybody else does!

[GM-Boomy]

Do you know what is the ultimate answer? Talk to each other... If someone says something and it hurts you, tell him, ask him to apologize, maybe they didn't want to tell it in a bad way.

If you don't tell anyone that you don't like it (in a responsible way, with respect and so on...), then don't fill a ticket about it, live with the choice you made. We are here to serve and protect (wait... that's the police job, not our... anyway ) but we're not dictator. Try to solve your problem by yourself first and if it doesn't work, then you fill a ticket