Unnecessary Racist Slur

[Lorgan]

I really really cant understand all the sensivity in game these days.

It is GAME! Virtual world, virtual characters, bits and bytes... someone rapes peasant, doesnt mean anybody actually got hurt, someone insults peasant, doesnt mean anybody actually got insulted...

-Jaune

Jaune for president!

[Chenier]

You simply refuse to see the point.

This is not about punishing one guy , it is a good opportunity to discuss about this though because just letting it be it may allow it to escalate in the future, i know english is not my native language but for the love of God do you not understand what i m saying?

I personally see the Magistrates NOT as punishers but as an opportunity to set some boundaries for the players in order to not have them hurt each other.
I would want to be responsible for any player feeling insulted and offended for his race, nation, color, eyes or whatever.Infact it is exactly the same as harassing him without knowing it.

If you find it non important well good for you and good for sharing your opinion, just don't mock others for feeling differently, it is a game, it is an interactive one thus you will have to respect the way some players feel because you don't play alone.

We don't refuse to see your point, we just disagree with it. You are openly pro-censorship, while I loathe it and would only use it sparingly.

Racism exists. And it's not a modern invention. I, for one, oppose covering all things distasteful in life and pretending that we all live in a perfect model world.

This is pretty much my take.

This was gratuitous racism. There is no place for that in BattleMaster. Talking about fears of "allowing more censorship" is just making excuses for people to be offensive.

Basic rule of operations: Do not be unnecessarily offensive. Do not be unnecessarily easily offended.

I agree.

[Geronus]

To start out with, our role, in part, is to engage the BM community in discussing the rules and how they should be applied. Tom specifically empaneled the Magistrates as an open, public body of known membership in order to establish a more transparent and participatory process than that used by the Titans. The establishment of a body of precedent that could guide players is one of the purposes of our existence. There was a sense that the secrecy of the Titan process was leading to a perception of arbitrariness and unfairness in the enforcement of the rules, hence why the Magistrates were devised as an experiment, and why all members of the community are permitted to participate in and comment upon our cases.

This case is somewhat difficult. Racism, homophobia and other forms of intolerance are not explicitly forbidden by the Social Contract, but it could certainly be said to fall under the "play as you would with friends" clause. The importance of that statement cannot be overstated. Each of the explicit bullet points that follow it are one specific example of what friends playing a board game would not or should not do, i.e. cheat or insult each other. However, those bullet points are not an exhaustive list of the things one should reasonably avoid doing in order to maintain a friendly atmosphere. Common sense and discretion should always be applied to all interactions with the community, particularly given the world-wide player base of this game. As such, references to RL religions or racist stereotypes are things that probably should be avoided. Their potential to offend is great, and as has been pointed out, for the most part you do not truly know the people behind the other characters in the game. You may be able to make racist jokes with your good friends, whose attitudes and reactions are well known to you, but would you, upon meeting a Jewish person for the first time, immediately start cracking Jew jokes that rely on potentially offensive stereotypes to power their punchlines? Not until you knew him a lot better, I would hope. A similar take on graphic descriptions of torture, murder or rape should also apply; in a close RP group whose members you all know personally, such things might be acceptable depending on the group. In a community as diverse and essentially anonymous as the BM community however, they should probably be avoided. Young people play this game too, after all, and even older members (such as myself) may find such descriptions offensive or sickening. The long and short of it is, one should always be mindful of the fact that not all BM players will share your cultural background, or even speak English as a first language. In all cases, common sense should be exercised.

It is my opinion that if enough people feel offended by something for there to be seven pages of debate on the subject with multiple players arguing that it is offensive, then it probably crossed a line. The community itself, after all, ought to be the ultimate arbiter of what is and is not offensive to it in general terms. We, the community, have a right to decide what kind of atmosphere we want to promote in the game subject to the dictates of the Social Contract and Inalienable Rights. If we do not want to accept racism, then that is that.

I would also like to point out that in a case like this, a player's first resort should always be direct contact with the offending party. If someone says something you find offensive as a player, please contact them privately and politely explain that you were offended, why you were offended, and ask them not to do it again. I expect that in most cases, that player will simply apologize and the matter will be concluded with a minimum of fuss. If, on the other hand, the player disagrees and continues with the offensive behavior, that is when we can get involved in order to help settle the dispute. What I would like to avoid is us being the first resort, rather than the last. I have faith that 90% of potential disputes can be worked out between players without any involvement on our part.

Finally, to the matter at hand, my one reservation is that I am troubled at the prospect that Kas, not being a native English speaker, may have been using the language he did in a more literal sense. It certainly sounds bad from a native speaker's perspective, but the more subtle connotations and cultural import of those specific phrases may well have been somewhat lost on him. I am still fine with issuing a guilty verdict, but I would prefer to keep it to a private warning that simply explains why such language can be considered offensive. No further punishment would seem to be required.

[Fleugs]

There is need to separate modern day values and medieval values. Since Battlemaster is set in the Middle Ages of Europe, you need to cut loose a whole lot of things you think are unacceptable nowadays. In fact it's a-okay to slander people with a different skin colour, smack your woman around and even torture the occasionally peasant as long as it's IG. Go insult a player with racist slurs, though, and I'm sure the verdict will be very swift and easy to make.

[Naidraug]

I don´t see racism on the message, the first thought that came to mind was that the courtier might have yellow fever. A disease that makes people "lazy" and give their skin a yellow tone.

I only thougth about an asian person when it was said it here.

[Geronus]

There is need to separate modern day values and medieval values. Since Battlemaster is set in the Middle Ages of Europe, you need to cut loose a whole lot of things you think are unacceptable nowadays. In fact it's a-okay to slander people with a different skin colour, smack your woman around and even torture the occasionally peasant as long as it's IG. Go insult a player with racist slurs, though, and I'm sure the verdict will be very swift and easy to make.

I would much prefer to ask people being offensive to stop being offensive than ask people being offended to stop being offended.

[Fleugs]

I would much prefer to ask people being offensive to stop being offensive than ask people being offended to stop being offended.

Are you implying it is wrong to ask people to stop being offended?

[Anaris]

Are you implying it is wrong to ask people to stop being offended?

It can be wrong, depending on what they are being offended by.

In this case, it seems to me that the first step must be to ask the offending party to stop being offensive, whether or not it was originally his intent to be so.

There are certainly cases where people are offended by things that should not generally be considered offensive: a perfectly innocent remark that could, if you were overly sensitive, be misinterpreted, or a typo that turns (if you will pardon the slur) a cook into a gook.

This, however, is not one of those. The English was not, as the player himself has admitted, the clearest, but even if it was not the intent, the description of the scribe as "lazy, very short with slanted eyes and a yellowish skin" is precisely the sort of negative image that has, in the past, been associated with Asian (and particularly Chinese) immigrants in the West. Personally, I cannot see how it could be intended as anything other than a racist way of saying "my scribe is a lazy Chinese bum," but I will take the player's word for his lack of racist intent.

So, the important points in this case:

1) The message included what was clearly an anti-Asian ethnic slur.
2) The racism added nothing meaningful to the message.
3) It was not directed against any established in-character ethnic group.

Thus, it was clearly a case of gratuitous racism, which is unacceptable within the game.

[Geronus]

Are you implying it is wrong to ask people to stop being offended?

I'm saying that you can't really tell someone else whether they should be offended by something or not. If they're offended, they're offended, and attempting to explain to someone that they shouldn't be offended by something that does in fact offend them is extraordinarily patronizing. You'd do much better to try to convince them that whatever was said wasn't meant to be offensive, but that's an effort that players can make with each other; they don't need the Magistrates for that. If it comes here, it should always be because the parties involved couldn't settle their differences on their own. In that case however, the burden of proof is on the person who gave offense to demonstrate a good reason for refusing to respect the other player's request that they stop doing whatever it was that gave offense.

[Geronus]

It can be wrong, depending on what they are being offended by.

In this case, it seems to me that the first step must be to ask the offending party to stop being offensive, whether or not it was originally his intent to be so.

There are certainly cases where people are offended by things that should not generally be considered offensive: a perfectly innocent remark that could, if you were overly sensitive, be misinterpreted, or a typo that turns (if you will pardon the slur) a cook into a gook.

This! (emphasis added)

[Miriam Ics]

+1 for Anaris and Geronus

[Penchant]

Either race can be mentioned or it can't is what it seems is being said, literally. It perhaps is gratiuous racism, but that is not what people are complaining about. People are saying that mentioning a race while giving a person, not the race an adjective is racist and that a description, "slanted eyes" is racist because somebody on a forum somewhere used it negatively. Slanted eyes does not compare to nigger because slanted eyes is an actual description while nigger has no meaning to most other than trying to say Africans are worse than their own race and possibly others. Yes, in some foreign languages negro (not nigger afaik for any language) means black but its also used in those other languages as a description often while nigger is never anything but a negative connotation to anybody that I know of. Slanted eyes is of the english language not vaguely grasping at similar words from a different language when everyone knows it is bad.

Until I read this thread I had never heard of someone using slanted eyes in a negative connotation. Either race should not be allowed to be mentioned at all (which I am not for) or people shouldn't be punished for a non-obvious offensive description the first time they state such (as in a warning would be needed first with time for them to read it ((in case they were typing a message with the non-obvious offensive description while the warning was sent))). Btw, it seems I am 43 posts behind while posting this so my apologies if this has became irrelevant.

[Geronus]

The answer is that there will be no hard and fast rule. If someone takes offense to something you say and asks you to stop, then stop. That, or be prepared to justify yourself here.

I'm going to say it again:

If you as a player take offense to something someone says, your first recourse is always to contact the player who offended you and politely ask them not to do it again. Do not come here until you have tried that and are unable to resolve the issue.

[Penchant]

It can be wrong, depending on what they are being offended by.

In this case, it seems to me that the first step must be to ask the offending party to stop being offensive, whether or not it was originally his intent to be so.

There are certainly cases where people are offended by things that should not generally be considered offensive: a perfectly innocent remark that could, if you were overly sensitive, be misinterpreted, or a typo that turns (if you will pardon the slur) a cook into a gook.

This, however, is not one of those. The English was not, as the player himself has admitted, the clearest, but even if it was not the intent, the description of the scribe as "lazy, very short with slanted eyes and a yellowish skin" is precisely the sort of negative image that has, in the past, been associated with Asian (and particularly Chinese) immigrants in the West. Personally, I cannot see how it could be intended as anything other than a racist way of saying "my scribe is a lazy Chinese bum," but I will take the player's word for his lack of racist intent.

So, the important points in this case:

1) The message included what was clearly an anti-Asian ethnic slur.
2) The racism added nothing meaningful to the message.
3) It was not directed against any established in-character ethnic group.

Thus, it was clearly a case of gratuitous racism, which is unacceptable within the game.

1) No. It was not clearly an anti-Asian ethnic slur. I am an American who hears racism often and it was not obvious to me that slanted eyes was an anti-Asian ethnic slur, of which several other people have said.

2)No. As the player stated, he was trying to, as a noble would, find a way to pass the blame to a servant instead of himself by blaming that he couldn't tell if the servant was asleep or not due to his slanted eyes.

3)Race is not ethnicity. Low fantasy european setting, that means there aren't anybody with blue or purple skin and may imply to some that you simply use the races of already established races (aka everything that fits under low fantasy, i would guess there are people with slanted eyes that are 'red skins'). D'harans are not a race, they are a nationality, its not the same. D'hara scum is not IC racism, it is discrimination against a nationality.

Just because you think this is cut and dry doesn't make it so. You your self said don't be easily offended, which is what everyone who is getting pissed about someone who has iffy english skills didn't know that a description of a race to by him was considered racist by other people. Publish a list of terms that are unacceptable or quit complaining that people are using obviously racist terms when it isn't obvious to several members of this thread and likely many more IG. People shouldn't be required to look up every word they type in urbandictionary.com to make sure some !@#$%^& isn't using it to discriminate against people when as stated, their are many different cultures interacting in this game thus its not going to be obvious that words that actually describe people is seen as racist to others.

Once more, nigger does not fall under that catergory because it is an english negative term and not used for anything but a negative term. Negro also does not work because even in other languages it is negative unless used with a tone/manner that makes it neutral. Lastly, negro doesn't work because its a foreign language which is not english. That'd be  like saying a bunch of profanity is ok because i found languages that has a non-negative meaning with them, which is ridiculous because we aren't speaking those other languages, we are speaking english.

Lastly, intent does matter. It is the difference between a bug exploit and running across a bug. The player has clear explained his actions in a manner that makes his statement non-racist so unless you plan on simply calling him a liar, its quite hard to call him guilty. There was no intent for racism and no one ever mentioned to him that it may be offensive with him using it again so there is no racism here or a player trying to be offensive, so I once more don't see how he could be called guilty.  When you are playing with friends and they something offensive but don't know its offensive do you get all pissed at them even after they explained they didn't know it was offensive and were clearly using it in a non-offensive intended way or do you say thats fine bro just don't keep saying it. Also, because some of you like to bring real law in, intent is the difference between a car accident and somebody getting run off the road. One you just do insurance and such, the other they get criminal charges for. This is clearly a case of an accident.

[Anaris]

1) No. It was not clearly an anti-Asian ethnic slur. I am an American who hears racism often and it was not obvious to me that slanted eyes was an anti-Asian ethnic slur, of which several other people have said.

The problem isn't just the "slant-eyes". It's the whole of it: short, slanted eyes, yellow skin—that means he's lazy.