| Summary: | Abuse of Vulgarity |
| Violation: | Social Contract |
| World: | Atamara |
| Complainer: | Derek Anderson (http://battlemaster.org/UserDetails.php?ID=17439) |
| About: | Lyman Stone (http://battlemaster.org/UserDetails.php?ID=10403) |
As a noble, you can expect to be treated with respect and dignity, and expect certain manners from your peers. That does not mean they can not be offensive or they can not backstab you, but it does mean their manner of speech and behaviour should stand above the common, vulgar peasants.
You can mark another noble's words as vulgar and unbefitting of his class, and they will be forwarded to several randomly selected distinguished nobles for a short peer-review. If they agree on your assessment, the vulgar noble will lose a point of honour for behaving in a non-noble way.
If you complain falsely too often, you yourself will lose respect among your peers, and suffer the consequences.
This is a tool to enforce proper roleplaying and keep the atmosphere and quality level of the game up. The focus is on the manner of speech, not its contents.
Yes, there was. I don't know where it was, though. Could provide some interesting background, and related discussion.
Meh, I should search before I post. Here it is:
Topic: Rework the Vulgarity flag feature
http://forum.battlemaster.org/index.php/topic,1795.0.html
This is a tool to enforce proper roleplaying and keep the atmosphere and quality level of the game up. The focus is on the manner of speech, not its contents.Proper RP, atmosphere, upholding standards of nobility/RP, as pertaining to manner of speech - not idealogies, philosophies, religion.
Bob -- Wife/parents/siblings
Robert -- Cousins, lifelong friends
Robert Fitzpatrick -- Distant cousins, close friends
Sir Robert Westham -- friends
Robert, Earl of Westham -- court officials, other nobility, letters between good friends
Earl Robert Fitzpatrick of Westham -- letters from aquaintances in other courts
Earl Fitzpatrick of Westham -- letters from other courts
Earl Westham -- letters between dignitaries
The other player then RP'd that their character did believe in a higher power, but did not follow an organized religion.This is totally acceptable. The in-game term is "pagan".
Nobles are a peculiar bunch of people. While they betray and backstab
each other as a hobby, they also agree on a code of conduct and insist
on proper manners of speech and behaviour. In short, noble behaviour and
noble words are what makes a noble different from a vulgar peasant.
Unfortunately, not all nobles are equal in this regard, and some slip
into inappropriate manners at times. Of course, the penalty for being no
different than a common peasant is a loss of respect among one's peers.
You are those peers, and have been randomly selected to judge the
following message or messages, which another noble considers vulgar or
otherwise unbefitting of a noble. Please pass your verdict.
This is our method to ensure a proper roleplaying experience and ahigh quality of the gameplay. You do not decide alone, 4 other noblesare selected for each message and the majority decides, but please doconsider your choice carefully, because it is ultimately you who decideson the atmosphere within the game.We have provided some guidelines (see below) to help youmake a decision.In case of doubt, we suggest you err in dubio pro reo. But actualverbal vulgarity should find no mercy.
Proper manners for a noble follow an unwritten consensus of
respect and dignity. It is not easy to write strict guidelines for
this, so we offer some soft ones, to get you thinking in the right
direction.
First of all is respect. You may hate the enemy, but if he is
a noble, then he is your peer and you should respect him as that. You
can still hate him, but vulgarity is for peasants and nobles have, well
more noble ways to express their feelings.
Second is manners. It doesn't matter what you say, it's
all in how you say it. Again, vulgarity is for the peasants,
nobles are expected to be able to speak in a manner that sets them
apart, even if what they say is fairly basic or even offensive. A
peasant swears - a noble employs a witty repartee.
Third is behaviour, this is mostly for roleplays. A noble is
first and foremost a noble. No matter if he bloodies his sword in the
bodies of his enemies or poisons the wine of the ruler, his actions and
his way of acting set him apart from the commoner in a hard-to-describe
but easy-to-spot way.
As a final hint: Almost all modern swearwords should be considered
vulgar for a noble. Commoners in the middle ages used them extensively,
which is precisely why a noble would avoid them.
It is about the way someone says something, not what they are saying,
Just curious, how exactly do you do that?
It isn't that they said "!@#$ you," but the way they said "!@#$ you."
Just curious, how exactly do you do that?
It isn't that they said "$#%@ you," but the way they said "$#%@ you."
It isn't that they said "!@#$ you," but the way they said "!@#$ you."
You're focusing on what is said. If you think about, I'm sure you can come up with a hundred ways to effectively say "$#%@ you" to someone without actually using those exact words. For example, I could have replied to this post (facetiously of course) that "That's exactly the kind of brilliant question I've come to expect from you." It's possible to be offensive without using profanity.
You can say "!@#$ you" - which would be vulgar - or you can say "I respectfully disagree, my lord, and I do so in the strongest possible way. If it were not for the noble blood in both our veins, I would be using words that make the ladies blush, for they would certainly be appropriate to your actions."
Or whatever. You get the idea. If not, watch "Dangerous Liasons", the scene where the main male character goes to "hunt" aka into the village with his servant and listen for how different they speak.
Certainly, I understand this. My point is that it really does come down to the actual "contents" of what you say that makes it vulgar. As in, it's the literal words you speak and what you say, not just some kind vague "tone."
Further thoughts on this matter:
It is hard to classify this as abuse, since two out of four other randomly selected players agreed that the message in question was vulgar.
Vellos had no control over the outcome of his report
Not really relevant. I can guarantee you there are people that will "agree" that a reported message was vulgar just because they don't like that player, or even because the don't like the realm the player is in.+1 on this. I am completely mystified as to why some people choose to report some things, or agree with things, or reject things. Vulgarity report results are almost a crapshoot sometimes.
can't unclick vulgar, can you?No. You are also not ever told what the final result of the report is, either. You click the link, confirm it, and then as far as you're concerned, it's done. The only way you ever hear a result is when the reported person chooses to bring it back in game and make an issue of it.
[bunch of stuff deleted]
To summarize:
You felt disrespected so abused the vulgarity option to retaliate.
Your wiki search did not unearth the difference between atheist and pagan, leading you to abuse the vulgarity option.
Many people are talking about a clear definition.
You're wrong. It's not clear. You are living in an imaginary world of your own delusion if you think it is. Or, you've already stopped playing BM as a game with friends. I'll explain.
You see that numerous players disagree with your interpretation of the rule. I am the only one willing to speak up about (and given the abuse I've gotten, notably from Velax and Elroy, but not exclusively them) I understand why people aren't willing to speak up: to do so is to suffer blanket IC discrimination. But the fact remains that my interpretation is evidently common.
I will reiterate what Kale said, in that I do not believe manner and content are separable, or even different.
For example, in the "!@#$ you" versus "Good my lord.... etc" the content IS different. They are semantically different things. One of them refers to a cultural taboo (violent sex with an offensive connotation), the other contains items of cultural respect (titles, ladies' dignity, etc, etc). That's a difference of content.
Really, I don't understand what people mean by "manner." You seem to liken it to tone of voice. Well, "tone of voice" in text-based messages would be things like italics, punctuation, capitalization, message type, message length and structure, etc. THAT is the "manner" of the message. In which case I would justified reporting things as vulgar if they are categorized under the wrong message type or have bad grammar: peasants have bad grammar!
Indeed, personally, I find the "manner" rule not only incomprehensible, but discriminatory. As a rule of thumb, I do not report vulgarity on players whose writing (And user page) evince limited grasp of english, despite the fact that some such players' messages are regularly vulgar and fail in even basic things like using titles, avoiding slang, etc. Those messages are vulgar. I don't report them. If the "manner" of the message is the point, those messages should be vulgar. But I don't think they are.
Or consider the equally obvious scenario. If I go into an extended clever discussion of sexual intercourse with a noble's sister, or mother, say (which in fact one of my characters has done, and sadly either nobody ruled it vulgar, or the people reading it were incapable of understanding basic metaphors), it is vulgar no matter how flowery the language. Why? Because some things are just ALWAYS vulgar.
I am aware that it's not clear enough and have pointed that out using essentially your reasoning. Help us make it more clear. Unless you simply don't understand it at all, which seems within the realm of possibility.
If this is your belief then I think you've missed the point entirely. This isn't about literal definitions and the use of synonyms. It's about how you express ideas at a very basic level. It's about a rhetorical standard.
This game is about medieval nobles, and accordingly, people should try to communicate like them (or at least adhere to some relatively strong rhetorical standard), which precludes the use of obvious profanity, for example.
For the record, it's entirely in keeping with the standards of medieval nobility to discuss intercourse using clever metaphors. That's exactly how they did it, when they did it, at least when they were trying to maintain any pretense of good breeding in the process. I would never consider a conversation such as you have roughly described as being vulgar unless you got a little too blunt or specific.
Reread the posted guidelines and ask yourself which of them justifies reporting a comment about religion simply because it is a comment about religion.
Again, it's not about the idea being expressed, it's about how it is expressed.
Ultimately, the entire system relies on the judgment of players to make the right choice and be fair and considerate to each other. In my experience, very few messages I've seen should truly be considered vulgar, and I do not hesitate to say that if you find yourself using this feature a lot that you are probably not playing this game as you would a board game with friends.
Do you constantly call your friends out on every little mistake they make and hold them rigidly to the letter of the rules in a game?
Are you that guy who is always out to win no matter what and can't cut your friends any slack at all?
Which leads me to ask you, what do you believe the intent of this feature is? How do you think it is supposed to be used?
See, I don't think we should use vulgarity to police things "nobles wouldn't do." That's SMA reports. We should use vulgarity to police things "nobles would look down upon." And if others don't rule with you, then it isn't generally frowned upon. But if they do, then it is. But once we start down this path (well, correction: "once we get to where we already are in actual practice"), it's obvious that the vulgarity feature becomes policing things "my character looks down upon
I did no such thing. I reported a comment that I, and other players, perceived to be espousing atheism, which no noble would do. Now maybe it wasn't actually espousing atheism and I was wrong; that seems to be the case.
I agree on all counts! Which is why I think the Magistrates should rule in my favor on all counts. I think, and maybe this is crazy, but I really think that we can basically trust players on this. The player body in general will produce results that all of us disagree with sometimes. But I think if we let players decide what is vulgar, they'll generally do a pretty good job. And I think that there is no other enforcable option. You seem to have ignored my comments regarding the larger jurisprudential problems here. Here's another jurisprudential concern: every vulgarity ruling will be subject to Magistrates' review. In my opinion, the Magistrates should rule that Magistrates will not exercise oversight on vulgarity unless it can be demonstrated that some part of the IRs or SC is clearly violated (like in the spying case, or spamming the system, as above).
Not at all. I don't care if I win. I care that people follow the rules. I have not at any point been a jerk; rather, it seems to me I've been quite polite, and everyone else is freaking out and hurling insults. I don't understand why people are getting so angry about this and taking it personally.
I do not believe the function has intent. I believe it was implemented without a clear idea of what it would do, and I think this is clearly evinced by the jumbled IC and OOC language on the pages that describe it (it even says that BEHAVIOR can be vulgar! as in, roleplayed activities!) I do not think there is a coherent "supposed" to consider. I don't think Tom had an extremely firm idea of what role this feature would play. Maybe I'm wrong, but I just don't think that there's a definite intent here. I think it's a feature that got added in a fairly ad hoc manner.
I think it is acceptable to use it the way I have used it, but no, I don't think that's necessary The Perfect Intended Use. I'm not interested in having arguments about what Tom may or may not have intended.
And again, I'll reiterate that I do not believe that is a meaningful distinction.
I do not believe the function has intent. I believe it was implemented without a clear idea of what it would do, and I think this is clearly evinced by the jumbled IC and OOC language on the pages that describe it (it even says that BEHAVIOR can be vulgar! as in, roleplayed activities!) I do not think there is a coherent "supposed" to consider. I don't think Tom had an extremely firm idea of what role this feature would play. Maybe I'm wrong, but I just don't think that there's a definite intent here. I think it's a feature that got added in a fairly ad hoc manner.
I think it is acceptable to use it the way I have used it, but no, I don't think that's necessary The Perfect Intended Use. I'm not interested in having arguments about what Tom may or may not have intended.
Post deleted.
A reminder about the rules:
- Repeating a point does not increase its truth value.
I agree, but at least be consistent in your censorship.
I did no such thing. I reported a comment that I, and other players, perceived to be espousing atheism, which no noble would do. Now maybe it wasn't actually espousing atheism and I was wrong; that seems to be the case.
Then you're apparently unable to perceive a distinction that many reasonably intelligent people feel is clear and obvious.
But the vulgarity page doesn't even clearly define it!Just because it doesn't explicitly define it doesn't mean it doesn't define it. Its to punish for people swearing and for nobles do ignobles things like when someone got reported for torturing a commoner in detail in their roleplay. This is IC in the sense that the characters who are judges will look down on the characters who did the vulgar act, not anything your character considers vulgar is ok to report as vulgar.
The vulgarity page states that actions within roleplays can be vulgar. How is that a question of manner of speech?
Just because it doesn't explicitly define it doesn't mean it doesn't define it. Its to punish for people swearing and for nobles do ignobles things like when someone got reported for torturing a commoner in detail in their roleplay. This is IC in the sense that the characters who are judges will look down on the characters who did the vulgar act, not anything your character considers vulgar is ok to report as vulgar.
No my point is that insofar as it does explain it, it does so inconsistently, which has caused confusion among players and general use which apparently most Magistrates disapprove of.
And I don't understand the two senses you identify: how can I know if nobles will generally look down on it unless I report it?I would say it would be things that you as a player think is more of a major disrespect by the noble that or something like the persons roleplay that in detail tortured a commoner is ignoble, like swearing not, not using titles or they embarrassed you. My point about its not just anything your character thinks is disrespectful is that you or someone said just because of who sent the message they might consider the message vulgar.
...how can I know if nobles will generally look down on it unless I report it?Come on Vellos... you know better than this. That statement is blanket justification to report every message you receive for vulgarity, because, hey, you never know if nobles will generally look down on it until you report it...
This much is certainly true. To my eyes, it's not at all clear from the game text that manner of speech is the only thing we're supposed to be concerned with. It's listed as one of three soft guidelines, along with very subjective things like respect, dignity, and proper behavior.
I honestly and without antagonism do not see why thinking of the vulgarity feature as sort of a broad IC-what-a-noble-shouldn't-do counterpart to the SMA feature's OCC-what-a-noble-wouldn't-do is considered such an unreasonable conclusion given the way it reads. Apparently it's the wrong conclusion, but I assure you that one needn't be maliciously or belligerently missing the point to come to it. If the feature is solely intended to police language, the game text could basically be condensed down to the second guideline. Get rid of all the other stuff that leads to wider interpretation.
Come on Vellos... you know better than this. That statement is blanket justification to report every message you receive for vulgarity, because, hey, you never know if nobles will generally look down on it until you report it...
i think the penalty is more for a number of reporting that gets rejected. rather than just the odd one that gets rejected (makes no sense to get a penalty for reporting 1.. otherwise no one will use it as what defines vulgarity is not exact science)
And I don't understand the two senses you identify: how can I know if nobles will generally look down on it unless I report it?
How about vulgarity reports taking 12 hours of your character's time.No one would use the feature because whats the point then? They use all of their characters time because someone else was swearing in their message. Thats punishing the reporter even if its a valid report.
You are supposed to use your best judgement based on your understanding of the general noble culture.
It's not asking for a scientific certainty. It's asking for common sense.
I do use my best judgment. But I'm saying that there are many times where my best judgment says, "This seems like vulgarity to me; I'm not 100% sure, I'll let other players review it; if I'm wrong, find, no harm done; if I'm right, fine, the player isn't going to suffer much even if judges erroneously support me."So whats vulgar about atheism? Its not SMA and is against what Tom wants, but whats vulgar about it?
As a noble, you can expect to be treated with respect and dignity, and expect certain manners from your peers. That does not mean they can not be offensive or they can not backstab you, but it does mean their manner of speech and behaviour should stand above the common, vulgar peasants.
You can mark another noble's words as vulgar and unbefitting of his class, and they will be forwarded to several randomly selected distinguished nobles for a short peer-review. If they agree on your assessment, the vulgar noble will lose a point of honour for behaving in a non-noble way.
If you complain falsely too often, you yourself will lose respect among your peers, and suffer the consequences.
This is a tool to enforce proper roleplaying and keep the atmosphere and quality level of the game up. The focus is on the manner of speech, not its contents.
Third is behaviour, this is mostly for roleplays. A noble is
first and foremost a noble. No matter if he bloodies his sword in the
bodies of his enemies or poisons the wine of the ruler, his actions and
his way of acting set him apart from the commoner in a hard-to-describe
but easy-to-spot way.
words
"!@#$ you" = vulgar
"I do not believe in God" = SMA violation.
If there's something that should clearly be put somewhere that isn't vulgarity, don't report it for vulgarity. It doesn't seem like a whole bunch of people are misunderstanding the concept tbh.
Repeating your point doesn't make it right.
I have a suggestion: why doesn't everyone agree that what people think is vulgar differs, and that what a player like Vellos or myself (because I might have reported that statement as vulgar too under a "conduct unbecoming" interpretation of the feature) may find vulgar will not necessarily be the same as what a player like Slapsticks or Anaris may find vulgar, and that that is okay? Unless it's not? Are we supposed to all have the same standards for vulgarity?
The issue shouldn't be that Vellos thought something that others don't believe is vulgar is vulgar, the issue should be whether Vellos *didn't* think it is vulgar and is just needling a rival character by abusing the mechanic (and maybe the Magistrates are already past that in the backroom discussion). Vellos reports a lot, and reports borderline cases a lot, or so it seems. But, is this behavior abuse, and is this behavior in need of correction? Or does Vellos just have narrower standards for what constitutes acceptable language/roleplay? Do the vulgarity reporting/judging guidelines need to be reviewed and edited? Does a restriction need to be placed on the number of reports or a penalty added for reporting falsely?
The message you receive when a message is reported as vulgar talks about determining the atmosphere of the game. If the intent is only for actual verbal vulgarity (which it states should find no mercy) then why does it go on about atmosphere? The first time I got a vulgarity report sent to one of my characters I read through the whole thing, and ended up voting "not vulgar", but I didn't think the reporter was abusing the mechanic just because I thought he was wrong.
@Slapsticks: Professing atheism (whether or not the letter actually did is irrelevant as long as Vellos thought at the time that it did) is strictly against one of Tom's rules for the game, but it wasn't a straight-up "there is no god and Paul Dirac is his prophet". Should that be reported to the Titans, which is for "repeated and blatant" violations? Or should it be reported as vulgarity, something that a noble should not say and for which the penalty is a single point of honor lost?
And, by the same token, repeating your denial of it doesn't make it wrong.