Use of the R-Slur

Please Note: The TotalFreedom Forum has now been put into a read-only mode. Total Freedom has now closed down and will not be returning in any way, shape or form. It has been a pleasure to lead this community and I wish you all the best for your futures.

    I've already talked a bit with elmon about this, who has already passed this on to the AO team, but this needs to be brought up to you all as well for transparency and awareness sake.

    In the wake of Ivan's indefinite suspension, another conversation about administrative conflict of interest is more prevalent than ever.

    Section 3j of the conduct policy states:

    Discriminatory jokes, slurs or hate speech (attacks on an individual or group based on their race, ethnicity, national origin, sex, gender, sexual orientation, religious affiliation, or disabilities)

    The Special Olympics, this article, and the Spread the Word campaign all identify the "r" slur, which I will not repeat here, as a slur and how it is used to attack someone based on intellectual or physical disability. This word is, in fact, against our conduct policy. The fact that this word has been perpetuated and normalized in our community by our admins is unacceptable and should not be tolerated. kotaro2009 on the server made a great point to me today - we punish users for saying the word, yet don't stop saying the word ourselves as admins, which should not be the norm. The truth is that word is a discriminatory word that has no place on our server and in our community. It is already disallowed as per our own conduct policy, and we have admins trying to defend their use of the word trying to claim it isn't in our conduct policy.

    The bottom line here is simple - if we can't put out a uniform enforcement of our policies as they are and as all admins are expected to have memorized, mind you, then there's no way to be taken seriously and run the server the way it's meant to be run. I urge you to please watch your language when it comes to this word. It takes so little time to do and you can still get your point across without using it. I promise.

    i want to say, as someone with a learning disability, who lives with people with severe disabilities and knows way more disabled people that im pretty good friends with. this slur does not phase me in any way especially as i've felt i've only learned the actual meaning of that word fairly recently (few years give or take) along with certain other words. genuinely didn't know the f-word was a slur for gay people. i never saw it as that ever and quite frankly i still dont really see it as a direct attack on every gay person and more of something you'd call your friend to ridicule them. i'd argue the r-slur would go in this bracket too, but i avoid saying it anyway since thats the general consensus here and i kind of need to respect that.

    i'd only really be a fan of the enforcement for consistency sake with the policy and making it potentially less of a deterrent to get involved with the community which seems to be your main points here of which i can side with 100%. but like im never a fan of this whole like charade if you will with this kind of stuff. i think context should really matter more then it actually does at the moment like if someones genuinely using it to hurt/bully/harass people then yeah sure serious shit should be taken, asses should be raptured, suspensions should be given and mutes, bans whatever should be handed out but imma be real here.

    I've been back around here now for almost a year, most of the people i see using slurs, particularly this one or others i think are genuinely just being edgy, dont even think of the r-slur being that bad, dont think slurs are banned yet or trying to provoke a form of reaction. i can only name one case where i've seen a racial attack on an admin i had to moderate as a forum mod when a forum raid happened awhile back.

    i think one more point i want to make is that there's quite a few more derogatory terms that probably wont be well known to some people and probably doesn't even have the same effect. @fleshly#13273 legit just said "savage" is a slur, i've searched it and its on the "Racial Slur Database" down as one against Native Americans. never thought of it like that ever, was just a word we'd use for people that pop the fuck off very hard on someone or someshit along those lines. i dont think we gotta go length's to make literally every slur listed as such is banned as i feel it would start to negate the effect on people joining the community if we gotta make them that cautious about what they say. i think what people like fleshly and miwo are implying is that if we go further then to ban the main few then we gotta ban them all, i get this could be considered one of those main ones but like honestly do people here really think when people use that word their referring to a disability? to me as again, learning difficulties. especially grown up with it my whole life it never really does come across as an attack on that but again im speaking for myself here.

    thats just my thoughts on this, quite long winded. more then i expected and quite controversial i get it but, if this is our admin exclusive "LGBTQ+ Rights / Similar Discussion" thread (thats finally fucking dead) then so be it. not the first time we've all had a good old fashioned gang bang about moderation of certain words

    assrix, assryx, asterisk, *

    awesomeist tf blokey

    I see we're having this discussion again. The bottom line remains the same as the previous 20 times: if we want an objective policy, we need an exhaustive list of words that are unacceptable, and all of them have to be forbidden unconditionally. Considering the meaning of the word or the context in which it is said necessarily makes it subjective.

    I also have to say I am disappointed that so much discussion over such a long period of time has still not resulted in a policy that works.

    @StevenNL2000#13286 Then we need to get the ball rolling on that so that we are not in a state of limbo. The conduct policy states that the rules are up to the interpretation of the Owner, so I'd like to call upon wild1145 to weigh in on this and how that exhaustive list of words should be created, or if what Steven has said is even necessary in regards to the r-slur or any others mentioned in this thread.

    This is more of a complicated issue than it seems - the discussion before was about slurs that are simply rejected by most of society, i.e. the n-slur and the f-slur, but "retarded" is obviously nowhere near that point. Even if the n-slur and f-slur were both allowed, there's no way you'd end up with this:
    [img]https://i.imgur.com/qnf1mfI.png[/img]

    I agree that the word is offensive, and I agree that there needs to be a definitive list of words that are banned, but I simply don't think people are going to adjust well to this word being banned, because most of society hasn't, either.