Rule 3. Racism in CM. Should it be allowed?

[Cry of Wolves]

I think the most important part of this rule is when the IC racism bleeds into OOC. it happens alot in the discord, forums, and probably slack due to certain members partaking in it. When there isn't regulation and management of this, hateful players will get comfortable with making the bigoted comments. Hell, we had a Vice Host making holocaust jokes. There needs to be a line drawn in the sand, and there needs to enforcement of it. No cherry picking because it's 4 mods doing it, or they are my metafriends, or it's just a joke.

Regulate. The. Shit.

[Lumdor]

We use to ban people for saying "nigger" for three hours a while ago. Though that pretty much changed once we got new heads.

[Jabber]

At the end of the day, I think that three things need to come about:

1. The rule 3 does not include any IC racism clause. There is no enforceable standard of "minor IC racism" defined in the rules; you don't know about IC racism being treated differently until you run up on it and that just wastes everybody's time.

2. There needs to be a definitive guideline for what is allowable as "minor" IC racism; one moderator shouldn't be able to go "I see no problem here" while another moderator will ban someone for the same thing. For one person you have to go on a racist tirade for the entire round for it to even be reportable and for another person one slur is an immediate ban.

3. IC racism needs to be punishable IC when taken to extremes; characters who yell racial slurs during the briefing, calling for the death of an ethnic group, and general discrimination should be punishable with a warning and brig time because yes, there should still be consequences for being a racist dickbag.

If I had a really, really long stretch about a fourth point, I'd really rather not see the Discord and forums full of people calling each other faggot and autistic retards because it's just childish.

I still think that it is the lowest of low concept to play some racist caricature or racist asshole. When I think of the USCM I think about Aliens. I don't recall Apone popping out cryo and going "Well I be done seen about errythang when I see some aliums steal my grape souto" and I don't remember Hudson going up to Vasqeuz and telling her to get her spic ass back over the wall. I don't remember Ripley yelling "You fucking retarded fucking autistic faggots" over comms. Whatever this impression of what the USCM is, it's definitely not represented in any of the actual media, so it's really just projecting.

[spookydonut]

The people most offended by this stuff are also probably the least likely to complain, and either just avoid it or not play CM. Complaints are going to be less likely when large numbers of staff are engaging in the behaviour too.

[x31stOverlord]

I don't like racism in any of it's forms. But I think if a ruling is made, it should be all or nothing.


Either ban racism even IC entirely, or don't. It doesn't add anything to an atmosphere, can cause offence to people and I personally believe it just can't be ruled evenly at this time because of people using terms and phrases that can be construed as racist or offensive, that are said by staff or buddies but offends another person but is fine because "muh IC" where in another situation it would have resulted in warnings or bans for others.

All or nothing. It's too easy to pretzel things if there are "certain conditions" or catches to allow it.

[Heraclitus]

Since this thread is closing soon and I've had some time to read through it and think about it some more here's my final thoughts.

Rule 3: should it be changed? Yes, but only to reflect how the rule is already being enforced.

Should racism be allowed in CM? In character, yes. In the desert dam round yesterday the CO banned certain words, and anyone who broke that ban got 5 minutes brig time. Of course you had to say it over comms for anyone to notice, and that seemed to work fine. Keeping the shitposting off comms is always a good thing.
Out of character, no. But then if you go around racially insulting people in OOC I think you'll get noted for it pretty quickly anyway so not much change there really.
If someone is being racist IC and someone else gets offended and ahelps, I personally think that's their problem. But there's nothing wrong with asking people to tone it down either.


My views haven't changed much on this, but the biggest thing isn't the roleplaying or consistent enforcement of rules honestly. It's if good players are being turned away from the server? That's all that could change my mind. I'll keep on playing CM if I can say whatever or not, people swearing and insulting each other doesn't affect my round much, even if they're doing it to me. It would suck if we were missing out on having fun with good players because of the server's language.

On the flip side, other good players could be turned away restrictions on the server's language. You might judge them as just shitlords or whatever but both the players in that report are people who I think add a lot to the server.

And the end of the day, what seals it for me, is that anyone who'd be turned off playing CM because of server language probably would of stopped playing for any number of other offensive reasons. You can't please everyone, so don't even try. Those are just my thoughts though.

[grinkgo]

On the topic of allowing IC racism because you shouldn't "restrict roleplay," that argument falls flat if you apply it to other unaccepted forms of roleplay. Why shouldn't two players ERP? Well, it's against the rules and there are OOC punishments for ERP. But ERP could certainly be realistic in the right scenario. However as a community we decided that's not the type of roleplay we want in the server. Why shouldn't someone grief or RP as someone who goes on a batshit crazy killing spree? That's roleplay. Well, again that kind of behavior and roleplay isn't allowed on the server. Just like the ERP, there's an OOC punishment for IC griefing.
So regardless of whether or not I agree, this all begs the question of why the community is so intently focused on allowing IC racism? So what is it specifically about IC racism that's soo worth defending? And sure someone's gonna reply to this and say I'm comparing apples to oranges but that's all semantics. Particularly I just want to point out the principles of the argument. And I'm not really trying to present any kind of argument for or against, but I think it's just worth noting the general inconsistency with the "you shouldn't restrict my roleplay" argument. Roleplay can be and already is restricted and we all are fine with it. So what's really the reason for protecting racism roleplay?

[Solarmare]

Leaving my own thoughts.
I don't particularly think there's any worth in allowing it, but there is a cost in enforcing a contentious policy that even staff take issue with which can make enforcement of it inherently inconsistent(as it is now).
Might be best for things to remain as is, but it needs to be strict and consistent anywhere else because you are directly dealing with people there.
Rule 3 can be reworded to how it's actually enforced now, and staff should not be directly causing issue in this regard because they stand as members of the community who you should be able to follow an example with.
I'm concerned with staff side things currently, what exists here is a flawed policy for flawed people but at least part of it can be addressed even if it isn't the IC side of things.

[Banned User ID63]

On the topic of allowing IC racism because you shouldn't "restrict roleplay," that argument falls flat if you apply it to other unaccepted forms of roleplay. Why shouldn't two players ERP? Well, it's against the rules and there are OOC punishments for ERP. But ERP could certainly be realistic in the right scenario. However as a community we decided that's not the type of roleplay we want in the server. Why shouldn't someone grief or RP as someone who goes on a batshit crazy killing spree? That's roleplay. Well, again that kind of behavior and roleplay isn't allowed on the server. Just like the ERP, there's an OOC punishment for IC griefing.
So regardless of whether or not I agree, this all begs the question of why the community is so intently focused on allowing IC racism? So what is it specifically about IC racism that's soo worth defending? And sure someone's gonna reply to this and say I'm comparing apples to oranges but that's all semantics. Particularly I just want to point out the principles of the argument. And I'm not really trying to present any kind of argument for or against, but I think it's just worth noting the general inconsistency with the "you shouldn't restrict my roleplay" argument. Roleplay can be and already is restricted and we all are fine with it. So what's really the reason for protecting racism roleplay?

ERP causes legal issues. Media racism does not.

[WinterClould]

I don't see a way that IC racism exactly contributes positively to our game. Sometimes its funny but so often its just braindead low hanging memes that are worthless jokes with real reason behind them. They add as much to the conversation as replying with LOL to something.

Ya'll should do yourselves some favors and just be a bit more mature with your comedy. holocaust or n word aren't very endearing. No ones gonna like you just because you said Nigger in the middle of briefing or denied the holocaust just to be edgy.

And if you're staff making those kinda jokes, the fuck guys. We're role models who are supposed to be high examples of the standards we set for the community. Rolling around making racist jokes is plain bad staffing, simple as that.