Can we just. have it completely. completely restricted at all times. regardless of the situation? this morning i heard and saw atleast 8 people use it and say ''Oh a admin told us you can use it'' and still. they kept on going. and going. and going using it excessively. may i say annoyingly aswell. and most importantly. It was highly. racist. so please. can we just. restrict it?
What's so special about the n-word, do slurs against anyone else not count? What about nigga? What about songs and quotes? What about completely non-offensive usages? What about allowing usages in the above cases and the same people just come back and use the restrictions to still use slurs and just shout the n-word when they get to it and bitch to the staff online that they're 'allowed to cause [insert bad excuse]'? I agree, see no real excuse to use slurs, but it's very hard to enforce in a satisfactory way, and from your description, they were spamming and they shoulda got warned by the staff online. Remember, they're just words and we're trying to enforce their negative usages more than their negative meanings
The big rule maker in the sky made the decision to no longer restrict the use of the word, and to this day nobody has been able to convince him otherwise
People just really love the "they're just words" argument, eh? I get what people are trying to say when they say things like "they're just words", or make the argument that political correctness is dumb etc etc, but more often than not, it's people who those words don't affect that are saying that they're "just words". I don't think that you shouldn't be able to have an opinion on a matter that doesn't actually affect you, or that you don't have experience with, but I do think people need to put way more thought into seeing things from the viewpoints of others, and thinking, "you know what? I only know firsthand my own experiences in life, so maybe I'm not entirely correct on my opinion about this thing that I don't/can't have experience with - and should probably do more of a job to accept the opinions of those who do have experience with it, rather than enforcing my own opinion on it" (or something along those lines). Politics and morals are always incredibly complicated subjects, though. I don't claim to know the answers to everything, and I can't just say "slurs are bad" with complete certainty, I'm just saying that it's a lot more logical to accept that since black people generally find it incredibly offensive for non-black people (especially white people) to use the n-word, then we should listen to that and accept that, as relatively, it's not really our place to have the opinion that it's okay to use the word. I'd also like to point out that this is a Garry's mod server, and that the administration tries to make it suitable for children (the internet isn't ever really suitable for kids, but we don't allow porn and such on here). I think it's pretty harmful to allow the usage of slurs, as we're basically just showing a bunch of kids that it's okay to use those words - which whether you believe that they're "just words" or not, I think we should all agree that kids definitely shouldn't be made to think that it's okay to yell the n-word at strangers. It would be nice if the administration were to hold some more accountability at least on that aspect of the usage of slurs here. There's always talk about the "proper"/"in context"/"completely non-offensive usages" (as lordy has put it), and how the staff team thinks it would be too difficult to differentiate between the "bad" usage of the n-word, and the "good" usage of the n-word. Which is a pretty faulty argument. There's not really many "completely non-offensive" usages of the n-word that are necessary for a gmod server to be free to use. That example doesn't really pop up. Even if it did, simply censoring the word, or saying "the n-word" is going to always be perfectly fine. Even if you're not trying to use the word in a hateful/racist way, at it's core, it's a racist word created to enforce hate and put down an entire race - and it's still being used to this day for that reason. Could pretty easily argue, and this shouldn't be a surprise to anyone, that despite not "trying" to be racist by using the n-word, you're still participating in racism by ignoring every black person telling you to not use those words, as well as normalizing their usage, which only really just helps the people who actively want to use it to be racist - which there are a lot of on Garry's mod. People aren't in the servers using the n-word in a proper/non-offensive way. People are most often trolling, and anyone should be able to come to the consensus that their need to troll by shouting racial slurs stems from a place of racism, and we shouldn't be tolerant of that here. It's dumb, it's offensive, it's annoying, and the constant comments from the staff team about how tough it is for them to figure out how to handle it, or how they can't do anything because highwon made the rule and they're helpless to that fact, is pretty pathetic. Get it together guys.
What I say and what I believe will often not line up, same with a lot of people. It's about what we're trying to achieve, and some quick counterpoints and a brief reason was what I felt would do for the thread now since this has been discussed at great lengths before. I agree with you drunk dog, I say 'completely non-offensive usages' and can't for the life of me think of one, but I also can think of situations on a server where to warn for a word in a lyric of a song that's mostly harmless would just be unnecessary and disrupt an otherwise constructive moment. Innocuous would probably have been better, and certainly not 'completely', but I felt that this would be better to answer sethy's question, rather than the slurs debate as a whole.
Now my one fight against this is that some of the songs on modded use the nword. You can't direct it at people, so I don't really see the problem. If they direct the nword at you just record it and report them on forums for harrasment
I've been staff before the N-word was banned, and now after -- I quite like it better now. Before it was allowed, people would be using it just to get banned and show off how cool they are and shit -- now that we don't feed the trolls by banning them... there's a lot less. When people are spamming the word, it's easy to punish them. As soon as they call anyone - literally anyone, idfc, the word -- they get punished. It's not a complicated system. Most of these N-word trolls spam or harass players with the word, and get banned really fast so it doesn't matter. The only place I ever see this be an issue is the forums - in the game where people actually play, nobody really seems to care. Only long standing community members and like ex-staff members seem to care. The people who play the game every single day seem to not care. It's honestly only an issue because y'all are making it an issue. Just calm down, play the game, and when someone spams the N-word or someone gets called the N-word, the offenders will be punished by staff -- if they aren't, just tell the admins. There's also another issue: The only word people seem to get mad at is the N-word. There's a whole lot of other slurs in the book...
Having been staff since the change I disagree entirely. There has been a major increase of slurs and they did not die off. They are way more prevalent than before the change.
As a white man, my opinion obviously matters on this subject so MY opinion on this word is *Censored* *Censored* *Censored* *Censored* *Censored* *Censored* *Censored* *Censored*
The only thing there is less of, is a total number of players across the servers I agree with drunk dog but want to go in the opposite direction, let's make this an 18+ only community and allow nudity and porn like we allow racial slurs
Ok so. While i can agree with both Sticky and Jabba i disagree with them as well. When the n word was banned people said it all the time just for the fun. Like all people when you tell someone to not do something almost always the person will think about doing such activities. And most people that play this game are well under the age of 22. So restricting the n word won't really solve the problem as people will just say it for fun which causes the "chain" to start. Now allowing the n word wouldn't be a bad idea because everyone will get bored of this "once illegal activity" but like Sethy said, its racist. And while the internet is generally a place of getting away with what our cultures doesn't allow it still has the racist bad word undertone which depending on who says it, can be really offensive to the black players of this community or just really anyone who see's this word as offensive. Context is a big important factor as calling someone the n word versus saying it outright have two different meanings. Now as of right now calling someone the n word just get's labeled under harassment which is fair considering calling someone any other slur isn't restricted and just labeled as harassment. Of course you also need to know the difference between nigga and ni**er. Because if you asked just about any black person they'll tell you that nigga is just the equal of bro or mate. Nigga is not racist but is a slang of friend. So should the n word be restricted once again? I don't know why it was removed from being restricted in the first place ( tell me why below ) but restricting it once again is not gonna really fix the problem. One thing though is that the n word usage has gone down amongst the regulars of this server. I disagree with Jabba's statement that it's usage has gone up because other than the new comers, the usage amongst regulars of the server has gone down substantially. Personally i go with freedom of speech since telling someone not to do something just leads them to break the rule anyways but I don't know. One for sure is that if you see someone yelling the n word in every two sentences builds a mindset in there head which might someday in real life cause them to say it at the front desk. And then "YOUR FIRED!!!"
Not technically spam, since they weren't saying the exact same message over and over again. Only a few were directed at people so a couple of people would get a warning at best. Also as you can see at the beginning with that some of the messages said console and as well as starting a demo, I had just joined the server and had reports to handle before map change. And to be frank, I really did not feel like dealing with it, sorting through the messages to determine which ones were directed at people, pming them, getting into arguments, getting reported on the forums because "the N word is allowed", "I wasn't saying it at anyone", "there's no proof it was directed at anyone I was just saying it". But the other point is some messages are completely acceptable under the rules since "Ni**ers also like to rape white women" is not directed at any players
That's not how spam works - can absolutely be multiple different messages. By the definition in the extended rules... spam is defined very loosely. You should have used to this to your advantage as a moderator and cracked the whip when people were mildly spamming. For example, I usually don't gag for a really small amount of singing - but when it gets excessive, or multiple people are doing it, I crack the whip. If someone spells out nigger in chat by each typing out a letter... one can argue that is spam. And if getting rid of the N-word all together like it used to be.. that's what they would get. Except you're forgetting these guys are probably gonna continue to spam/harass some more then get kicked/banned. So.... it's a you problem, not the rules problem. If you enforce the rules, people stop breaking them - usually after the first kick/ban most players pipe down real fast. No staff member should let the fear of getting reported stop them from doing their job. I've been reported... 11? times, most by Helix, most valid. Learned from each one, and now I don't really let what anyone says effect my staffing - I'm going to do the right thing, and if someone has a problem with it, they can take it up the chain. Hello sir, the N-word is allowed, as long as no other rules are being broken. Sounded like you were to me. Don't be a troll. Then why did you say "stfu nigger"? Sure sounds to me like you're calling the guy you're telling to stfu a nigger. Cease the behavior, or get banned. Those are just a few ways to properly, and firmly, put your foot down when moderating a toxic server. The type of person to say that, is most certainly going to slip up and call someone the N-word. They'll get banned real fast. When dealing with a toxic server you need to establish a strong command authority. You crack the whip - you lay the law down. You take dumbasses down. It's not that difficult - then you get back to playing the game and having fun.
The fact of the matter is, that even if staff can use the rules to punish for the type of behavior that Noct showcased, since the rule change I haven't seen anyone do so. I started playing again for a bit, and all the usage of the N word, whether it sound be spam or harassment, simply just aren't dealt with (from what I've seen). I believe both you and Noct are making solid points here. I agree with you on your points that those instances should have been dealt with and players should have been warned/punished, but he's also completely correct with the difficulty in doing so given the current rules, and more likely than not, if he had spent the time to rummage through that garbage and deal with all these instances and warn/punish players, not only would his workload have increased drastically and become a nightmare, but he would likely then have to deal with a bunch of forum reports - whether troll reports or serious, which then just extends it further to admins, and creates a staff discussion for case-by-base basis of proper/improper usage of the n-word - which is ridiculous. I don't really think anyone here is qualified to make the distinction of "oh this usage of the n-word is bad, but this one is good". That just opens up a whole other can of worms and extends from simple rule enforcement to discussions on politics and shit. My point is, that whether or not you think he should have warned/punished players, the truth is that the large majority of staff members (from what I've personally witnessed since playing after the rule change) either don't want to, or don't care enough to try and punish players for saying shit like this (the only real except would be if someone is just yelling the n word repeatedly in mic). Also, you could easily make the argument that "irrelevant or inappropriate messages sent on the internet" (in the rules under spam/harassment) constitutes almost every instance of the n-word. Any knowledge of the meaning/history of the word should make that blatantly obvious. It's considered to be extremely offensive, and it's usage, as long as the usage of other slurs should fall under the category of harassment.
I've definitely seen what you're talking about - I'll bring it up in the next staff meeting. This is actually one of the reasons I reapplied - I kept seeing mods failing at handling spam of slurs and harassment with slurs, so I was like Thanos in the post credits scene of Avengers: Age of Ultron.
