I am making this a community suggestion instead of just a staff facing suggestion, since this topic is important and relevant to consider/grab feedback at a community level as many of you have expressed opinions in the past both privately and publicly. I will be alluding to certain slurs in this post, please don't take that as a reason to run away from this thread and loophole some funny words somewhere.
We have a pretty stern stance on slurs here; see a bad word/hear a bad word, get a punishment. The punishment does vary across our platforms a fair bit, and the idea behind this suggestion is to add some consistency as we expand. The following ideas are suggested as a package deal:
1. Add Slur Filtering to all of our platforms
A quick little FAQ
We have a pretty stern stance on slurs here; see a bad word/hear a bad word, get a punishment. The punishment does vary across our platforms a fair bit, and the idea behind this suggestion is to add some consistency as we expand. The following ideas are suggested as a package deal:
1. Add Slur Filtering to all of our platforms
- Minecraft and our Discord server are blessed with an automatic slur filter that prevents slurs from being used in text chat.
- TTT and future gamemodes should be considered candidates for such an easy addition going forward; even if it doesn't work in 100% of scenarios (RDM reports, etc) it will redirect unwanted behavior in an extremely easy way. For KOS problems (What if this guys name is a slur and staff haven't addressed it?), I'd imagine there's a way to make TTT_Radio immune to said filter.
- Right now for a mod to issue a ban on our TTT server outside of discretion for slurs, they need to proceed through the protocol for slurs. The protocol looks like something in my spoiler lots of the time; a kick for the slur being targetted at someone on or off the server, and then a ban a little bit later.
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Player69 has joined the server.
Player69 in voice: What's up my "hard r"
Player69 has been kicked by wink for Don't Use Slurs
Player69 has joined the server
Player69 in voice: why did you do that wink? I meant to say "soft a" not "hard r"!
Player69 has been banned for Slurs 1st offense - I'm proposing we remove the need for the kick for 1st time offenders for most cases of slurring. This can be done by either immediately escalating to a 5 day ban, or replacing the kick with a 1 day ban and adjusting the protocol accordingly
- A warning could be considered to be deployed as an optional measure for "light offenses" such as
- A slur is in a steam profile pic of a new player
- Singing along to a silly song that has a slur.
- The slur was accidentally dropped somehow in a conversation(talking about car parts/mexican beer/ etc)
- Loopholing Slurs can be thrown in here too, and then nuked from orbit accordingly if it keeps up.
- There is no variance in SoL between our discord server and our minecraft server; right now if a player drops a homophobic hatemissile on eithe and gets a warning/mute, it'll stick with them for quite some time no questions asked.
- On TTT, there exists an outlier; while the bans stick with players for quite some time, it is technically protocol to "restart the slur clock" each play session in terms of the kick. I really don't see the need for protocol to reflect just kicking a player when he's been handled for the same slur 1-2-3-4 times already.
- For full transparency, wink has suggested this in staff suggestions outside the rest of these suggestions; it was shot down for a few good reasons including
- Mods have been given the ability to just warn instead of kick for using a slur in a silly way(akin to the "light offenses" list above)
- The fear of players using the list as a menu to skirt around our slurs with other harmful words/rhetoric
- The idea our list we have isn't exhaustive/final
- I'm throwing this in this package because I really do feel as we expand into new frontiers, being straightforward with our new friends of what they can say and can't is crucial if we are going to elevate the severity on our punishments here; there's some slurs on the list I'd admittedly would never guess if I wasn't a staff member. I don't want to see a new friend join the discord and get nuked from a voice channel for a day since he said used a "soft a" not knowing our stance on it.
- We are strict on loopholing and trust all levels of our staff to address it via the slurs protocol already.
- My original suggestion was made before "retard" was freed for the people from the margins of the list; that word alone may definitely confuse people where our lines in the sand are drawn on slurs and that clarity may help.
A quick little FAQ
- wink, what about EU/the vibe in other gamemodes we are exploring? Wouldn't a stricter approach here potentially avoid us making a few friends?
- By making our rulings consistent across all of our gamemodes, we are setting expectations; we don't want looser expectations on EU to find new friends who like to call eachother a bunch of homophobic/transphobic slurs just to hit them with the cold water if they decide to join our discord and drop those words.
- The filters/making the list public puts a few barriers in place to keep the right people around; someone using a homophobic hatemissile to talk about their cigarette can quickly warned as a "light offense" and be redirected towards the list of slurs to avoid them accidentally dropping a different hatemissile.
- wink, we are a gaming community. Even if we have the filters, slurs list, and enable staff to drop cute little warnings won't this get some good people caught in the crossfire of stricter punishments who just get a little "heated" playing games?
- Leniency is a staff tenet here that we celebrate and embrace; if an accidental slur is dropped after all that stuff somehow/someway, there will be staff members going to bat for you if you are making a good faith appeal. While I can't guarantee every silly little heated accident will be forgiven and blessed by lenient larry, we are good about discussing things we feel aren't up to snuff.
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