Who we are as a community

Requiem

Well-Known Member
Member
Just got off work. Blooky recentered the conversation how I was hoping.

Discussion about various words and whether or not they hurt people is certainly a discussion to have, but this thread in particular is about simply being kinder to people and being cool with one another as well as any new people we get. If you go too far, you'll be informed and if it's bad enough to get Admins involved, that'll happen, but I trust us to know where the line is.

@Lumpy, I agree with you on how we treated Goldy and the whole dc;ha meme that came out of it. Yeah, it came out of people defending me and me being hurt by stuff that happened in my life back then, but Goldy didn't deserve our treatment of him in any way. There's no excuse. It's moments like those in our history that I want us to look back on and work towards preventing.

What we need to do is try and prevent stuff like that from happening again. I regret my part in it and my lack of stopping it, as well as laughing at it or using it as a meme. So many things about that whole situation are examples of what I mean about us needing to be better. We haven't had a situation like it in a long time, but still, the fact that more happened after it is the thing I think it's healthy for us to discuss.

I also wanna say after the fact that this is the most important thing I think has been brought up so far. When I said that we're gonna try to use less toxic terms and be more welcoming to people in how we talk amongst ourselves, I should have made it clear that I want to make sure we also don't do anything else like we did with Goldy. Regardless of how we feel about different terms and their use, one of our major problems has been moments like these, more so than any problematic terms we use, I absolutely agree there. I still think we've been toxic in terms of our terms, but I think that's simply a difference of how we view that side of things overall. Goldy though, we're in complete agreement and it's something I really hate about myself from back then. I could have and should have stopped it, but it didn't happen. I'm aiming to be better.

@Dunsparce, I'm not gonna hate on you or say anything that might make you feel alienated here. You've made it clear what your intentions with the community are and what you hope to gain from it. Since that's the case and you see us just entertainment (again, no judgment), you need to know that a lot of us are seemingly in agreement that we're gonna head in this direction as a community and try to make things more welcoming to people. I understand if that's a deal breaker for you, but we are all here for each other as long time friends and not just entertainment. If things go as we plan/hope, we also intend to be here to try and build this community around us/beyond us and with more people comes concessions. Sure, we'd probably still joke with each other how we normally do, but it's not a bad idea for us to encourage each other to not use words or terms that could cause problems and hurt others, whether we agree that's something that actually happens or not. If that's not something you feel you can be part of, I dunno, I guess that more or less makes the decision for you? Just thinking out loud really.

Anyways, long post short, I think it's fair to say we have an understanding of where we're taking the community from here. I'd love to see more conversation though.
 

Requiem

Well-Known Member
Member
Literally case in point as to what lumpy was arguing and everybody let's it slide. This kind of shit is significantly worse than using certain words that somebody might find categorically offensive.
And this is part of what I was agreeing with Lumpy on in regards to Goldy. I won't lie, I didn't really dig into every single post I saw and more or less skimmed that one, but you're right, we should have said something about it. Saying that after the fact doesn't do anything, I acknowledge that, but yeah.

This is part of trying to be better, everyone. I know I'm just gonna sound like a broken record and I fear I might come off as disingenuous, but regardless of how people feel about Dunsparce, these passive aggressive comments really do have to stop along with everything else. Dunsparce contributed to the conversation and gave his opinion. He was being a positive presence in this thread and even if what he was saying might have been something you disagreed with, @Shadow, a passive aggressive response like that didn't really add much to things.

If you have a personal problem with someone, try to solve it. If you can't solve it, either ignore them or at least refuse to respond to things they say that you don't like. Even if it was just a joke, it was still a passive aggressive remark that didn't need to be made.

I'm not expecting everybody to sit down and hug things out or pretend that our personalities all mesh perfectly together. That's not a community, that's ignoring our actual issues for the sake of pretending everything is wholesome and fine. People are gonna clash. There's gonna be issues, especially if we become some sort of big community that attracts new people in. We're gonna have to handle stuff. We need to get better about doing that because if we can't do it now when we're this size of a community, then we won't be able to do it later if we are any sort of large community.

I'm sure Dunsparce isn't even hurt by what you said in response to him Shadow, but it's still the principle of the matter. We've gotta start being better overall. Again, I know I sound like a broken record, but... That's my main goal in all this. I'm not even saying I'm trying to lead any sort of thing like this, it's just something we need to keep talking about. This is the perfect example.
 

Shadow

Well-Known Member
Banned
Literally case in point as to what lumpy was arguing and everybody lets it slide. This kind of shit is significantly worse than using certain words that somebody might find categorically offensive.
Been dead for the past month. Didn't realize y'all were being serious.

My bad. Carry on.
 

Whitetiger

Well-Known Member
Member
I think I'm more in the Dunsparce camp in terms of what I'm looking for in the forum. I mostly come here to chat, make jokes, get made fun of a bit, and play mafia. I don't really consider you guys friends, more like drinking buddies but instead of alcohol it's nonsense.

As for the point about language, I don't feel like we should restrict what words we use as long as they're directed at the right people. There are some people here I'm a lot more familiar with and comfortable with insulting or being insulted by (Easy, Shizno, etc) than others (Elliot, Blooky, Lumpy). I'm completely cool with using offensive language in a joking manner if I know the person I'm saying it to is cool with it. I'm completely cool with them doing the same back to me. I'm not cool with someone I don't know well being offensive to me somehow and I expect them not to be cool if I do it to someone who doesn't know me well. I also am not comfortable with someone I'm not directing it to being offended on that person's behalf if the person isn't bothered by it.
 

Requiem

Well-Known Member
Member
That's fair and I do think we took the "offensive terms and language" thing in a direction I hadn't been meaning for us to go. Ultimately, I just want us to not casually throw around terms and words that have baggage attached to them, language that people feel threatened by (whether you agree that they should feel threatened or not). It's one thing in voice chat (where we aren't live/in public or something like that) for me to say some nonsense to Tirin or Easy or Kratour that someone else might find troubling but isn't directed at them, and then randomly just posting about traps or using the word niggerfaggot just to use it (which, I'm sorry, but that's the last time I'm using that term, personally. I just actually don't like it and it doesn't have a place in our community, flat out). In the second instance, my intention may still not have been to hurt anyone, but by putting it out in a public post or where people don't have the ability to choose not to see it, that ends up being unfair to them, especially when it would have been so easy for me to just not write that stuff in the first place.

We literally can't and won't even try to control how people talk to each other in private, that's not what this is about. We're just saying that as a community, regardless of what you're here for, we can work on some of the things we've done in the past and be more welcoming to new people. With the people we've pushed away, as well as our casual dickotry to one another in "public" where other members wouldn't get it and might make assumptions and start behaving in troubling ways to fit the vibe we're putting out, I think it's smart to just have this in the back of everyone's minds. Again, talk to your friends however you want in private, we literally have no say in how you talk to people. This is just about discussing where we go as a whole, not where we go as individuals within the whole.
 

coolpool2

Savage AF
The Original Gangster
I agree with whitetiger. I think intent is more important than the superficial meaning of particular words.
 

Elliot

Confirmed Robot
Member
Listen, y'all can talk about how offensive language is fine if it's directed at people who are cool with it all you want. But when you're saying stuff in a public space, and creating a community space/culture where those things are accepted to the point that someone saying "Hey maybe it's not cool to make these particular jokes" gets people all up in arms, that's no longer an issue about how you want to privately joke around. Especially when the jokes you're making are at the expense of a third party that neither of you are even part of. That's where, to quote whitetiger, people get "offended on that person's behalf". Except they're not offended on behalf of the person you're insulting; they're offended on their own behalf because your insults target a completely different group of people than you are directing them at.

The point is that if y'all want to create a welcoming community and draw more quality people in, you should think about the way you present yourself. I care a ridiculous amount about a lot of the people here, and have been hanging out with y'all off and on for over a decade. But I wouldn't feel at all comfortable bringing other friends and other people I care about into a space where y'all are making jokes about "traps" and calling people autistic all the time -- because it's fucking embarrassing, and because many of them are precisely the people you're casually targeting in your "inoffensive" jokes directed at other people. And no, by that I don't mean "sensitive people".

That's pretty much all I'm getting at here. If you actually care about not hurting other people, try to avoid that shit. If you don't care, well, I can't make you care and am not gonna try.

Person A: Hey, what you're doing is harmful.
Person B: Oh but I don't intend it to be harmful.
Person A: I totally get that, that's why I'm letting you know so that you can stop inadvertently being harmful.
Person B: But I don't intend it in a harmful way and that's what's really important.
Person A: Regardless of your intent, though, it is harmful.
Person B: Words themselves shouldn't be harmful if the intent is fine.

When someone is telling you that what you're doing is harmful, if you actually don't intend to do any harm, you stop doing it. If you keep doing it even though you know it is harmful, that calls your intent into question.
 
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Easy

Right Honorable Justice
Member
Yeah, not to be a back-and-forth sidelines bitch or anything, but I would actually hate it if anybody really wanted this to be the kind of place where I'd be scolded for using phrases like "back-and-forth sidelines bitch" in public. Or where Blooky couldn't have Jesus jokes in her signature.

Also, I was also more or less okay with the Goldyquake and Shadow's being coyly dismissive of Dunsparce just now.
There really is such a thing as witty, clever, and even, occasionally, even constructive humor that can and sometimes even should be made at somebody else's expense.
...because it was constructive, at least to some extent.

Goldy fucked up, people slammed him for it in amusing fashion. Harsh, but fair... to a point. Without forgetting that most of us kept on beating that dead horse well past the point of productivity, I dunno if the rest of you remember, but he was openly reassured that we were just fucking around pretty much immediately after he apologized, which was itself real soon after DC;HA became a thing - and he actually said that he was fine with it. Lotta savagery squeezed into those first rounds of shitposting in the meantime, but to be fair, that's what you'd expect to happen when you tell someone online that you don't really care about his buddy just dying.

He messed up, we gave him shit for it, he realized the error and apologized, we stopped giving him shit while still exploiting the sheer ridiculousness of the situation for comedy purposes ad infinitum, since that explicitly didn't really bother him anyway. He's not gonna do it again in a situation where real people (not us) will take it a lot worse than we did. I like it, personally.

Rudely blowing off Dunsparce's complaints re: whether or not to spend time with a bunch of uptight prudes? Yeah, that was kinda mean. It was also kinda funny, and raised a legitimate point in that... well, although we really would hate for people to feel they can't be here, "do what I want or else I'll leave" is something that's probably only going to work if what you're demanding isn't too unreasonable to begin with. We don't want people who use their very presence as a bargaining chip to get things from us. (Which isn't to say Dunsparce had that kind of intentional at all, but to some extent, his words could have been fairly interpreted in that way.)
 

Lumpy

Well-Known Member
Member
Wolfy, you are already calling their intent into question by suggesting that what they are saying is harmful or is meant to target anyone. I can understand why people would be up in arms by you implying they are secretly bigoted for joking around.
 

Elliot

Confirmed Robot
Member
I honestly think you are not understanding what I'm saying. Saying that "this is harmful" does not call anyone's intent into question at all. And I'm not saying that all people who have used the traps meme are secretly bigoted, at all. In fact many of them are here in this thread and have responded fine to it. Harm can be caused regardless of intent. Me saying "Hey the thing you're doing can have unintended consequences" doesn't call into question the intentions of the person doing the thing. It makes them aware of the consequences. If, afterwards, they're like "Eh, whatever, I'm cool with that", then they can't really say the consequences are still unintended, because they've been made aware of them. Make more sense?
 

Tirin

God-Emperor of Tealkind
Moderator
Easy said damn near everything that I wanted to say in his latest post (and mentioned some stuff about the Goldy thing that I had honestly forgotten, to boot). I agree with Whitetiger insofar as getting offended on behalf of other people when they categorically don't give a single fuck is stupid and a waste of time; however, we can't make the assumption that putting certain things here won't offend or upset people and thus turn people off of sticking around or trying to fit in (or, possibly worse, make them think it's okay to be a giant unreasonable dick to everybody).

I think that that's more the point that Wolfy's trying to make, not that making a clearly-lighthearted joke (prime example - Blooky's signature, as Easy mentioned) or calling them a fuckface or a [Czech-stinking] dumb little bitch is totally unacceptable. I'd thought the consequences attached to that were made pretty clear over the last three pages, but if he'd like to elaborate any further despite it seeming pretty unnecesary, I guess that's up to him.
 

The Hound

Just Monika
Member
I think the biggest step in all of this is us just being open to someone saying "hey dude you crossed the line". Which I think is what this whole thing centers around, not censorship. It's us being able to communicate these things in an adult way which we couldn't really do before because hey we're all adults now. I remember feeling uncomfortable with some of the shit in the past but feeling like it would be super uncool or antagonistic to say anything about it (mostly due to my standing in the community which was 100% my fault).

Just looking at this thread gives me great optimism about our future because how this discussion went down. I definitely could see this discussion being a fucking disaster if it was on URealms or Geek2.
 

Tirin

God-Emperor of Tealkind
Moderator
If this had been on Urealms, we would have all been banned and the thread deleted two pages back for getting too political.
 

The Hound

Just Monika
Member
And Req, 13th and I would have been demodded for not controlling the situation with our nonexistent mod powers.
 

Ro Ro Ro

Active Member
Member
All that I know is, when I brought the accusation of tc of making me a pansexual furry in the forum court thread, I meant it as lighthearted memery. I am a pansexual furry, and I like who I am. TC did not make me that, but I think it would be funny if I could prove that he had. I actually found it kinda awkward that easy came up with any excuse to not put the case on trial. I don't know. I guess it makes people uncomfortable, but in my mind, it being uncomfortable adds to the funniness.
 

Milamber

Well-Known Member
Donor III
I honestly think you don't give yourselves enough credit. Considering the community was founded around a weekly online show and is still present to some degree 10 years later is baffling to me. Most of my time on the varying incarnations of the forums has been pleasant and while there had been some toxicity in the past. Most of that was dealt with when members left due to the handling of the Urealms forums or purged because of their behavior.

While I'm not in sync with most of you due to timezones, from what I gathered most of the problems with forums past was how we interacted with each other outside of the forums on Skype and how that bled into how we treated individuals on the forum.

While you may have grown closer over the last decade, you have to concede that for the most part were still strangers to each other. It's going to be a continuous learning experience of what some people find acceptable and what others consider not. Though that will only be uncovered when someone says "hey you crossed a line for me and here's why."

Just keep trying to be better and maybe that will be enough.
 

Easy

Right Honorable Justice
Member
All that I know is, when I brought the accusation of tc of making me a pansexual furry in the forum court thread, I meant it as lighthearted memery. I am a pansexual furry, and I like who I am. TC did not make me that, but I think it would be funny if I could prove that he had. I actually found it kinda awkward that easy came up with any excuse to not put the case on trial. I don't know. I guess it makes people uncomfortable, but in my mind, it being uncomfortable adds to the funniness.
Sorry bud, but it can already be a real hassle just dealing with current petty squabbles criminal charges in the Court thread. Opening up the door to having "potentially anything in vague, living memory of a Forumer ever" thrown at me was just too much to ask. (The sheer ridiculousness of the charge had nothing to do with it.)

But yeah, we've been pretty good about cutting shit out when people let it be known they're really not comfortable with it. (I mean, except for the Czech thing obviously, but y'know. Haven't had a problem there since everyone finally realized I was serious about that.) And, y'know. I haven't had a problem avoiding jabs at "autism" or "faggotry" since Elliot brought it up a while ago, since I feel like that's a pretty small price to pay for his being comfortable hanging around and shooting the shit with us.

Maybe the rest of you guys feel the same way, maybe not. I hope so? Maybe I'm wrong, and Blooky (sorry for calling you out so much, Blooky, it's just that everyone else's thing mostly victimizes themselves, so they're less good examples) wouldn't change her signature if she found out somebody here actually had a problem with that kind of content. But yeah, that's the kind of group I always figured us as: being dicks just for fun, to the point where we'll stop outright if it starts looking serious.
 

Requiem

Well-Known Member
Member
I'll have to read more in detail later I'm at work now. Sorry everybody, but I'll respond tonight.
 
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