Rule 11 and acceptable slurs.

[Boot]

In a recent round I noticed a player, during a back and forth of insults, call another play a "cracker". I ahelped an admin to let them know about the breach in rule 11 and I was informed that "It is our consensus that it is not equal to other racial slurs covered by Rule 11." I was looking around for this and I couldn't find the consensus about what racial slurs are and aren't allowed. The only post I could find about cracker was one made by Orange that was locked for not being sincere. I hope that this will open up the dialog about this communities stance on cracker and its relation to rule 11.

Related ticket: https://atlantaned.space/banbus/ticket/b80d587e758b04bc

[Stickymayhem]

I don't think anyone in this community needs to pretend that this thread isn't a bad faith concern troll

[Farquaar]

I don't think anyone in this community needs to pretend that this thread isn't a bad faith concern troll

Well apparently, some admins are under the impression that some racial slurs are allowed based on a “consensus”. My impression was that all racial slurs were banned outright under rule 11 regardless of whether they were placed in the soft or hardfilters, so the admin ruling in OP is a surprise to me.

If there exists such an admin consensus, it should be made public via headmin ruling. If there is no consensus, then headmins should clear that up so the expectations for players and admins are straightforward.

[Stickymayhem]

I don't think anyone in this community needs to pretend that this thread isn't a bad faith concern troll

Well apparently, some admins are under the impression that some racial slurs are allowed based on a “consensus”. My impression was that all racial slurs were banned outright under rule 11 regardless of whether they were placed in the soft or hardfilters, so the admin ruling in OP is a surprise to me.

If there exists such an admin consensus, it should be made public via admin ruling. If there is no consensus, then headmins should clear that up so the expectations for players and admins are clear.

Enforcement is based on common sense, this is explicitly stated in the rule. It is common sense that nigger is unacceptable and cracker isn't as weighty. The same logic could be used to ban all slurs, including bitch (slur against women), idiot (slur against less intelligent people), pom (slur against british people) and so on. Obviously this is fucking stupid.

We are not going to eschew common sense in favour of some kind of flawless definition of the uses of language that are ok or not. If you aren't happy with admin discretion being a component of this rule, tough shit. Discretion is how all rules in all society everywhere work.

[Farquaar]

The same logic could be used to ban all slurs, including bitch (slur against women), idiot (slur against less intelligent people), pom (slur against british people) and so on. Obviously this is fucking stupid.

The first two examples you provided are debatable as to whether they are even slurs. To be quite honest, I doubt this server has ever seen someone get rule 11 banned for “ableism” or “sexism”. Rule 11 has largely been focused on racist and anti-trans language because that’s what the server has struggled with in the past. /tg/station has taken a hard-line stance against racism in a way that it hasn’t against ableism or sexism.

To enforce rule 11 against “cracker” (or any other non-Enward racial slurs) does not open up any floodgates or set course down any slippery slopes because
1)Racial bigotry has been banned.
2)The administration has ruled that racial slurs are an expression of racial bigotry.
3)As of now, using sexist language (i.e. calling a woman a cunt, bitch etc.) is not seen to be an expression of sexist bigotry by the administration.

Hence why non-racist slurs(?) are treated differently until headmins rule otherwise.

[Domitius]

Rule 11's goal is to be used in good faith against players(and admins) who use bigoted language to intentionally demean and/or offend. Cracker simply doesn't have any offensive weight to it. There is no fair comparison with it's use compared to every other racial slur in existence as of this post and no admin should ever be expected to defend or die on the hill of "Cracker is a bigoted term".

[Agux909]

Farquaar what point are you even defending on this thread?

[Boot]

Rule 11's goal is to be used in good faith against players(and admins) who use bigoted language to intentionally demean and/or offend. Cracker simply doesn't have any offensive weight to it. There is no fair comparison with it's use compared to every other racial slur in existence as of this post and no admin should ever be expected to defend or die on the hill of "Cracker is a bigoted term".

Why would someone use in as an insult then?

[Domitius]

Rule 11's goal is to be used in good faith against players(and admins) who use bigoted language to intentionally demean and/or offend. Cracker simply doesn't have any offensive weight to it. There is no fair comparison with it's use compared to every other racial slur in existence as of this post and no admin should ever be expected to defend or die on the hill of "Cracker is a bigoted term".

Why would someone use in as an insult then?

Don't know and honestly don't really care.

[Farquaar]

Farquaar what point are you even defending on this thread?

That there should be a headmin ruling on the matter of whether some racial slurs are not considered expressions of racial bigotry under Rule 11. I was under the impression that the expectations were clear for players and admins with respect to racial slurs, but evidently they are not.

[Agux909]

Farquaar what point are you even defending on this thread?

That there should be a headmin ruling on the matter of whether some racial slurs are not considered expressions of racial bigotry under Rule 11. I was under the impression that the expectations were clear for players and admins with respect to racial slurs, but evidently they are not.

I didn't even know cracker was something until today. As the rule says, you're supposed to use common sense and see the context of the slurs used commonly and that affect/affected /tg/ as a community. If cracker wasn't a problem during the last 10 years, why would it suddenly have any impact on policy now?

[MrStonedOne]

Rule 11 covers racism against white people, this is mentioned in the admin conduct rule 11 enforcement guidelines.

HOWEVER

The common sense clause precludes treating cracker as inherently bannable as some of the other slurs banned.

tl;dr: i unironically agree with sticky

[Boot]

Rule 11 covers racism against white people, this is mentioned in the admin conduct rule 11 enforcement guidelines.

HOWEVER

The common sense clause precludes treating cracker as inherently bannable as some of the other slurs banned.

tl;dr: i unironically agree with sticky

I was under the idea that no word was "inherently bannable" but is it true that under this admin team that cracker does explicitly not break the no bigotry rule 11?

[cSeal]

Enforcement is based on common sense, this is explicitly stated in the rule. It is common sense that nigger is unacceptable and cracker isn't as weighty. The same logic could be used to ban all slurs, including bitch (slur against women), idiot (slur against less intelligent people), pom (slur against british people) and so on. Obviously this is fucking stupid

Cracker does not have the same historical weight as nigger, obviously, but that doesn't remove the fact it's a racial slur and people can be offended or hurt by it, or the fact that it is indeed used to demean white people by people who are bigoted against white people. obviously we're not going to ban every instance of the word, the same way we don't ban every usage of other slurs- its context dependent, and while the acceptable context for some words might be wider that doesn't mean the word is something we should never take action over.
As it is the rules are clear to me, cracker is a racial slur and using it in a way that seeks to intentionally demean someone because they're white is bannable- whether the situation that sparked this discussion was a case of that is another matter, and without seeing the logs I couldn't tell ya, but that's where the discretion lies- not in "is this word a naughty word" but in "is this person seeking to intentionally demean someone" In most cases that isn't particularly reliant on a specific word being used, which why word lists are pointless since people looking to demean others will just use an ever increasing list of obscure words or improvise new ones on the spot

TLDR we dont ban for words we ban for intent, I could call you a gob smacker but if it was obvious from the context of my sentence I was insulting you for being gay thatd be bannable

[Timberpoes]

Thanks to this thread you made Sticky call everyone crackers in the admin channels enough times that I timed him out for killing off what few brain cells I have left.

I hope you're proud of yourself.

[RaveRadbury]

We are not going to eschew common sense in favour of some kind of flawless definition of the uses of language that are ok or not. If you aren't happy with admin discretion being a component of this rule, tough shit. Discretion is how all rules in all society everywhere work.

Headmin Votes:
RaveRadbury: Agree
Dragomagol: Agree
NamelessFairy: Agree