Happy Pride Month!

[Josh3738 3137]

 

Homophobia, Transphobia, and Racism in Roleplay

My Thoughts

I’ve been the moderation admin for a little over a year now, and I can say with certainty that it doesn’t get easier with time. My job and the job of my team is to deal with the people problems of the server. Whether that be folks having disagreements, people stealing all your stuff, or fly hacking mass no-rp-killers, moderation’s job is to step in when folks don’t follow our rules. What do we do though when the rules are technically followed and we still come away feeling wrong?

 

I don’t mean the passing anger of a lost CRP or frustration with the rules themselves. No, I’m talking about the kind of interaction where you’re questioning whether you still want to be here. Whether the interactions between characters are just that or whether there’s some degree of OOC influence to what’s occurred. An edgy joke taken too far or the characterization of the real beliefs of hateful individuals.

 

Homophobia, Transphobia, and Racism.

 

I joined the server more than a decade ago. These kinds of interactions are nothing new and we action the most blatant cases these days, but that doesn’t speak to the real issue at hand. Should it even be allowed, if we have to review situations like this? If the end result is people wondering whether hate was RP or not?

 

On the one hand, sure there’s an argument to be made that light representations of these topics should be permitted given all the historical parallels and the threat of moderation or admin intervention should they go too far.

 

On the other hand, I haven’t seen a single example of it in my 12 ½ years here that I thought was tasteful, thoughtfully presented, or contributed meaningfully to RP. This is a block game platform we’re using to try and roleplay and have fun together. If your idea of having fun is playing a homophobic racist, you have no place here.

The Admin Perspective

 

The admins have gone back and forth on this particular topic for years before me, and many of you will remember discussions, threads, VCs with me, and roundtables with @Llir; this is not a new topic.

 

Whether you sit on one side of the argument or the other, it ultimately boils down to the conduct we want to promote for our community. These are realities that members of our community face on a daily basis, and we shouldn’t allow their representations in a place where folks come to have fun and escape. There are other avenues in a fantasy world to allow the same kind of storylines and parallels to play out - discrimination against fantasy races, magic users, etc - that don't just mirror OOC bigotry. At the end of the day, we lose nothing by prohibiting roleplay of the same conduct that we would permanently ban someone for OOCly.

New Rule

 

In reflection of our thoughts above, we’ll be implementing a new rule under the Prohibited Roleplay section of Roleplay Rules.

 

Prohibited Roleplay

3. Homophobic, transphobic, and racist roleplay are prohibited.

• Racist roleplay in this context refers to mirrors of IRL racism. Discrimination against in-game races, CAs, magic users, etc. is still permitted.

 

Happy Pride Month,

— Josh and the Administration

[Daisy 9732]

As some folks in the community may know, this is a change I have been advocating to do for some time now. This kind of roleplay has no place in our collective narrative, and I am happy to be part of an administration who is willing to put an end to it. Thank you Josh for putting in the work to drive this change forward.

 

Happy Pride Month everyone!

[Flynnigan 267]

gay of the craft

[Customable 304]

wait this wasnt already a rule?

[KidKrinkles 2043]

love wins

[Apotolofo 2204]

:D

[SimplySeo 6999]

zahrer irongrinder is a bigger ally of the lgbt community than joe biden

[nunlover 579]

cant be racist to elves anymore? gg

[Moumins 378]

5 minutes ago, Flynnigan said:

gay of the craft

Mods, ban this guy.

[Reckless Banzai Screamer 15456]

@Josh3738you were always one of tonito's favorite mijos <3

[FadedMoonlight 450]

This is a victory for the entire community. Anyone who thinks otherwise is someone who should not be in this community :)

[psychra_notte 618]

This might be the biggest dub of the year for the server. We love to see it. Happy pride everybody!

[Cally 1080]

glad new administration takes care to be relevant, open, and understanding of all. setting the bar for the new world we live in with equity and inclusion, knowing our peers are just peers, no matter who they love.

[Karina 1882]

insane it took this long to get this approved. loved getting forum warnings when calling out blatant homophobia before because it wasn't against the rules. progress is progress but it is disappointing that it was allowed to fester openly this long. glad 2 finally have an admin post that doesn't make me mad. 

[Crevel 7557]

"Mirroring IRL racism" is such a vague concept because racial discrimination has taken so many forms over the centuries (refusing to let certain groups into institutions, leadership positions, etc.). What constitutes a mirror and what doesn't? Because the way it's written sounds like it could be stretched to punish anyone that partakes in racist RP to any extent if staff want that player to be banned