Absolute State

[Sytic]

3 minutes ago, Tomiix said:

So just so I understand you correctly, your complaint isn't with what is written, but what isn't written, which is a clear set of things that guys could do to women that are too far?

If so, this snippet from the wiki.
"Women still do hold power in some ways. They are responsible for raising the children and can hold influence over their husbands. When married, their former clan can lose a lot of face or honor if she's mistreated or divorced."

Could likely be expanded, and fulfill this need. I can reactivate my old lore deputy mode and type out something that can be submitted for approval.

Yep, pretty much my suggestion! Feel free to DM me anything that I could help out with in this regard.

4 minutes ago, Marlon Phoenix said:

I think that a concrete list of what is "acceptable sexism" would be really problematic. I did think about it and I talked to people within and without the aurora community and then I took a nap on it. The consensus is that it would be cringy or problematic.

For six years things have been going well with it.

I am highly critical and suspicious of this new narrative you are creating wherein I was the example being set in regards to sexism. I am not the catalyst for a sudden surge in misogyny.

I have disagreed with Burgers character assassination in regards to labeling me a sexual deviant. His call out post has been discredited by both the alleged perpetrator and the alleged victims all saying it was fine. This is all, in essence, character assassination on Burger's part and everyone else being caught up in it for malicious or genuine but misguided ends.

Not necessarily applicable sexism, guidelines on where it's going too far would be far more appropriate. Overall, setting a standard of a Conservative Unathi that you stated you are doing and this behaviour being reinforced as a Lore Writer, regardless of personal beliefs (and I do agree you subvert the female 'oh i am weak' trope almost all the time in the overall lore) people will look to you for an example and guidance. The one that is set, however, is very publicly defaced by Burger and many other members of the Community, whether for right or wrong, it sets a poor example for how badly it affected some members of the community. That is why I believe making an obvious statement of what is unacceptable behaviour would be useful so examples like this can be seen for what they are: Just Conservative Unathi doing Conservative Unathi things, and not as an excuse for people to slippery slope into more and more ridiculous behaviour, as Burger and some others have been woRrIeD about.

Let's acknowledge that sometimes, people are OK to worry. And let's put the worries to rest by handling problems, even before they appear. Regardless of Burger being a shithead, or you being a shithead, be the bigger person and let it drop. Being the bigger person overall, will allow you to feel resolute and calmer about the situation after it's handled.

[BurgerBB]

Right there are a lot of posts you have made that are difficult to address.

1. I have short term memory loss. Long term, I know you as Jackboot so I keep accidentally calling you that.

2. Unironically stop with the fucking character assassination posts. I'm starting to get tired of your annoying victimization, honestly. I have said multiple times that you are not a sexual deviant nor a sexist, privately and publicly but you keep forgetting that because I think it's starting to be convenient for you. Nothing in the OP was about and I have no reason to make a thread about you considering that you are apparently already being dealt with.

3. The narrative isn't new. Aurora members have made jokes about the community being full of weirdos before and no one really likes to talk about weird sexual remarks. I've actually had 2 people mention to me about weird sexual shit that occured to them, one being unathi species and the other being tajara. I think people are also forgetting about the time regarding that whole fiasco where two staff members ERPed on another server with no erp allowed rules.

If you have some accusation to make, just make it my dude.

4. You're missing the point. I said there exists some lore, not that it makes up 100%. I'm aware of some of the feminism inside it, which is why I submitted a whitelist application for the species because it interested me. My point isn't that 100% or even 50% of lore has tribal fetish content, it's just that there exists some lore that has it and I think players are taking it too far.

[BurgerBB]

9 minutes ago, Tomiix said:

This reads to me like you don't pay attention to the rest of Unathi lore, which is disappointing because a good amount of work goes into it.

People are encourage to subvert this on station because they aren't ON moghes. People need to play into it because we need antagonists, people to play the straight edge traditional. People who play imperfect characters with flaws. Flawed ideals and flawed mentalities included.

The Unathi are primitives xenos who nuked themselves. Having them be MORE like humans just panders to the furries more. Most furries are liberal, and would see it as a invite. (Which I don't even see why is a point you made, but since you did, there is the counter.) 

A good amount of unathi lore and the stories shows the absurdity of the male focused environment. The sub-cultures that defy it and are totally functional show the ridiculousness of it. The unathi on station prove it to not necessarily be a justifiable cultural norm.

Again, reread my post here.

"Upon further inspection it contains lore that places females below males, and goes as far as to to compare them to property and highlight some of the weird things that go on, such as wife competitions. Despite the lore not really mentioning this, the usually make players of this race focus heavily on "the good ol' days" of tribalism, masculinity, and proving your manhood. It's an attitude where the the ideal female is a wife who serves her husband and where the husband does manly things like hunt, boast, and fight other men to prove their worth."

I'm not saying that the lore is unga bunga tribalism gronk get woman, I am saying that there exists a tiny portion of it yet that seems to be the focus of some players.

Edited January 18, 2020 by BurgerBB

[Tomiix]

The problem of "people are playing traditional unathi wrong" is something that can be fixed. The problem of "too many people play traditionalists" cannot be fixed.

Removing the sexist aspects would get rid of the narrative hurdle that is being subverted in the first place. So the only enforcement there is to make clear what is considered dishonorable, and enforce it on the whitelist, since to most traditional unathi dishonor is worse than death.

[BurgerBB]

1 minute ago, Tomiix said:

The problem of "people are playing traditional unathi wrong" is something that can be fixed. The problem of "too many people play traditionalists" cannot be fixed.

Removing the sexist aspects would get rid of the narrative hurdle that is being subverted in the first place. So the only enforcement there is to make clear what is considered dishonorable, and enforce it on the whitelist, since to most traditional unathi dishonor is worse than death.

Traditionalist Unathi are not the problem. It's the ones who take it too far and sometimes cherrypick what is honorable and what isn't.

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

Just now, BurgerBB said:

I'm not saying that the lore is unga bunga tribalism gronk get woman, I am saying that there exists a tiny portion of it yet that seems to be the focus.

The patriarchy and treatment of women as property are deeply woven into the entirety of unathi lore.

Just now, Tomiix said:

The problem of "people are playing traditional unathi wrong" is something that can be fixed. The problem of "too many people play traditionalists" cannot be fixed.

Sexual harrassment is already against the rules. Whitelist expectations have not been shown to be violated here egregiously where an issue happened, or it was a non-issue being inflated.

This entire affair is becoming really dramatic, and I am helpless for any of the rumors that have now spread as a result of Burger's claims and actions. I am going to wash my hands of this. I have done what I can. Any further feedback can come in more constructive forms.

Burger, I am not playing the victim when I have logs of you calling me a creep.

You are a mean jerk.

Edited January 18, 2020 by Marlon Phoenix

[BurgerBB]

Just now, Marlon Phoenix said:

The patriarchy and treatment of women as property are deeply woven into the entirety of unathi lore.

Sexual harrassment is already against the rules. Whitelist expectations have not been shown to be violated here egregiously where an issue happened, or it was a non-issue being inflated.

This entire affair is becoming really dramatic, and I am helpless for any of the rumors that have now spread as a result of Burger's claims and actions. I am going to wash my hands of this. I have done what I can. Any further feedback can come in more constructive forms.

Some forms of Sexual harassment is actually not against the rules.

Quote

ERP, also known as Erotic RolePlay, is not allowed on the server. While displays of romantic affection and romantic scenes are acceptable, scenes of a clearly sexual intent will be broken up. (Again, use common sense for this. Sexual tension up to a point is acceptable - sexual acts in themselves are not.)

The server unironically allows sexual tension and "romantic" scenes.

[WickedCybs]

Sleepy's Unathi has been pretty fun to roleplay with, though I would've thought it apparent they were more of a romeo archetype as Marlon said. The detective, CSI and another that I can't recall were referring to them as a sexual deviant, but really, you'd know better if you actually interacted with the character, and so my own character protested. Though that's speaking mainly ICly of course. I like the character, if they weren't possible to do anymore you lose more flavour.

I don't really think setting a list of do's and do nots for traditionalists would do much good, or even be feasible. Structured "acceptable" sexism/discrimination is going to be very hard to outline and largely ambiguous. The rules in place seem to largely cover things, so it seems more a matter of sending tickets in and changing player culture by highlighting the unacceptable.

[Resilynn]

Why is any of this in general where it is largely unactionable?  

I mean, I understand that the reason is that none of this adds up to enough for a staff complaint or player complaint and that the previous complaints were/will be (rightfully) dismissed, and I understand that the reason is that this topic in general opens up arguments and rumors  and conflict which, by our established rules, cannot be regulated nearly as strictly as formal complaints. 
 

But since this is in general, meaning, I can respond to it, I’ll go ahead and comment. 
 

Cringe and degeneracy are things, but they are different things for everyone. Complaining something is cringe is hardly grounds for making any impactful changes because it’s an incredibly subjective descriptor. Which is why we define hard lines in our rules- ERP, OOC sexual harassment, etc. 

But Resi!  The existence of loopholes doesn’t justify what I consider to be misconduct!  Okay, we have a system for that.  We have a whole team of administrators and moderators there to look at any grey areas in a situation and make their calls, AND they are even held accountable though a system of reporting over staff complaints.

Every tool is made available to you to handle these things in an official, and largely courteous capacity. And you choose, instead, to open a less regulated conversation where you can frankly stir up drama, rumors, and suspicion, which I assume you know full well will not amount to any meaningful changes because of the basic nature of this branch of the forums. 
 

You’re using general to be petty and reactionary, in my opinion. Geeves had the best response on here. Ahelp, move on. If that doesn’t work, staff complaints. If that doesn’t work, maybe you’re being reactionary and taking things out of context- at that point a number of people have looked over logs and incidents and decided they are non-issues. 

 

 I understand you struggle with seeing outside of your own perspective. Everyone does. But for the love of god, at some point all of the complaining over discord, ooc, and not-the-complaint-boards forums has to stop. I cannot even fathom how you think conducting yourself like this will accomplish anything for you. 

[FearTheBlackout]

This entire thread just reminds me of the deplorable harassment culture most of us live in or contribute to. There's not much you can do about attitudes or behavior when you have a community that's brought together by something like roleplaying, not ideals or beliefs, because not just community members, but staff are, in fact, wildly different people who have their own ideas on enforcing things, so long as it falls within the spirit of the rules (usually). I don't really care about Burger being in the right or wrong here, but what I do know is that everyone has the right not to be subjected to any kind of harassment or unnecessary discomfort if they don't want to. I can't speak for Burger, but if I had experienced anything like this, I would have taken a break or left entirely, especially if I felt that staff addressed it inappropriately, which, from what I've seen in actual dchat at the time and what Burger posted? Is the case to some degree.

Insofar as Unathi go, I do not like their writing. Yes, there are plenty of things done well and work goes into it, but the dominating factor that people seem to capitalize on in the worst way possible is their "traditional" views, among them heavily-ingrained sexism. The former is mostly okay, because at the end of the day, you are still expected to behave appropriately at work, and there are equally traditional cultures in every other species, including humanity, who are played just fine. I draw the line at the sexism. Why? Because it's a real world issue that, frankly, pisses me off to have to think about in my 25th century space-station roleplaying game. It makes more uncomfortable than anything else I've experienced while being here. There are plenty of other issues that are tackled in the game, but much more rarely do they translate well to real life, like Sol having prejudice against xenos because they are literally aliens. "Male and female", however, and the imbalance of power that has existed for centuries, are translated one-for-one into the game, and even mechanically enforced for some unimaginable reason by disallowing female Unathi to break out of handcuffs when males can. I don't see anything clever about it, and the fact is, as an example, I got to enjoy listening to a wonderful conversation on the general Discord late last night about someone wanting to "slap a female HoS silly" and "hating authoritative female heads of staff". We live in an undoubtedly sexist society, and yes, I'm calling the behavior out, however joking, as sexist, and that is the reason I don't trust people to handle the issue of Unathi sexism responsibly. I know it's a big part of their lore. I still don't like the lore or their species in general, but they're not going anywhere, and as I've been told, the handcuffs things is definitively not changing because that's what is desired, so what can I do?

That said, I don't know if the specific incident of the...tummy rubs...was necessarily related to Unathi sexism as much as it was general weirdness. You should not be asking someone that in IC or LOOC. Forgive me if I don't feel even slightly endeared. Going the proper administrative routes is well and good when they achieve results and the staff in question are trustworthy, but given comments made, I cannot currently say that I feel that they are. I will always push for dialogue because dialogue is not wasted effort when people can extrapolate their concerns and hopefully affect others in some way by the end. Getting shut down or ignored means nothing; keep talking until it hurts. That's what Burger is doing because, like it or not, they are invested in this game, and no amount of ad hominem is going to change valid community concerns.

[BoryaTheSlayer]

20 minutes ago, FearTheBlackout said:

I got to enjoy listening to a wonderful conversation on the general Discord late last night about someone wanting to "slap a female HoS silly" and "hating authoritative female heads of staff". We live in an undoubtedly sexist society, and yes, I'm calling the behavior out, however joking, as sexist,

So... you admit they were joking... but still call them sexist? What? How does this work?

I am still amazed at how this thread got 4 pages by the way.

Edit: Nevermind, I just looked up the logs for what you were talking about jfc lmfao wtf.

Edited January 18, 2020 by BoryaTheSlayer
looked up the logs

[FearTheBlackout]

Joke =/= funny or relatable, or even acceptable. I don't approve of communities that allow a culture to exist where these things can be said casually -- which loops back around to my point. I feel like what you've said is far removed from everything else I had to say.

[BoryaTheSlayer]

There exists upon a world such type of humor as satire. See, I like satire: it makes fun of the bad shit in our world. It doesn't hide the subject, it doesn't cover it up. Satire shows the subject in the true light, and ridicules it.

I hope you understand my point here. Although, as I edited my previous post, this conversation on discord you were talking about is actually really cringe lmao.

 

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

You cant disavow all consequences of what you said by saying its a joke.  Thats a highschooler defense.

[Carver]

Humour is subjective, the day it's policed is the day I start to write a lot of player and staff complaints based on poor humour exhibited by them. That's not a road we should be going down and absolutely should not be the take-away from this discussion.

[BurgerBB]

11 hours ago, Scheveningen said:

That is absolutely not true. You know the rules are designed to be stretched for worst-case scenario and cover cases where people are made oocly uncomfortable. Sexual tension is not the same as literal, unsolicited and unwanted sexual harassment. You are full of crap, Burger. Stop posting.

Unwanted sexual tension is part of sexual harassment.

Quote

Sexual tension is a social phenomenon that occurs when two individuals interact and one or both feel sexual desire, but the consummation is postponed or never happens. A common scenario is where the two individuals function in proximity, such as co-workers or in a group of friends, but do not have sex to avoid awkwardness or for other reasons. Sexual tension doesn't have anything to do with the actual act of sex but is everything that leads up to it.

Sexual tension is a common feature in works of fiction. This longing is often suggested by incidents of intimacy; for example, when two characters are alone and in close proximity (or actually touching), yet desire is never explicitly expressed. Another common theme is for characters to develop an interest in each other over the course of the story, and if this is expertly done, the audience can become aware of the growing attraction.

Sexual tension intensifies the audience's involvement with all characters involved. However, as several television series have discovered to their sorrow, tension dissipates when characters come together in sexual harmony. It is not like violence, which establishes the villain's credibility and makes the next round of jeopardy even more powerful. Instead, sexual fulfillment has the same effect on sexual tension that the death of the victim has on jeopardy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_tension

Sexual tension includes heavy use of double entendres, which can constitute as sexual harassment. For example, there is currently another engineer who calls me mistress occasionally but says that it's because of a reference to another incident. I personally don't have a problem with it because they're not creepy with it, but that is an example of sexual tension that would be fine in accordance with the rules. There was also another Tajara who behaved in a similar way, but was talked to by staff because it was getting overboard. Full disclosure, I didn't report them, someone else did or the admins caught them or something.

 

Also I'd appreciate that you'd treat me with a little more respect. Please don't tell me to stop posting.

Edited January 19, 2020 by BurgerBB

[BurgerBB]

8 hours ago, BoryaTheSlayer said:

I am still amazed at how this thread got 4 pages by the way.

I kind of want to know why you think this is amazing. Not trying to call you out or anything, but there is a reason why this thread got 4 pages.

[BurgerBB]

On 18/01/2020 at 06:40, Resilynn said:

Why is any of this in general where it is largely unactionable?  

I mean, I understand that the reason is that none of this adds up to enough for a staff complaint or player complaint and that the previous complaints were/will be (rightfully) dismissed, and I understand that the reason is that this topic in general opens up arguments and rumors  and conflict which, by our established rules, cannot be regulated nearly as strictly as formal complaints. 
 

But since this is in general, meaning, I can respond to it, I’ll go ahead and comment. 
 

Cringe and degeneracy are things, but they are different things for everyone. Complaining something is cringe is hardly grounds for making any impactful changes because it’s an incredibly subjective descriptor. Which is why we define hard lines in our rules- ERP, OOC sexual harassment, etc. 

But Resi!  The existence of loopholes doesn’t justify what I consider to be misconduct!  Okay, we have a system for that.  We have a whole team of administrators and moderators there to look at any grey areas in a situation and make their calls, AND they are even held accountable though a system of reporting over staff complaints.

Every tool is made available to you to handle these things in an official, and largely courteous capacity. And you choose, instead, to open a less regulated conversation where you can frankly stir up drama, rumors, and suspicion, which I assume you know full well will not amount to any meaningful changes because of the basic nature of this branch of the forums. 
 

You’re using general to be petty and reactionary, in my opinion. Geeves had the best response on here. Ahelp, move on. If that doesn’t work, staff complaints. If that doesn’t work, maybe you’re being reactionary and taking things out of context- at that point a number of people have looked over logs and incidents and decided they are non-issues. 

 

 I understand you struggle with seeing outside of your own perspective. Everyone does. But for the love of god, at some point all of the complaining over discord, ooc, and not-the-complaint-boards forums has to stop. I cannot even fathom how you think conducting yourself like this will accomplish anything for you. 

A response like this is precisely the reason why I made a thread about it in general.

These exists some members of the community where they think any IC interaction at all should be kept IC no matter what. They think that minor issues such as these, regardless of the frequency, means literally nothing and has no indication of a higher problem and just must be an issue of the person reporting it or that they didn't report enough. Well, it isn't, considering that situations have been reported, hasn't been deemed an issue, complaints were made towards people who didn't see it an issue, a Head Admin ruling that it is indeed an issue, but regardless of all that there are people who still don't think it's an issue. There also exists posts like yours that instead of really addressing any of the points in the thread, they decide to declare their indifference and personally attack the person my own perspective by mentioning incredibly awful claims and comments about the personal nature of the person which has no use for this here as it contains nothing of value.

Degeneracy and hostility thrive in indifferent communities. It's the reason why you're allowed to make a post to bring up some pretty shitty accusations about me and why I made the thread. I made the thread not to start shit, but to spread awareness about the issue and hopefully get some input from other users about the issue to see if they've experienced or witnessed similar issues. If I wanted to stir shit, I would've made a multi-user player complaint of every user who has said something really fucking weird and made a statement about it, but I didn't because that's petty as shit and asking for administrative action is not the goal here.

The goal here is to get people to understand that there is a player behind every screen. While you can constantly proclaim that your creepy flirtation is entirely ICly, it affects the OOC enjoyment of the person involved, usually for the worse. While the expectations of the server are set in the rules that involve killing and being forced out of the round because of antagonism, there are no expectations set for creepy flirtatious comments. A general advisory, that was perfectly worded (thank you @geeves), is exactly what was needed. Because of this, now administrators and moderators can now better handle any future situations that come up.

 

Postscript:

Complaints are shitflinging fests because it is inherintly about always being on the defense and always being on the offensive. There exists two complaints that I have ever seen on here where the defendant actually admitted wrongdoing right off the bat, one was a decision made by Paradox, and one was about me. In complaints, only select people can bring in their input and almost always in the plaintiff's control. If I made a complaint about someone's conduct regarding the comments, no one else except for them and the person dealing with the complaint can weigh in on the accusations which is honestly quite unfair when discussing a server wide issue. A general thread was the best option here because anyone can comment about it and no specific person has to defend themselves here. This is literally a thread about discussing something, rather than attacking or defending someone.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 20, 2020 by BurgerBB

[Lmwevil]

90% of the posts here take the content way too fucking seriously. 

Hot take: this shit doesn't matter and the majority of people will have a great amount of fun even if you yourself cannot tolerate certain things. Reality is if any one of us left who aren't the host (or even the host if there was a transfer of permissions) it will keep on trucking. This kind of circlespeech is part of why I love reading these forums because it's so inane, but it's also just.. counterproductive. How is saving all these logs just to pull them out of your ass at the perfect time good form? Why should we all care so much? Hate Unathi lore, make a rewrite instead of saying it's bad. 

TL;DR calm the fuck down and remember this is 2d spessmen and does not need to be this invested

[BurgerBB]

8 minutes ago, Lmwevil said:

90% of the posts here take the content way too fucking seriously. 

Hot take: this shit doesn't matter and the majority of people will have a great amount of fun even if you yourself cannot tolerate certain things. Reality is if any one of us left who aren't the host (or even the host if there was a transfer of permissions) it will keep on trucking. This kind of circlespeech is part of why I love reading these forums because it's so inane, but it's also just.. counterproductive. How is saving all these logs just to pull them out of your ass at the perfect time good form? Why should we all care so much? Hate Unathi lore, make a rewrite instead of saying it's bad. 

TL;DR calm the fuck down and remember this is 2d spessmen and does not need to be this invested

Who are you referring to here? What doesn't matter?

[Zundy]

I'm lost again. Is this thread calling out an increase in sexual harassment on server/discord or general sexual harassment of unathi women by Unathi men ICly or both? What corrective measures are we proposing?

Edited January 21, 2020 by Zundy

[BurgerBB]

16 minutes ago, Zundy said:

I'm lost again. Is this thread calling out an increase in sexual harassment on server/discord or general sexual harassment of unathi women by Unathi men ICly or both? What corrective measures are we proposing?

Thread was kind of derailed with Lmwevil's concern trolling and someone else posting about some dude's sexist remarks on discord in their comment about how creepy sexist attitudes actually exist throughout the server.

My original issue is that there exists unathi players who take things too far with the lore by being creepy with "courting" attempts as well as seriously treating unathi females like trash, more than what is realistically allowed by lore. I proposed that we all realise that there are other players behind the screen, some even underaged, and perhaps get in OOC touch before engaging in sexual flirtation or actual serious harassment that expands more than one or two rounds.

 

The steps taken to resolve this was geeves making an announcement and updating the wiki page to include these concerns. The announcement will help new unathi players and existing ones, and perhaps make them realise that they're playing with other people. I couldn't propose anything as all of this was already covered in the lore and the rules, but people forgot that so it's a general reminder.

 

Edited January 21, 2020 by BurgerBB

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

6 minutes ago, BurgerBB said:

The steps taken to resolve this was geeves making an announcement and updating the wiki page to include these concerns. The announcement will help new unathi players and existing ones, and perhaps make them realise that they're playing with other people. I couldn't propose anything as all of this was already covered in the lore and the rules, but people forgot that so it's a general reminder.

I did that, as a reminder.

[BurgerBB]

13 minutes ago, Marlon Phoenix said:

I did that, as a reminder.

Wasn't aware. Assumed it was Geeves since they made the announcement. Thanks for doing that.

[Zundy]

Happy days.