No Politics or Religion in OOC

LordFowl · September 10, 2015

A poetic analogy, but fundamentally flawed in the fact that OoC is designed specifically for discussions of all types, except for the current round. The fact remains that willfully cutting out topics of discussion to pander to the percentage of people that are offended by that topic will eventually lead to nothing being permitted on the OoC, because something will always offend somebody.

A more apt modification to your analogy is that everyone in the restaurant is smoking, it just happens that cuban cigars produce more smoke than cigarettes.

September 10, 2015

So you want people to openly say “Stop this conversation you’re having. I don’t have the emotional energy to process this today. Can’t we just place spacemens?”

And you don’t expect there to be backlash?

There is a lovely button with a lovely functionality that gives you the possibility to not have to put up with other people's shit. Let's take a gander, shall we?

Can you find it? If you haven't, you've probably never used it, and I'll concede in saying that I am very sorry in having to hear you participate in political discussions against your will.

Of course there is an anticipation for backlash. Of course there will be conflict. If people aren't disagreeing with each other at least once every five minutes, then people are contradicting what it means to be human. Whether you apply cultural Marxist procedures to attempt to stop people from getting offended over things, you end up frustrating and offending more people as a result anyway.

People are going to fight and be pissed off no matter what you do, and I will stand to say that this suggestion will not help things, it will make the matter of people being offended even worse because it is going to reinforce the ideologue of a hugbox.

Anyone making a public attempt to stop a conversation based on the fact that it emotionally affects them is placing themselves in an enormously vulnerable position. Everyone on the entire server will have the opportunity to filter their experiences through their own validity function, and as has already been established, there are at least some people in our community who will always find their reasons inadequate.

I read this as, 'people are going to make themselves a target/a victim if their emotions are overwhelming them on the basis of a conversation that went in a direction the offended party doesn't like, and people will complain about it and call for other people to stamp it out entirely because it's problematic.'

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but from a logical standpoint, that's exactly what it is. This is a video game we are all playing here. We do not expect to hear someone bitch and moan about how the cashier at the Starbucks misgendered them, in fact, we're going to laugh at them for taking their suffering to an environment where it does not belong.

I'm pretty sure I recall Skull saying over Teamspeak at one point last October that if you want to enjoy this server, you should probably leave your emotional baggage at the door.

It would be rather awful if he was wrong.

So the ‘myriad options’ you were talking about for someone in this position are actually:

1.) Quietly ask the administration to halt the conversation, risking the fact that the administration may not take you seriously and the person dealing with your adminhelp may be one of the people who will call you a whiner or mentally ill.

2.) Open yourself up to public ridicule by bringing it up in OOC.

3.) Leave.

1.) This is actually the best option, because you're leaving the business to the people who have the server powers to actually bar people from openly speaking to actually conduct their business in a way that directly benefits the server and the community as a whole. Also, unless the handling staff member has a very good reason to respond that way, they have absolutely no fucking right at all to act like an insufferable cocksucker, and do not deserve their position whatsoever.

2.) This is the worst option. Taking it upon yourself to 'deal' with an issue by actually bitching about it instead of sucking it up and being a professional about the matter and reporting it to the people who actually fucking matter is, while bold, an ineffectual methodology.

3.) Oh. You mean walking away from the conversation (or, rather, quitting the game to go do something else and coming back when your fee-fees are less at risk) is a bad idea or something? I mean, shit, I respect a person that will plain up say "Ain't nobody got time for this shit" and will go hop into a heist of Payday 2 to shoot cops and not even remember why they left when they come back into the server.

Gee, it's almost like there are reasons for why people behave the way they do.

I would argue that it is unnecessarily onerous to require people who are asking for consideration to place themselves upon the mercy of public opinion. It is far easier and safer for them to be able to say “Hey, isn’t talking about politics against the rules?”

It's erroneous to assume that people will act differently despite this rule. A couple days ago I sat in the lobby for awhile, and when I was looking at OOC logs of what happened during that round, apparently people had a nice, funny discussion about the types of dildos despite our PG-13 rule. There were moderators discussing it, apparently, but everyone has having fun with the conversation so nobody cared about the rule.

No, really, they spent 20-30 minutes talking about rubber phalluses, it was hilarious to read.

Anyway, no, it's not going to work. Good luck fixing OOC conduct, a rule isn't going to change that if the staff are unwilling to discipline even themselves. Double entrende potentially intended.

I will agree that the pitchfork analogy is not a good one, as people are not talking about politically contentious topics with the express desire of driving off the people who are tired of hearing about such things. I did not mean to imply as such, and if I did, I apologize.

People like discussing interesting things. People dislike discussing uninteresting things. Politics are considered to be an interesting topic, because everyone has a different opinion about it. Opinions are interesting to hear, are they not? Therefore, banning a subject from OOC to be discussed will decrease the interest in discussing the topic.

Well, no, it won't. In fact, 'forbidden' topics are typically even more interesting to discuss because you're not supposed to talk about that stuff, oh my gosh! Muh controversy! As I said, merely exacerbating the problem.

Instead, I offer you this as an alternative analogy. I think it fits a bit better.

Well, good luck proving that the people who discuss politics are actively destroying the growth of this server and are literal cancer.

September 10, 2015

So you want people to openly say “Stop this conversation you’re having. I don’t have the emotional energy to process this today. Can’t we just place spacemens?”

And you don’t expect there to be backlash?

There is a lovely button with a lovely functionality that gives you the possibility to not have to put up with other people's shit. Let's take a gander, shall we?

Can you find it? If you haven't, you've probably never used it, and I'll concede in saying that I am very sorry in having to hear you participate in political discussions against your will.

Of course there is an anticipation for backlash. Of course there will be conflict. If people aren't disagreeing with each other at least once every five minutes, then people are contradicting what it means to be human. Whether you apply cultural Marxist procedures to attempt to stop people from getting offended over things, you end up frustrating and offending more people as a result anyway.

People are going to fight and be pissed off no matter what you do, and I will stand to say that this suggestion will not help things, it will make the matter of people being offended even worse because it is going to reinforce the ideologue of a hugbox.

Anyone making a public attempt to stop a conversation based on the fact that it emotionally affects them is placing themselves in an enormously vulnerable position. Everyone on the entire server will have the opportunity to filter their experiences through their own validity function, and as has already been established, there are at least some people in our community who will always find their reasons inadequate.

I read this as, 'people are going to make themselves a target/a victim if their emotions are overwhelming them on the basis of a conversation that went in a direction the offended party doesn't like, and people will complain about it and call for other people to stamp it out entirely because it's problematic.'

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but from a logical standpoint, that's exactly what it is. This is a video game we are all playing here. We do not expect to hear someone bitch and moan about how the cashier at the Starbucks misgendered them, in fact, we're going to laugh at them for taking their suffering to an environment where it does not belong.

I'm pretty sure I recall Skull saying over Teamspeak at one point last October that if you want to enjoy this server, you should probably leave your emotional baggage at the door.

It would be rather awful if he was wrong.

So the ‘myriad options’ you were talking about for someone in this position are actually:

1.) Quietly ask the administration to halt the conversation, risking the fact that the administration may not take you seriously and the person dealing with your adminhelp may be one of the people who will call you a whiner or mentally ill.

2.) Open yourself up to public ridicule by bringing it up in OOC.

3.) Leave.

1.) This is actually the best option, because you're leaving the business to the people who have the server powers to actually bar people from openly speaking to actually conduct their business in a way that directly benefits the server and the community as a whole. Also, unless the handling staff member has a very good reason to respond that way, they have absolutely no fucking right at all to act like an insufferable cocksucker, and do not deserve their position whatsoever.

2.) This is the worst option. Taking it upon yourself to 'deal' with an issue by actually bitching about it instead of sucking it up and being a professional about the matter and reporting it to the people who actually fucking matter is, while bold, an ineffectual methodology.

3.) Oh. You mean walking away from the conversation (or, rather, quitting the game to go do something else and coming back when your fee-fees are less at risk) is a bad idea or something? I mean, shit, I respect a person that will plain up say "Ain't nobody got time for this shit" and will go hop into a heist of Payday 2 to shoot cops and not even remember why they left when they come back into the server.

Gee, it's almost like there are reasons for why people behave the way they do.

I would argue that it is unnecessarily onerous to require people who are asking for consideration to place themselves upon the mercy of public opinion. It is far easier and safer for them to be able to say “Hey, isn’t talking about politics against the rules?”

It's erroneous to assume that people will act differently despite this rule. A couple days ago I sat in the lobby for awhile, and when I was looking at OOC logs of what happened during that round, apparently people had a nice, funny discussion about the types of dildos despite our PG-13 rule. There were moderators discussing it, apparently, but everyone has having fun with the conversation so nobody cared about the rule.

No, really, they spent 20-30 minutes talking about rubber phalluses, it was hilarious to read.

Anyway, no, it's not going to work. Good luck fixing OOC conduct, a rule isn't going to change that if the staff are unwilling to discipline even themselves. Double entrende potentially intended.

I will agree that the pitchfork analogy is not a good one, as people are not talking about politically contentious topics with the express desire of driving off the people who are tired of hearing about such things. I did not mean to imply as such, and if I did, I apologize.

People like discussing interesting things. People dislike discussing uninteresting things. Politics are considered to be an interesting topic, because everyone has a different opinion about it. Opinions are interesting to hear, are they not? Therefore, banning a subject from OOC to be discussed will decrease the interest in discussing the topic.

Well, no, it won't. In fact, 'forbidden' topics are typically even more interesting to discuss because you're not supposed to talk about that stuff, oh my gosh! Muh controversy! As I said, merely exacerbating the problem.

Instead, I offer you this as an alternative analogy. I think it fits a bit better.

Well, good luck proving that the people who discuss politics are actively destroying the growth of this server and are literal cancer.

EvilBrage · September 10, 2015

Regardless of context or consequence, the right to speak, in all cases, about any topic, in any context (including spacemens) is of higher moral priority then the comfort and enjoyment of those who are less than impervious to harm. If people are being harmed, than the onus is on those being harmed to remove themselves from the community (mute ooc) but they should never complain or attempt reform.

Oh, you can complain and attempt reform all you like - after all, you're entitled to your opinion just like everyone else. What you shouldn't expect is for everyone to agree - and it seems you're equating political and religious disagreements to a fundamental degradation of self-esteem or something ridiculous like that. If a political or religious discussion is all it takes to make someone flip a shit and quit the server when there's a perfectly usable toggle button next to you, good riddance, they're obviously not mature enough to handle the lion's share of the subject matter we have here.

What next? When someone is offended by gore, will we remove the gibs? Then perhaps office pets after that, because a PETA activist says it's encouraging animal captivity and cruelty? You know what - violence isn't nice, let's remove all intents except help.

We are not here to coddle you and help you through your insecurities. We are not here to censor the world so that little sensitive egos will remain unscathed. We are not here to acquiesce your personal version of decency.

We're here to play a game, and if OOC is too intense for you, there's functionality to block it. We already have a very generous set of rules regarding what cannot be discussed; if you'd like to continue to dumb the conversations down, you'll be pushing away individuals who prefer servers that don't so eagerly embrace an FCC style of censorship.

EvilBrage · September 10, 2015

Regardless of context or consequence, the right to speak, in all cases, about any topic, in any context (including spacemens) is of higher moral priority then the comfort and enjoyment of those who are less than impervious to harm. If people are being harmed, than the onus is on those being harmed to remove themselves from the community (mute ooc) but they should never complain or attempt reform.

Oh, you can complain and attempt reform all you like - after all, you're entitled to your opinion just like everyone else. What you shouldn't expect is for everyone to agree - and it seems you're equating political and religious disagreements to a fundamental degradation of self-esteem or something ridiculous like that. If a political or religious discussion is all it takes to make someone flip a shit and quit the server when there's a perfectly usable toggle button next to you, good riddance, they're obviously not mature enough to handle the lion's share of the subject matter we have here.

What next? When someone is offended by gore, will we remove the gibs? Then perhaps office pets after that, because a PETA activist says it's encouraging animal captivity and cruelty? You know what - violence isn't nice, let's remove all intents except help.

We are not here to coddle you and help you through your insecurities. We are not here to censor the world so that little sensitive egos will remain unscathed. We are not here to acquiesce your personal version of decency.

We're here to play a game, and if OOC is too intense for you, there's functionality to block it. We already have a very generous set of rules regarding what cannot be discussed; if you'd like to continue to dumb the conversations down, you'll be pushing away individuals who prefer servers that don't so eagerly embrace an FCC style of censorship.

$jackfractal$ · September 10, 2015

@LordFowl

Actually, OOC was designed specifically for out of character discussions on an SS13 server.

That distinction is vital, as it’s already been established that there are numerous topics that aren’t allowed in OOC already. This means it a curated channel, and while 1138 makes a point that it might not be particularly well curated at times, it is curated and as you can see by the existence of this thread, disallowing certain topics has not lead helter skelter into the banning of all discussion.

Likewise, not allowing politics or religion will have a similarly limited effect. What will happen is that we won’t talk about politics or religion in much the same way we don’t discuss who is an antagonist in the current round. That’s it.

I’m glad I have evidence for this, as it can be very challenging to refute the argument you make in your post in a coherent manner without diving into a lot of hypotheticals or ignoring it entirely. That’s because it’s a fallacy, specifically the “Slippery Slope” fallacy. We see this argument a lot in the marriage equality debate where people will sometimes make the erroneous claim that “If we allow two men to marry, what’s to stop someone from marrying a horse?!”

The idea is absurd on it’s face, and in that case it also has ample contradictory evidence, but similar claims make an emotional appeal by connecting some seemingly innocent first step to an increasingly improbable chain reaction.

I don’t have a good video explaining this one, I was hoping I could use one of the Idea Channel ones but they didn’t cover this in their fallacy series.

I’d recommend avoiding this argument it in future, as it’s not particularly strong.

@1138

Thanks for showing me where the mute OOC button is. I’ve already had that one pointed out to me several times and over the last few pages I’ve explained several times why that’s not really a good solution. If you missed those, the summary is that forcing people to disengage entirely from a community is a lot like forcing them out of that community.

Anyone making a public attempt to stop a conversation based on the fact that it emotionally affects them is placing themselves in an enormously vulnerable position. Everyone on the entire server will have the opportunity to filter their experiences through their own validity function, and as has already been established, there are at least some people in our community who will always find their reasons inadequate.

I read this as, 'people are going to make themselves a target/a victim if their emotions are overwhelming them on the basis of a conversation that went in a direction the offended party doesn't like, and people will complain about it and call for other people to stamp it out entirely because it's problematic.'

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but from a logical standpoint, that's exactly what it is. This is a video game we are all playing here. We do not expect to hear someone bitch and moan about how the cashier at the Starbucks misgendered them, in fact, we're going to laugh at them for taking their suffering to an environment where it does not belong.

Ah, it’s unfortunate that I wasn’t able to make myself understood better. The way that you took that particular paragraph was not what I intended to communicate at all. That interpretation is in fact a spectacular failure of communications, my apologies.

You seem to be assuming the backlash would be against a person starting a political topic, but I was actually referring to the person who was attempting to stop a topic. Such a person is putting themselves out on a limb, and is vulnerable to considerable backlash.

I think we kind of actually agree on this one 1138. This is a video-game. When playing, you shouldn’t have to hear about my political opinions any more than I should have to hear about yours, and neither of us should have to forgo all interactions with the community just because we’d rather not talk about that kind of thing in a game.

I quite like political debate, as I’m sure some of you have guessed by this point, but when we’re on the server we are, as you say, here to play a game. So, let’s just play the game. A good way of doing that is to not allow political or religious discussions in OOC.

Another point where we agree is that we both think the second option in my list up there, that of raising one’s objections personally in OOC, is a terrible plan. It is a terrible plan! I would never suggest actually doing that, I think it’s a really bad and unsafe idea, I was simply pointing out how bad an idea it was because Contextual suggested it as an actual option for people. It’s not.

The point of the list of options up there wasn’t to say “These are valid options” it was to say “See? There are no good options here, and these are the only options available.”

So, yeah, despite some misunderstandings, I think we actually agree with each other on this one, more or less. That being said, I think it’s a little uncharitable to read my restaurant analogy and say that it’s trying to imply that the people smoking in the restaurant are ‘literally cancer.’

The people smoking are having a good time. I am in favour of them having those good times. As I said, I like a good Cuban myself, but what I’m not in favour of is them having a good time at the expense of other people.

@EvilBrage

Hmm, I find your response a little confusing.

I don’t expect everyone to agree. Where did you get the idea that I want everyone to agree on everything? That’s what this whole thing is about. Of course nobody agrees! Nor am I, in any way, attempting to impose some personal vision of decency.

I seem to be having some difficulty in getting my ideas across clearly. I’ll try harder in the future to be more clear.

The point I’m actually making is that because nobody agrees about these things and that discussing these things can, in some cases, make people have less fun on the server, we should just avoid having these conversations at all.

I know that many people on this server have very strong and divergent opinions on a wide variety of topics, most of them political and some of them religious. However, if we don’t talk about them on the server, then we can all play SS13 together in whatever kind of harmony is available in an atmospherics test project turned paranoia simulator. The problems are not caused by the divergent opinions, the problems are caused when people broadcast their potentially inflammatory opinions when what other people want to do is just play the danged game, or share cat pictures, or talk about dildo’s or whatever they were doing before people started talking about something that is either going to get them into an argument or make them feel like shit.

Let’s not make people feel like shit. This is not a complicated idea.

The whole thing with the gibs and the pets is another Slippery Slope fallacy. I refer you to the video linked above.

@Everyone

To summarize my position:

Talking about politics and religion in OOC isn’t a part of SS13. We’re on the server to play SS13. All players have value and have an equal right to engage with the community. For some players, listening to certain topics can make things less fun. Those topics are overwhelmingly political or religious in nature. Fun is good. Let’s not make things less fun if we don’t have to. In this case, we don’t have to. Therefore we should remove politics and religion from OOC.

$jackfractal$ · September 10, 2015