The CoC also says:
“These are not concrete terms with precise definitions — avoid even
the appearance of any of these things.”
I read the list, and sure, taken individually every point is sensible. Reading them one after the after is downright stifling, though. Then that bit I quoted is a rather incredible exclamation mark on the whole thing.
BTW, an incident occurred quite a while back which involved a forum member making a joke about a Python sketch that another forum member took as being supportive of physical abuse towards women. I won’t go into details, I referenced it once and one of the people present in the discussion called me out for passive-aggression, which was fair enough given the context in which I brought it up, but I think I can bring it up now as an example of the various shadings of the word “reasonable”.
In that incident, and in every similar incident since, the forum piles up on the perceived aggressor. Heck, someone once used the word “shemale” completely unaware of its derogatory and inflammatory connotations and everything stopped just to tell that someone how rotten a person they were. It was a while before it was realised that quite a number of people simply had no idea of the weight of the word.
That actually had a positive outcome; a thread dealing with this, and with the intent of educating people so they wouldn’t throw offensive names around without knowing, was soon created and had a lot of discussion.
Which is why I believe speaking out is the best course of action. The CoC encourages people to shut up and report people not shutting up. That doesn’t help anyone.
EDIT - The big question is:
Who is IntFiction.org for?
I feel like the answer should be “everyone”, but that’s not the reality I see.
Everything’s fine as long as everyone keeps stum about all but certain topics. I don’t like that system. There’s a line between keeping a safe, civil place and stifling discussion, and it’s a line that’s mostly about the posters, not the mods.
But hey! “Who is IntFiction for”, right? If it’s exclusively for people who have been looking for a “safe place” (a phrase which seems to be defined mostly as a refuge or shelter, free from harm or risk - a strange environment for an artform to grow in!), who agree on toning down on anything that might be construed as offensive, and who have zero interest in discussing what might be happening in the world as it happens… who will only go there to discuss gaming and IF and who are also prohibited of showing their displeasure at the way that there’s so much effort going into making new choice-IF tools instead of perfecting the existing parser-IF scene… then I’d just be happier if they were more honest about it.
On a tangent:
I do like this place we have here, which is a lot more straightforward, but I do wish there was more activity sometimes. For one thing, it’s easy for me to say “we don’t have the drama they have over there because we speak our mind and argue instead of stifling discussion”, but in fact there just isn’t enough activity here for that to be tested.
When there is, it tends to be about GamerGate or the CoC or rants like my own about people being too touchy sometimes. And… well, I know that’s the whole reason this place exists, but I just wish it would all move on from there. IntFiction included.
EDIT 2: I mean…
When you disagree with a decision that someone has made in their game,
feel free to express that disagreement. However, if they continue with
their design choices, stop arguing.
I appreciate the underlying sentiment here, but this tone is extremely off-putting.
Apologize. If you make other people uncomfortable on our forums,
especially by mistake, apologize, or say nothing.
What’s next, potty training?
You know, I don’t think I’d ever bothered to read the CoC in detail now that it’s all blown over. Now that I have, it really seems silly. Good intentions all around, which is always what makes it hard to argue against. Argue against the CoC, it seems, and you’re arguing against civility and politeness. Well, no. I argue against it because I’m arguing against policing of emotions and reactions. We don’t need that policing, and the proof of it is, we never have until the one incident which caused this schism.
Said incident, BTW, mostly precipitated by a non-habitual forum member… oh, to hell with it. Precipitated by Porpentine who threw sexism accusations in the infamous “IF is dead” thread, which was only about the old “choice IF VS parser IF” debacle.
Porpentine didn’t actually come back to the forums after managing that feat, except to say “Well, I made parser games too, and they never got the same reception. Where’s that so-called love for parser?”. So, who’s disruptive again? Who started this whole mess again?
I miss the times of Pudlo and Andreas! (not the posters themselves, David, don’t worry) Back then, there were four ways you dealt with situations like this:
- You argued constructively, which didn’t always work but showed good faith;
- You mocked them and got some entertainment out of it;
- You kept silent and it just died away;
- People got banned after proving to be way too much.
I still think that was the best way.
FINAL EDIT - This amount of output from myself surprises me. I guess I’m more passionate about this than I thought. The timing is weirdly right, what with RealNC’s recent post and the replies to it.
It’s important to understand what current relations are like, and what brought them about. Hey, it’s what created this forum here in the first place. There’s a very direct cause-and-effect relationship, hard to ignore.