In case anyone else missed these on the Euphoria group and wishes to hear what a lapsed musical theater career and access to GarageBand leads to later in life…I present the song selections I had on hand and dragged out to celebrate closing of IFComp:
Euphoria is an interesting experiment. A little buggy and hard to use, though. And the IF room in particular is administered by someone whose moderation policy borders on self-parody:
[quote][Sequitur] Anyone who decides to slam-dunk on trans people will be forcibly bowed out.
[Sequitur] (Well, marginalised groups in general, but you get what I mean.)
[vaporware] “Marginalized” and “non-marginalized” alike, I hope: that’s what https://euphoria.io/about/conduct seems to say.
[Sequitur] If you’re asking whether it’s policy going to treat “misandry” with the same regard as misoginy, uh, no.
[vaporware] The code prohibits “Sexist, racist, homophobic, transphobic, ableist, or otherwise discriminatory jokes, insults, or language.” Are you saying there are secret exceptions to that?
[Sequitur] No, I’m pointing out that discriminatory language in this instance is defined as language against marginalised groups
[vaporware] Where is it defined that way? Not in the document itself.
[Sequitur] Sigh
[Sequitur] I am not going to explain privilege to you; it’s just not a great use of my time.
[vaporware] You don’t need to explain. I understand it as well as you do. I just think it’d be nice to clarify your written code of conduct so readers understand the philosophy you’ll be applying when enforcing it, because as written, there’s no indication that “sexist, racist, [etc] jokes, insults, or language” will be treated differently based on the specific groups they’re targeted against.
[Sequitur] /me shrugs.
[Sequitur] The policy is understood by the people who drafted and enforce that policy, and it’s thought that having some explicit “no, reverse racism isn’t real” statement in there isn’t really productive. But we’re not labouring under the impression that “sexism” is something cis men suffer from.
[Sequitur] I’m making the way the rules will be enforced clear, you can take it or leave it.
[Sequitur] If someone is harassing someone or being an asshole, they will be banned; but I am not going to make the glaring false equivalency of treating statements against marginalised groups the same as statements about privileged groups.[/quote]
Well, this seems like a sticky thing to deal with. I think it’s safe to say “nastiness and trolling in general are not acceptable.” That should be #1.
I do feel some people get a lot of “fun” out of marginalizing people not in marginalized groups. I think there’s a certain amount of quibbling going on over terms, and I feel it’s good to hash them out. But I don’t understand why codes of conduct can’t say
No nastiness. There are certain lines. They apply to everybody. Certain insults are unambiguous, and everyone knows it.
This is a public forum, but it is privately owned. We’re extra rough on the obvious ones, so the lines may be a bit nearer for those. Most people will have no problem with this. Don’t make people feel guilty/bad just for who they are.
More subtle forms of trolling for the public good are not acceptable, because they taint people who want to be nice. Don’t engage in them. Don’t play stupid mind games. They’re no big deal, until they are. They get in the way of legitimate conversation.
While it’s important to have these protections in place, I really don’t like when people seem to try to be in the vanguard of rooting out trolls.
That said I think I’ll be back around. If the code of conduct is implemented badly, I suspect I and others will move on.
What about language that’s discriminatory but not violent? According to his explanation, he’ll tolerate it if it’s targeted at this race or gender but not that one.
My own, for now. Or whichever other ones are deemed “privileged” in the future.
Working in Silicon Valley, I’ve seen managers and VPs publicly “boo” the number of people from backgrounds similar to mine who came in front of their promotion committees or served alongside them on those committees; propose that people who look like me shouldn’t be allowed to make hiring decisions; and lament the “societal idiocy” (i.e. anti-discrimination law) that requires them to treat candidates and employees of my race and gender equally to others.
So maybe I’m a little hypervigilant when I get home.
But after what I’ve seen in the IF world over the past year – like a few resentful authors insisting that the only reason their game didn’t place higher in the comp must’ve been that the judges were prejudiced against them, or that criticizing their favorite development system is equivalent to bigotry, and then turning around and dismissing the categories of works they see as associated with other demographic groups – I think there’s reason to be concerned that selectively enforcing this kind of policy opens the door to abuse.
I see things as follows: I’m glad to let someone ahead in line, at the grocery store, or getting on the bus, etc. But I don’t like being told I need to stay well back, and even if I do, I probably still looked resentful doing so, and it’s not like I really did anything.
Unfortunately, this is how some people make me feel sometimes. And while it’s nowhere near illegal harrassment, I want to be able to say: no. I have boundaries. People who do thissort of thing aren’t impressively brave or dynamic, they’re just overreaching.
It may be a first world problem, but the first world is the world I live in. And it’s a problem I need and want to deal with to be the best I can be, or help others do so too.
EDIT - I had a pretty long post here, but I deleted it all.
'Cause I just realised we’ve badly hijacked this thread. I have a couple things to say, sure, but I’m not sure this is the right place for it?.. This thread started so innocently.
I just remembered I had a recording I didn’t do. Maybe I’ll post it later. That’ll get things back on topic. It’s–well, I hope it’s funny, but you always worry humor falls flat.
Sorry, folks. Peter, you’re right, it should go somewhere else on this board. It’s just the sort of issues I’ve been thinking about recently dovetailed with this. And I couldn’t think of a good new thread name, myself.
Hey, don’t take it so personally, now. This Euphoria issue got my goat too, and FWIW I think it’s worth - if unpleasant and sad - to talk about it… Plus, I’m a thread-derailer myself, usually.
If you’ve been thinking about issues that dovetail with what happened there, then definitely that deserves discussion.
FWIW, it’s easy to split threads here. There’s the “reply as linked topic” button to do it when you reply, but I can also move posts after the fact, including the ones here if you’d like.
Ah hahahahah. Wow. The amount of work people will put in because they are frightened and terrified – balled-up-hands-twisting-in-eye-sockets – of adults simply talking to each other without their overseer meddling is amazing. What on earth has happened to this scene.
Peter–no worries. I just like to keep on topic and try not to complain. Sometimes just saying “I need to get back on track” is about my projects as much as forum threads.
