Lux Forums

[furball]

okay, i'm angry ... nothing more i can say. Dooby-Doo - 4.62.122.127 - entered a game and used racial slurs while suiciding on me. Nikolas dumped the game. then Dooby-Doo joined eunice kasiske's game AS FURBALL (I didnt think that was possible - i had to join as "hello" to check the game out). He was trying to lose to effect my ranking (not to mention talk crap to smear my reputation). So ... insult to injury.

Look, everyone is welcome to come and suicide on me. You're all even welcome to talk crap at and about me - like a number of you do ... lol. But I will not put up with some asshat entering a game and using obscene, racist language to abuse me, AND then take my name in order to be able to play like an asshat in another game.

so, here's the bottomline. There needs to be a KICK button (despite the abuse that it will inevitably be put to by someone). AND, player names need to be protected. How do i know i am playing Preacherman, or Bat Rastard, or Logan and NOT Dooby Doo? And what happens if you are not around for a few days or a week and someone maliciously uses your name to abuse other people?

Let's be clear: this is a community of people. There needs to be a way to protect the identity of individual members from the abuse of rogue agents. There needs to be a way to remove and ban abusive players from games.

furball

[Kyle]

I agree, we need to keep the communism... oops, I mean community pure, so let's kill all the mother*&#(&* who are bad!

I mean, kick them out of the games, of course. All those non-aryans who... I mean, uh... people who are 'not nice' should be absolutely banned. Not just from the games, but from the lux community! Ban them from the game of lux! Rip em' off 20 bucks, who cares? They didn't buy into all the carefully laid out rules that aren't expressed anywhere!


Dustin, I like lux the way it is, and I think that regardless of some idiots who play (in this case Scooby Doo or whatever the hell) things should be kept free. In every 'community' there is a village idiot or two (or three, depending on how big the community is), and since I am already one of them, I figure we have room for a few more.

Freedom of speech is a very important thang, even if the person expressing his freedom is a complete idiot.

Though I understand about the alias thing... It's nice for a joke now and again, but I can see how it could be abused. Heck, one night I abused the hell out of it! All in jest though, everybody knew it was me.

[Dooby-Doo]

you lie, furball. You had the game cancelled not because of any racial slurs, but becasue YOU LOST THAT ONE! We were all talking trash and it was well-understood that we were all just kidding. You're playing up the racial slurs to gain sympthy.

I suicided on you to boost my rating, and you cheated by having your buddy nikolas cancel the game. you feign taking offense at my remarks, but you wouldn't want the game canceled if you were winning, would you? is that how you're number one? when you have a particularly bad loss coming, you have the game tossed.

Given that you're a cheat, I hurt you where it hurts most. Your ill-gotten rating. Feel the sting, buddy boy. Learn your lesson. You cheated to get your rating, so now you lost it.

BTW, how's this for a feature request: when you get eliminated or eliminate someone, your rating should change right away, not at the end of the game, before which your buddy can get it tossed.

[logan]

interesting idea bout the immediate rating update, though its flawed since someone who lost early would loose points, but lets say if the hosts's game crashed, he'd be the only one to loose.. so thats probably a bad plan.

As for racial slurs, thats probably not a good form of messing with eachother, use cursing, your momma jokes, even make fun of the special relationship that Preach, Michelle, and I have uhm... oh wrong subject.... but forget those slurs! slur slur slur! i'm an EVIL WHITE MIDDLE CLASS AMERICAN JEW!! which is basically true ..

Furball, next time post the conversation. good to have.

[furball]

[Nikolas]

Just to be clear, I was hosting a game and Dooby and Fur were going at it on the board and with the trash-talk, but I wasn't paying any attention (that's Lux). There was some swearing, and I asked them to cut it out because my nephew was coming in and out. I went back to spacing out (my strategy in Lux), but I looked down, and, as Fur said, I saw the N-word as Dooby was saying that those "are the only" people "down there"--as he attacked, I think, Africa.

Now, I could give a flying feline about Fur or anyone and their death in Lux or, frankly, their feelings in taking some (even immature) trash-talk, but I would hope people respect what I ask of them when I'm hosting, and I have said I won't tolerate bigotry (laid out in the Wiki-- http://sillysoft.net/wiki/index.php?Luxiquette). So I immediately lit into Dooby about unacceptable language and asked him to leave the game. He didn't. I didn't explicitly confirm consent, as I was livid, but everyone else tacitly supported dumping the game when I said I would.

I later told Dooby I would accept an apology and an explanation if he wanted to play again in a game I was hosting---that will be accepted here in this forum or by private message to me, in the spirit of tolerance and in the hope that we can have some education.

tony nickles

[Preacherman]

Without wanting to get too heavily involved in the *gag* Political *retch* Correctness *hurl* issue here (to me, nigger means negro, and is no more racially insensitive than coon, spic, wop or any of a thousand other slang words for all manner of ethnicities) I do believe a guest in any game should respect the hosts (and the other guests) wishes for conduct and etiquette.

A ban button would be abused without question, but the good old fashioned "everyone pile into player X until they shaddup" method of schooling is usually a perfect way of getting your point across, if the brilliantly useful "/mute" command does not suffice.

Sending ranking information when a player is knocked out will not work, as rankings are based on the position someone finishes in relation to the position everyone else finishes, which is of course not known until the end.

I do however agree totally with furball on the question of spoofing, I have long thought it sucks that the registration code is not attached to a particular player name...not that this *huge* security hole has been abused particularly, but I think that is more luck than anything else - as the community grows, so will the chances that it happens. We are perhaps seeing the start of it now - it is seriously lame.

[Nikolas]

I don't wanna be the heavy on this, but "Politically Correct" is the ridiculous extrapolation that gives us sanitation workers instead of janitors. That connotation shouldn't trivialize the communal consideration of what anyone might be offended, or feel excluded, by.

I realize there are less egregious situations, but, even if just pointing out someone as "that black guy over there", labels have a dehumanizing effect and only allow more ignorant mentalities--they give outlet to thoughts such as, it doesn't matter if I attack that country as it's only full of "____".

Respect and tolerance are the more important outcomes, but how do we get those if we don't take, and consider, this seriously?

-tn

Beyond that, go to DC and try using that kinda talk.

[michelle]

preacherman wrote:
Without wanting to get too heavily involved in the *gag* Political *retch* Correctness *hurl* issue here (to me, nigger means negro, and is no more racially insensitive than coon, spic, wop or any of a thousand other slang


different words mean different thing to different people just because a certain words mean nothing to you doesn't mean they should be spouting
in the games. Come on we're here to play a game. If you dont like the people you playing with don't play with them it really simple or simplistic.

[Baden]

Furballs comments should be taken seriously. I did not know that it is possible to abuse a players name taking his identity. Just tried it logging into a game using the name „furball“ - it worked. Of course I went out a moment later. For cheaters so it is made easy to damage someones ranking by loosing intentionally or damage the reputation in other ways. As furball rightfully complains there „needs to be a way to protect the identity of individual members from the abuse of rogue agents.“

Racists are a plague everywhere - unfortunately they also occur sometimes in Lux-games. I made this experience some weeks ago after I revealed during a game that my origin is german. Someone (I forgot his name) immediately in the chatterbox used the nazi-stereotype. It is just disgusting even more because members of my family were victims of the terror-regime.

All this might get better if every player had a clear identity.

Would be interesting to hear Dustins opinion about that.

[el toro]

it becomes very clear, very quickly, the folks in our little microverse who you would or would not like to sit at the corner pub and have a beer with.

asshats abound in real life as well.

preach is right, and we have used it more than once now, just mute 'em.
it all ways makes the bad guy leave the game. just like in the real world.

peace people.

el toro

[Preacherman]

There is never an excuse for rascism, of course not, it is nothing more than ignorance and gross lack of education, and it certainly shouldn't be tolerated by anyone in game or otherwise.

The word nigger is offensive, as far as I have ever experienced, only to African Americans, which I find somewhat hypocritical nowadays as 90% of the times I hear the word, it is from African American lips. The word itself is not offensive anywhere else. It is the context in which it is used, in the light of the social history you have in the US, that causes problems. Go to Africa and call a Kenyan the same thing, he won't bat an eyelid. I have spent time in Ghana, and found that I was encouraged to refer to people as niggers - they are proud of their negro heritage and see it as a sign of recognition.

Of course furballs comments should be taken seriously...the spoofing issue speaks for itself, as does any genuine racial slurring. I have also experienced it in a game I was hosting...the irony being that he didn't actually use that word at all, but the gist of what he was inferring was quite clear. I put the moron in question on mute, other guests did the same, the offender left when he realised nobody could hear him, and I haven't seen them since. Simple. The point is exactly that different words mean different things to different people. To me personally it is just a word, and I will not kick someone for using it unless it is offensive to another guest. I WILL kick someone for spouting racist remarks.

[the tide]

I have certainly done my share of trash talk which I enjoy, but this type of racial epethet has nothing to do with trash talk or not being pollitically correct. Simply put, an asshole is an asshole. And the jackass that uses this language should regard himself as intellectually unaware of the world around him. Ban them if this keeps up. Power to the fur

[Westavian]

[furball]

[kyluvjesus]

Political correctness sucks, it just hinders communication and promotes passive agressiveness.

As for my previous comment, furball, I already told you I didn't mean to write exactly what I wrote because it sounded overly sarcastic and mean, but I guess my apology didn't mean much.

I did mean communist. Fascist too, I suppose. Remember the Nazi's were socialist and lived under the totalitarian rule of Hitler. That's what I was comparing your shpeel to. I don't agree with racism (of course) but I do agree with a persons right to be racist, and to say anything they want within reason (can't yell bomb on an airplane). Whether it's abusive or not doesn't matter, it's their right to say what they want, and you can choose to ignore it, be abusive back, quit, cry like a bitch whatever you want. I strongly disagree with a ban feature or even a mute feature. It's morally worse than the racist terms dooby was spewing out.

[Preacherman]

furball - with ALL due respect - where have I said in one of my posts that it was a "good thing" to use that word, with the one exception of the example I quoted? That example is MY experience. Yes, the individuals I dealt with in Africa take the term with PRIDE. They chose to do so. Are they wrong to do so? I didn't "embrace" it. I just accepted it. Should they automatically inherit US social history, or should they continue to use the word as they have always used it? Should I, as a European, take on the negative connotations of the word as used in the US, and then try to impart that on Africans? Of course not. All I can do is respect its use in the country I happen to be in, and with the people I happen to be with, at the time.

I have never experienced the US perspective of the word first hand, but have respect and understanding for the fact that it has a totally different meaning now over there than it does over here. I did not called African Americans hypocrites, I said that I personally find it hypocritical to hear it referred to as the 'N' word by almost everyone except African Americans. I am not trying to justify anything - merely stating that the context is - to ME - more important than the actual word. Sorry if that offends you. I do understand this is a sensitive issue, but please try to reread what I wrote rather than trying to misunderstand me.

I of all people do not want you to "shut up", where did that inference come from? As I have written in every post I made in this topic - you are absolutely right to be offended if someone makes racial slurs, and should have the ability to do something about it in game. But don't assume that your idea of what defines a racial slur is shared by everyone on the planet...as I said - it is about respecting one another. I DO have full respect for where you chose to draw your lines, and I will help you defend them if they are crossed, on the principal that I respect you, and what you stand for. It doesn't mean those same lines have the same meaning for me.

[Nikolas]

[Baden]

Why trying to define the word"Nigger" here in the forum? Its meaning can easily be found in an encyclopedia.

"Nigger"

„Although this word comes from the Latin word niger, which simply means black, the use of this word to refer to a black or Afro-American person is normally considered pejorative (most often extremely, highly, or strongly so). The word is, however, used by some black people as a neutral or even affirmative term.

When used by someone who is not black, nigger is almost invariably considered offensive. In its pejorative sense, it arguably ranks as the most offensive and insulting racial/ethnic term in English, carrying with it strong connotations of cultural, aesthetic, and intellectual inferiority or deficiency (such connotations of deficiency extending to a perception of exoticism). Indeed, the term can be callously cruel: with its most conceivably creatively pejorative uses (e.g., if a non-black were to hurl the term at a random black in a wincing and forceful way), the term can be loaded with meanings that all exude a perception of a highly deficient and exotic thinghood at its target, as unfair and false as the perceptions may be.

Changing attitudes and realizations towards those of black origin (e.g., realizing that blacks are not intellectually, or in other ways, inferior to other races; acknowledgement of highly significant cultural contributions made by blacks; civil rights advances made by blacks) has made the writing of this word taboo in many instances, or if it is written, it is often obfuscated as "N_____", "N****r", etc.“

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Nigger

Sadly enough people using such or other racist terms are trying to gain attention. Seems really useless to attempt to educate them. It is mostly too late anyway.

[Baden]

Just a supplement:

My last post should not be misunderstood. I dont think at all that preacherman is a racist. But in this discussion I rather support furballs clear speech.

[Preacherman]

Swerving quickly back on topic - I was watching a game today where furball went out 5th or 6th. This is not shown on his stats.

http://sillysoft.net/rankings/user/furball

In a later game, Jim came in and played. No stats (at all!) for him. And he didn't win the one it says he did.

http://sillysoft.net/rankings/user/jim

Jim and furball had the same IP's. I have no idea who the hell I am playing anymore. It is turning into a "will the real furball please step forward" situation. There are now 2 furballs on the rankings, no idea which of them is the real one and which is jim, or which one was the one I saw go out 5th or 6th earlier...

The fact that this can happen is just...very, very dodgy.

[el toro]

i was in a game with the fux furball today when i tried chatting with him...
he quit... it makes me sad that someone is so willing to screw with others ranking and rep.

[Nikolas]

I can appreciate what Preach is trying to say as well as Kyle's point. There is no way to understand meaning without considering the context or knowing if anyone is offended until they are, and censorship or oppression is not the right route (if we simply reject or ignore Dooby, there is no chance for self-expression and discussion, and thus possible self-realization and education--much less explanation and apology or understanding).

The reason I dropped the game (other than the kid wasn't listening to me, though I deal with that all the time), was I didn't want to seem complicit in what might even have had any chance of offending anyone---which is my point.

We can't anticipate all contexts or situations or people. The basic motive of political correctness is important, not as language-policing or a stupid list of "PC" terms, but because this unpredictability shows that to be humane is to consider in advance our effect on others (which promotes empathy and compassion and solidarity), even to re-examine the forces implicit in our language (independent of what we intend it to mean--- see, "Must We Mean What We Say").

From what I know (which is not much), African Americans using racial slang are said to be reclaiming terminology--or empowering themselves by taking over the use of the word. Negro--although considered old-fashioned, though not usually offensive (outdated in the US by "African American", which as well)--connotes a heritage (Martin Luther King, Jr. used the term), but racial slang is (or even can be!) a degenerated label to differentiate and alienate (*), and as such, it is categorically pejorative (as reclaimed terms can even degenerate into self-inflicted, shared degradation).

(* I still don't understand how it could be anything else, but I assume Preach's experience was that N_____ and Negro were being used interchangeably, connoting heritage.)


Bottom Line: I think Lux chat, internationally, is not a place where I would expect to see racial slang without it being (even if just possibly) offensive (even if to people who are not present or have yet to join by leading to the impression that this is a place where all people are not accepted), so I think we should agree anyone using it needs to be, if not excluded or silenced, held to some account.

tony nickles

p.s. - I'm thinking if we should change the Lux etiquette on bigotry (and the whole chat thing) from being (or not only being) a simple game-ender. Maybe that the host should ask them to apologize and follow some rules and then next ask them to leave but that "the host reserves the right to end a game if..." (man, I'm not getting that law degree).

[Nikolas]

The whole name-stealing, multiple-alias thing really does need to be fixed.

D, how many more people have to die, man, how many!! http://sillysoft.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1068&highlight=

--I might not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land!

-tn

[Bat Rastard]

Someone can actually use someones name to lower their score? You have to be kidding me! I have always felt that usernames should be protected, but the focus of my position was to protect the user.( who REGISTERED and PAID for that right) This is insane! Could you imagine the havoc that would ensue if people were to login to eBay and bid in your name? This should really change.

I consider hosting a game much akin to hosting a party. Depending on context, someone in my home using th "N" word in a perjoritive fashion will find themselves no longer welcome. Nor an individual who is intent on ruining it for everyone. "Freedom of Speech" is, for those who have it, a political right ... not some universal right to spout whatever whenever. I do not consider a game of Lux a venue without boundaries of any kind. The boundaries are set by the hosts and need to be respected by the players. Simple, huh.

Best regards,

Bat

[rob]

preach wrote:

[logan]

regardless of political correctness.
The sad thing here is that furball has been so bothered by this that he has chosen to leave. The name calling is secondary since we have Mute features. The real lasting issue at least for the rest of us, is that there NEEDS to be a login for a username.
If i play as Logan
there is no reason why i should have to place in a password relevant
to that username.
This is basic security that in our case has been overlooked for too long and now it has become a problem.

Furball, I sincerely hope you haven't left for good, it was always fun to play you, you are a great guy. Take care.

[_DG_]

I'm not really the "forum posting" type, but, given the amount of heat/attention that this particular incident seems to have been getting, and the fact that I happened to be a participant in the game where everything went down, I figured I'd share the context of the "racial slur", for those that are curious.

We already know that Dooby-doo was talkin' some trash, and laying it on furball pretty thick. Somewhere amidst all of the colorful chatter, someone noticed that one of the countries in North America had 4 armies, and didn't seem to be occupied by anyone that was playing - specifically, there were 6 people in the game: (and this is for argument's sake; I can't remember the exact colors that were in use) Red, Blue, Yellow, Orange, Pink, and Brown. The mystery player with 4 armies on California (or whatever country it was) was colored White. Dig? We're talking about a bug, here, just to be clear - there was some phantom player with 4 armies on California - very strange.
So, someone says (in chat; paraphrasing here):

"hey, who's White? who's on California??"

Then someone else says "nobody's White in this game" or "nobody in this game is White" (something like that; that was the setup)

Then our witty friend Dooby says "just us niggers", or something very much along those lines. Basically making a joke, reminiscant of the "just us chickens" joke.

Honestly, it wasn't a bad bit of witty banter (in the opinion of this NYC-born, Howard Stern-listening, working stiff athiest white guy).
No one was actually called a nigger directly in any sort of derogatory fashion.
However, given the level of tension that the game had been raised to at that point, I think Nik and fur just lost it.

That's how it looked to me, anyway. I'm not taking sides, or trying to "defend" anyone here (an asshole is an asshole). I'm just trying to provide a clearer decscription of what happened.


While I'm posting, though...
I think that tying names and serial numbers together could work.
Using an older game, Bungie's Myth (I used to work for Bungie), as an example, the way the network play worked was like this:
When you registered your serial number, you created an account on the game server. To play games, you logged into the server (which was automatic, basically), and from that point on, your stats followed your login, regardless of what your screen name was. So, you could have as many "furballs" online as you like, but the stats would follow the user login, NOT their screen name.
So, implementing some sort of login server would be my suggestion for handling the spoofing issue.

It is also my opinion that unregistered users should not be able to participate in ranked games. In Myth, there were multiple 'rooms' for folks to congregate in, half of which were Ranked, and half were Unranked.

Being familiar with what goes into game development, I understand that wishes and feature requests all boil down to hours of some poor coder's life... So I'm not holding my breath to see any huge improvements any time soon - coding game server software is not easy.
However, the only way to get something changed/fixed/implemented is to whine about it, err, I mean, provide feedback to the developer.
So, don't be afraid to speak up.

see yall online...

dg

[Nikolas]

[Nikolas]

Here's a log from just a game ago (different than the game above). I think I managed to handle this a little better and eventually the apology was sincere---managed to make up at the end of the game.

Maybe we all learn something.

(And the trash-talk continues.)

-tn

(names changed but mine because the point isn't to shame anyone)

X: ok, now brown looking worse then green
Nikolas: dude that's orange
Nikolas: oh
Nikolas: or snow-piss yellow
X: lol
X: slanty eyed bastards all lok the same 2 me
Nikolas: woah
Nikolas: back that right the hell up
Y: Little bigotry tonight?
Nikolas: I'm going to have to beg your pardon on that X
X: i predict the slanty eyed orange attack everybody fool will loose
Y: We really don't need bigoted comments X
Nikolas: maybe you didn't understand what I was saying
Nikolas: You are going to have to apologize to me (the host)
Nikolas: and never say anything like that in my game again
Nikolas: are we clear
X: sory
Y: There has been talk of a feature that would allow the host to ban certain players
Nikolas: it's all fun and games until
X: sory (until my next attack)
Nikolas: somebody gets hurt
Y: attacking i[s] totally cool
..
X: yes, the end is near
X: bye u pagan fool
<< Nikolas was eliminated by X in round 22 >>
Nikolas: you're gonna be next
Nikolas: oh well
X: but not last
Nikolas: yeah
Nikolas: whatever
X: nik, u suck
X: lol
Y: I think I'll send a note to Dustin
..
Nikolas: that kinda of metaphor usually tells us something about hidden urges X
Y: lol Nikolas
Nikolas: do you want me to suck?
Y: Don't pick on a guy in a deep gay panic
Nikolas: is that what you're trying to tell us?
X: tell it to your psychiatrist nik
W: this is fun!
Y: He's not the one evidencing a gay panic
X: Z, i'm lookin at 2nd
Nikolas: but my psychiatrist doesn't want me to blow him
Nikolas: I don't get it
Y: lol lol! Nickolas
Y: Yes, W, I agree
<< X was eliminated by Z in round 28 >>