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Crack down harder on the N-Bomb

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When the merger was announced, in a staff talk with Rad-X we were told that racism (and thusly the N) bomb would be curbed in the discord.
As of writing there are 184 counts of the N-bomb with a hard R as well as 517 with a soft A. This seems like a fundamental breach in trust, a back peddle on a promise and a compromise on community integrity. Please do not allow racism to be cultivated within the community ESPECIALLY by your staff :)


Issue: N Bomb.

How to solve it: Apply a bot to filter out the words and punish those which bypass the bot with creative solutions

Result: Greater community cohesion and a more family friendly atmosphere :)

Addendum: This also applies to other forms of racism not just including slurs i.e. EvilSneeryJew.emote
 
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Hello, if you did not read my previous reply, would suggest you read it as won't be repeating myself here. Just responding to some additional comments.

At the very least, I think there should be a difference between hate speech and free speech (which there is, it's just not enforced), with the "n bomb" restricted to shitposting. Give people freedom to have whatever opinions they want, but there should be a line you can't cross; right now there isn't.
If you read the previous post, we are having a meeting today about it. Also in discord while this was going on, I explained how hate speech is subjective as not everyone has the intent to be hateful nor do they mean what they are saying. Words are nothing more than words. I also touched on this in my previous reply here in fact of what and what not should be considered via their context.

Also, with our freedom of speech guidelines and overall freedom policy does not actually allow this already. Like I mentioned before either here or in the discord, there are rules and guidelines which do state that edgy use of words such as the n-word or using such words to harrass and be an ass to someone with is already disallowed. Our problem is at this time, we find our staff are a bit hesitant to act on it which we plan to meet up today about and sort out. This is our own fault for making a guideline which some may find unclear on what and what not is exactly allowed or disallowed apart from the rules listed in the discord itself.

We have an Admin bot for reports now, as our staff do not spend time watching the channels, it is not something we can keep track of. On top of this we now got a bot so the use of the N-word is essentially currently blocked apart from the Shit posting channel.

genuine racism (aimed at making someone feel bad, not using the N word outside of the shitposting channel) and harrassment should be cracked down on

the shitposting thread has way worse things than the n word that can be located there most likely, and should almost certainly be left alone where possible
Basically this.

This. No idea why staff are allowing it, especially since hostility/baiting isn't protected by the free speech rule and is technically not allowed.
Yes. This is a problem which I mentioned above as well. Our staff seem a bit hesitant to act, this again by repeating myself may be due to the guidelines not being very specific with that rule. So I think it may need to be broadened to make sure everyone knows that we do not allow it.

You aren't 'restricting' players by restricting their rights to throw around the hard R or use the N word. You're building a community where everyone feels welcome.

WN is one of the only communities where you are openly allowed to say and do almost anything you want and that is frankly not a good thing. Most other communities grew out of that phase of staffing years ago because they realised that you do not attract people or maintain a playerbase by making your services seem like a dumpster fire where no measure of conduct or standards is actually enforced and where "grow thicker skin guys" or "self moderate" is the default response.

The sort of enviroment this 'total freedom' rule fosters is not one TN actually wants when you start getting the ball going. You're only setting yourselves up for far worse problems.

And that's without getting into the fact this was part of the deal that was made to merge with another community and it simply isn't being enforced.
I'd go a step further: it needs to be overturned entirely.

WN trying to be 'different from all those OTHER communities' is good but it misses the mark on why almost every other community has those rules and systems to begin with. They don't allow racism and the likes not because they're authoritarian or controlling but because its 2020. Nobody comes to a roleplay server to be met with a bunch of maladjusted teenagers flinging around shit.

When no other community has a rule as ripe for abuse as your community does maybe it isn't because they're tired, controlling or unimaginative but because they've realised they don't want to bring that into their server.
Fully agree with this one, not much to say on it as given me thoughts and opinions above + my previous post.

I agree, but I doubt the CMs would.
... No. The problem in the past is that this issue was never brought up... for the last 2-3 years. It has only really blown up now to allow us to know the scope that this is happening on.

I personally DO NOT read the discord channels most of the time so I generally do not see what people are saying in the discord. Me, the other CMs and mods cannot tell someone is being openly racist unless someone points it out. We do not even sit there actively searching for bad people as we generally expect people to behave. Of course, at times people get past our moderation guidelines.

This should now be somewhat fixed as we got Dyno essentially disabling the word for all channels EXCEPT shitposting. Shitposting is a place for people to go all sorts of crazy as long as it is not NSFW/Porn content nor is it being used to harass another member of the community.

Hope this helps as an extra addition to the previous address I made to this post.
 
All I'll say is this:

I explained how hate speech is subjective as not everyone has the intent to be hateful nor do they mean what they are saying
A lot of the time peoples' intents here are very clear, such as with Bennyfridge. All they want to do is fuck with people and be edgy. It's not joking around. I get it's subjective to an extent, but the intent behind someone randomly saying "fucking retarded nigger kill yourself" for example, is obvious. Yet if someone said that in discord, the most they'd get is a verbal warning and it'd be forgotten about. The majority of what people consider 'hate speech', hostile, or baity, is clear.
 
All I'll say is this:


A lot of the time peoples' intents here are very clear, such as with Bennyfridge. All they want to do is fuck with people and be edgy. It's not joking around. I get it's subjective to an extent, but the intent behind someone randomly saying "fucking retarded nigger kill yourself" for example, is obvious. Yet if someone said that in discord, the most they'd get is a verbal warning and it'd be forgotten about. The majority of what people consider 'hate speech', hostile, or baity, is clear.
Yes, that I can agree on. Just wanted to clarify on it as I was essentially going into how not everyone means it. But yes, there are a few figures who genuinely do believe what they say and are not joking around. We have deleted and warned such views and messages in the past to try keep it down. But after that, we are trying to crack down on it more as it seems there is a bigger problem which is only just now being brought up by the players that we can fully address.

So not defending the use of the word. Just saying not everyone who may make a racist comment is racist themselves. They may just honestly be shitposting or joking with no intent to offend. But we have no banned the use of the word outside of the shitposting channel as we have come to an agreement that no one should really have a need to ever use such a word outside of the shitposting channel.

As for further additions to this, I can't comment on yet as need to wait for the meeting to come about to discuss what can be done further and how the policy can be updated to further detail that such usage of the word is not allowed as someone (Forgot who) did honestly make a good point that the:

"Freedom Policy is not the problem, but what is contained within is unclear. The Guidelines are semi-vague. So while it may not be allowed, it is not clear not is it enforced at this time."

And that is me paraphrasing there. So not disagreeing with you at all, just wanting to clear up what our view is in the broader sense rather than specifics.
 
I think now, instead of adding either accusations or echoing, the best course of action will be to access the verdict, figure out where it can be improved as well as there being a comprehensive guide or explanation as to how the reporting bot works.

It's somewhat reassuring that the issue is at least being discussed both internally and externally from the staff team :-)
 
get a bot to ban words
2b28949347d0c925f7ab181376b3890c.png


"ok tyrant. dont try to oppress me and restrict my rights. have you heard of the freedom policy????"

it's such a simple fix and this is the reaction
 
2b28949347d0c925f7ab181376b3890c.png


"ok tyrant. dont try to oppress me and restrict my rights. have you heard of the freedom policy????"

it's such a simple fix and this is the reaction
The thing to note, this is a hl2rp server and community, a bot making sure bad words aren't said is not 'dystopian' because you are not a state nor government. It also makes the job of the moderators easier (win-win.) To use charged words such as 'dystopian' is disingenuous, especially given the trivial nature of a bot, which already exists on the discord.

It is not an advance AI with algorithms to ban or prevent thought-crime, it's reactive and removes a select group of words the staff team puts on a "naughty list." It is not: a smart TV recording all your conversations, alexa keeping tabs, a government wiretap nor skynet; it's a rudimentary solution.

Once again, the addition is beneficial as well as modular
 
Sorted.

Going to lock and close this now.

Had a meeting yesterday night among all the staff. Jotted down a few notes for ourselves on where other improvements may be required as well as this issue. We have updated our moderation guidelines (Only moderators can see this) and will soon update the main guideline visible on the forums to make what we allow and do not allow much clearer. The use of the n-bomb was pretty much already disallowed, it seems however, it was unclear to all staff as the guideline never stated so in a clear way, other than a vague description of "Don't be an asshole." and "Edgy use of derogative words" which was very clear to what they were pointing out to.

We have now made a few steps to make it clearer as well as make some improvements to the discord in general:
  1. We have set up our Dyno bot to auto moderate the discord by banning:
    1. N-Bomb (It may miss some from time to time noticed in testing
  2. Continuing on for bots, we also now have the "Admin BOT" (ModMail) in discord
    1. I will make an announcement and rule change soon for this bots full use by the player base
    2. This bot allows you to open support or even report tickets with Moderators and CMs. By doing so, you can report bad behaviour or someone bypassing the Dyno bot bad word ban.
    3. Make sure when opening a ticket, you point out the channel the offence is in, when it was said and who by so a Mod can investigate with all the info they need.
  3. Rules have been updated in the discord:
    1. "Don't be an asshole" is now "Don't be an asshole, do not act nor post inflammatory behaviour, including but not limited to; defamation, racism and threats."
    2. "Edgy use of derogative words" is now "A rule that shouldn't have to be mentioned - do not slate the chat with derogative term. People don't like it and it gives the community a bad taste. It's not funny, it's edgy. Don't do it.
    3. The rules on drama have also been updated to not have a repeat of the General Chat explosion we had relating to this exact issue.
  4. Giving Moderations a clearer direction on what to Moderate. Some were hesitant to take action before, so going to get that sorted.
  5. Guidelines to be updated on forums to reflect Discord rule changes.
That is all for now and expect some updates to come down the line in Announcements channel on discord.

Thank you,
Robert
 
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