ES Recruitment Drive
Original Post
IRC etiquette and a statement on hate speech.
IRC standards have been updated. The guidelines are as follows:
Originally Posted by IRC Rules & Guidelines
These rules apply to channels that are seen as public and official by Toribash administration. Currently those channels are: #toribash & #support.

  • No flaming or harassment.
  • No NSFW links.
  • No warez.
  • No spam.
  • No racial slurs.
  • No DDoS'ing, phishing or anything of that nature.

Notes:

  • Staff may not be able to handle your requests immediately, please submit any troubles you may have through the forum as it is more likely to be seen & dealt with there.
  • Complaints about staff and/or ban appeals are to be held in query or their respective boards only.
  • Any questions about the rules can be discussed with any staff in the channel, if you wish to discuss the rules publicly feel free to make a discussion thread or bring it to attention of the staff via. PM.
  • Admins, SMods and GMs currently have &, @ and % respectively for ease of identification. Any non-staff that may help you are likely to sport a +, so contact who is most likely able to help you. Due to MSquad affairs being handleable only through the scam reports board you are asked to go there directly with your issues or query the member you need to contact.


Regarding homophobic/racial slurs and their usage in public space, here is the current ruleset:
Originally Posted by Homophobic/racial slurs ruling
Any homophobic or racial slurs are not allowed in what the staff has defined as "public space" under any circumstances. "Public space" is currently defined as:

  • The entirety of the forums, excluding clan boards
  • IRC channels #toribash and #support
  • Ingame, official servers and any globally broadcast server (for as long as people are able to join that server based on the broadcast info - these servers will be considered private if you change the room name and notify the room)

Using slurs in any of those places allows a moderator to infract or ban you at his or her discretion. Staff justify this kind of policing of servers as they believe removing slurs from the vocabulary of officially endorsed Toribash Community mediums is a small price to pay for a more cohesive community experience. It is worth noting that any private channels (i.e: private IRC channels, clan boards, private servers in-game) are not actively policed and so you are generally free to do as you want there regarding the language you use, though be aware reports will be looked at on a case by case basis. For example, repeatedly insulting someone in your clan board will most likely result in staff intervention.

Users should try to handle these sorts of issues amongst themselves before escalating to staff intervention. We don't want to have to step in for every single case, so please ask people to stop (And document it!) before reporting to us.

This has been edited into our FAQs and Beginner's Sanctuary's introduction thread to the rules. Thanks for reading.
Last edited by Gynx; Oct 17, 2016 at 09:02 PM. Reason: formatting
collect snots from the nose
Originally Posted by ImmortalPig View Post
Obviously saying stuff like "oh that's gay" or "sup nigga" is fine.

Yeah you'd think so, wouldn't you?


Can we get a ruling on whether or not 'nigga' is a racial slur?
Originally Posted by Raven View Post
Making it ok on the internet will show little kids that it's ok and say it around the wrong people and get them seriously hurt or killed.

Wow, that is an extremely racist thing to say. You should be careful or you are going to get yourself banned.

Originally Posted by Ele View Post
Yeah you'd think so, wouldn't you?


Can we get a ruling on whether or not 'nigga' is a racial slur?

Maybe 100 years ago you could attempt to make the argument that it is, but there's no way anyone today would think that 'nigga' is exclusively a slur.
<Faint> the rules have been stated quite clearly 3 times now from high staff
It wouldn't need to be considered exclusively a racial slur to be banned. It's not whether or not it is only a racial slur that matters, but whether or not it is (in addition to everything else it may be) a racial slur at all. In all but very few contexts, "nigga" will be treated the same way as "nigger".
Squad Squad Squad lead?
The standardization of Toribash Squad roles may have gone too far!
So then it's fine just like I said... Why always so cryptic mate.
<Faint> the rules have been stated quite clearly 3 times now from high staff
In other words, it's banned just like "nigger".
Squad Squad Squad lead?
The standardization of Toribash Squad roles may have gone too far!
Oh, so regardless as to whether or not it's a slur? You might want to write that down. Are there any other magic words?
<Faint> the rules have been stated quite clearly 3 times now from high staff
There are very few contexts in which it is certainly NOT a slur. It's not a question of whether or not it is PRIMARILY a slur, it's whether or not it's a slur at all that matters. I meant my last post literally: "If nigger would be banned in this situation, so would nigga," in the vast majority of cases.
Squad Squad Squad lead?
The standardization of Toribash Squad roles may have gone too far!
So then, we can use nigga, so long as we're not insulting anyone with it?
Rephrase that to "So long as nobody could be insulted by it" and you're probably safe. Keep in mind people who may be reading it when they're looking back through their logs.

Alternatively, refrain from using either term in public spaces, and it's equally safe.
Squad Squad Squad lead?
The standardization of Toribash Squad roles may have gone too far!
Originally Posted by suomynona View Post
There are very few contexts in which it is certainly NOT a slur. It's not a question of whether or not it is PRIMARILY a slur, it's whether or not it's a slur at all that matters. I meant my last post literally: "If nigger would be banned in this situation, so would nigga," in the vast majority of cases.

Well in practice that isn't true right? In most contexts it is NOT used as a slur. For example "sup nigga" or "what's good nigga". I would say this is the most common usage.

I understand your use of circular logic, I just think that it is pointlessly cryptic. Nigga and nigger are two spellings of the same word, if one is banned in that context then obviously the other would be, I see no need to be so explicit with this axiom. It's like saying "If color is banned then so is colour" no shit mate...

So then in summary, nigger is not banned. Could have just said that...

Originally Posted by suomynona View Post
Rephrase that to "So long as nobody could be insulted by it" and you're probably safe.

Oh ok, so "it's fine unless someone bitches about it", I feel you my nigga buddy. Same as literally every other thing right? inb4 I get banned because someone is annoyed because I used the word 'buddy'.
Last edited by ImmortalPig; Jan 9, 2016 at 08:34 AM.
<Faint> the rules have been stated quite clearly 3 times now from high staff