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Now that the male participants in this yack-yack have talked themselves purple, I have some questions for you.

1. Have any of you noticed that, aside from my initial posts, no women have joined your debate? Does that seem odd to you, considering it was two women who were offended by the role-play you're discussing? Have you figured-out that those women have accepted your suggestion to walk away from behavior which offends them? -- in this case, your discussion? Does that seem ironic to you?

2. Juha: when you offered to have Korpela officiate at Lady Shady's funeral, did you inform Daisy or the other organizers that the occasion was to be Korpela's grand "coming out" party? Did they agree to that? Why do I have the sense that both answers are "no"?

3. Kristofer: had you played August before the occasion of the funeral? Did Daisy know in advance what kind of role-play you intended? Did she tell you that was acceptable to her? Did she say it was acceptable at the occasion of the funeral of another character? How about the other participants?

4. Juha and Kristofer: are you serious when you argue that if Daisy and the other organizers of Lady Shady's funeral were offended by your role-play, it's their responsibility to leave the event, and your right to hijack it for your own purposes? Why do I feel I know the answer to that, too?

5. Have any of you given thought to why four times as many men play role-playing games as women? Do you think it has to do with the atmosphere YOU create? Do you really think it's likely that women will find it entertaining to role-play the same abuse they encounter in real life?

Juha and Kristofer: to spare you quoting Rawls I'll answer these questions for you. The answer is that you two are rude, clueless, arrogant, and wrong.

You've used a lot of words trying to avoid a simple point. It's not up to you to decide when something is offensive or not. It's up to the people experiencing it. The end.

Conclusion number one. It's not acceptable to tell people that if they don't like what you do they can leave. Silly language screens are no better.

Conclusion number two. You're not going to be allowed to call women "cunt". Not ever. The women aren't going to let you. Get used to it.

I want to initally express my sympathy for anyone who feels angry or hurt by other people's actions. This applies generally to all such people, not just this particular RP situation that has kicked off such a controversy. Let me also say that it has been a long time since I have been able to play TC and I was not part of the ceremony, so I don't know much about that event. For anyone who dislikes what I say below, you can now dismiss me as an irrelevent outsider who is not part of the TC community, but I still think I have some interesting things to say.

I am the one who brought Rawls into the discussion because I think the device of rational bargaining from the original position is conceptually relevant to the broader question: "What is the best way, generally, to deal with potentially offensive behavior within the game?" I have a hunch that Lisa may be right about some of her assertions that, for instance, certain offensive RP was not known of in advance and therefore could not have been accomodated for. Nonetheless, it behoves us to work as a community to discover what the most just procedure is for dealing with future offenses.

What this discussion is failing to address, for the most part, is that offensive IC behavior can easily offend players. Some people want to argue that this is inevitable and, as such, offensive behavior should always yield to the player's comfort levels. Others want to argue that players should not be offended by IC actions and therefore offensive behavior is always permissible because characters can walk away, ignore, etc...

I think it makes sense to say that there at LEAST exists the possibility and maybe even a high probability that some players will be offended by IC activity. With this in mind, joined with a handful a relatively uncontroversial moral assumptions, I think it is fair to say that PLAYERS who find IC behavior offensive should have a veto over what happens in the game environment. This is, after all, a piece of literature that thrives on its appeal to a diverse audience and we should try to keep it that way. It would help keep players in the game if they felt comfortable experiencing it.

That all said, a secondary measure to prevent future offenses would be the filter command set, but this doesn't really get to the root of the problem. And as far as past offense is concerned, I would hazard the suggestion that an apology can go a long way.

Hope this is helpful in some way.

- Colin

Alright, some answers.
1: I must say, ladies in America sure get easily offended. Even by a discussion about roleplaying...
I too am surprised that so few women have participated in this discussion.

3: August and Daisy had met before the funeral, yes. I would think that she had a clear picture of him, his description says a lot. I also said OOC that August is a pretty strange character. She responded with something like "I like weird". So, I would consider her warned. I'm not sure what you mean by "what kind of roleplay I intended". I just play my characters, that's the only form of roleplaying I know of.

4: This was the issue, and I think it would be solved by adding both an "ignore character" feature and a word filter. That would please both parts, I think. You hear only what you want to hear, and I won't have to censor my characters.

5: You'd be surprised to see how many plots Juha and I have been part of starting. We just try to be creative and make things happen in TC. And I have never offended a player. I still think that people that are unable to separate character from player have little to contribute to roleplaying games.

Hi Kristofer:

Just a couple of points FYI which I think might help your posts be better received.

In the U.S. "ladies" is considered by many to be an exceptionally patronizing term. My suggestion is to use "women" consistently.

When people are offended, it's extra-offensive to tell them they're easily offended. Many people will see that as "blaming the victim". To me it reads as an unreasonable attempt to avoid listening to what you're being told.

Also, to me it seems unreasonable to insist that you've never offended a player when, pretty obviously, you most certainly have.

Lastly, while you've made your opinion clear regarding what you believe to be proper separation of character from player, I don't think it's right to claim that people who disagree with you have little to contribute. I'd suggest instead that they disagree with your premises, in particular, that they separate character from player in ways which perhaps you don't understand.

When I read your messages, including this one, they indicate to me that you're not hearing what others are saying, and, you're not interested in hearing it. That's your right, of course, but I'll suggest that if your goal is to convince others of your points, well, you're failing to convince me.

--Mark

After I wrote that post I immediately spotted my mistake. I meant I never intended to offend a player. Sorry about that.

I didn't know that ladies was a patronizing term in America, sorry about that too. It's interesting, though, that you haven't said this about the post by Lisa that I replied to, as I found that one very patronizing indeed.

After reading Tiina Jussila's post I understood better why the issue about separating character from player has arisen. As you've noticed, I've assumed that roleplaying by definition means playing a role not attached to your own person. Like an actor would. It seems like I was either wrong or this roleplaying game is not a roleplaying game.

So, I see that there are fundamental differences between me and these players, and well, that's sad of course. Fortunately I think that my suggestions about that ignore feature and the word filter would build the required bridge between us, so to speak. You also wouldn't need administrators checking characters' behaviours if these features were implemented.

> you haven't said this about the post by Lisa that I replied to, as I found that one very patronizing indeed.

I don't find it patronizing. Clearly it's hostile and aggressive. One could argue whether that's appropriate or not. Very likely not, IMO. I wouldn't call it patronizing.

> After reading Tiina Jussila's post I understood better why the issue about separating character from player has arisen.

Tiina Jussila's post is interesting and helpful. Why was it necessary? Lisa had already said the same thing very clearly, IMO.

I stress this because to me it seems to be another instance of your refusal to respond to people's straightforward communication. IMO *that's* the problem here. During the funeral you were informed OOC that what you were doing was not appreciated, and you were asked to stop. You didn't, and instead you've tried to imply that *you* have been somehow victimized. I disagree with that, and my disagreement is becoming increasingly impatient as I read these posts.

--Mark

>Tiina Jussila's post is interesting and helpful. Why was it necessary? Lisa had already said the same thing very clearly, IMO.

Interesting question, as I can't see Lisa saying at all the same things. Actually it has been very hard for me to find any clear information or insight in her posts. I have mostly found them aggressive and empty, and they did not at all help me understand the cultural gap we have here. Mark and Tiina have now 'translated' them for me a bit, thank you for their insight. And thank you for Lisa also for writing the posts. Especially for the answer under the topic 2. I now understand your point of view better, I think.

>I disagree with that, and my disagreement is becoming increasingly impatient as I read these posts.

I hope you can keep on discussing. The worst thing to happen here is if you lost your patience, as you are the head diplomat. I am sure Kristofer is not trying to irritate you.

Juha

Yes, I was asked to stop, and no, I didn't stop because I thought I didn't break any rules. Did I?

By the way, these are the sentences I found patronizing: "If you boys are all through now", "Now that the male participants in this yack-yack have talked themselves purple", "The answer is that you two are rude, clueless, arrogant, and wrong"

But never mind! I don't want to get stuck in this, let's instead focus on the solution. Have you considered my suggestions, an Ignore command and a word filter to cover both offensive acts and offensive words? What do you think of them?

I'd like to modify that first sentence. The truth is that I never really was asked OOC to stop. What I received was tell messages that by content could just as well have been directed towards my character August, and as they didn't indicate in any way that they were OOC I treated them as IC messages. Not to say I would have stopped if they had sent me messages OOC.

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