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offensive behavior  XML
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Rachel Cook



Joined: 2003.10.12 00:00:00
Messages: 1
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I think that the best way to handle an IC behavior that your character would find offensive is to respond with an approprate IC behavior of your own. With this in mind, I think a slap <character> command would be affective.

Thanks for reading.
Tiina Jussila



Joined: 2002.12.02 00:00:00
Messages: 9
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Now we're talking! To me this sounds good since I am not bothered by offensive IC behavior on a personal level, even though my character might want to react somehow.

But the problem is that this will not probably bring any comfort to those who want to roleplay and relax in a nice and conflict free environment.
Mark Phillips


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Joined: 1969.12.31 00:00:00
Messages: 2199
Location: Watsonville, CA
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Maybe this is nit-picking but I just want to clarify -- I hope -- one point which seems central to me.

It's not my sense that people are demanding a conflict-free environment, rather that they want to be able to have a choice about what conflicts are role-played, when, and how.

I wasn't at the funeral where the behaviors happened which offended some players, so I can only relate my sense of the event from my email discussions with them and from their posts on the different bulletin boards. My sense is that they didn't expect the particular role-play which happened, and they felt it was inappropriate. And -- this is important -- that they requested in OOC, repeatedly, that it stop. When it didn't they felt they were forced to leave the event which they'd helped to organize.

That's pretty bad, but IMO it gets worse. When they protested in the General BBS they were responded to with terms like "sadly immature". Which is not likely to be a helpful way to initiate a collaborative discussion.

This -- I really do think -- is why the issue is not one of IC responses like slapping, or of mechanical remedies like an Ignore command. Ultimately the issue is one of *power*, in the straightforward sense that when there's a conflict over role-play, there has to be a way of determining who wins that conflict. What Lisa's saying is that insofar as the role-play in question is offensive to women, it's those women who should be empowered to make the decision about whether that role-play should continue in that way. I have to say, I agree with her.

--Mark

Bartle quotiet: E80, A67, S47, K7. TriadCity characters: Mark, Poobah, Occam, Abelard.
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Juha Lehtonen



Joined: 2001.12.01 00:00:00
Messages: 23
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I do not wish to comment things further, I am currently just listening here. I just wish to point one thing here, without wanting to give an impression that I would see Mark's post or Lisa's & Dee's requests improper.

What comes to my use of words "sadly immature", that has to do with Dee's at least seemingly culturally racistic rhetorics. I wasn't the first one calling people's behaviour immature. I do admit that I maybe should've not fallen into same low level, but as I have previously noted, at that point I was upset and indeed a bit offended about how Dee connected Kristofer's cultural background with childishness. Her words reminded me of imperialistic handling of residents of small, distant nations.

I do not wish to be rude here, but I saw that I got here all the blame for not beginning the discussion in a creative manner.

Juha
Tiina Jussila



Joined: 2002.12.02 00:00:00
Messages: 9
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"It's not my sense that people are demanding a conflict-free environment, rather that they want to be able to have a choice about what conflicts are role-played, when, and how."

Yes, I think I see what you mean. I think I understood that already when I was writing my response to Rachel Cook's message. I was just (over)simplifying the thing in order to make my message shorter.

The thing which I find very difficult at the moment is that I don't live in the same cultural atmosphere as most of the player's do. So when I'm dealing with people here it actually feels to me a bit like dealing with an uncontrollable force of nature. I can't know how people feel about certain things based on their cultural background since I don't share that with them. I can't see when I'm crossing some line as well as I would in my own culture and some things really take me by surprise. So it gets pretty confusing sometimes being involved in this discussion.

For example this issue with female players is very different in Finnish RP games since there aren't distinctively more men than women playing. Sometimes there are even more women than men. So I don't see it as a 'men's world', but after reading some of Lisa's experiences with American games I'm able to relate to that. I do my best to understand. Let's all do that.
 
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