Town of Salem Game Forums

Sort of a continuation on this thread, which is probably better worded than anything I can say

As a forum we really need to be doing much more about holding people accountable for their behavior. Insults and harassment have become the norm for FM games and slurs (most notably the r-word) go entirely ignored. It shouldn't be acceptable but nothing is ever done about it and I'm hoping that this thread will change that.

What exactly is the problem here?

The problem is that despite previous threads being made about it and it being against the forum rules, people are still continuing to insult and harass other players, and use language that is frankly unacceptable.

What can I do as a user?

The first thing to do is call people out on their behavior. If someone's insulting you or another player, tell them that it's not okay. If you ever find yourself getting carried away stop yourself, and go out of your way to avoid using offensive language.

What changes should happen on the moderation end?

Moderators should be more willing to take action towards players' behaviors. Our site gets very few new players due to word of mouth because of how toxic a reputation it has. Beginning to moderate players off of poor behavior is a key first step to changing that. As a specific note, ban the r-word. It is a slur and despite the mentioned prior thread's stance on them, it's still commonly used without any sorts of repercussions or concerns.

I'm not the most eloquent person but I think this is an important change to make and cannot leave it alone in good conscience

agree but disagree with the point of banning just "retard" specifically
if you want insults banned then ban all of them or ban none

dota2reporter wrote:agree but disagree with the point of banning just "retard" specifically
if you want insults banned then ban all of them or ban none

I called that one out specifically because it's a slur that I consistently see going unmoderated

Personally I think that's more correctly classified under "slur" than "insult" based on the usage of the word over time, and while trying to ban insults is frankly dumb, banning slurs makes complete and total sense.

ah that's language barrier, my bad

yeah just ban all slurs but keep words the non-slur swear words like "shit" and "fuck" around

It's definitely true that I've been overly lax in my moderation here, even while being aware of how overly toxic the community here has become as a whole.

However, I do want to add something in for what you can do as a user. If you see people that are going well past the boundaries of what can be considered acceptable, please send a message to the mods. Over the past few months since ascending to the throne, I've only ever gotten a grand total of 1 message about a player breaking rules that wasn't specifically about angleshooting and the like. There are too many posts made for me to be able to read through everything (and tbh I don't even read through all the posts made in the games I'm hosting), so I do need to rely on other users letting me know if something is going wrong.

Can someone care to elaborate me what "slur" means? I have discovered various terms for "slur" and I am baffled.

Royee wrote:Can someone care to elaborate me what "slur" means? I have discovered various terms for "slur" and I am baffled.

slurs are insults specifically directed at certain groups of people (people of color, lgbt+ people, disabled people, etc)

they're taking away the wild west

nooooooooo

orangeandblack5 wrote:Personally I think that's more correctly classified under "slur" than "insult" based on the usage of the word over time

Can you be more specific why you think this? While originally it was a slur meaning a mentally disabled person, nowadays it just seems to be another way to insult a person's intelligence, along with words like "stupid", "idiot", "moron", etc.

I've only seen the slur meaning come up in the form of "you just called an actual mentally disabled person a retard." "Oops sorry."

Brilliand wrote:

orangeandblack5 wrote:Personally I think that's more correctly classified under "slur" than "insult" based on the usage of the word over time

Can you be more specific why you think this? While originally it was a slur meaning a mentally disabled person, nowadays it just seems to be another way to insult a person's intelligence, along with words like "stupid", "idiot", "moron", etc.

I've only seen the slur meaning come up in the form of "you just called an actual mentally disabled person a retard." "Oops sorry."

not the person you asked but even though it means something slightly different it still has the original offensive connotations attached to it and you lose nothing by just using “stupid”, “idiot”, or “moron” either

That said ideally we don’t use those words to describe people at all

just dont use slurs innit

also dm me on discord if u want idc

Literally
If you see something
Just ping me on discord and be direct in your first message
Sometimes I’m bad at life and if you just say “hey” I won’t respond for a while

Y’all know my stance on language and similar stuff here
But I don’t have the time to read all the games (or even be here most of the time, rip)

Even if you’re not sure if it’s warm worthy or whatever if someone is using language that’s making you feel uncomfortable (in a not game-related way) let us know.

Brilliand wrote:

orangeandblack5 wrote:Personally I think that's more correctly classified under "slur" than "insult" based on the usage of the word over time

Can you be more specific why you think this? While originally it was a slur meaning a mentally disabled person, nowadays it just seems to be another way to insult a person's intelligence, along with words like "stupid", "idiot", "moron", etc.

I've only seen the slur meaning come up in the form of "you just called an actual mentally disabled person a retard." "Oops sorry."

protip

If an insult is extra offensive when applied to one specific category of person because it's targeted directly at that category

It's probably a slur

If only you knew some kind of FM Mod, Chemist, you could just ask them

orangeandblack5 wrote:If only you knew some kind of FM Mod, Chemist, you could just ask them

imagine that

Just don't be a dick :^)

watchme1 wrote:Just don't be a dick :^)

Sorry, but sometimes being a dick is necessary
Just don't go overboard with insults or being a dick.

fuck being a dick, all my homies are wholesome

Retard is a slur now? I thought it was just used as a synonym to idiot or moron here?

lemonader666 wrote:Retard is a slur now? I thought it was just used as a synonym to idiot or moron here?

it's true that's what it's been used as but it is an insult specifically targeted at disabled people/used to imply the person you're calling one is mentally inferior in some way because they have a mental disorder

I feel like I could have worded that better but I think it gets my point across

dota2reporter wrote:fuck being a dick, all my homies are wholesome

lemonader666 wrote:Retard is a slur now? I thought it was just used as a synonym to idiot or moron here?

thats a yikes from me dawg

TrueGent wrote:

lemonader666 wrote:Retard is a slur now? I thought it was just used as a synonym to idiot or moron here?

thats a yikes from me dawg

It's time to change the community
They're being too big of a dick