HG fa**** Rule.

[Kelton]

Recently I've become quite uncomfortable with the number of my friends and fellow members of HG who have begun using homophobic slurs towards my character and in general. This has begun making not only me uncomfortable, but other members of the community uncomfortable. These members when bringing it up to leadership are simply dismayed and made fun of behind closed doors, for being a "snowflake" or deemed soft when they are simply expressing how they feel. This needs to stop. People in the LGBTQ+ community have fought too hard, to endure harassment in the place that I consider my second home, as I am sure many of you also do. I open up TeamSpeak almost every day to laugh with the people that I love and appreciate what they have done for this community, not to be called a fa**** and be put down. Although I know many people in the LGBTQ+ community have different takes on what they deem to be offensive to them, my rule is simply this. If we don't allow racist comments, any server that has Hells Gamers in the name for being offensive. Then don't allow 14 yr old's to scream homophobic slurs in their mic. It's sad hearing a grown man calling me a fa****, when I know he is truly depressed with himself, he has to put others down to watch a smile stretch across his face. Rule #1 states "Please be respectful to all members. Any issues should be brought up to a Division Staff or above." So why are we not doing that?! When I've personally brought it up to others, I am told to "stop talking to him then" and they continue to do it. This is unjust. I believe that we should begin to discourage others from using homophobic slurs or being transphobic in HellsGamers servers, for the better of being respectful to others, and not creating issues with one another. I want to remain a part of this community, I have many friends that I love talking to, and wish to maintain in my life. In doing so they respect me and have begun not saying these things around me. If I am being real here, I know no one cannot control what happens outside of Hg servers, but for once please create a safe place for everyone from all walks of life, to enjoy Hg for what it is,  a community of people that laugh, watch blacklist together, and play games together. If that's not family then I don't know what is. This past year, I've had a lot of hardships with my family, I didn't live with them for over a month, and being with you guys really stopped me from doing some really fucked up things. If you read this far, please know I love you, appreciate you, and hear me out when I say, thank you.

With love,

Kelton

 

TLDR; Stop saying fa****.

Edited July 28, 2021 by Kelton

[Icon]

I agree

[Jeri :)]

Based. I know in 2017 a lot of people even in leadership said it and we defended it a lot, but I’m pretty sure tf2 has had this stance of not allowing it  since then. No reason for HG as a whole to not take this stance. 

Edited July 28, 2021 by Jeri :)

[hahahahhahahahha]

[Vesta]

Agreed

[sqnch]

well said franklin

[K1nG]

2 hours ago, Jeri said:

Based. I know in 2017 a lot of people even in leadership said it and we defended it a lot, but I’m pretty sure tf2 has had this stance of not allowing it  since then. No reason for HG as a whole to not take this stance. 

a tf2 rule is that "Disrespecting other players on grounds of race, sexual orientation, gender, and any other personal characteristics is strictly prohibited." (so saying the slur is against the rules) idk how it is for other divisions but should definitely be enforced everywhere

[BOSCH]

I hate hearing it, although I can't say I am innocent, when I was 12-17yrs old I used it alot, but I am about to be 33 and I hate hearing that word. In CS:S Division we do not allow it, I would like it to be HG wide with the exception that if say in Teamspeak3, a group of HG friends are in a channel and they use it, and it doesn't bother anyone in the channel then it shouldn't be a problem. If people are in a private Ts3 channel though and the people in it are fine with it, then we shouldn't police that, but in-game, or in other Ts3 channels it should definitely not be allowed, in my opinion.

[Sirius]

Just wanted to pop in and say, "Thanks for making this post!"

I agree with you. It's long overdue.

 

 

[Haze]

go off kelton

[Kenji]

I 100% agree. If its a rule for other divisions, why not also for CS:GO? It's not a game-specific rule, but simply speech. It takes a lot of courage to say all of that out loud on a post, and judging by the responses and attention this got in so little amount of time, the least we could do is implement it. Thank you Kelton, for being the voice of what others wanted to say, but didn't have the courage to.

Love you too Kelton

[KikkoMan]

I agree. Love you too kelton 

[Kigen]

Banning words doesn't really work and generally creates tons of issues.

Some of the issues:
1. "I'm of x demographic, I should be allowed to use the word."  (Common with a certain racial slur.)

2. They will just find some other way around any word filter.  For example, ZS banned it a while back, and then everyone switched to calling people autistic.  Which using the same logic would result in more word bans.  GMod division didn't do this since its really is useless.

3. The simple fact of the matter is that people like to trash talk.  And they do so with words they are familiar with from their real life.  (Basically grade school insults.)  We've always allowed trash talk as long as it doesn't go too far.

 

The real solution is to understand and target the underlying behavior.  For example, when someone says a racial slur they generally are doing so to troll (aka disrupting the server).  We already have rules in place about "being respectful."  We need to enforce that rule rather than constantly make new ones to "protect specific demographics." (My argument here is we need to protect everyone, not certain demographics.)

So if anyone is, for example, targeting you with harassment or otherwise disrespect please make an HGBans report on them.  We already have rules available to deal with this situation.

I also think one of the things we could better add is a way that you would be able to block someone from sending you anything if you just don't like the way they say things.  Sort of like the way ZS allows people to selectively mute people they don't want to hear.  (We get complaints of "squeakers" there.  Basically people with high pitched voices that aren't otherwise breaking a rule.)

[Jeri :)]

9 minutes ago, Kigen said:

The real solution is to understand and target the underlying behavior.  For example, when someone says a racial slur they generally are doing so to troll (aka disrupting the server).  We already have rules in place about "being respectful."  We need to enforce that rule rather than constantly make new ones to "protect specific demographics." (My argument here is we need to protect everyone, not certain demographics.)

If this is already the case and we have a member coming to us and saying that they don't like it and feel disrespected than we should already stop people saying "you're a fa***" and using it in a demeaning way. You're literally agreeing with us. We just need upper management to come forward and say that it applies to using fa***.

Also "just block LOL" is the worst take I've seen in a long time. Address the problem rather than tell victims to "just ignore it",

If it's getting to the point we have members coming forward there is a problem and it probably needs to be seriously addressed. 

Edited July 28, 2021 by Jeri :)

[bejamin]

I think that it is inconsistent of HG to only restrict degrading slurs if they have something to do with race, and more should be done as kelton pointed out. I will admit I have used the word a lot, and I think it's okay to admit fault instead of defending using homophobic slurs. I am not proud of the times I have used it. The word makes everyone uncomfortable, and it's only being defended by people out of fear of admitting wrong. Get rid of it.

[Kigen]

Anyway, we do have existing rules that can be applied today in cases of harassment or disrespect. 

I'm going to lock this to head off some drama that is already starting on other channels.  It is being discussed in leadership chats.

[imasonaz]

I wanted to thank everyone for their civil discussion here.

We've had significant internal discussion on this and have taken the feedback in this thread to move forward in expanding and improving our current policies and procedures to better welcome and empower everyone to our community.

Hellsgamers has always had a policy of inclusion and openness, and I'm sorry to @Keltonthat we may have fallen short on that. We all strive to be inclusive and not divisive, and with that I hope to encourage more constructive civil discussion like this in the future.

Please look out for these policy changes in the next month or so and if you have any further questions, please don't hesitate to message me.