Southernman Where art Thou?

Of course it is but it's not Matt to judge anyway. People make such watershed arguments when it comes to this stuff, it's insane.

I think Matt uses colourful language totally appropriate. The fact that he's sensitive to this stuff too is cool.

But JJ's point about a gay kid coming onto this site and hanging himself cuz Barnes is making fun of me saying faggot in CoD is RIDICULOUS. We're not posting videos of that kid doing his college roommate, we're just talking. If that kid kills himself, he has other issues and we have exactly 0.00% to do with his passing. Gays are as welcome here as they would be in any other establishment in America. Where they would be equally likely to run into people using colourful language. It's what minority groups deal with everywhere.

Black Barney wrote: Of course it is but it's not Matt to judge anyway. People make such watershed arguments when it comes to this stuff, it's insane.

I think Matt uses colourful language totally appropriate. The fact that he's sensitive to this stuff too is cool.

But JJ's point about a gay kid coming onto this site and hanging himself cuz Barnes is making fun of me saying faggot in CoD is RIDICULOUS. We're not posting videos of that kid doing his college roommate, we're just talking. If that kid kills himself, he has other issues and we have exactly 0.00% to do with his passing. Gays are as welcome here as they would be in any other establishment in America. Where they would be equally likely to run into people using colourful language. It's what minority groups deal with everywhere.

No no, that was Matt's point to me. All I said was at that point we're not the cause but we are part of the problem... not the problem but we are another place in public that does not cater to his particular issues. Matt point is that if stopping doing that doesn't cause us a problem but it saves one life. Why not?

My point was that we are not here to cater to children. I was under the assumption this was a place for adults.

ubarose wrote: The bottom line is I think it is hypocritical of people to come here and bitch about BGG's 'heavy handed' moderation policies, and then damn F:AT moderators for not responding immediately to every issue, and for actually taking the time to handle each issue and person on a case by case basis. Especially considering that our Community Manager and Trash Talk moderator are unpaid for the time they spend doing this, and the fastest, least time consuming thing to do would be just to push the delete button and the ban button.

Oh Spare me. You know full well I'm not talking about wanting it moved 5 minutes after it happened.
Southern posts and the shit gets bowled. A staff member meanwhile is free to continue to run rampant (again) and post all the slander - which you yourself admit is total bullshit, in the main forums. And still continues to do it when told to stop even by the main troll of the site.

I couldn't give a rats ass about the site which is why I don't get involved in these arguments anymore but you better believe I'll pipe up when this hypocritical douchebag gets free reign to call us homophobes and the like - a dude who regularly invites people to laugh at pictures of him dressed up as a woman, the second most homophobic act I have seen on these forums.

My takeaway: Steve Avery does not post enough in these forums.

Need more Steve Avery. NOW.
Please.

Mr Skeletor wrote: - a dude who regularly invites people to laugh at pictures of him dressed up as a woman, the second most homophobic act I have seen on these forums.

I thanked skeletor for this in particular. It's odd how it's ok to constantly make Barney and Ken are gay jokes or laugh at Loter dressed as a woman, or Loter wearing a pink shirt that says I'm in to boys (whatever the fuck it said) but no one thinks it's homophobic until someone says fag or uses gay in a derogatory way.

Any of these acts can be seen as homophobic if you don't know the people involved. Learning who your talking to is the most important thing in any conversation. The words themselves are totally useless otherwise.

When they make a joke on Will and Grace (is that the right show) along the lines of "I'd sure like to ride his bus", you know he means "I'd like to fuck him in the ass" but the audience laughs. Would they laugh if he said it straight out or would they be horrified because it's T.V.?

It's funny because it's gay but not said. Innuendo allows us to say things we wouldn't say otherwise and also to laugh at them, but that in itself can be seen as homophobic (and it's why I can't stand shows like that). It's only funny because the audience thinks it's wrong, if it was about a straight couple no one would laugh. Much like the Ken and Barney running joke. If they were man and woman no one would laugh. Is it funny simply because it's gay? It shouldn't be. Or is it funny because that's not who they are? I think that's the one there.

There's so many ways you can take this which is why I give the benefit of the doubt and just let it all slide since I don't know any of you that well.

I totally understand both sides in this debate.

Matt has probably witnessed in person the word being used as an insult, so even reading it evokes emotion in him.

But Southernman did not use the word in the same context. This site has such a small and sheltered community that we grant each other a lot of leeway in things we type. Many new members get confused by this. Many regulars have running jokes surrounding them, which would be considered below the belt in a real life situation or when uttered around strangers.

I think it's important that nobody is afraid about voicing concerns here, but I think Matt would have found opener ears if he wasn't so frantic about his cause from the start.

ubarose wrote: 5. I think it is totally fucked up that no one but me could be bothered to point out that Matt was talking through his ass about Southernman's use of certain words. It's totally fucked up but no one but you, not even the people who claim they liked Southernman and wished he would post here again, could be bothered to comment on what I wrote, and say "Hey, your right. Matt is full of shit."

Couple of reasons. No one counted the individual offenses the way you seem to have (I knew he called Weeks a fag and I think a cunt too but that's all I remember) and secondly, it wasn't about what he said at this point, it was about the community coming to some sort of consensus on what should be allowed to be said on the site without fear of retribution.

Ken and I aren't joking you bastard. Two men in love is a beautiful thing, not a comedy sketch.

Ryan B. wrote: Although, I must have missed something... last time I had checked, (before I had taken my own break to move out here to Seattle), I thought Southernman and Loter were getting on famously. So something obviously happened that changed all of that.

You'll find the bulk of it [if it's still there, that is] in the 2 "uber-bitchfest" forums that, coincidentally, don't show up in the Recent Topics list. Since that list is my primary gateway to the forums, I forgot those whinefest forums even existed until some Pete/Barnes grumble-fest caught my attention by spilling over into an indexed forum. I had to find out what all the yammering was about. Unfortunately, had I stopped to think about it, I'm pretty sure I could have assumed that I'd have been better off to ignore it/move on.

In the end, I was a *much* happier misanthropic, grumbly old bastard before I waded into the "He Fucking Dick BS" forum (just in time to watch the episode in question play out). That subforum may be necessary, and possibly even useful. That said, even with a few years, many posts, and not a few nasty-ass exchanges with both high- and low-profile members 'round here, I was surprised nonetheless. I get the sense that the (wise) decision to obscure those forums resulted in threads that rarely evolve beyond a sort of purely id-driven dick-measuring contest often found in creative forums online. I don't know if the knowledge that most folks (aka "non-combatants") won't/can't stumble into the inevitable crossfire leads folks to remove all the safeties on their verbal weaponry or if something else is at play. However, every thread I read before swearing off altogether went to at least DEFCON 2 on the first page. Nukes were usually flying shortly thereafter.

Personally, I haven't been monitoring the forums as closely due to being covered up at work.

That being said, I do not have a heavy moderating hand because I expect the level of discourse here to be higher. I also expect people to behave like grownups.

Southernman is a cool guy. When all the shit went down, I personally appealed to him via PM to stick around, that I was sorry the changes were necessary. He seemed amiable about staying after that, but I think there was finally one blowup too many. I wish he were still here on a regular basis.

Loter, you know I love you like a brother, but you need to ramp down the "I'm in your face" stuff just because someone uses a word you disagree with. There are ways of dealing with that in a fashion that won't cause all-out flame wars and hurt feelings. "I'm gonna destroy anyone who says faggot" is not that way. I am completely sympathetic to your cause. But I think in the heat of confrontation you forget you're talking to people who obviously don't mean things in the hateful way you're laying on them. We're just gamers, man. We feel familiar with each other, many of us have met in real life to game. If I call you a name, I'm doing it out of love, not to slander an entire group of people.

Skeletor, I gotta lot of respect for you man, you know that, but I gave up trying to figure out what you wanted from this website a long time ago.

If I had my way, we'd all get along, but be able to give each other a little grief without there being blow-ups and hurt feelings and bitching and fighting. It's true we have no nasty super-mod policy here. You can call each other "cocksuckers" all day long, that's terrific. No one is going to slap you on the wrist.

But it's still incumbent on people to behave like grown-up human beings, to treat each other with the respect that they're also demanding, and remembering that if we were sitting around the game table, not a single fucking piece of any of this type of bitching conversation would come up. We'd be too busy drinking beer and killing each other's plastic dudes to get involved in this flagrant bullshit.

They're games, people. This is a gaming website. I don't talk politics here. I don't talk sex here. Is it not possible to keep the topic of conversation on the real reason we're here? Are we so bored with gaming that all we've got left to do is snipe at each other? Because last time I checked, there were a whole lot of fucking ace games that came out within the past couple of years.


That is all I'm going to say about it, because I am sick as fucking shit about hearing about this. Grow up, don't put words in other people's mouths, and treat folks like you want to be treated. You'll be amazed at the results.

Done for now, turning in for the night.

Ken,

That new avatar absolutely rocks. It takes things to a whole new level of street cred.