My Thoughts on Language and Code of Conduct

[Fire Tortorella 2,653]

I'm not here to rehash specifically what happened yesterday and the decision by the SBA to remove themselves from the affiliate program. That's been talked about enough already.

 

What I am going to talk about is the point brought up in the discussion yesterday regarding the overall language used in the league. Last night, I was arguing that yesterday was an isolated incident that doesn't reflect the overall community of the VHL. Searching through the site and going through Discord...I still believe that is the case, but it's not as isolated as I thought it was, and I'm ashamed of that. Using "gay", "retarded", and other similar language just isn't acceptable. I thought that got weeded out of the vocabulary of everyone over the age of like 14 back in 2011 or so, but apparently not.

 

This isn't about "safe spaces", "SJWs" or anything like that. It's really just...why? Why would you continue to use that language? There are so many other words you could use to communicate the same point that I have no clue why you would keep those words in phrases in your every day life.

 

I've always been proud of the fact that the VHL is very laissez-faire when it comes to official bans and punishments. A good public shaming of the individuals in question is usually enough. In general, I'm not a fan of "zero-tolerance, black and white" rules about language like this, but I'm having trouble seeing a future where we as a league aren't more strict on some of the language used by our members. This is especially true as we continue to advertise outside of the traditional sim leagues and through other mediums.

 

I'm at 150 words so I'm done for now...but I'm hoping some of you can change.

[Beketov 9,025]

Completely agree. I’ve always been against having such strict rules like “these words are fine, these are not” but quite frankly it’s not being a SJW to say that you shouldn’t be using some words. Why call it gay when you could just say “this is bullshit”? Why say retarded when you could just say “well that’s stupid”. There are non-offensive versions out there.

 

As a league I did think we had come further than we have. I don’t think we’re the cesspool that simply searching up terms on discord makes it seem (context sometimes is important) but I don’t think we’ve come as far from 2007 as I would have liked.

 

Do better VHL. And be warned if you choose not to.

[boubabi 4,725]

 

Is this real

[Fire Tortorella 2,653]

Please don't respond to him.

[STZ 5,360]

Oh brother

[boubabi 4,725]

59 minutes ago, flyersfan1453 said:

Please don't respond to him.

Yes please

[Gustav 6,407]

Agreed, for sure. I don't agree with any sort of language which could be taken as an insult against any group (for example, a solid point was raised yesterday in that you wouldn't use "this is black" as an insult, for very obvious reasons), so I don't agree with the language used yesterday and any such language used in the past. I also believe that the discussion on the matter could have been handled a lot better (and most of the drama could have been avoided entirely) had SBA leadership chosen to open the conversation with anything more civil than "eat shit."

 

The thing that really stood out to me as worrisome for this league was when, after the thread had been shut down, some people decided to turn to Discord and dig their heels in and make us actually look like a hateful community rather than a group of collectively well-meaning people in which some instances of this sort of thing have managed to fly under the radar. I'm disappointed by how the situation was handled by the SBA, but this to me was the part where the actions of some of the members of this league went from "ok, that's not cool, but let's learn something from this and move forward" to "ok, that's not cool at all, and I'd like you to shut up."

 

I do hope that at some point our league's relationship with the SBA may be repaired, and that we may also move forward as a better community.