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05-24-2015, 11:58 PM
(This post was last modified: 09-01-2022, 01:04 AM by Fearless Community.
Edit Reason: Fixed Encoding
)
We, the staff team, have reviewed the community response to the recent rule changes and also our own responses to your criticisms. Rather than continuing to reply separate and add to the confusion, we’ve decided to release a single statement to clarify our stance as a team and clear up as many concerns as possible.
We’ve listened to some of your concerns regarding the new rules on discrimination, but we aren’t going to change the rule right now. The decision to implement this rule was not taken lightly, and we discussed it in great detail. This rule was the end result, and we’re not going to change it because a few people shout and/or threaten to leave.
As I mentioned, this decision was not taken lightly. There was much discussion within the admin team, and not everybody agreed. One opposing point of view was that we would risk certain groups of people being offended by implementing this rule, and it’s a good point; gay people don’t want to join the server and hear discrimination against them, even if it is in an IC environment, and discrimination will likely be used much more casually than in a real-world situation, due to the lack of real-world consequences on FL. We also disallow rape role-play, partially because of the risk of a small group of people being offended.
While the above is a good point and very true, a counter-argument is that FL is a make-believe environment, and as such we shouldn’t be hyper-sensitive about discrimination at the cost of creative freedom. The new rule allows creative freedom, which many other games/movies/etc. also allow; more on this later. As for rape role-play, it’s true that it was banned because some people got offended, but it’s not the only reason; there are other venues for this kind of role-play, and no-one in the staff team wishes FL to cater to this kind of role-play. The majority team opinion is that role-play such as rape or terrorism is far more harmful and sickening than discrimination, hence rape is banned, but terrorism still allowed because it’s a frequent theme on FL and banning it would lead to the loss of a lot of good role-play.
Also, we’re well aware that some people may take things to excess, hence the rule was written specifically to allow moderate amounts of discrimination in an in-character manner only; excessive IC discrimination – or any in OOC – will not be tolerated.
Eventually the team reached a majority decision, and there was about a week from the time of the final rules draft being ready till publication; a week in which people were still able to voice dissenting opinions, yet no-one did.
In response to those who’ve called us racist or bigots, just because the majority of the team agreed on this rule doesn’t mean that we’re racist or are promoting racism, as some of you are claiming. It simply allows more creative freedom in role-play, and it is up to the individual to decide whether or not discrimination is a part of that; there are also likely to be IC consequences for these actions. Many games/movies/books/songs contain discrimination not just as a side-note, but as a central topic. Many of you complaining also continue to play games such as GTAV and Skyrim, both of which contain themes of discrimination, racism, and sexism. Much like on FL, the developers releasing these games have received criticism from a few loud voices regarding this, yet kept it in the game in order to enhance the story – this is a prime example of creative freedom, something we as a team support. To do otherwise would be hypocrisy.
We’ve listened to some of your concerns regarding the new rules on discrimination, but we aren’t going to change the rule right now. The decision to implement this rule was not taken lightly, and we discussed it in great detail. This rule was the end result, and we’re not going to change it because a few people shout and/or threaten to leave.
As I mentioned, this decision was not taken lightly. There was much discussion within the admin team, and not everybody agreed. One opposing point of view was that we would risk certain groups of people being offended by implementing this rule, and it’s a good point; gay people don’t want to join the server and hear discrimination against them, even if it is in an IC environment, and discrimination will likely be used much more casually than in a real-world situation, due to the lack of real-world consequences on FL. We also disallow rape role-play, partially because of the risk of a small group of people being offended.
While the above is a good point and very true, a counter-argument is that FL is a make-believe environment, and as such we shouldn’t be hyper-sensitive about discrimination at the cost of creative freedom. The new rule allows creative freedom, which many other games/movies/etc. also allow; more on this later. As for rape role-play, it’s true that it was banned because some people got offended, but it’s not the only reason; there are other venues for this kind of role-play, and no-one in the staff team wishes FL to cater to this kind of role-play. The majority team opinion is that role-play such as rape or terrorism is far more harmful and sickening than discrimination, hence rape is banned, but terrorism still allowed because it’s a frequent theme on FL and banning it would lead to the loss of a lot of good role-play.
Also, we’re well aware that some people may take things to excess, hence the rule was written specifically to allow moderate amounts of discrimination in an in-character manner only; excessive IC discrimination – or any in OOC – will not be tolerated.
Eventually the team reached a majority decision, and there was about a week from the time of the final rules draft being ready till publication; a week in which people were still able to voice dissenting opinions, yet no-one did.
In response to those who’ve called us racist or bigots, just because the majority of the team agreed on this rule doesn’t mean that we’re racist or are promoting racism, as some of you are claiming. It simply allows more creative freedom in role-play, and it is up to the individual to decide whether or not discrimination is a part of that; there are also likely to be IC consequences for these actions. Many games/movies/books/songs contain discrimination not just as a side-note, but as a central topic. Many of you complaining also continue to play games such as GTAV and Skyrim, both of which contain themes of discrimination, racism, and sexism. Much like on FL, the developers releasing these games have received criticism from a few loud voices regarding this, yet kept it in the game in order to enhance the story – this is a prime example of creative freedom, something we as a team support. To do otherwise would be hypocrisy.