04-15-2020, 12:38 PMBaelor Swift Wrote:

04-15-2020, 12:32 PMRomanesEuntDomus Wrote: I don't know all the details about the specific cases but it does feel like we could be going a bit overboard with some of these suspensions. At the end of the day these cases shouldn't be about the word itself, but about the intent with which it was sad. If someone uses "gay" or "retarded" as a throwaway term in some Discord conversation to describe something that he doesn't like then that's not cool, but it's very different from using those words to specifically target other people and go after them with personal attacks. Just inventing more and more -ism's and throwing them into peoples faces isn't particularly helpful.

With that being said, it's pretty obvious that most of these people are just coming back to troll, stir the pot and feel cool and edgy, so it's tough to feel much sympathy for them - because the intentions are obvious and go beyond accidentally using the word.

There is a zero tolerance for these words for a reason. Let me just explain it by copy and pasting my last comment in this thread.

Using a neutral word that describes a group of peoples' identities (not opinions but their identities/conditions) and assigning a negative connotation to the word is the problem. Because now you've turned a neutral term into a negative term and every time someone who is, for example, autistic hears it used that way, it reinforces the idea that someone who is autistic is of less value than people who don't have autism. And that's the issue.

That also applies to gay or retard.

My point is that not everything that is shitty and in bad taste is automatically suspendable. There are different degress of bad that should be handled differently instead of with a sledgehammer approach. I would argue that there is a huge difference between saying "that show is gay" or "what a retarded idea", and calling someone a ***** or going after them by calling them a retard, autistic etc. I would argue that the former is in bad taste and is something that we should look to get rid of, but it also is a process that takes time and even decent people can end up saying these words almost accidentally because they have been so engrained in our language over decades of shittiness. You don't combat these mechanisms and help people to improve themselves by bringing out the banhammer every time a bad word is said.