'Baby talk' in chat

[Mickey Mouse]

No matter anyone's opinion on this ruling, please be kind a courteous, especially to Omni. He is only trying to help.

Guu, I'm just popping in here to say you are absolutely one of the most graceful people in the universe.

Otherwise I have no opinion on this matter, so poppin' out.

[Demetri Malius]

Although I agree it sometimes plagues the chat a bit, I do not believe it is right to censor these "signs of affection". There is a clear boundary between going over the line with rape, gore, slander, and sexual text within the chatbox, and I don't see these things crossing that line. I see this more as a preference and opinion for people who find it offensive. I find it difficult to be offended by the actions, if anything it would just be annoyance, but that's it. If anything, a simple add to the OOC or chatbox rules saying to keep it down on the stuff would have been sufficient, but even then, I don't think it's a thing people should have a problem with. If I start going into the chat and going -high five- to everyone, would that be considered the same?

[Omni]

Basically, what is so hard about removing oneself from the chat box when a conversation, regardless of it's topic or the words used to portray it, is not something you want to be a part of.

Generally I agree. However, "Here and there isn't bad, it's just really uncomfortable when the chatbox is completely filled with it and I know it turns new members off."

Over the past year it's gone from 'occasional/never', to "switch it off for one day and it's a huge deal". I personally have asked people to stop and it's only increased. As I've said before I generally oppose censorship. This is deleting two made-up words and asking people not to fill the chatbox with baby talk. That's all.

For clarity, the four words I originally changed were a joke/experiment to see how people took it, and to see what effect it would have on the chat when I changed four specific words. It wasn't like some huge executive decision to ban all references to hugging.

[Thaal Sinestro]

I think that, in an attempt to increase the site's user base, you are actually going to decrease it.

If the most active people of the site feel irritated, censored, and trod upon, they won't visit as much. That, and when new members discover that they can't talk the way they want to, they will also be discouraged.

When the motivation of the writers on the site is diminished in any way, the writing seriously takes a nose dive. We've all seen it time and time again, across a million other sites.

Hell, writing went down when you made the background into a Blood Souls joke, what do you think is gonna happen when you pis off 50% of your writer base with chat box (the most used aspect of the site) restrictions?

[Tearen Wover]

(Warning: The following is a verified god-rant and follows no human thought pattern.)


I don't mind too much either way, but I will say that I've been on the receiving end of an occassional hug (or lick...) that I felt uncomfortable with.

While it's nice that people are so fond of each other on this site, I also agree that there needs to be a limit to how much physical interaction of a textual nature can happen. Ideally this would be able to be kept in check with people's own sensibilities, but, internetz.

Censoring words plucks at a nerve in me for some reason, but I don't inherently object to it. I see that this is in the OOC rules now, which I appreciate, but I guess I feel like having the language forbidden in the rules as well as censored seems redundant.

Again, ideally, this could come down to more attention on the part of moderators, but this isn't always completelt feasible, especially since the rate of application has risen in recent weeks.

...

Circuitous thinking aside, I ultimately support the censoring. It is a tragedy of the commons, but there are many other ways to express enthusiasm for our friendships that don't potentially make other people uncomfortable. I think that if people insist on being able to h-uggle their besties at the expense of other people's comfort, that's highly selfish.


(...although I do agree with Grey Man's thoughts on functional words. There is no perfect system.)

[Omni]

I think that, in an attempt to increase the site's user base, you are actually going to decrease it.

If the most active people of the site feel irritated, censored, and trod upon, they won't visit as much. That, and when new members discover that they can't talk the way they want to, they will also be discouraged.

When the motivation of the writers on the site is diminished in any way, the writing seriously takes a nose dive. We've all seen it time and time again, across a million other sites.

Hell, writing went down when you made the background into a Blood Souls joke, what do you think is gonna happen when you pis off 50% of your writer base with chat box (the most used aspect of the site) restrictions?

Before we blow this out of proportion: I've banned two words: 'h-uggle' and 'g-lomp', and I've added a line to the OOC rules asking people to avoid excessive baby-talk in the chatbox.

Still welcoming all opinions. I just wanted to reiterate what this discussion is about.

[Darth Vader]

Where'd the chat box go >.>

[The Dreamer]

(After Thaal)

If it was firmly spoken to everyone that we need to tone this down in the interest of continuing the influx of new members, I think that would suffice, assuming everyone really understand that, like any website, the only way we can continue to play on this this site we enjoy is if it continually gets fresh blood coming in. Same goes for any game-like platform.

With Omni's emphasis on the newcomers, I understand the core point of his argument and agree that we need to not turn them away, I would however like to accomplish that without adding additional restrictions that to newcomers may seem like needed tyranny by the Mod Staff. These newcomers would not take the time to understand why such a rule was put into effect, so they could leave because of it.

--------------------
(After Neal)

The Chatbox is a platform for our communication much like how we could interact if we were all to be together in real life, and with what Neal said in mind, it really should be handled more like that. You wouldnt hug someone without their permission, nor would you let someone hug you without permission. If we began to treat the Chat as we would real life interactions in this sense, maybe we could clear away some of the things people like Neal has felt when it come to being uncomfortable.

--------------------
(After Omni)

I was not aware of those changes Omni, and whether i missed them in the course of this discussion, or I was not present before this when it was discussed. My arguments were in opposition of more extreme measure of censoring, so my apologies. Although I do feel my words have wait in a conversation about those thing.

[Xehanort]

Where'd the chat box go >.>

This discussion keeps overflowing over into the c-box. We as a whole were asked to keep it here so *Blewp* no more c-box for the time being.

I haven't been following this thread because i thought the whole back-lash something this small is getting was insignificant, so who-ever is being hard on omni needs to tone it down.

As for letting people know prior to his actions, would it really change anything? He would have done it anyway and even then he put this thread up.

[The Grey Man]

As I suggested mere moments before chatbox mysteriously vanished:

Why not try this for a compromise: simply ask those who wish to engage in this sort of behavior to consider spoiler-tagging it. This way, nobody who's going to be upset by such things will have to even see it, the affection-giving crowd doesn't have to sacrifice their preferred style of online communication, and those of us who bristle at censorship can rest easy, since people are still allowed to say (more or less) whatever harmless things they wish.

The very picture of an everyone-wins scenario. Any thoughts/objections/suggestions?

[Thaal Sinestro]

I think that, in an attempt to increase the site's user base, you are actually going to decrease it.

If the most active people of the site feel irritated, censored, and trod upon, they won't visit as much. That, and when new members discover that they can't talk the way they want to, they will also be discouraged.

When the motivation of the writers on the site is diminished in any way, the writing seriously takes a nose dive. We've all seen it time and time again, across a million other sites.

Hell, writing went down when you made the background into a Blood Souls joke, what do you think is gonna happen when you pis off 50% of your writer base with chat box (the most used aspect of the site) restrictions?

Before we blow this out of proportion: I've banned two words: 'h-uggle' and 'g-lomp', and I've added a line to the OOC rules asking people to avoid excessive baby-talk in the chatbox.

Still welcoming all opinions. I just wanted to reiterate what this discussion is about.

Big or little, when people feel turned off, they don't write.

[Thaal Sinestro]

As I suggested mere moments before chatbox mysteriously vanished:

Why not try this for a compromise: simply ask those who wish to engage in this sort of behavior to consider spoiler-tagging it. This way, nobody who's going to be upset by such things will have to even see it, the affection-giving crowd doesn't have to sacrifice their preferred style of online communication, and those of us who bristle at censorship can rest easy, since people are still allowed to say (more or less) whatever harmless things they wish.

The very picture of an everyone-wins scenario. Any thoughts/objections/suggestions?

Ah yeah, instead of just outright censoring it, you could have a much wider range of terms that were auto tagged with spoiler. Also not a perfect solution, but I think it's better.

[Tearen Wover]

@TGM

That could potentially work, but the spoiler tag would have to have a way of being identified as baby-talk, otherwise, curious cats such as myself are going to want to click it.

This also might embolden some people to take their affection into 'pink-hair' territory, since they assume to be outside of public purview.

However, self-censoring is less of an overt control...I'm just concerned sensitive people might end up seeing it anyway. I would compare it to living in a dorm building with lots of amorous couples. You can't visually see anything happening, but you know it's going on...that may be a bit of a hyperbole, intensity-wise, but the metaphor still fits imo.


It's a really, really tough balancing act, and there are a lot of subtleties to this entire situation.

[The Dreamer]

Regardless of the fallout of this ridiculousness, I hope no one feels the need to leave or stop writing over it. It would be a really shame.

--------
You know what. Let's drop it all as it stands and if needed come and back to it later. It seems that what has been done is not extreme and should not affect the majority. Let the chat box come back and everyone just mid themselves.

[Omni]

I think that, in an attempt to increase the site's user base, you are actually going to decrease it.

If the most active people of the site feel irritated, censored, and trod upon, they won't visit as much. That, and when new members discover that they can't talk the way they want to, they will also be discouraged.

When the motivation of the writers on the site is diminished in any way, the writing seriously takes a nose dive. We've all seen it time and time again, across a million other sites.

Hell, writing went down when you made the background into a Blood Souls joke, what do you think is gonna happen when you pis off 50% of your writer base with chat box (the most used aspect of the site) restrictions?

Before we blow this out of proportion: I've banned two words: 'h-uggle' and 'g-lomp', and I've added a line to the OOC rules asking people to avoid excessive baby-talk in the chatbox.

Still welcoming all opinions. I just wanted to reiterate what this discussion is about.

Big or little, when people feel turned off, they don't write.

I feel like you're only thinking of a certain set of people when you write this, when the point was specifically to reach a middle ground that everybody was comfortable with.

[Black Mage]

As a definite newbie, none of the "cutesy" talk in the chat bugged me. It's definitely not my style, but I never felt like I wouldn't be accepted because of that. In most RP communities I've been in, from SW to Heroes to Dragon Age to Elder Scrolls there is that fellow or lady there has been someone or a group of someones who acceuntates his/her language in chat like that. I've come to accept it as a personality quirk. Overall Omniverse has been one of the most welcoming forums I've visited.

That said I won't be heartbroken to see the language go. My stance on it is largely neutral. I can easily do with or without. I'd prefer that whatever solution be implemted have the least OOC drama attached to it, as OOC drama just never hits me as well as IC drama. I'm not going to claim to be the Everyman of newbies, but I feel it should be said that the language(at least the "baby" language) did nothing to ruin my experience.

[The Grey Man]

@Neal, as far as that analogy goes, I'd just say that what they do behind closed doors is their business--they (hopefully) aren't intending on you to overhear. As far as wanting to go into 'pink-hair' (which I interpret, perhaps incorrectly, as a euphemism for "overtly sexual") territory online as their characters: there are, as far as I'm aware, already rules against that level of "affectionate" behavior. Although, heck, they could just swap a few quick PMs and set up a short term IRC/mibbit channel for doing stuff like that if they wanted. And if they did do stuff like that (again, assuming it's off site,) I'm not about to stop them. After all, what our members do off of this site ultimately isn't anybody's business except for the parties involved, right?

As far as asking users to identify their tag: I really am not sure it's necessary, since most of the gl0mp crowd is a specific group of users. If you saw Guu and Desco tag each other while exchanging spoiler tags, for instance, you probably wouldn't need to click on them to know they were exchanging the typical online displays of affection. Especially if they hadn't been talking about any popular media prior to said exchange, or if they were greeting each other. If you did click on such a tag, and had no real reason to believe that it was actually spoiling anything, and it did in fact turn out to be a concealed PDA, then, to put it bluntly, it's really not their fault at that point. Nobody makes us click on tags lol

Spoiler tags are also a good solution, I think, because they're highly contextual. Building off of the 'you can't know' argument, consider this: while you're right, and there's no way to know what it says unless a) you wrote it, or b) you click it, you'll still probably be able to guess if the spoiler contains an actual spoiler, simply because, well, somebody will have probably been talking about the relevant subject matter prior to any such tags getting posted. So really, I think if the proposed "self-censorship" is implemented, the choice (or rather, the responsibility) of whether or not to risk exposing yourself to the dreaded gl0mps and h*ggles of this world will lie firmly in everyone's own hands, which in turn allows everybody the freedom to take that risk, or to choose not click on the tag.

(I'm drinking so hopefully this makes sense; if not, feel free to disregard)

[Thaal Sinestro]

I think the majority of the bad feelings in the situation are more in how implementation was handled as opposed to the actual rule. That and the actual censoring of certain, mostly innocuous words is gonna rub people the wrong way.

Like most things in online community, the answer that's probably gonna work best is hands-on moderation, in conjunction with clearly defined rules.

[Omni]

Censorship has been removed. After some thought, I'm going to open the chat back up rather than leave it closed, and simply remove individual people if they ignore the moderation therein. I hope everyone is happy with this arrangement. :-)

[Thaal Sinestro]

Censorship has been removed. After some thought, I'm going to open the chat back up rather than leave it closed, and simply remove individual people if they ignore the moderation therein. I hope everyone is happy with this arrangement. :-)

I think that's a super fair accommodation, and a fair enforcement of the rules. Goooo TEAAAAAAAAAAMMMMMMMMMMMMM