Hi, folks:
Some of the recent drama here in the past year or so has been rather sad, and has made me reflect that it might be time to update the site rules slightly. My suggestion especially relates to people in this community who use words like "fag", "blindy", retard, and other ableist, sexist, and racist terms. audiogames.net is an international community, composed of all types of people, from all walks of life, with all kinds of abilities and skill sets. My proposal is that anyone who uses a racist, sexist, or ablist term gets one warning, and a permanent ban if they continue. I think that posts containing these terms should probably be deleted as soon as someone sees them, warning or no. I don't think this can be done with filters, because people can come up with racist terms for people faster than anyone could come up with filters, and because a post from someone who wants to call someone an offensive term because of what race they are doesn't deserve to stick around, even if the 1 offensive term is removed. My hopes for a course of action like this would be:
1. Make the community more inclusive to new members, from any and all walks of life.
2. Put a damper on some of the heated flame wars that start up here every few months. While calling someone a dumbass isn't particularly nice, it is, I think, at least less inflammatory than calling them a gay retard.
3. Keep this stuff out of the archived topics, so that people who find us via Google won't think this kind of behaviour is welcome.
My goal isn't to make people be nice, because I've been around the Internet long enough to know that can't be done. 'Nor do I particularly want to stop people from cursing, even though I personally don't think it's really appropriate, I don't see any reason to want to force that opinion on others. But as blind gamers are a minority group ourselves, the least we can do is be a bit more sensitive towards the members of our own and other minority communities. And I think this will not only improve our public image, but I think it will also raise the level of discussion that takes place here. I can see no time where using these terms could contribute to even an off-topic discussion. But I can see times where anyone with mental or physical disabilities, or other sexual orientations, can and probably have been made to feel unwelcome.
Maybe this is just an overreaction on my part, I dunno. But putting it out there and getting feedback can only be a good thing.