[Jen]

Quick disclaimer, everything I said here was my opinion and may differ from the rest of the team.


Personally, I don't see an issue with the rule change, I never saw anyone before the rule change using racism to roleplay anything but now all of a sudden it's been banned and it sounds like thousands of people's RPs have ended as a result of this.

Considering what was happening with a certain group in particular before this rule change which was making it very difficult to take any action against them and was informed to change their ways several times before this rule was added. So, as a result, we don't want this happening again in the future which is as previously discussed is one of the reasons behind the rule change.

I'd be surprised if this affected anyone here and cut off any ongoing RPs at the time before the rule was added.

And yes the rule wasn't discussed with the community beforehand as you don't need to cough up the funding to pay for the legal dispute if one does happen, which granted is unlikely but could still happen. So, as a result, the rule was introduced to stop us from having to do so.
Sometimes, a company needs to take actions to protect its self before speaking to the people who use the platform just so that we don't have to remove the platform as we are unable to continue to fund it due to a legal dispute costing the company thousands.


Anyway, that was just my 2 cents about the rule change.

[Jono]

I agree with others that it shouldn't be outright banned, but on a permission basis (allowing the RP opportunities as they develop, but limited to players whom aren't going to soley use it to troll).

/NWordpass <player> <reason>

Unfortunate it's potentially needed, unironically.


Would make more sense to have admin notes on players - database where staff can share details of players, including previous warnings issues (verbal), things to watch out for - and then have another tab with permissions, potentially allowing short term permissions (until user disconnects) and long term (Until set date/cancelled)  - this makes sense for ongoing RPs that may usually require permission - i.e if trusted player can have dictator permissions on ongoing basis, so dictator RP can continue with no staff on, can host 'extremist clans' etc.



Would be a happy medium between outright banning and the freedom most players want.

[Rydolph]

i think racism is okay Ic, why not. think of all the rp opportunity crushed.

this should be reverted, all becasue one rascist fool and his anti black clan

I'd like to touch base on this quickly.

And before I start I would like to say that my views are not a representation of the views of the entire team.

Often times, people tend to take it too far when being racist/sexist/discriminatory IC. In-Character actions do have the potential to offend someone OOC, whether we like it or not. As said in the post, it's a risk Limelight as a Company cannot take. Limelight as a company needs to consider the possible legal repercussions of allowing players to use racist, sexist, and discriminatory remarks on their services. The actions of the community, such as someone potentially taking it too far with their racist/sexist/discriminatory roleplay could be seen as a negative impression on Limelight as a whole.

That being said, I recommend that everyone exercise reasonable judgment and so it won't be a problem to begin with. If you think something has the potential to be racist, sexist, or discriminatory, don't say it. I won't speak for the rest of the team, but I'm personally not looking forward to handing out a suspension to anyone for violating this rule if it comes to it (and before you say anything, don't assume that I won't. I will, I just wouldn't like it).

If people are seriously getting offended by rp then they should just leave? They have a choice to be offended. LL's rp is semi-realistic and reflects the real world. Guess what, irl there is racism, sexism and discrimination. But it's ROLEPLAY and is not to be taken seriously. They should stick to being hermits and stay away from the internet and the real world if all they're going to do is get offended by the silliest of things.

[Judge Rage]

And yes the rule wasn't discussed with the community beforehand as you don't need to cough up the funding to pay for the legal dispute if one does happen, which granted is unlikely but could still happen. So, as a result, the rule was introduced to stop us from having to do so.
Sometimes, a company needs to take actions to protect its self before speaking to the people who use the platform just so that we don't have to remove the platform as we are unable to continue to fund it due to a legal dispute costing the company thousands.

Except that any legal dispute literally wouldn't be LL's problem because LL themselves don't take responsibility for what people say on their platform. UGHHHHHHHHHHH READ MY EARLIER REPLIES

[Montyfatcat]

i think racism is okay Ic, why not. think of all the rp opportunity crushed.

this should be reverted, all becasue one rascist fool and his anti black clan

I'd like to touch base on this quickly.

And before I start I would like to say that my views are not a representation of the views of the entire team.

Often times, people tend to take it too far when being racist/sexist/discriminatory IC. In-Character actions do have the potential to offend someone OOC, whether we like it or not. As said in the post, it's a risk Limelight as a Company cannot take. Limelight as a company needs to consider the possible legal repercussions of allowing players to use racist, sexist, and discriminatory remarks on their services. The actions of the community, such as someone potentially taking it too far with their racist/sexist/discriminatory roleplay could be seen as a negative impression on Limelight as a whole.

That being said, I recommend that everyone exercise reasonable judgment and so it won't be a problem to begin with. If you think something has the potential to be racist, sexist, or discriminatory, don't say it. I won't speak for the rest of the team, but I'm personally not looking forward to handing out a suspension to anyone for violating this rule if it comes to it (and before you say anything, don't assume that I won't. I will, I just wouldn't like it).

If people are seriously getting offended by rp then they should just leave? They have a choice to be offended. LL's rp is semi-realistic and reflects the real world. Guess what, irl there is racism, sexism and discrimination. But it's ROLEPLAY and is not to be taken seriously. They should stick to being hermits and stay away from the internet and the real world if all they're going to do is get offended by the silliest of things.

It's not the normal playerbase we have to worry about. It's companies like Polygon, Buzzfeed and similar that will make this into an issue. They'll write the articles, gullible, uninformed readers get outraged and demand a petition to close the server, government panics and bans the gamemode, all because people don't do research. All it takes is Anita Sarkesian to come on, hear someone yell "NIGGER" and then she'll go ahead and say all Gmod RP servers are racist and that Gmod RP should be made illegal.

We're not protecting ourselves from offence, we're protecting ourselves from ignorant reporters looking for a new controversy.

[Project]

I can understand why this happened, but I believe that the rule is too broad and leaves a lot for interpenetration, it would be mad to think that the smallest of discrimination, sexism or racism could get you banned. It would make sense to ban extreme/unneeded racism, sexism and discrimination. 

On the announcement there is talk about how the lines get blurred, I can see two main cases where that might be true, the voice chat and the /pm system, both could had be dealt with so there wouldn't be a need for such a restrictive change. /pm could become entirely OOC and a new /sms command could become its IC counterpart and voice chat could either get split into IC and OOC too or it could be made so you are outright not allowed to be racist, sexist or discriminatory to avoid people directing "IC" insults when they are really OOC ones.

I do believe there is a way to "unblur" the lines while allowing for people to remain racist, sexist or discriminatory at a "RP benefiting" way.

BBG is an example people taking to the extreme and why there needs to be an IC limit on how far you can take it, but right now, if as a chief I give a chore to do I could technically be banned for discriminating them IC wise.

1.6 - Do not be excessively/extremely/needlessly racist, sexist or otherwise discriminatory. This applies both OOC and IC.

This would had been a better version of the rule in my opinion.

[Judge Rage]

THERE *CLAP* ARE *CLAP* LITERALLY  *CLAP* NO *CLAP* LEGAL *CLAP* ISSUES *CLAP* AT *CLAP* PLAY

With that said, here's a wee suggestion, why don't we simply change the old rule so that racism, sexism, discrimination must be in context and (if really needed for more protection; reasonable). Then you guys can go after the OOC racists using IC means that you guys want to go after so badly.

[Montyfatcat]

THERE *CLAP* ARE *CLAP* LITERALLY  *CLAP* NO *CLAP* LEGAL *CLAP* ISSUES *CLAP* AT *CLAP* PLAY

With that said, here's a wee suggestion, why don't we simply change the old rule so that racism, sexism, discrimination must be in context and (if really needed for more protection; reasonable). Then you guys can go after the OOC racists using IC means that you guys want to go after so badly.

Ah but you're forgetting, LL is in the land of unlicensed butter knives. The platform very easily could be brought down because of a far-left reporter in a sour mood.

[Judge Rage]

THERE *CLAP* ARE *CLAP* LITERALLY  *CLAP* NO *CLAP* LEGAL *CLAP* ISSUES *CLAP* AT *CLAP* PLAY

With that said, here's a wee suggestion, why don't we simply change the old rule so that racism, sexism, discrimination must be in context and (if really needed for more protection; reasonable). Then you guys can go after the OOC racists using IC means that you guys want to go after so badly.

Ah but you're forgetting, LL is in the land of unlicensed butter knives. The platform very easily could be brought down because of a far-left reporter in a sour mood.

dont even get me started actual fuck this country and it's porn blocks

[bismo]

I'd like to touch base on this quickly.

And before I start I would like to say that my views are not a representation of the views of the entire team.

Often times, people tend to take it too far when being racist/sexist/discriminatory IC. In-Character actions do have the potential to offend someone OOC, whether we like it or not. As said in the post, it's a risk Limelight as a Company cannot take. Limelight as a company needs to consider the possible legal repercussions of allowing players to use racist, sexist, and discriminatory remarks on their services. The actions of the community, such as someone potentially taking it too far with their racist/sexist/discriminatory roleplay could be seen as a negative impression on Limelight as a whole.

That being said, I recommend that everyone exercise reasonable judgment and so it won't be a problem to begin with. If you think something has the potential to be racist, sexist, or discriminatory, don't say it. I won't speak for the rest of the team, but I'm personally not looking forward to handing out a suspension to anyone for violating this rule if it comes to it (and before you say anything, don't assume that I won't. I will, I just wouldn't like it).

If people are seriously getting offended by rp then they should just leave? They have a choice to be offended. LL's rp is semi-realistic and reflects the real world. Guess what, irl there is racism, sexism and discrimination. But it's ROLEPLAY and is not to be taken seriously. They should stick to being hermits and stay away from the internet and the real world if all they're going to do is get offended by the silliest of things.

It's not the normal playerbase we have to worry about. It's companies like Polygon, Buzzfeed and similar that will make this into an issue. They'll write the articles, gullible, uninformed readers get outraged and demand a petition to close the server, government panics and bans the gamemode, all because people don't do research. All it takes is Anita Sarkesian to come on, hear someone yell "NIGGER" and then she'll go ahead and say all Gmod RP servers are racist and that Gmod RP should be made illegal.

We're not protecting ourselves from offence, we're protecting ourselves from ignorant reporters looking for a new controversy.

do you guys really think anyone gives enough of a fuck about limelight to really do this? lol, let me know when someone writes an article about a cityrp server on a 10 year old game thats empty half the time. quit taking urselves so seriously.

[Jeff Ford]

Probably should have kept the last post to myself, but oh well. I won't retract what I said, still believe it. Oh well. Get used to it big boi pufitee. I'm a Controversial bitch. My apologies for whomever I offended. Lol. I apologized. Weird.

Since everyone else is taking thing seriously ha:

As stated earlier, I'm on Montyfatcat's view of things. The LL Company should be able protect itself from ignorant reporters and legal challenges. If you want to be racist, do so somewhere else. A media/legal report as described could taint a fairly small company like this. Though I still think people IG are gonna abuse this and go "over the top". 

I'm not against the a Far-Right Extremism Party, or a terrorism event revolving around Leftism, Rightism, etc. The fact of it is, it needs to be well thought out as it is just Roleplay. But still, The LL Company's ability to protect itself from unwanted/damaging attention should come first. After all, we wouldn't wanna be shut down.


Some may think that Monty is exaggerating his "Buzzfeed comes on, hears a racial slur, and says all GMod servers are racist" but, nothing is a reality until it actually happens. It is most certainly a possibility. Server Management implemented this without any community input, rather suddenly. The reasoning must be serious.

[Judge Rage]

It's a fucking game for fuck's sake. You guys made the community a company for fuck knows why (I suppose it does increase transparency) but at the end of the day it's a fucking game, not a multinational corporation with holdings all over the joint. We're hardly even a fucking big community at that, small-medium and being an Ltd doesn't make us special either, there are many communities registered as companies who pay tax. The fact is, it holds very little in the way of merit.

My point is; we are not a big player at risk of the media ruining us. And the legal point is still p mood.

[bismo]

Some may think that Monty is exaggerating his "Buzzfeed comes on, hears a racial slur, and says all GMod servers are racist" but, nothing is a reality until it actually happens. 

you can say that about literally anything. its real cute you guys think limelights so important, but buzzfeed aint hoppin on any time soon. its kinda hilarious that people think that could be a reality.

[Soviethooves]

@Project‍ 

That was actually in the original rule. Excessive use of discriminatory or racist actions IC was not allowed to begin with

[Lord Octagon]

If you're worried about lefty journalism, you should be. But banning racism won't do anything to stop them, a lefty who wants to be an SJW will find any little thing to make a big deal out of - or make something up and obviously their fan base will follow. 

Like when Ocasio-Cortez called out Fox News for 'racism' by claiming that they'd only call her 'Cortez' just to make it sound more Hispanic and cause controversy amongst viewers. In actual fact, Fox News have only ever referred to her as Ocasio-Cortez or AOC (her Twitter handle).

So lefties will be lefties and changing the rule will not change that nor 'protect' LL from anything. From what Stell said, it sounds like the rule was changed just to target a select few individuals. Seems a bit ex post facto to me.