Trigger Warning: Word Discussion: Gaslighting

[Titus]

I recently just finished Dogs v Cats mafia, a mostly excellently modded game by thestatusquo. We did have one point of contention and that was regarding the use of the word "gaslighting".

I felt that I was being gaslighted by some players in the game (accuracy is irrelevant for this discussion). I called them out on it. This triggered other players and they reported it to Shea (as is their right). Shea then asked me to stop using the word.

I disagreed with his decision but not to the point where I felt Shea should be reported. Shea was caught in a rock in a hard place. Some of his players clearly felt uncomfortable and Shea went with the decision that benefitted the majority.

I felt this was wrong for a few reasons

1) It prevented me from expressing my truth in the thread. We wouldn't censor people who accused another player of lying, so why is gaslighting different? It forced me to argue much less authenticly and that likely had a small part in me getting eliminated.

2) It's triggering to me to not be able to call out gaslighting as it takes me back to situations where I was unable to call out gaslighting in my marriage.

3) It permits the comfort of other players to dictate how players can speak. I wasn't insulting other players OoG. I merely called out what I perceived to be happening based off the info I had.

I'd like to know what can be done to prevent this situation again. Do we ban the word gaslighting so that everyone is on an even playing field or do we treat the word gaslighting like a subset of lying or do we do something else entirely.

[TemporalLich]

I would consider the word "gaslighting" to refer to play, not player.

Using the word "gaslighting" should not be actionable as calling player's play that is criticizing play. Criticizing play is a part of Mafia and should not be considered actionable.

[Something_Smart]

It seems to me that you are using the term "gaslighting" in a much broader sense than most people understand it. To me, gaslighting is manipulatively denying someone's perceptions to make them lose self-confidence or question their sanity. It seemed like you were using it in a case where people held different opinions from you.

I don't think that's gaslighting, because it's not malicious, and it's not disagreeing about objective facts. I may be wrong, but I think most people would agree with me on that.

I don't mean to minimize your experiences with your ex-husband, but I feel like you might be extra-sensitive to manipulative behaviors to the point where you sometimes misclassify normal behaviors as manipulative. (Which in a lot of situations is better than the reverse!)

There's not an easy answer to this-- for some people, getting accused of manipulation when they are acting normal could

itself feel manipulative

, so you can't really get free rein to make those accusations. But we don't want to completely deny you the ability to express it. Maybe a good compromise is to ask you to say how you feel more descriptively (e.g. rather than "you're gaslighting me!", say "I think my point of view makes sense and it's upsetting me that nobody else is seeing it").

[TemporalLich]

If it's being thrown around like a basketball it might be worth looking into further - that would be a pretty clear indicator of toxic play and possibly manipulation

But with no information and me not reading the game in question it doesn't seem fair to immediately get a warning for merely using a word to criticize play. I still would not consider that actionable, just something to remember for next game you mod.

[Thestatusquo]

I recently just finished Dogs v Cats mafia, a mostly excellently modded game by thestatusquo. We did have one point of contention and that was regarding the use of the word "gaslighting".

I felt that I was being gaslighted by some players in the game (accuracy is irrelevant for this discussion). I called them out on it. This triggered other players and they reported it to Shea (as is their right). Shea then asked me to stop using the word.

I disagreed with his decision but not to the point where I felt Shea should be reported. Shea was caught in a rock in a hard place. Some of his players clearly felt uncomfortable and Shea went with the decision that benefitted the majority.

I felt this was wrong for a few reasons

1) It prevented me from expressing my truth in the thread. We wouldn't censor people who accused another player of lying, so why is gaslighting different? It forced me to argue much less authenticly and that likely had a small part in me getting eliminated.

2) It's triggering to me to not be able to call out gaslighting as it takes me back to situations where I was unable to call out gaslighting in my marriage.

3) It permits the comfort of other players to dictate how players can speak. I wasn't insulting other players OoG. I merely called out what I perceived to be happening based off the info I had.

I'd like to know what can be done to prevent this situation again. Do we ban the word gaslighting so that everyone is on an even playing field or do we treat the word gaslighting like a subset of lying or do we do something else entirely.

I disagree with most of this, obviously.

1) I don't think its true. In fact, I think that it was using that word that stopped you from speaking your truth. Language is not prescriptive, and words are defined by how they are understood. In this case there are many ways to explain what you are trying to say, but you were doing it with a word that is commonly used to mean something quite different from what it is commonly understood to mean. In this case you were using the word in a much broader sense than people understand it to mean (and indeed, not to be prescriptive myself, but the original meaning derived from the play is to deny repeatedly easily observable facts that both parties know to be true with the intention of denying the reality of one person and attempting to get them to doubt their sanity.) But even if that isn't true I think the claim that somehow being unable to use a specific word that you want to somehow stops you from expressing yourself is just patently false. There are many ways to express yourself in the english language, and saying that one word is the only possible way to say what you were trying to say is just not true.

1a) To touch briefly on something you said at the end of this point which I think is a different point entirely: Gaslighting is different because that word is usually used for discussing domestic abuse. There is a huge difference between telling someone that they are lying to you and telling someone that they are abusing you. The first is commonplace in a game of mafia and is indeed the whole point. The second is actively prohibited by my rule set and I don't think its fair to say that people were doing that to you.

1b) Perhaps the most important point which has been touched on in the previous two points but I want to make it explicit here. No one in that game was gaslighting you. No one in that game was abusing you. Gaslighting is a very specific behavior that simply was not occurring. You are accusing people of knowingly lying about something you both know is true in order to make you doubt yourself/lose your sanity. Not a single part of that was occurring in the game. The people arguing against you were for the most part, speaking things they believed to be true. That is because the game was multiball and no one knew what your alignment/role was. I get that your point is that you suspected some of these players of being aliens themselves which is why you thought they were knowingly lying, but a) as it turned out no one in the game actually was an alien and b) even if that wasn't the case you have no way of knowing the alignment of the people you're talking to. That being said, even if all of that is untrue, the intent of the statements is super important to what is and is not gaslighting. The whole point of gaslighting is that it is intending to make the person being gaslit doubt themselves. But that is impossible in this case. You have a PM from me establishing objective truth. The purpose of the people arguing against your claim wasn't to deny you your reality, it was to express to other players in the game that they didn't believe you. Which is just a valid thing to do. And it wasn't a lie. Not a single player in the game was lying when they said they did not believe your claim.

2) I'm sorry you felt this way, but again I don't think you were prohibited from calling out the behavior you didn't like. Saying something to the effect of "I think a percentage of players who are saying they don't believe my claim are doing so because they are aliens themselves" is a perfectly acceptable thing to say, more accurately sums up your point, and does so without using a word typically used to describe domestic abuse.

2a) I don't mean to be rude here, but quite frankly being a survivor does not give you the right to call people abusers. Especially if you are wrong about it. If you sincerely feel that someone is being abusive towards you in any of my games I urge you to contact me as the moderator, and I will deal with it. In this case however, I do not believe anyone was abusing you and I believe that you are just not using the word gaslighting correctly. Even then, accusing people of abuse when they are simply playing a game is in and of itself an abusive action. I do not think it was an intentional one, but you are causing emotional harm when you use words that hurt people when you do not need to, and I can't let that happen in my game.

3) Letting the comfort of players dictate how people speak is good, actually. The whole rule set of my game is designed to draw a very important distinction between the in game play and the out of game human who is on the other side of the screen. You are permitted to make people feel uncomfortable and unhappy within the context of the game and censoring speech because it makes people unhappy as a player in the game is not acceptable. It would be absurd to stop you from saying "i think you are scum" because it upset someone, for instance. But that is different from making people uncomfortable in an out of game sense. It is important to remember that we play a very emotionally charged game which can lead to extreme emotions in people, it is by its nature a game of emotional manipulation. However, I draw a very clear line between manipulation that happens within the context of the game and manipulation that happens outside of it. In this case people weren't being made to feel uncomfortable because you were saying they were bad within the context of the game. People were being made uncomfortable because they were being called akin to domestic abusers, which they clearly were not being. I think this is definitionally outside the bounds of acceptable game play. It's worth noting that this is something that is universally accepted as being correct to do. We have site rules and have had many bans for people who are attacking others in game in a personal and non-game way. We have many examples of words we can't say because of the emotional toll that they take on the people we use them on. All of this is accepted because it is generally better to not harm people in a real life way in order to play a game on the internet. This is why we no longer say the L word. This is why you can't call people the R word. This is why you can't tell someone to go kill themselves because you disagree with them. These are all instances where you are prohibited from expressing yourself precisely because it has real world impacts that are more important than the game itself. I think this is another case of that, and given the points that I've raised prior I think that you are very capable (better off, even!) using different words to describe what you are talking about, ones that don't harm others.

[Ythan]

Hm ego

[Chara]

i was scum in this game, Titus was town. it was multiball as well. i don't know if that matters to this discussion but i thought i may as well say it.

i don't really have an opinion on whether or not the use of the word should be actionable from a moderation perspective. i don't find its use as breaking any rules necessarily, i asked it not be used for my own comfort.

i made a post asking that the word not be used because i also consider it a term referring to abuse, and not simply the lying and manipulation one sees in a mafia game. in the case of gaslighting occuring, i would consider that a problem to be taken to the mod, not in the thread. saying you are being gaslighted is, to me, saying you are being abused by the players gaslighting you, which is an issue to be taken up with the moderator, and actionable. if i felt i was or i was being abused in a mafia game, i would speak to the moderation team. i don't find it a game issue.

i was also upset at being accused of gaslighting when calling the existence of Aliens into question. i think "they're trying to make me doubt my role" or "they're trying to make others doubt my role" are descriptors that can be used without going into accusations of abuse, and i didn't enjoy the suggestion that i (and others) were trying to make Titus doubt her reality by doubting that she was telling the truth about her role.

it's also worth noting that none of the scum and none of the other town knew whether or not Aliens existed, mechanically. i don't really think it's fair to say someone who can't know if you're being truthful, in a game about lying, is gaslighting you when they doubt you. if it's organized, if it's designed to hurt or designed to silence because of some personal issue, i think there would be a problem there.

[Isis]

I still don't think it's appropriate to call people domestic abusers in a mafia game.
I think in this situation and most mafia situations, gaslighting is an imperfect descriptor for the type of deception being used, which makes it seem like the word was selected for the comparison to an individual as detestable as a domestic abusers.

[TemporalLich]

In that case if it carries that strong a connotation it might not be acceptable in Mafia - I thought gaslighting was a manipulation tactic (used by abusive people)

Calling people domestic abusers is a flagrant breach of the critisicing play/criticizing player line - that's when action needs to be taken about toxicity.

[Ythan]

I think specifically "domestic abuser" may be an overly specific interpretation of the gaslighting accusation.

[TemporalLich]

Yeah, I'd consider gaslighting abusive to the point where it does not belong in Mafia, though this thread is about whether accusing someone of gaslighting is acceptable in Mafia games (I don't know but my initial opinion was yes)

[Isis]

I think specifically "domestic abuser" may be an overly specific interpretation of the gaslighting accusation.

That line of argument has been forfeit here, as Titus has specifically indicated that parallels to domestic abuse are precisely what she feels entitled to draw.

In a different context I could see that as a live argument.

[Ythan]

Yeah that's fair.

[Ythan]

as Titus has specifically indicated that parallels to domestic abuse are precisely what she feels entitled to draw.

Do you mean itt or elsewhere? If the latter then specifically where is not necessary tyia.

[AniX]

I think the tension is that mafia is a game EXPLICITLY about manipulating, lying, and sowing doubt. If the mafia isn't making you doubt yourself and your reads on people, they are playing the game poorly. If the town isn't trying to trick the mafia into slipping up, they are playing the game poorly. So while it fits the technical definition of gaslighting, I think it misses the context it usually occupies as a term.

You may use gaslighting in a broader term, I don't want to speak for you and your definitions. But for a lot of people, I think bordering on most, gaslighting is directly related to emotional abuse in a way calling someone a liar isn't. Lying as a word is value-neutral. People expect to be called liars in mafia because there is no bias against being a liar in a game about lying. But mafia is not a game about emotional abuse and when a term is introduced that invokes emotional abuse, people naturally feel in a tight spot because the game DOES involve things that would be emotional abuse in most other contexts ceases to be so in a mafia context where everyone consents to being manipulated. We wouldn't, for example, call a boyfriend and girlfriend boxing "physically abusive" because even though it fits the technical definition of a boyfriend hitting his girlfriend, there is entirely different levels of consent involved and I think you'd find equal amount of pushback if you described someone as committing "physical abuse" if they were engaging in a boxing match.

[Thestatusquo]

I think specifically "domestic abuser" may be an overly specific interpretation of the gaslighting accusation.

I don't think this is true. The term literally originates in a play about domestic abuse. Maybe some people use it more broadly than that (though in general I would say most don't.) but literally the word was coined to describe a very specific kind of behavior used in psychological abuse. I do not think its unreasonable to someone being told they are gaslighting to think they are being accused of abuse, since thats literally what the word means and literally why it was invented.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_Light

[OkaPoka]

I can see both arguments, but i am interested if there is going to be an official ruling on this

[Jake The Wolfie]

Problem: Gaslight is causing users to legitimately feel emotional stress and/or pain

Solution: Delete the word.

We've done this before and we'll do it again.

[Titus]

I was always intending for gaslighting to be someone intending to cause me to doubt reality. I didn't and don't feel the term should be exclusive to domestic abuse situations. However, listening to the concerns of everyone else is precisely why I made this thread.

I never felt the scumteam were unfair for playing the way they did.

It looks like, if the mods comment at all, they will likely ban the word from use. Until then, I will as well. I just needed to know where the site stood on such a word as a whole so I knew what I was getting into next time. I'll still be here as much as I can.

I think overall this was a productive and honest conversation.

[Thestatusquo]

I doubt that this is really something that will be actionable writ large on the site in the general rules. I think it will continue to be something that individual mods decide for themselves what is and is not acceptable discourse in their games and I think that's the way it should be. In general, I think the word itself isn't really even what is at issue here. I feel like there are many words which would have caused a similar reaction both from the players in the game and from myself, and its not worth it to try to enumerate what all those words are in advance. I think we just need to trust mods to listen to their players and their gut and continue to step in if they feel discourse is crossing any lines OOG.

The question to me seems to be: are mods correct to make this judgement call and limit discourse when they think it is damaging in an OOG sort of way, and I unquestionably come down on the side that it is.

[Ythan]

^super good post^

[TemporalLich]

I doubt that this is really something that will be actionable writ large on the site in the general rules. I think it will continue to be something that individual mods decide for themselves what is and is not acceptable discourse in their games and I think that's the way it should be. In general, I think the word itself isn't really even what is at issue here. I feel like there are many words which would have caused a similar reaction both from the players in the game and from myself, and its not worth it to try to enumerate what all those words are in advance. I think we just need to trust mods to listen to their players and their gut and continue to step in if they feel discourse is crossing any lines OOG.

The question to me seems to be: are mods correct to make this judgement call and limit discourse when they think it is damaging in an OOG sort of way, and I unquestionably come down on the side that it is.

yeah, I feel game mods should be able to make judgment calls on whether something is damaging out of game - calling someone an abuser is damaging out of game and tends to be poison to game health (hence the term "toxic")

[chamber]

I doubt that this is really something that will be actionable writ large on the site in the general rules. I think it will continue to be something that individual mods decide for themselves what is and is not acceptable discourse in their games and I think that's the way it should be. In general, I think the word itself isn't really even what is at issue here. I feel like there are many words which would have caused a similar reaction both from the players in the game and from myself, and its not worth it to try to enumerate what all those words are in advance. I think we just need to trust mods to listen to their players and their gut and continue to step in if they feel discourse is crossing any lines OOG.

The question to me seems to be: are mods correct to make this judgement call and limit discourse when they think it is damaging in an OOG sort of way, and I unquestionably come down on the side that it is.

I think I mostly disagree with this. I think mods should be able to be more restrictive than general site rules if that is clearly outlined during game creation/sign ups. But if something is sufficiently bad to require an ad hoc judgement call, I think that should be getting made consistently across the site. I think leaving too much to game moderator discretion is exactly what let transphobia (intentional misgendering) persist as long as it did in games.

[Thestatusquo]

I doubt that this is really something that will be actionable writ large on the site in the general rules. I think it will continue to be something that individual mods decide for themselves what is and is not acceptable discourse in their games and I think that's the way it should be. In general, I think the word itself isn't really even what is at issue here. I feel like there are many words which would have caused a similar reaction both from the players in the game and from myself, and its not worth it to try to enumerate what all those words are in advance. I think we just need to trust mods to listen to their players and their gut and continue to step in if they feel discourse is crossing any lines OOG.

The question to me seems to be: are mods correct to make this judgement call and limit discourse when they think it is damaging in an OOG sort of way, and I unquestionably come down on the side that it is.

I think I mostly disagree with this. I think mods should be able to be more restrictive than general site rules if that is clearly outlined during game creation/sign ups. But if something is sufficiently bad to require an ad hoc judgement call, I think that should be getting made consistently across the site. I think leaving too much to game moderator discretion is exactly what let transphobia (intentional misgendering) persist as long as it did in games.

I'm not against large overarching rules, and I'm all in favor of the ones we have, I'm just saying there enough ways to be horrible in games that it is not really possible to enumerate all of the ways one can be horrible in advance. My post is basically meant to suggest that I disagree with the claim that it is wrong to limit players discourse because other players are uncomfortable. I think mods can and do need to make that judgement call, and while we are able to enumerate a few really bad things or things that come up repeatedly, I think the infinite variability of the english language means that by necessity that list can't be exhaustive.

[Ythan]

I'm with Shea. I don't think this rises above the general tide of potential abuse the way a few other terms that have required sitewide action do.