New Rule: Replace the Word "Lynch" in Games

[Umlaut]

This would be a

brave stand to take

if it had been made ten years ago. Making it

now

is obviously a concession and not any kind of stand at all. I accept the concession because I guess it's good for the site to continue existing.

Cop > Doxxer
Lynch > Cancel
Scum > Problematic

Problem solved.

I doxxed Albert B. Rampage last night and discovered he is problematic! We need to cancel him today.

VOTE: Albert B. Rampage

Doctor please protect me tonight.

Planning to exclusively use this terminology in my next game

[Umlaut]

You are surprised that you can't predict my opinions on all aspects of culture war issues based on my believing that black lives matter?

[Umlaut]

I have an idea

How about all the people who hate this new rule can strawman all the people who love it

And all the people who love this new rule can strawman all the people who hate it

And then we can all just take turns hurling absurd misrepresentations of the opposing view at one another for the next ten pages

[Umlaut]

I have an idea

How about all the people who hate this new rule can strawman all the people who love it

And all the people who love this new rule can strawman all the people who hate it

And then we can all just take turns hurling absurd misrepresentations of the opposing view at one another for the next ten pages

Wait isnt that just playing mafia?

It's totally different, because in this case we stop after ten pages

[Umlaut]

I have an idea

How about all the people who hate this new rule can strawman all the people who love it

And all the people who love this new rule can strawman all the people who hate it

And then we can all just take turns hurling absurd misrepresentations of the opposing view at one another for the next ten pages

Most slurs I'm aware of don't have a legitimate utility within a language that has little to nothing to do with any sort of prejudicial or discriminatory views. I'm also not aware of a particularly large sum of slurs, however.

Ah yes, legitimate utility. That's why dropping the word "chink" all over the forum is fine.

No wait, the opposite of that.

Thanks for joining my game!

[Umlaut]

I'm going with "launch"

[Umlaut]

Serious question (meaning I genuinely don't know the answer): is "hang" permitted?

I'm not interested in opening a debate here on whether it

should

be permitted, just asking whether it

is

.

[Umlaut]

I suggest the word "hang" as a replacement.

This is not to step on the list moderators' toes, as I am posting as a user right now: hanging is a notorious means of lynching, so it will carry the same racially charged connotation.

This seems like an opinion on whether it should be allowed, rather than a statement on whether it is.

[Umlaut]

Can we stop having bad faith arguments that just because a word didn't always have racial connotations it means that we can use it freely?

Probably not

[Umlaut]

Enter this doesn't even affect mods.
It affects the players more because as players, its very likely to still use the word "lynch" due to the fact that we've been using it for years and we type it in the scenarios that its appropriate w/o even thinking about it.

Except that there is no rule that players can't use the word.

[Umlaut]

Enter this doesn't even affect mods.
It affects the players more because as players, its very likely to still use the word "lynch" due to the fact that we've been using it for years and we type it in the scenarios that its appropriate w/o even thinking about it.

Except that there is no rule that players can't use the word.

oh shit really then I have no problem with the rule cause it doesn't affect me then.

This is the funniest take I've seen yet

If a rule doesn't affect me personally there is no reason to care about it

[Umlaut]

Hypothetical Scenario

:

Someone has a fun time playing mafia or werewolf or some variation thereof in a real life setting. They decide to go see if anyone is putting together these games online and stumble upon the site. But upon getting into their first newbie game, they discover everyone is talking about "lynching" each other. Sure, it's just a game, but this person is still made a bit uncomfortable with all the talk of lynching people. Still, they complete their first game, but the feeling of unease sours the experience. They do not return to the site.

For people against this rule:

• Do you accept that this hypothetical
  could
  happen?
  
• How many times does it have to happen before you think the rule makes sense to impose?

Disclaimer: I'm not super against this rule, I'm just not sure it does anything useful at all (aside from evading the gaze of Tumblr, which I concede is a worthy goal all on its own). I've already said I'm going to follow it.

Could in principle happen, yes. Is likely to happen, no. All kinds of things

could

happen but we usually make policy based on what we think is probable, not merely conceivable.

I don't know the answer to the second question. In particular I don't know whether the answer changes based on whether something is a "legitimate" source of unease (such as discomfort with the word lynch) vs. an "illegitimate" one (such as discomfort with the high tolerance for AtE and outright rudeness in games, or something else unusual about the site culture).

[Umlaut]

Here's a bit of perspective to understand why people might be surprised and confused by this change:

I was born and raised in the bluest of blue states. I have regarded myself as overall socially progressive for pretty much my entire life. The circles I hang around in lean quite far left and social-justicey. And I

know

about the history of race-based lynchings in the United States, both past and present, and that it's still a fear people have today.

Despite all of that I did not realize until I think this year that any significant number of people attach racial connotations to the word "lynch" itself. It wasn't even on my radar. This could be because I'm a complete dumbass who fails to notice obvious things, but I think a more plausible hypothesis is that

this is an easy thing to miss

for a lot of people. They have never thought of the word in that way, and they haven't been exposed to lots of people thinking of or using the word in that way, and so it just seems obvious to them that it has no such connotation at all. Just as it seems obvious to others here that

of course

it has that connotation.

Given that people's viewpoints don't feel internally like their viewpoints but just like obvious truths about how the world is, it's not surprising the announcement of a rule like this would be contentious. If you don't attach any racial connotations to the word 'lynch' then the idea of it having those connotations seems absurd and like people are just making up problems that aren't there--but it's not absurd, people really do interpret the word that way. And if you do attach those connotations, the idea that anyone could deny them just seems like being willfully obtuse -- but they're not, the word genuinely does not mean anything like that in their idiolect.

Tl;dr: Communication is hard

[Umlaut]

So considering the soviet origins of this lil party game I suggest purge?

This is honestly the first suggestion I've unironically liked.

[Umlaut]

Ftr: after having conversations with some humans in my vicinity I realize that this is probably overall a good idea despite my feelings of annoyance about it.

I still hate standardizing on 'eliminate' but I'll get used to it if that's what's happening (though purge is so, so much better).

[Umlaut]

also those of you who are bitching about us not wanting the site administration to condone using a word that, best-case scenario, extra-judicial killing by a mob and in popular parlance in the united states a word that means the murder of a person of color by a mob of white people for the crime of not being white: get dunked on, nerds.

Extra-judicial killing by a mob is exactly the flavor I am looking for a way to hold onto without the racially charged connotations.

[Umlaut]

I don't think the mods are suggesting people on mafiascum are using lynch in a secret-racist way and using the non-racial definition as cover to do so, and the mod move here is to stop them in their tracks.

I think it is more that outsiders or people joining the site will see it and think less of the site and less of the people on it. This is a great community with great people and the simple fact is that I often simply do not feel comfortable recommending this site to people who I know will enjoy it. Because for a lot of people, especially people who might be new to mafia/played it in a different format (werewolf, Town of Salem, etc.) signing onto a site and seeing a giant noose in the logo and lynch thrown around liberally is not going to make them go "Oh, this is just their own little quirk, let me stick around and acclimate to it so it doesn't bother me anymore". It is going to make them go "What the fuck creepy ass site is this that has a noose in the logo and is obsessed with lynching people in the year 2020" and I do not want my IRL reputation burned by having them come to the site and thinking less of me for it. I love mafiascum, obviously, I've been here for nearly 20 years. I just beg for the day I can talk about it without feeling the need to go "Ok, so, before I tell you the site you have to understand they aren't racist, the lynching and the noose is just an aesthetic of the game."

A shorter version of the above is "this action has been taken primarily out of fear of how we will be perceived by outsiders, rather than as any sort of substantial blow against racism"

I mean, cool, how we are perceived by outsiders does actually matter contrary to what some might think, but if I were to just write the above sentence in its own post it would be taken as a criticism and not as an explanation.

[Umlaut]

okay hear me out
what if
I want to play a game of mafia
and not have to have politics shoved down my throat
because when I want to play mafia
I want to escape from the real world political drama

Then go play that game, and pretend you just learned about Mafia yesterday and never heard of this change and just happen to be playing a game where the elimination mechanic is flavored as "eliminate" or "expel" or "blow up" or whatever it happens to be for the one you're in.

[Umlaut]

The only reasonable replacement here is

yeeted

yote

[Umlaut]

Kind of seems like people are imputing opinions to Nero that he hasn't expressed, because he had a quibble regarding the details of the word's historical origin

[Umlaut]

Kind of seems like people are imputing opinions to Nero that he hasn't expressed, because he had a quibble regarding the details of the word's historical origin

It's almost like he shouldn't have had a quibble like that in the first place

Why not?

I mean, it's kind of tangential to the actual point of whether the use of the word does harm in the here and now, I'll agree with that. But if the origin is irrelevant and not worth quibbling about, then it was just as irrelevant when Lycanfire, to whom he was replying, brought it up in the first place.

edit

wow a lot of other replies got posted but I'll just leave this as is and we can pretend it was ten posts up from here

[Umlaut]

Creature, I wonder if you know what 'connotation' means, or possibly if you think words have intrinsic connotations as opposed to consensus ones. People are saying right in this thread that the word does have that connotation for them.