We’re going to let the TOs use discretion here. Of course there is a hazy line between what reasonably constitutes offensive behavior and what doesn’t, but I think we’re mature enough to only complain when something is really bothersome. We have to walk a fine line between making the policy strong-worded enough that people won’t be afraid to say anything because no one will listen to them if they’re actually offended and making it not so strong-worded that people live in fear of being called out for something they consider to be AOK. If you tell someone that they can’t come to the TO before first confronting the offender, it creates a situation where people are far less likely to say something (because the policy is effectively to tell people to deal with it themselves).
@Larro, you are blowing the possibility of someone getting punished for marginal behavior way out of proportion. We can use reason and judgement to make sure abuses don’t happen. People don’t like to make a scene or escalate conflicts, and it’s going to be rare someone reports something that doesn’t truly fuck with them and even rarer that someone gets punished severely for something that isn’t so bad.
The policy is not to give someone a 2-strikes-youre-out style warning any time someone complains about anything.
As the policy currently stands, I think there is a difference. The deck scouting rules themselves I don’t believe are likely to create a intolerant atmosphere, or the appearance of one.
It’s not about switching playmats for the day, it’s about the impression that this code itself creates. A welcoming and tolerant community will expect that you point out your personal unease first, before getting accusatory. An expectation to intuit and conform to the sum of a communities personal subjective foibles, on pain of censure and exclusion, can look very much like cliquey group-think, and the very opposite of welcoming and inclusive!
This is not the expectation. Of course you can’t know just what’s going to offend everyone and everyone is going to make mistakes. The expectation is that if you do something that offends someone inadvertently and are informed of what it was, you will make an effort to discontinue that behavior. Expulsion from events is reserved for players who are flagrantly offensive or who are unrepentant and unreceptive to warnings.
I don’t know whether it might be best to have the “preferred” option being for people to ask the TO to inform the player whose behaviour is causing upset (with the option to do so yourself if you really want)?
Not that NYC currently has an ANRPC event anyway (not sure if there’s one up and coming?), but I couldn’t imagine any of the people I play with having issues with the Code or doing anything out of line that would make someone else feel uncomfortable.
I admit that there is a small amount of “blowing it out of proportion” going on here, but stress-testing vague guidelines is a necessity IMO. I’m really just throwing hypos out there.
At the end of the day, table talk and custom playmats/sleeves are all part of the hobby and part of the individual. I don’t want to live in a world where we all use generic playmats and KMC Hyper Matte sleeves!
You’re missing the point and slippery slope fallacies are really unproductive. There are people who won’t go into a game store for valid reasons and some people don’t want to hear about it.
Oh, I appreciate that it isn’t the intention, but it’s the way the current document comes across (or can come across, maybe). As I said a few posts above, I don’t think it would need that much of a tweak to the wording to avoid that. Primarily, there is no mention of the “and are informed of” bit in your ‘dispute resolution’ section which gives the impression that behaviour which one person happens to be personally offended by ought to need no more explanation than behaviour which is patently obviously out-of-order to any right-thinking person. It may be that there’s a philosophical desire not to put any requirement whatsoever on the person feeling offended, but I really do think you need a bit about the first step being specifically letting people know (through the conduit of a TO maybe) that you’re upset about something, if people couldn’t necessarily be expected to realise that a particular behaviour might cause upset. Apart from anything else, it would hopefully let people know that it doesn’t have to be an uncategorically-over-the-line, horribly offensive thing for them to call the TO and invoke the Almighty-Wrath-of-the-Conduct-Code™, but give people confidence that a strictly non-accusatory “I’d really rather you didn’t do X” (through the TO or otherwise) should be expected to lead to X stopping with no hard feelings on either side.
I just think that you can tweak the wording slightly to emphasise that a collaborative, tolerant and friendly approach on all sides is by far the best wherever possible. I would hate for a code on tolerance and inclusivity to come over as any more confrontational and uncharitable than was strictly necessary!
I don’t think we’re well served by repeating the brouhaha the Magic community went through recently when they implemented similar rules for Organized Play.
Seriously, we’ve had all the same comments worrying about witch hunts and false accusations.
So most of the actual women we’ve heard from about this seem to be in full favor of it. That’s who we’re trying to empower here, so it seems to me we’re on the right path.
If you’re just some guy who’s honestly worried you might get unjustly kicked out of a freaking Netrunner tournament because of this, then it’s time to grow up. This isn’t about you.
In the spirit of “see something, say something”, can I say that’s absolutely out of order.
Differentially weighting the importance of people’s feelings according to their gender has no place in any inclusive, fun, card game-playing community that I would like to be a part of.
There definitely won’t be a wave, but some person may get a grudge against someone else and manipulate the rules to get at them. For example, if someone turns out to be a tea-partyist or neo-nazi secretly, but it never appears in the way they play or treat other people at tournaments, I’m sure there’s a way you could use the CoC to ban them, even when they didn’t hurt anyone.
I think the benefits of the CoC vastly outweigh that risk in this particular case, but it is something you can’t dismiss with sarcasm.
This attitude is the one thing in the thread I really take issue with - there has to be a balance somewhere - you can’t just completely ignore fairness and reasonableness and kindness, or insult anyone with completely reasonable worries, just because they’re not part of your favorite group. The Code of Conduct should be “about” everybody.
Good. You’re trying to sell it as a bad thing, but “Personally advocates for the murders of people he’s pretending to be nice to” is a good reason to ban them from community events. I seriously can’t believe “But what about the nazis” is an actual thing that needs to be considered. Any community that even for a second acts like allowing a nazi in it is an OK thing to do is a worthless community that supports hatred and violence.
If there’s good reason to suspect the person is a danger to those around them, then yeah. But if there isn’t, then they deserve, regardless of their status as moral-less scum, the fundamental human right to freedom of thought and association.
P.S. Point proven (that abuse of the rules may happen)
Nah, I don’t want to be part of a community that welcomes people like this. Honestly, I’m not sure that I want to share a community with people who think that wanting to exclude Nazis is abusive.
Not at all. I’m saying that your opinion toward Nazis is similar to what someone many years ago would think about homosexuals. (assuming the Nazi in particular doesn’t harm anyone)