Peacemaker7

It's fine Kris, I can always claim it would have won SoTy

mark wilson27

Too right BenArsenal, people need to lighten up, The person who complaining in PM7's story is doing it from sour grapes in my opinion because he didn't like the advice given about his own story, but hey you cant please everyone.

Kris

It was people not person Mark, and I discounted the particular user you are talking about from the off.

I do browse this forum on a regular(ish) basis

mark wilson27

I realise you said people Kris, I understand were you coming from, Just the person that complained on his story was slightly grieved by a simple piece of advice that PM had offered in his story. But as you said you have discounted that persons view which is fair enough

HD

I would like to state at this juncture that I fully support the mods in their clampdown on PM7's subversive agenda.

SI Games is a highly respected and well liked company, generally, amongst the gaming public and it is only right that wee, skinny, baldy, speccy Jocko eejits like PM7 not be allowed to offend and upset the gaming community.

I hope he ****s off because he is a ****ing *****.

HD

TO be serious, momentarily, I believe that the distinction between truth and fiction is pretty obvious. If a character in a story holds an expresses a blatanly racist and highly offensive seto of views, does that make the story offensive?

In my view it does not. Characters will all have traits, positive and negative. It's part of writing. If the SI company policy is that nothing is to be written in any story that may be construed as offensive, I think it's pretty important that we know now before we are all banned!

FMS has always been self-policing, and the overt intercession of an 'outside' mod is a big deal around here. Is there a reason this matter wasn't simply referred to Mark and Terk? However inoccuous the initial intent, to come on to what the regulars here consider 'our patch', due to the time and effort, in many cases significant, that has been spent building up the community and the forum, and law down the law, however gently, is not going to be taken lightly.

Can we have some clarification please?

Amaroq

Wow. I can understand both points of view in this, very well.

First, in my position as "officer of a company", I can utterly empathize with the point Kris makes here:
Americans are always very big on "Freedom of Speech", but just because I have the freedom to say something, doesn't mean SI are required to publish it, which is what this forum is - effectively - a forum in which SI hosts and publishes our freely-contributed fiction.

In that, I think Kris has the right of it , as much as it pains me to say so.

In fact, SI could well be opening themselves up to legal action for publishing "hate speech". Deciding what is and is not acceptable in this forum might actually be a job for Sega Legal, not us-the-constitutents.

That's a very sad state of affairs, and I think a sad commentary on our society.

For PM's first-post comment,
I don't think its a new issue.

Personally, in Sharpening a Rusty Blade I had an entire story-line written in which, during Tappa's incredible run, we encountered racism at away grounds; and in fact, racism was a component of the sale of the player for as cheap a price as he fetched.

In the story, the main character expressed shock and dismay, using his status as an "uncultured American" to highlight the absurdity of racist behaviors and attitudes. The team rallied around Tappa, and his eventual status as a team leader was essential to the squad's success.

I ripped all of that back out before posting, because:

a.) I wasn't sure it wouldn't encounter resistance from the mods and community - (especially of concern as a first-story author).

b.) I didn't want to offend the fans of specific teams by "setting" racist behavior in their grounds (I did do research to find out which clubs had a reputation for such.)

c.) I thought it might be too mature a topic for the audience, and

d.) I thought SI might not want to publish it.

In Five by Five, the passage
Originally included the word "dark" -
I was using to set up a Nigerian-heritage Englishman "accepting" his Nigerian heritage, and did in fact use the word "dark" in the later passage:
Some people might find the word "dark" to be offensive as a descriptor of skin colour, in any circumstances.

On the other hand, what other adjectives are there? To call out skin colour as important, which it was to the character's development, takes highlighting the character's race, and requires an adjective or two to describe it!

That said .. I treated that passage with exceptional care and self-censorship, despite the nominally lighthearted bantering tone of the rest of the story.

I use these as examples because it provides a concrete example of two things:

1. That the "threat of censorship" is already present and impacting the content of those two stories, because I modified them as a result of it.

2. That there certainly are valid storylines which address a key component of modern society. We aren't going to deal with racism, as a society, if we try to sweep it under the rug and pretend it doesn't exist.

Both of those were attempting to address racism in a "serious" approach.

Humour is also a valid approach; if we're not going to tolerate it, we have to apply that to the serious as well..

.. and if we do allow it, there will always be some writers "pushing at the boundaries" of what is acceptable, or exceeding them in an exaggerated way to make a satirical point (c.f. Jonathon Swift's A Modest Proposal).

I don't know what the answer is, either for a society or for this forum.

To the point
I think that's part of why these stories aren't economically viable; to write praise and flattery of players and have it meaningful, there has to also be criticism .. and its especially entertaining for both reader and writer to "slate" players when taking over a team.

Unless you happen to know or be one of said players, in which case it would be extremely offensive.

I think that, at least, has to be considered "an accepted part of the genre", or we won't be able to fault our players .. or we'll have to all write with fictitious player-names.

Which ..

.. maybe we should be doing to begin with.



Tough debate. Tough issues. Tough questions.

I look forward to hearing what the rest of the community thinks about it.

Terk

Americans are always very big on "Freedom of Speech", but just because I have the freedom to say something, doesn't mean SI are required to publish it, which is what this forum is - effectively - a forum in which SI hosts and publishes our freely-contributed fiction.

In that, I think Kris has the right of it , as much as it pains me to say so.

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As I've said earlier in the thread, Amaroq, I simply don't buy into the fact that this is a particular concern of SI/Sega. If it was, and there was true concern about the sort of thing PM posted in his story, their policing of the forums would be far more intensive, particularly in OTF.

I mean, in that place there really are some objectionable/offensive/defamatory comments made on almost a daily basis. If SI/Sega were truly worried about the forums tarnishing their image or getting them into legal difficulty, this place simply would not exist - or not in its current form at least.

Whilst I am in no way questioning the fact that, from a legal standpoint, anything defamatory, etc, could be held against SI/Sega, I am questioning the fact that that is of serious concern to them, given their actions in allowing the forums to run as they do. And given what they have let pass in the past, and no doubt will in the future, I do not accept that "it could get us into trouble" is a valid argument in this case.

Amaroq

That's a fair point, Terk, and of course I come to it with the litiginous American perspective - everything's a potential lawsuit!

HD

But what is the lawsuit? The views of a fictional character? By definition that character, and therefore his opinions do not exist. That opinion is not held or expressed by any legal entity.