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"autist" censored?

PostPosted: Wednesday, 23rd November 2016, 18:08
by removeelyvilon
I appologize in advance if this is in the wrong section but I didn't know where to post this because it is not about the forum itself - it is about the comment section in https://crawl.develz.org/wordpress/craw ... ugh-memory.

I noticed something strange. Comment number 7 is from a person nicknamed "a****t". But a few days ago, it read "autist". Note that this has nothing to do with what that person wrote.

My question is why or how this happened? If, for the off-chance that this word was cencored, I hereby humbly ask you to undo that.

Autist is not a swear word. Treating it like one would only feed the horrible internet (and sadly, also real life) trend of using "autist", "autistic", "asperger" etc. as an insult.

Autistic people are not stupid, they are not unable to cry, they are not unable to love, they are not unable to feel compassion, they are not indifferent egomaniacs,
or "fullfil" any other malevolent prejudices and misconceptions that ignorant people may have.

Thank you.

Re: "autist" censored?

PostPosted: Wednesday, 23rd November 2016, 21:18
by chequers
There are many words which are not inherently bad words but which are routinely misused by the internet. "Autist" is one of them.

Having said that, ***ing it out seems weird. I would have preferred deleting it.

Re: "autist" censored?

PostPosted: Tuesday, 29th November 2016, 17:04
by removeelyvilon
chequers wrote:There are many words which are not inherently bad words but which are routinely misused by the internet. "Autist" is one of them.

Having said that, ***ing it out seems weird. I would have preferred deleting it.


In this particular instance however, I cannot see it being used as an insult at all. It doesn't read "you (insult), (insult), (insult) autist. It's just a nickname.
And why remove it? How would that even work? Then "nobody" made a comment? A voice from the off? Doesn't make much sense to me.

Re: "autist" censored?

PostPosted: Tuesday, 29th November 2016, 19:21
by archaeo
The Tavern moderators are not the ones who oversee the blog's comment section. I honestly have no idea who does that, probably one of the devs.

That said, I agree with chequers. I would've removed the comment and emailed/PM'd the user to let them know they need to change their username to post here. If someone registered a username like that on Tavern, I would probably do just that.

I agree wholeheartedly with your comments on the stigmatization of autism, but I think usernames like "autist" also contribute to said stigma, especially given its common uses in the wider gaming community. Language like that defines a person by their psychological differences first and foremost; it's virtually the same thing as calling someone a "retard," as far as I'm concerned.

Re: "autist" censored?

PostPosted: Tuesday, 29th November 2016, 19:41
by Shtopit
If it were possible to stop registration if the username makes the filter activate, it would solve the core problem (usernames as *******)

As for autistic being an insult (I don't really use autist, in my language it would mean taxi driver, but in general I don't think it's standard English?), I guess it can be. In general, using it as a username is like making fun of the autistic, so it's a sort-of-racist behaviour. It's like having HIV-Positive as username, I don't think I'd allow it.

The fact that I have only found "autist" used as an insult (unlike autistic, which has its legitimate uses) makes me think at least this variant should be filtered. After all, this is a gamer forum, it's not like we need to routinely discuss health disorders.

Re: "autist" censored?

PostPosted: Tuesday, 29th November 2016, 19:44
by archaeo
I've never messed with the registration filter, but in general, we have few enough users that dealing with people on a case-by-case basis tends to do the trick.

Re: "autist" censored?

PostPosted: Friday, 2nd December 2016, 14:42
by Sphara
There is a word I used here that had been used dozens of times for a metaphor of dying a brutal YASD in this forum back when I joined.

When I used it somewhat recently (read six to sixteen months, i don't remember), it got censored and I had some brief PM talk with moderators about using the word.

Not saying anything about how to run this forum or anything but I DID NOT KNOW THAT WAS BAD BECAUSE I HAD SEEN IT USED SO MANY TIMES!

Re: "autist" censored?

PostPosted: Friday, 2nd December 2016, 22:05
by chequers
That's easy to explain:
Image

(Also, sanitising the whole forum history would be a horrible job that nobody wants to do)

Re: "autist" censored?

PostPosted: Saturday, 3rd December 2016, 05:49
by Sphara
Thank you for making an earnest comment looking like it was made by an infantile.

This was few years ago, not around WW2.

Re: "autist" censored?

PostPosted: Saturday, 3rd December 2016, 08:32
by chequers
What I'm saying is: bad things were said in the past. That fact people are tricked by this history into thinking certain words are ok is a problem, but it's a problem with the forum having junk in its history, not with the people who were tricked.

Yes, the bad history is recent, when it comes to crawl.

Re: "autist" censored?

PostPosted: Thursday, 8th December 2016, 20:05
by johlstei
Rename him "likes trains".

Re: "autist" censored?

PostPosted: Monday, 12th December 2016, 13:50
by ZipZipskins
Yeah, rename them to an oft-repeated stereotype about autistic people, that'll show them!

Re: "autist" censored?

PostPosted: Tuesday, 3rd January 2017, 21:17
by johlstei
Yeah that was in poor taste, sorry.

Re: "autist" censored?

PostPosted: Thursday, 5th January 2017, 04:46
by Arrhythmia
rename everyone that trains rock