New US law SESTA/FOSTA ban specific user content. Severe penalties for webmasters

[truthingtotruth]

It shouldn't be a surprise that I'm a bit confused about something because I am so frequently confused about all sorts of stuff, but what minority group are you referring to?

And that "given time" thingy - - - when was anything but Mister used to address a male member of the humans folks on Earth? Well, unless "sir" was required because of a status thing in some cultures that have that style.

And that last sentence - - - are you indicating that for twenty years you have always been thinking about using gender-neutral forms of addressing people when using the Net? Of course, "they" is a very useful pronoun, but so is "he" and "she" and ...

Well, like I wrote, I'm a bit confused by what you are posting up there. But thank you for helping me out when you have time to answer.

Wait ..., thinking of cultures, we use Smith-san in Japanese and that "san" is certainly gender neutral, but when switching to just English and especially in business, we also switch to the standards of Mr. / Ms. and so on.

Oh yes, I still do not understand what replaces that Mr. and Mrs. and Ms.? I'm afraid I am not understanding that use of "Mix" and assume I . . . well, I just don't get it.

 

[zappaDPJ]

It shouldn't be a surprise that I'm a bit confused about something because I am so frequently confused about all sorts of stuff, but what minority group are you referring to?

Any minority group that is deserving of equal status with the so call majority e.g. equal rights for women, the disabled, homosexuals, people of color. The list is endless and there are still many areas of the world that discriminate against the few groups I've just mentioned.

And that "given time" thingy - - - when was anything but Mister used to address a male member of the humans folks on Earth? Well, unless "sir" was required because of a status thing in some cultures that have that style.

In time nobody will use the term 'fireman' because it suggests all firefighters are men.

And that last sentence - - - are you indicating that for twenty years you have always been thinking about using gender-neutral forms of addressing people when using the Net? Of course, "they" is a very useful pronoun, but so is "he" and "she" and ...

Of course 'he' and 'she' are useful, providing you know their use is appropriate. But who am I? A 'he' or a 'she'?

Oh yes, I still do not understand what replaces that Mr. and Mrs. and Ms.? I'm afraid I am not understanding that use of "Mix" and assume I . . . well, I just

They don't need replacing, you just need to be mindful you are using the term appropriately.

 

[truthingtotruth]

It seemed to me that there were a group of individuals that do wish to remove those from being used in situations that I am not clearly understanding:

Likewise, teachers would refer to themselves and parents using the gender neutral prefix "mix", rather than Mr, Mrs, or Ms.

Hence, my request for clarification.

Oh yes, that was a sentence quoted from a post just a few above this one and yours. Not too far up there.

 

[mysiteguy]

Any minority group that is deserving of equal status with the so call majority e.g. equal rights for women, the disabled, homosexuals, people of color. The list is endless and there are still many areas of the world that discriminate against the few groups I've just mentioned.


In time nobody will use the term 'fireman' because it suggests all firefighters are men.

While I agree on some levels, I think things like this can often stray into being rather silly for the sake of being "woke" rather than any harm, offense or ambiguity of meaning actually occurring. English tends to be a shortcut language, and fireman is generally understood to mean "human".

It reminds me of a few years ago when some people suggested "personhole cover" instead of manhole cover. Its almost as if some people are looking for a reason to be offended.

 

[truthingtotruth]

I think "personhole cover" it kind of cute. I suppose my long absence from North America meant I didn't catch that one, so this is the first time I have seen that.

 

[zappaDPJ]

While I agree on some levels, I think things like this can often stray into being rather silly for the sake of being "woke" rather than any harm, offense or ambiguity of meaning actually occurring. English tends to be a shortcut language, and fireman is generally understood to mean "human".

It reminds me of a few years ago when some people suggested "personhole cover" instead of manhole cover. Its almost as if some people are looking for a reason to be offended.

I agree although I think sometimes it's the silly extremes that make people sit up and take notice. It's really a question of finding a sensible balance.

 

[Wes of StarArmy]

I think "personhole cover" it kind of cute. I suppose my long absence from North America meant I didn't catch that one, so this is the first time I have seen that.

I know this is kind of a tangent for I feel like "portal cover" would be a solid name for them.

 

[Pete]

Y'all should come into the RP corners I've inhabited in the last couple of years - the rpg-directory.com and the cttw.jcink.net corners and the sites you'll find from there. It's amazing what you'll learn about gender identity and representation thereof.

 

[Wes of StarArmy]

Y'all should come into the RP corners I've inhabited in the last couple of years - the rpg-directory.com and the cttw.jcink.net corners and the sites you'll find from there. It's amazing what you'll learn about gender identity and representation thereof.

What are you implying here? Do you have some sort of concern because I'm always willing to listen. Feel free to PM me. I used to be active on RPG-Directory when they used Xenforo but the interface really went downhill after they moved. No longer having RSS feeds also really killed my ability to keep up with conversations there.

 

[truthingtotruth]

I'm afraid I don't know what an RP corner is? And those two sites you make note of are for what purpose?

But the truth is, there are some much more serious issues in/on this planet than this recognition of a group of folks that are in many ways not financially in trouble and not in need of any medical assistance and --- well, you get the drift here, yes? There are some folks --- in some cases many, many folks that are in a very bad way and are actually dying because they can't get enough food, or can't get proper medical attention due to circumstances they have no control over.

My view is get the critical stuff fixed first and then start down the list to less serious troubles. I am very sorry, but this business of special folks in some advanced societies just isn't that critical at the moment. In fact, because of Covid and now the possibility of wheat harvests being very poor this season those other folks I made note of are going to be in even tougher times.

I mean, if you really care about helping folks, then where around here is the discussion about helping those that are way deeper in trouble than some group like folks seem so bent on discussing in this thread?

And now I see some banner that states another post has been put up ...

 

[Pete]

What are you implying here? Do you have some sort of concern because I'm always willing to listen. Feel free to PM me. I used to be active on RPG-Directory when they used Xenforo but the interface really went downhill after they moved. No longer having RSS feeds also really killed my ability to keep up with conversations there.

The likes of the RPG-D (and especially Caution to the Wind) are... shall we say hypersensitive to inclusivity. And possibly not in a good way. It was more of a side-eye comment of 'if you think this is complicated, come see parts of the RP world that make this look tame'.

There's a lot of movement back and forth on what is currently considered appropriate and acceptable in terms of inclusivity in these spaces. To the point where trying to run a site that doesn't bend its setting and/or source material to be almost overly inclusive (i.e. applying 2020s morality to a non-2020s setting) is sacrilegious. The amount of hassle I got trying to run a Potter-related site set in Britain 1970 (interesting time in the canon, where not a lot is set in stone, leaving lots of room), while not being super-super-super OMG squee inclusive (because 1970 Britain... isn't), because people can't apparently separate out-of-character and in-character properly. (The dynamics of being a non-straight character in Britain 1970 are interesting to talk about because Britain 1970 had only just legalised homosexuality. This produces some rich space to explore how a character might evolve and react to that sort of thing and telling stories that can look at it in an exploratory and interesting way. Especially as some of the struggles are still ongoing and we can explore that too. Or not, because the mere idea is apparently Not Inclusive Enough for surprisingly many.)

And that's before we get into all the hangups about representation of race and colour and ethnicity, and how much research is appropriate to be done, and that if you pick an avatar that is 1/4 Arabic and 3/4 Brazilian you better represent that in the character etc. etc. This is before we get to the fact that to call 'black' a single ethnicity is erasure but to call 'white' a single ethnicity somehow isn't.

There are a lot of very strong-willed people there who are really doing the inclusivity movement a huge disservice in their attempts to be inclusive, including running over the opinions of people who are BIPOC in favour of their own views which are borderline white-knight/white-saviour in their attitude.

Gender fluidity is also much more freely expressed; not just in terms of his/her/he/she but all the other pronouns, the xe and xir and others, or whether you want to talk about demigenders, as well as demisexualities. On the one hand it's fantastic that a) these spaces exist where people aren't pushed into binaries of any of these things, b) that people feel comfortable owning their place in it and that c) these things don't need to begin with massive explanations about what these things *are*. But on the other hand, I sometimes wonder if some of the discussions launch into people claiming a label to feel part of something bigger rather than whether it's their actual orientation - these spaces have a statistically unlikely incidence of declared mental health issues, non-conforming genders and sexualities, statistically atypical distributions of ethnicities and so on.

Now, one can make the argument that this is because this is a self-selecting group that attracts these personality types and segments of society, but one can also make the argument that at least *some* of them are, to put it mildly, exaggerating.

This is not to say that all do. But a percentage is known to do so, to 'be special' or 'feel included' because these spaces however inadvertently are putting less-typical/more marginalised groups on a pedestal both directly and indirectly, and this also shows through in the writing and character creation, in that you can make a white, straight character and no-one cares. But make a character that is not white, OR not straight and you will be on the end of being told to make sure you do your research 'correctly' (and doubly so if you pick both). For some definition of correctly.

It lurches back and forth as people evolve the conversation on the nature of identity, both for themselves and the characters they produce, and the wider discourse around identity politics is also evolving. But I'm not convinced it's necessarily evolving in the right direction, because I see people that the community leaders (generally) claim to support, claim to create awareness of and create inclusive spaces for, then spectacularly failing to do just that. I'm mostly keeping my head down at the moment, watching to see how it unfolds.

I'm afraid I don't know what an RP corner is? And those two sites you make note of are for what purpose?

RP = roleplay, forums where a story environment is created and people sign up to collaboratively tell stories. They create characters, personas to tell stories with (such sites tend to support people with multiple accounts one way or another), and the forum serves as a hub for this to happen in.

RPG-D and CTTW as mentioned are roleplay forum directories, that is they are sites which list some of these other forums that are out there for storytelling. They also serve as discussion venues around what it means to roleplay (and/or collaboratively tell stories) and evolve the discouse on what comes from that. Creating a character and inhabiting it as a mindset to tell stories inevitably leads to a journey of self-discovery along the way on the part of the writer, and more than one of the participants of these sites has had a revelation in themselves of their identity - whether that's gender identity, sexual identity or whatever.

My comment was really a throwaway on the notion that over here we're talking about much more normalised and entrenched subjects - he/she vs them, but over there in those spaces, pronouns are generally pretty prominently displayed. Creating characters for storytelling that are atypical is encouraged (often unhealthily), to the point where creating more typical characters can be frowned upon.

It is also worth noting the demographics of these spaces vary wildly compared to what I can only call more traditional forum venues; statistically much (much) higher self-declared LGBTQ+ representation, but even that aside, the gender balance skews way away from the norm of other forums.

But the truth is, there are some much more serious issues in/on this planet than this recognition of a group of folks that are in many ways not financially in trouble and not in need of any medical assistance and --- well, you get the drift here, yes?

Yes, I will be honest, so many times in online discussions - of various types and genres, across many venues - I have trouble not rolling my eyes and thinking 'That's the worst problem you have right now? How nice it must be to be you.' Days like that remind me that I can be not very nice at times.

 

[truthingtotruth]

Thank you for the answer. I would never have guessed that was what was being referred to.

But it is quite interesting to me, because I don't need any role playing to understand some of the very deep problems associated with racial tension. Not at all. All you had to experience was being stationed overseas in a military unit in the early 70s and one would experience firsthand horrible racial tensions and not just black folks and white folks. Hispanics also were having serious troubles in those days in the U. S. armed forces. I saw some rather horrible stuff that U.S. citizens were doing to each other simply because of skin color. And one never forgets those things. Those early to mid 70s were very, very difficult days in the U.S. armed forces. And I made mention of overseas units because the pressure sometimes being overseas was added to the mix and made things, in some cases, even worse than in stateside units.

Anyway, thank you for that answer.

 

[Pete]

I suppose this is part of what makes me angry about it online. There are very real race, ethnic and associated problems out there, and none of this is helped by people who claim to crusade in their name, and wind up undermining them entirely.

 

[Nev_Dull]

My goodness. I have posted in some places around here about not really giving a hoot about right-left-middle in political stuff, but when teachers, or school boards start doing stuff like I am reading above about no use of "he' or "she" and no "Mrs. / Ms. / Miss / Mr. - - - well, that is so weird I will have to allow my very slow and old brain time to figure out how that improves the educational experience of a youngish human in a school where education is the key to why they are sitting in the classroom of that school.

Of course that was the message behind the message from those teachers. The state passed a law trying to prevent schools from telling children about gender roles outside the "traditional" male / female. However, in order to prevent the law from running afoul of the Constitution, they had to make it more generic. So this particular group of teachers reacted by aligning with the letter of law, successfully thwarting the intent to discriminate. It was a brilliant ploy that I hope catches on.

 

[Pete]

Gotta love malicious compliance.

 

[zathras]

Of course that was the message behind the message from those teachers. The state passed a law trying to prevent schools from telling children about gender roles outside the "traditional" male / female. However, in order to prevent the law from running afoul of the Constitution, they had to make it more generic. So this particular group of teachers reacted by aligning with the letter of law, successfully thwarting the intent to discriminate. It was a brilliant ploy that I hope catches on.

One thing i wonder is how many of these homophobic laws are suggested because of Karens who complain about their little bobby being exposed to LGBT parents, or inappropriate music like heavy metal music or trying to get video games banned, don't laugh. A attorney who has been disbarred a long time ago named Jack Thompson tried to ban video games for causing violence.

I wonder why don't Karens focus on the more important issues,like the homeless epidemic.

 

[Pete]

Because the homeless epidemic doesn’t really affect them personally. Their favourite son turning out to be gay/bi/trash affects them personally, but the homeless are people she can just walk past.

 

[sactown]

One thing i wonder is how many of these homophobic laws are suggested because of Karens who complain about their little bobby being exposed to LGBT parents, or inappropriate music like heavy metal music or trying to get video games banned, don't laugh. A attorney who has been disbarred a long time ago named Jack Thompson tried to ban video games for causing violence.

I wonder why don't Karens focus on the more important issues,like the homeless epidemic.

Yeah, if only other people would simply do what you want the world would be a better place right? Every tyrant in history agrees with that sentiment. The messy part about living in a democratic form of govt is your so called Karens get to have a vote, an opinion and a voice. They have rights no different than their neighbor. They want to have a say in what their kids are taught and exposed to in schools they pay for. Deriding and trying to dismiss people with pejoratives like ‘Karens’ isn’t going to make a segment of the population go away. Woke censorship may have some success in silencing them on the major social media platforms but they still have a voice in the voting booth, the govt meeting, the public square and the marketplace.

 

[Nev_Dull]

Deriding and trying to dismiss people with pejoratives like ‘Karens’ isn’t going to make a segment of the population go away.

This is very true. The only thing that will help is knowledge and education; ironically, the two things laws like this are trying to prevent. But as long as people continue to discuss the issues online, fighting ignorance and prejudice with truth and facts, perhaps some of it will get through.

 

[truthingtotruth]

Okay, firstly, I didn't even know there was any such use of that name Karen as a bad thing and if that is the case, I stand with the group that states it ain't cool to be using such language.

BUT there is something in that post just above about laws and education and now I am confused.

Is that meant to mean that my daughter or son receives a better educate in a classroom where the use of "she" and "he" is banned?

I mean, seriously, the banning of the vocabulary "she" and "he" improves an educational experience?

If anyone thinks that answer is "Yes." then I am afraid I am seriously lost.

There are male members of not only the human race, but also of a whole bunch of other animals on this good Earth. There are female members of the human race and also of other animal types on Earth. To somehow try and stuff that identification of folks and animals into some sort of funny bag and then try and throw that bag off some spaceship onto the surface of the Moon so we never use that language again is just way-way-way too much weird for me to understand.

I guess those children that graduate from a school that doesn't ID male and female folks aren't going to be entering any medical professions, right?