Is it acceptable for posters to call others "whales"? This is a purely insulting and derogatory term that is used to insult people who have discretionary income to spend on things they enjoy, simply because the person calling them a "whale" is mad that they aren't getting it for free and can't afford it.
If this is allowed, it shouldn't be.
The term is fairly standard in the microtransaction industry, and I can't see us banning it as a result. If used to obviously disparage someone that's a different situation we'll handle as the circumstance dictates.
AFAIK; directly insulting people by calling them "whales" is against the rules, however there are use cases that are borderline (such as making indirect comments about "whales", such as "whales influence Riot's commercial behavior"), and there's also what I believe to be an acceptable usage case, which is discussing pricing and the like with mention or reference to "whales".
I could almost certainly be wrong on the latter two examples, but I do think that it's one of those things that, while disparaging and insulting to a degree, has some valid use cases and would be moderated on such a basis.
When we review words to see if they should be added to the list, we look at a couple of things:
How bad is the word to the people most affected by it? Examples of this are the slang terms for the Roma and for having been cheated by a Roma. Most people don't know the origins of these terms, but they're no less offensive because of it. We don't allow either despite the common perception they aren't highly racist.
Does the word have a common, innocuous meaning? We don't censor "bitch" because it's sometimes used in the context of complaining. We would remove it when we note it being used as an insult. This is true for a number of racial and ethnic insults (a "%%%%%" in the armor, my house is "%%%%" and span, etc.). It's worth noting that "r%%%%%ed" was only added to the filter after a couple of weeks of fairly intense debate. People argued that it can mean "delayed in development or progression", but were challenged to find a use in that context. Truth is, it's very nearly always "that's r%%%%%ed", which is useless as a point of discussion, or "you're r%%%%%ed", which is obviously an attack.
Is the word commonly understood as offensive? The NA Boards have to be open to all regions because this is where the Rioters are. In general, we lean towards "is it offensive or insulting anywhere?" This is how British slang terms for cigarettes and female genitalia are reviewed, for example.
So, let's come back around to "whale". Moderating this the way you suggest presents a couple of problems.
I've never heard of someone objecting to being called a whale in the sense of regularly spending a lot of money on something. This is how casinos regularly refer to their high rollers. If we noticed someone using it in a derogatory way with regard to someone's weight or size, that would be moderated based on the general guidelines.
The word has a perfectly innocuous meaning. It would be really awkward to go to GD and see a thread titled, "I went on a cruise and saw some w%%%%s."
Again, yours is the very first complaint I've ever heard with regard to the term, so I don't really feel it's as much of a problem as you're making it out to be. As always, if you can find an example of a pejorative use on the Boards that would not be subject to traditional moderation, link it to me in the Discord and I'll take a look.
We are reaching levels of woke never seen before.
I love whales.
And more.
I also feel like identifying as a Sperm Whale today. So please, address as such or maybe just Whale for short. 😄
It's a blanket term referring to large spenders. It's just a word with no connotation behind it. It's the context in the rest of the sentence that would denote a negative or positive spin on it.
Also, I think that people willing to spend lots of money have other more important things to do with their time then be offended by the term whale.
Like enjoying the stuff they bought, for one.
It's a careful line to draw. There is nothing inherently wrong with being a whale except that maybe we as a people need to spend our money on better things. It is hard to see a game cater to whales, because it means they are spending energy on things for high value customers or making things pay to win(FFRK has big whale hooks, but the game works well for non whales)
It's more that the people who fill this space foster some possibly bad but necessary for profitability design. And if they didn't exist, more energy would be spent on the mid range spenders.
Everyone hates lawyers, but lawyer itself isn't an insult. But you can totally make lawyer an insult through context.
what i think is insulting is people think that people are to stupid to have self control over their budget/finances. and the fact that people think no one has a job and earn $$$ and can chose to buy whatever da fuk they want if they chose so. then those same people think riot is wrong for being a for profit company and evil by releasing content to make money.
