Out of curiosity since the punishment system is not directly the Tribunal

Z Statistic·Apr 1, 2016·4 votes·1,383 views

Does it have the adaptability of the Tribunal? Does the system reflect the community, or does the community reflect the system?

As an example, let's say that over the course of two or three seasons, the community doesn't give a shit about ethnic or racial slurs and treats them the same as telling someone 'you're a fucktard. Uninstall the game' as opposed to 'you're a [slur], uninstall the game.' The difference being that while both are rude and elicit a punishment of some kind after meeting a threshold, the former requires a pattern and multiple instances for maximum escalation (i.e. permaban) whereas, as far as I'm aware, using racial, sexist, or homophobic slurs is one-and-done; you're out of here (or at least escalates significantly more quickly than other language.)

In the event that the community comes to view these words as having similar gravitas, would the system adapt to reflect this change in culture, or would it remain a zero-tolerance offense?

29 Comments

CrisisEchoesApr 1, 20163 votes

the community reflects the system. The system was made with no regards to most of the community. It is what riot wants the game to be. Most people who disagree with this are just a buncha SJW's

Z StatisticApr 2, 20164 votes

Uh, no.

Before the Tribunal was shut down, Riot release some nice parameters and statistics about the Tribunal, showing that while players who participated in the Tribunal were significantly more likely to be well-behaved than others, their judgments on others were representative of the community as a whole. The new system was based off of this data.

CrisisEchoesApr 2, 20162 votes

[{quoted}](name=Menea Calais,realm=NA,application-id=ZGEFLEUQ,discussion-id=6EXXl7EZ,comment-id=00000000,timestamp=2016-04-02T00:00:03.905+0000)

Uh, no.

Before the Tribunal was shut down, Riot release some nice parameters and statistics about the Tribunal, showing that while players who participated in the Tribunal were significantly more likely to be well-behaved than others, their judgments on others were representative of the community as a whole. The new system was based off of this data.

Huh, I wonder why the community was toxic in the first place. Or any internet culture is. Think about the origins then youll understand that riot is the true system. The community didnt have a say in it. History shows the truth, not sjws who think theyre right when theyre not.

Z StatisticApr 2, 20162 votes

No, not all internet cultures are toxic or equally toxic. I've been playing video games long enough to tell you that. I know SJC have been in the mainstream for a long time, but they aren't time immemorial. That didn't take root until around 2011 or 2012. Plus, my policy, as I'm sure your policy, is that anarchy is not good. But the community should police itself. What was the Tribunal? The community policing itself.

The question is whether the new system reflects that flexibility or if the initial condition is baked into the coding, preventing it from adapting as well.

And besides, the Tribunal is more lenient than Riot employees doing the judgment. If the community as a whole (which is what you're saying when referring to the Tribunal) has been completely co-opted by SJC who will cry rape culture at the sight of a vaguely phallic symbol, what dos that make Riot since Riot has always been more strict than the community? Mega SJC before normal SJC even existed? There is oversensitiveness on the internet, but that doesn't mean the way to go is a no holds verbal slaughter.

PennsApr 2, 20161 votes

Well the "bunch of SJWs" are the people that participated in the Tribunal, so... yeah lel

The little phrase "fuckin %%%got" is used so often by so many people, but its just not meant in a homophobic way at all by most of them.

Z StatisticApr 2, 20163 votes

And yet when Riot conducted a survey to see how these self-selected participants punished vs players from a SRS, they found no significant differences. So unless the ENTIRETY of the League community is made up of SJC, your premise is incorrect. However, what might have occurred over the year is that normal people (not SJC) have been conditioned by the media to avoid being bigoted at all costs, so it might have played a factor in punishment severity.

PennsApr 2, 20161 votes

And the entire League community did that survey? Or just the SJWs? ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

I mean, the community already treats "%%%got" like a normal slur, so theres no reason to punish it like that..

Z StatisticApr 2, 20161 votes

Simple Random Sample.

If you're going to argue that the sample was compromised to an irredeemable level by an underwhelming minority of people purely by chance, then you might as well throw all statistical samples because they are also subjected to pure chance fucking them over.

PennsApr 2, 20161 votes

Still, no one in this community actually thinks "%%%got" is a homophobic word anymore except for maybe the kidz on this board lel. I like/accept gay people just as much as others, but when I call someone "fa.g", I am automatically homophobic?

o Maui oApr 2, 20162 votes

"The road to Hell is paved with good intentions", right? Your intentions are important, but they aren't the whole story. You can't remove all the cultural and emotional baggage associated with a hateful slur, so using it is, at best, extremely insensitive. And at some point, whether or not you actively hate gay people becomes less relevant than whether or not you are actively causing them harm, either directly with your words or indirectly by fostering an environment where it is considered acceptable to use hateful language.

Z StatisticApr 2, 20161 votes

Unless the speaker is black or gay. Then saying nig or %%% is totes ok. It's one thing to talk about the authority of words and how they can affect people. It's off the deep end crazy to imply that words have innate power.

o Maui oApr 2, 20161 votes

Unless the speaker is black or gay. Then saying nig or %%% is totes ok.

No, it's not.

Some people are okay with hearing slurs under certain circumstances. That doesn't mean that someone of a certain race or sexual identity can use a slur that historically targeted their group, whenever and wherever they choose, because some people are not okay with those same slurs under those same circumstances.

It's one thing to talk about the authority of words and how they can affect people. It's off the deep end crazy to imply that words have innate power.

Words have only the power that we give them.

Z StatisticApr 2, 20161 votes

No, they CAN do it. They CHOOSE not to do it because it lacks tact when interacting with others. But what is this 'historical' bullshit? Are we going to prevent people from saying 'spook' and 'crow' in their verbal and animal forms because they have also been historically used as slurs?

Forget the historical usage; what does it mean now.

o Maui oApr 2, 20161 votes

Right now they are unacceptable slurs due to their deep racist/homophobic connotations.

Z StatisticApr 2, 20161 votes

No, they are unacceptable in many situations because they're rude, crass, and vulgar just like fuck, piss, cock, %%%%, and other rude, crass, vulgar words. Things can be offensive without having to revolve around hatred or bigotry, you know. Else people wouldn't be supporting Milo aka 'The Dangerous %%%got.'

o Maui oApr 2, 20161 votes

...and the reason they are rude, crass, and vulgar is because of their deep racist and homophobic connotations.

Z StatisticApr 2, 20161 votes

No, '%%%got' is rude because it means 'you're a dumb motherfucker who thinks he's hot shit' or something to that effect. Again, history don't matter. What matters is what it means NOW

ErdrikApr 2, 20162 votes

{quoted}

I like/accept gay people just as much as others, but when I call someone "fa.g", I am automatically homophobic?

No, not automatically.

But you also don't get to decide if someone else is offended by it. And if someone reported you it is very likely that they were offended.

Z StatisticApr 2, 20161 votes

but '%%%' is not the same as 'noob'. It might not be fueled by bigotry, but saying it's a kind friendly jibe is silly. It's still rude.

PennsApr 2, 20161 votes

It is, but imo its not instant 14 day/perma ban worthy.

Z StatisticApr 2, 20161 votes

That's my point. You and I can circlejerk about how %%% is relatively benign to us and the peopel we interact with, but considering that the Tribunal system is a much more representative sample of people's views on acceptable language than our anecdotes, we're back to square one:

Dear Rito, does the system adapt to changes in the community well?

JubbinautApr 2, 20161 votes

[{quoted}](name=Menea Calais,realm=NA,application-id=ZGEFLEUQ,discussion-id=6EXXl7EZ,comment-id=,timestamp=2016-04-01T23:54:03.001+0000)

Does it have the adaptability of the Tribunal?

Yes. There is a baseline of standards that Riot has established, but by-and-large, it's the community's responsibility to determine what's acceptable and what isn't.

If some new, unheard-of term starts popping up, used in a toxic context, over time the system will learn that this term is considered toxic, and begin to punish it.

At the same time, if players suddenly become inured to some behavior that's currently considered toxic, and decide that it's "the norm," their lack of reports will mean the system no longer even has an opportunity to punish that behavior.

That said, their baselines are pretty stable. Hate speech and death threats, for example, are entirely unacceptable. That's a Riot standard, not a community standard, and as such, escalation for such language is probably hard-coded into the system.

Z StatisticApr 2, 20161 votes

Then in a hypothetical situation, let's say '%%%%%%' comes to mean a vulgar term for an obnoxiously loud person (regardless of race) in a few years in the public vernacular and a word comes up, let's say boi-boi, which is a racial slur against blacks and latino people.

According to your explanation, the system can quickly identify that 'boi-boi' is a highly offensive racial slur and will hand out punishments based on hate speech accordingly. However, it cannot identify that '%%%%%%' is no longer considered hate speech by the community and therefore continues to treat the word as hate speech as opposed to similar vulgarities like 'fucktard' or 'piece of shit.'

Do keep in mind that hate speech is in its own category because it escalates more quickly than other normal vulgarity. So even if the system has less opportunity to punish people in your example, the case in which the person is reported are treated significantly more severe than offenses with a similar report-punish rate.

JubbinautApr 2, 20161 votes

[{quoted}](name=Menea Calais,realm=NA,application-id=ZGEFLEUQ,discussion-id=6EXXl7EZ,comment-id=00010000,timestamp=2016-04-02T17:16:15.283+0000)

Then in a hypothetical situation, let's say '%%%%%%' comes to mean a vulgar term for an obnoxiously loud person (regardless of race) in a few years in the public vernacular and a word comes up, let's say boi-boi, which is a racial slur against blacks and latino people.

The problem with this hypothetical is that it's ignoring the hugely important historical and cultural contexts that created those slurs in the first place.

(Note before the following statements: discussion like this, discussing the words of hate speech themselves, are very difficult on the Boards, due to the automatic censoring of the words. So I'm replacing the words I'm referring to with something similar to their early meanings.)

(A bundle of sticks) isn't offensive because it refers to gay people. It's offensive because - etymologically speaking - it refers to the act of burning gay people (like you would a bundle of sticks or a cigarette).

(Negro [that was a far less complicated etymology than I expected...]) isn't offensive because it refers to black people. It's offensive because it bears a historical connotation and assumption that black people are inherently lesser than white people.

Those contexts aren't going to go away. Which means that regardless of how any number of community members view those words, they're still hate speech. The context of the words are what make them racial and sexual slurs.

According to your explanation, the system can quickly identify that 'boi-boi' is a highly offensive racial slur and will hand out punishments based on hate speech accordingly. However, it cannot identify that '%%%%%%' is no longer considered hate speech by the community and therefore continues to treat the word as hate speech as opposed to similar vulgarities like 'fucktard' or 'piece of shit.'

I doubt the system would be capable of recognizing such a non-rooted word as a racial slur, at least not on its own. Offensive, sure. But not necessarily as hate speech. While it is clever, I wouldn't expect the system to have the capacity to make that kind of distinction without an external definition.

Z StatisticApr 2, 20161 votes

{quoted}

The problem with this hypothetical is that it's ignoring the hugely important historical and cultural contexts that created those slurs in the first place.

We can play history all you want, but you can't go back an inconsistent and arbitrary amount of time to find slurs. Are we really going to remove 'Blue Jay' from our vocabulary because 'Jay' in the 1920s was a slur for hillbillies on par with '%%%%%%' today? 'Jay' is a real world example of exactly what I'm talking about. No one uses it as a slur anymore. You will not be punished nearly as severely for using 'Jay' in League as '%%%%%%'.

So, yes, context does go away because language changes. And since the internet has exponentially increased the rate at which people interact, we might not have to wait three generations for slurs to vanish in usage or meaning.

JubbinautApr 2, 20161 votes

[{quoted}](name=Menea Calais,realm=NA,application-id=ZGEFLEUQ,discussion-id=6EXXl7EZ,comment-id=0001000000000000,timestamp=2016-04-02T19:58:29.944+0000)

We can play history all you want, but you can't go back an inconsistent and arbitrary amount of time to find slurs. Are we really going to remove 'Blue Jay' from our vocabulary because 'Jay' in the 1920s was a slur for hillbillies on par with '%%%%%%' today? 'Jay' is a real world example of exactly what I'm talking about. No one uses it as a slur anymore. You will not be punished nearly as severely for using 'Jay' in League as '%%%%%%'.

Except that you're conflating two different situations. Namely, one in which an extant word bore harmless implications, and one in which a word was borrowed explicitly for use as a slur. The word Jay - in its current meaning (both as a name and as a bird) - has been around far longer than that particular insult.

If the amount of time I'm "going back" seems inconsistent and arbitrary, it's only because you're ignoring the fact that those contexts define the word today. American English has no other common context for the word.

British English does, though - and there, it's still commonly used in those original meanings (particularly in reference to cigarettes), with no insult assumed or taken by listeners, in the same way that the word "Jay" has lost its insulting overtones (making it a fine example of an extant word returning to its original usage).

Any continued insulting use of any form of hate speech will - by necessity - bear the weight of that history of hatred within it, because the root of that insult would be definitively drawn from that hate speech. If you were to somehow remove those connotations, there'd simply be no rational connection to make it an insult.

Z StatisticApr 2, 20161 votes

'%%%%%' and '%%%%%%' have been appropriated by black culture since the 1960s as a way to change it into something from its earlier connotation. '%%%%%%' specifically came from the Portuguese and Spanish words derived from 'niger' as '%%%%%%' only became mainstream slurs during the 20th century. Before then, it was negro, you know, that noun that isn't a slur either? No, '%%%%%%' was not created for a racist slur either. It just went into use as one.

'Okie' is closer to what you are asserting. 'Okie' is a geographic slur for a person from Oklahoma, as many Oklahoman fled to California during the Dust Bowl, and like how people don't like shit tons of immigrants to their home today, people didn't like the Oklahoman people coming in. No one used 'okie' as a word before then because no one gave a damn about Oklahoma before then, and the resident Indians from which the name was derived probably used a different name.

But all of that is irrelevant because we now come to the crux of the argument:

If you were to somehow remove those connotations, there'd simply be no rational connection to make it an insult.

As backwards as it may seem, this is actually wrong. All you need to do is read The Grapes of Wrath, and you can see the evolution of 'okie' in real time. It means nothing. Then it means someone from Oklahoma. Then it's a slur. Why? Because when a group of people are acting hostile to you and they refer to you by a term, you understand that term as an insult. It doesn't matter if it's brand-new or old-hat.

The word itself is irrelevant; what matters is the intent (or perceived intent) from the speaker. This is why the adaptability of the system is very important. If people don't intend to use the word as an insult, they shouldn't be punished as if they were insulting someone (if they're punished for saying something rude, that's a different ball of wax.)

JubbinautApr 3, 20162 votes

[{quoted}](name=Menea Calais,realm=NA,application-id=ZGEFLEUQ,discussion-id=6EXXl7EZ,comment-id=000100000000000000000000,timestamp=2016-04-02T22:20:12.967+0000)

'%%%%%' and '%%%%%%' have been appropriated by black culture since the 1960s as a way to change it into something from its earlier connotation. '%%%%%%' specifically came from the Portuguese and Spanish words derived from 'niger' as '%%%%%%' only became mainstream slurs during the 20th century. Before then, it was negro, you know, that noun that isn't a slur either? No, '%%%%%%' was not created for a racist slur either. It just went into use as one.

'Okie' is closer to what you are asserting. 'Okie' is a geographic slur for a person from Oklahoma, as many Oklahoman fled to California during the Dust Bowl, and like how people don't like shit tons of immigrants to their home today, people didn't like the Oklahoman people coming in. No one used 'okie' as a word before then because no one gave a damn about Oklahoma before then, and the resident Indians from which the name was derived probably used a different name.

Again, you're using a word that had a meaning outside of its insult. Interestingly, it's also a word that is now used almost exclusively in that meaning (I promise you, I hear the word "Okie" used more in self-reference where I'm living in Oklahoma than it's being used as some sort of attempt at an insult elsewhere - I'd literally never heard it before I moved here).

The slur meaning comes from the other meaning - it is in fact premised on the idea that the other meaning is inherently a negative thing. Without that original connotation, there could be no way to view the word itself as insulting.

You're also comparing it to a word that was adapted for the express purpose of dehumanization - not really a valid comparison.

As backwards as it may seem, this is actually wrong. All you need to do is read The Grapes of Wrath, and you can see the evolution of 'okie' in real time. It means nothing. Then it means someone from Oklahoma. Then it's a slur. Why? Because when a group of people are acting hostile to you and they refer to you by a term, you understand that term as an insult. It doesn't matter if it's brand-new or old-hat.

Except that novel completely misses the final (so far) aspect of the evolution of the word - when it loses its insulting meaning entirely, and falls back to the mere descriptive meaning that came before it.

The word itself is irrelevant; what matters is the intent (or perceived intent) from the speaker. This is why the adaptability of the system is very important. If people don't intend to use the word as an insult, they shouldn't be punished as if they were insulting someone (if they're punished for saying something rude, that's a different ball of wax.)

In the words of Louis C.K.: "When a person tells you that you hurt them, you don't get to decide that you didn't." That is to say, your intentions are not as meaningful as the effects of your actions.

Z StatisticApr 3, 20161 votes

Ok. You hurt me. Really deeply. Now apologize because you're in the wrong. No, actually, you offended me so deeply that you should be banned.

You don't get to tell me how to feel. That much I agree with. Making my feelings king of the situation however is stupid. That quote's logical consequence is either non-existent (it's a meaningless quote) or it is implying this is how we judge people's actions. It would mean we are going to punish people for triggering them accidentally. Is that we're come to?

The genius of the Tribunal is that it presents cases to a jury and not a Twitter Mob, which allows actions of people to pass in front of hundreds if not thousands of people who don't collude and introduce a mob mentality to the judgment. We punish people based on the democracy and not an individual.

If I hurt your feelings with these words, I should not get punished for that. If my same words pass before hundreds of independent people with a variety of world views and beliefs, and they think I am being rude, then I should be punished. This is what I am talking about. If all these people look at '%%%%%%' and shrug their shoulders and move on, then the person who says that word should not be punished. This is the same logic as why off-meta picks should not be bannable; most people don't care.

I don't understand why you're caught up in the historical context of a specific word that a hypothetical specific person might hold close to their heart when the entire basis of the tribunal is based on the collection of the experience of people NOW.