Androgyny and descriptions *READ FIRST LINE _FIRST_!*

[maxid]

The blue-eyed little person.

The grey-haired, very short man.

etc.

Does the height/weight actually allow for people under 4'11"? I'm not actually sure.  But either way, there are numerous ways to say it.

And it's not just personal reasons.  Although I do have a personal gripe with it, it also is legitimately a slur.

[Cerelum]

The blue-eyed little person.

The grey-haired, very short man.

etc.

Does the height/weight actually allow for people under 4'11"? I'm not actually sure.  But either way, there are numerous ways to say it.

And it's not just personal reasons.  Although I do have a personal gripe with it, it also is legitimately a slur.

I think anything outside of Standard height and weight for the race is considered a mutation.

So I think you'd have to actually special app to play as a legitimate midget character if I understand it right.  Otherwise you're just a short person described as a midget versus the actual meaning of it.

[Alesan]

For someone who advocates against offensive nouns, you happily throw around neckbeard. Odd.

edit: That was childish.

If you can't tell the difference between an actual slur and a name that pokes fun at an extremely online anti-pc person I don't know what to tell you.

I can tell the difference. I was just noting how childish that was. And apparently you're still being childish to some random person popping into the thread to comment on it. But at least you're self aware, thank you for that.

[valeria]

Saying that something isn't a slur doesn't make it less of a slur. Plenty of little people have publically spoken out about the use of this specific, disparaging carnival freak show term as a slur (Danny Woodburn, Eugene Grant, Little People of America). It doesn't make you a bad person that you've used it without realizing it's a slur, but it isn't someone being "personally offended" when they point out that it's a slur.

You're welcome to use it to your heart's content, even if you want to do so now that you know it's a slur. I'm not the language and morals police. But it shouldn't be an sdesc term.

[Namino]

No dog in the fight, couldn't care less.

It is important to note that words have contextual severity. Cunt in Australia is a lot less severe than in America. If we can have such a gulf of severity across our planet, imagine the variation between Zalanthas and here. A word being a slur on Earth does not make it a slur on Zalanthas, much like a fannypack in Britian is a hilarious concept.

The question then boils down to how much we as a playerbase respect the independence of Zalanthas as it's own culture with it's own language conventions. If you think the characters have preeminence, midget is fine and it's up to IC attitudes to decide. If you think players are more important than characters, then player convention dictates language and midget should go in keeping with OOC convention.

Either way, saying people who support either side are bigoted or closed minded fails to capture the true essence of the argument, which is player vs character emphasis of language.

[maxid]

The question is not the IC use of the word midget, which I've repeatedly stated I understand as allowable within Zalanthas.

The question is whether its appropriate for an sdesc.   I don't believe slurs belong in sdescs even if I'm mostly fine with them being said by a character.

People seem to struggle to separate IC and OOC at times.

[Synthesis]

What's the alternative to using midget that doesn't completely jam up the rest of your sdesc with extra characters?

[maxid]

Short.  Diminutive. Minute.

They have the added benefit of not being actual slurs.

[Namino]

The question is not the IC use of the word midget, which I've repeatedly stated I understand as allowable within Zalanthas.

The question is whether its appropriate for an sdesc.   I don't believe slurs belong in sdescs even if I'm mostly fine with them being said by a character.

People seem to struggle to separate IC and OOC at times.

The debate then still is where player language and character language ends. You argue from the perspective that says tells and psis are character language, but sdescs and ldescs are player language. That's valid.

There are people who feel like their sdesc and ldescs are also under the purview of in character language. I don't think these people are bigots because they consider sdescs to be incharacter the same as says. There's actually quite a bit of staff input that sdescs require in character language, to be honest. You can be kalan-eyed. You cannot be mahogany skinned.

[valeria]

What's the alternative to using midget that doesn't completely jam up the rest of your sdesc with extra characters?

The blue-eyed little person.

The grey-haired, very short man.

The extra-characters arguement doesn't hold a lot of water with me when plenty of characters have to use more characters for less compelling reasons than the word being a slur. E.g. "female half-giant" because "half-giantess" is on the disallowed sdesc word list because . Same with female dwarves, female elves, etc. And the amount of extra characters is not huge.

[maxid]

The question is not the IC use of the word midget, which I've repeatedly stated I understand as allowable within Zalanthas.

The question is whether its appropriate for an sdesc.   I don't believe slurs belong in sdescs even if I'm mostly fine with them being said by a character.

People seem to struggle to separate IC and OOC at times.

The debate then still is where player language and character language ends. You argue from the perspective that says tells and psis are character language, but sdescs and ldescs are player language. That's valid.

There are people who feel like their sdesc and ldescs are also under the purview of in character language. I don't think these people are bigots because they consider sdescs to be incharacter the same as says. There's actually quite a bit of staff input that sdescs require in character language, to be honest. You can be kalan-eyed. You cannot be mahogany skinned.

You certainly can be mahogany skinned, I've seen it variously.  Descs and sdescs are there for the player.  Things actually said by characters are IC.  Things written to describe are a quasi-OOC/IC, leaning more toward OOC.

I don't know why you feel the need to defend you and others' use of slurs, but it's been pretty eye opening to see how rabidly people have been posting about this.  People love their words that make others feel shitty, especially when they have no horse in the race except being very mildly inconvenienced.

[Synthesis]

I don't feel like "midget" is particularly offensive.  I didn't think "necker" was particularly offensive, either.  And I suppose when it comes to others' hurt feelings, I'm more in the "get over it" camp than in the "everyone else should be inconvenienced."

Are there any little players out there who are -actually- deeply offended by being referred to as a midget in casual conversation?

[Namino]

The question is not the IC use of the word midget, which I've repeatedly stated I understand as allowable within Zalanthas.

The question is whether its appropriate for an sdesc.   I don't believe slurs belong in sdescs even if I'm mostly fine with them being said by a character.

People seem to struggle to separate IC and OOC at times.

The debate then still is where player language and character language ends. You argue from the perspective that says tells and psis are character language, but sdescs and ldescs are player language. That's valid.

There are people who feel like their sdesc and ldescs are also under the purview of in character language. I don't think these people are bigots because they consider sdescs to be incharacter the same as says. There's actually quite a bit of staff input that sdescs require in character language, to be honest. You can be kalan-eyed. You cannot be mahogany skinned.

You certainly can be mahogany skinned, I've seen it variously.  Descs and sdescs are there for the player.  Things actually said by characters are IC.  Things written to describe are a quasi-OOC/IC, leaning more toward OOC.

I don't know why you feel the need to defend you and others' use of slurs, but it's been pretty eye opening to see how rabidly people have been posting about this.  People love their words that make others feel shitty, especially when they have no horse in the race except being very mildly inconvenienced.

Firstly,

Your application for a character named 'saqr' on Armageddon MUD has been rejected for the following reason(s):

Your main description is not valid. Your character's main description must be at least four full lines long, based on physical attributes, and make no refernce to his or her clothing, mood, actions, thoughts, or profession. For more information, see http://www.armageddon.org/intro/chargen.php#mdesc

Everything about your character is perfect, except the part talking
about a hickory tree.  There are no hickory trees in Zalanthas.  Take
a look at this Help file and see the related articles on the left:

Secondly, I haven't made my personal stance clear. I've simply categorized what I see the actual argument as -- not one of bigots versus 'social justice warriors', but one of where IC language applies and where it does not. If you were curious about my personal stance, here's a private conversation I had about half an hour ago with a friend on discord regarding this thread:

Them at 10:54 AM
:open_mouth:
What is your stance on such things?
How do you feel about 'midget' as a keyword in a sdesc
Me Today at 10:56 AM
I think sdescs and ldescs are OOC
Our character's aren't seeing "the brown haired woman"
They're seeing a person of 100 different characteristics.
'the brown haired woman' could be 'the fat-assed bitch' to her husband and 'the nubile dame' to her lover.
'the brown haired woman' is just an OOC convention to interface with our characters.
Them Today at 10:58 AM
So what position does that translate in to?
Me Today at 10:58 AM
So sdescs and lsdescs should adhere to OOC language. If we're not cool with someone typing >OOC Shut up you midget
Then midget should not be in sdescs.

But I don't run Armageddon and I don't get to tell people where IC language versus OCC language applies.

I do feel, Maxid, it's also important to inform you that arguing from a platform of "agree with me or you're a bad person" is a losing tactic.

[maxid]

I didn't say that, nor did I suggest it. 

I'm saying objectively that the word is considered a slur.  So it should probably not be allowed in sdescs, which are somewhat OOC.

Synthesis' argument doesn't even hold water, as I don't believe 'necker' 'sharp' or 'stump' are acceptable words in an sdesc. 

Synthesis' further argument, that slurs only matter if they personally offend Synthesis, is just sort of awkwardly self-centered.

Nobody is a bad person, that the word is considered a slur to little people isn't widely known.  That doesn't make it less of a slur.  It doesn't make you a bad person if you've used it in the past.  I personally feel that people that willfully and knowingly say slurs IRL are generally bad people, but I'm not the final authority on good/bad.   And my PCs definitely use slurs and are huge jerks ICly, because they're uneducated sand people scratching life out of a dying planet that don't know any better.

[Synthesis]

Every argument about how people feel about things is centered on how people actually feel about the things.

This isn't something that's derivable from factual first principles, except where the fact is "how person x feels."

The reference to the 'necker' argument was a reference to a similar argument, not an exact comparison, and the relevant comparison is how people feel about it, not where the word is being used (sdesc vs. IC speech).

Defining a word as a 'slur' is entirely dependent on whether people actually feel that it's a slur.  Stating that it objectively -is- a slur is a rhetorical trick.

[maxid]

The argument isn't whether it offends.  It's whether Arm should allow recognized slurs to be used in sdescs.   Whether it personally offends Synthesis, master of beep boop logic, or not doesn't really matter.

[Shabago]

Gee, this went really well. Locking.