Let me just start out by saying that I believe racism, sexism and other forms of hate has no place on the internet… Its a medieval way of thinking…
So some friends and I were trying to create a new guild named The White Rose. We played in a guild with that name in another online game (DAoC) and really liked it.
The White Rose was a non-violent resistance group in Germany during WW2, and fought actively to spread opposition to the Na-zi (it wont even let me write this word in this post) regime, and promote free choise of love, gender, colour of people.
Back to the topic. I can certainly see how White (and Black for that matter, which is also blocked as “Mature language”) can be used in racist guild names, but should we really blacklist White and Black in general? Surely with todays technology we should be able to make more informed AI based decisions if a name is considered racist, sexist, or other negative based terms.
To be frank I tend to agree, and also Hey there, waves madly to another DAOC player
Context should very much be considered, however it’s not.
I work in primary education, now my boards can’t have a colour prefix, and my baa baa sheep are pink and have spots…
So yes I agree, it’s getting where the measures to stop oppression are quite extreme and can be taken out of context.
That said, we are still learning, equality has still not been attained, if measures get a little heavy handed to ensure we are all treated equally…well then I can get behind that!
Yes it has. It’s gotten to the point where it’s becoming a mine field to even have a conversation with anyone, because a lot of people will get offended by even breathing the same oxygen as other people.
I also agree that racism, sexism etc having no place on the internet.
But unfortunately, whatever you say or do, someone, somewhere is going to find a reason to be offended by it. I swear people go out of their way to find a reason.
Blizz have just decided it’s best to play it safe for the time being.
I am sure one day people will start fighting back.
California is on a whole different level when it comes to political correctness.
Where as a normal, well adjusted person can look at the words black and white and think of the colours associated with them, Californians are almost engineered to view everything around them through the lenses of racism, sexism and homophobia so they will see those words and immediately think of skin colour and discrimination.
in short, yes…they definitely go too far on occasion.
There is that too, it’s why it’s known as a “wicked problem” in sociology due to being virtually unsolvable because it relies on every individual being a decent human being with aligning focus and end goals.
And that, well first of all, it’s really hard to find decent human beings when you need em, and furthermore universal agreement, ay yai yai…
I’m an idealist at heart and I conduct myself thus, however sometimes I do have to pick my shield up and crawl bleeding to the side lines.
Well that just stupid. Yeah those words can be used in a racist way, and I am 100% agains any rasism in the game, but do we really need to blacklist colours???
If someone creates a guild something racist do we really need a computer to remove that guild. We have in-game options to report offensive names, same could be done for guild names, and if few people report it, Blizzard will check on it and remove that guild if its really racist…
i do agree it is very weird to just straight out make these words as a mature language. i think back to the “Black family” from Harry potter. who arent black themselves, thats just the name of their family. Or the “White Queen” from Alice in Wonderland movie 2010.
I am someone of POC (people of color) so just speaking about it from that perspective. I dont see a problem with guilds using white and black, as long as its not done to troll.
There will, unfortunately, be people who abuse any naming conversion that allows “white” or “black” and the algorithm isn’t smart enough to work out what’s racist and what isn’t racist. Really, this isn’t a political correctness issue but a racism issue - the racists are the ones spoiling it for the rest of us, not Blizz.
To be fair, this one pre-dates the current cluster-knee-jerks and Twitter-point collecting.
I remember threads, especially from RP realms, going back before the current Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, from people unable to use the words “Black” or “White” in guild names. The usual workaround is to use a synonym like snowy, alabaster, ivory, milky.
It’s just another Scunthorpe problem, and Blizzard doesn’t want to take the time or money do deal with the fallout.