Calrifications on Moderator Comments

[jbear]

Hi Morrus,

As per your moderator request/suggestion, I am moving the query I have regarding your recent mod comments made on my posts to the 'meta' thread. I don't want there to be any bad feelings, just want clarification on certain things you wrote that are not self evident.

There are some codewords which raise red flags. Like using "Social Justice Warrior" as a pejorative, we're not going to be using insulting, dismissive terms like "virtue signalling" in the same way.

What exactly do you mean by codewords? What do you mean by red flags? I did not intend for anything I said to be interpreted as coded. My intent was to be clear and open with what I said. I framed my opinion as a question as I wasn't entirely certain that I had correctly interepreted what the person who posted about Australia was actually trying to say, as it seemed both superficially contradictory and morally 'high and mighty'. I made no mention of Social Justice Warrior either pejoratively or otherwise.

In which way is 'virtue signalling' coded, insulting or dismissive, particularly in the context in which I used it in my post? The person who wrote the post I commented on both at once flippantly dismissed the books that WoTC has recently written as full of 'harmful stereotypes' and then offered what the poster seemed to consider as a more appropriate cultural gaming context: Australia - The comment about 'basically everyone wanted to get along' clearly showed they know nothing about the brutal history of Australia, making their earlier comment seem vacuous and hollow. Hence my response and what I thought was an accurate use of the term 'virtue signalling'.

For clarity's sake just in case I understand your 'red flags' correctly you had some mistaken idea about me, I am neither a racist nor a bigot. I have a deep appreciation for many other cultures. I have lived all over the world for extended periods of time (over 15 years), learned many different languages and embraced many different cultural view points, including non-western cultures. My own ethnic lineage is rich and varied and I have married into a similarly varied family. My children are bi-lingual and multicultural. I have friends of all races, creeds and religions.

 

[Morrus]

I don't really understand why you're telling me about your children.

Consider "virtue signalling" equal to "social justice warrior" in terms of derogatory terms.

 

[Gradine]

Interestingly, "virtue signalling" is mostly, at this point, a co-opted term used to attack the people who came up with it. My first encounters with "virtue signalling" came from people who would very much be considered "SJW's" for people who use those terms, and it was mainly associated with white people at social justice-themed professional and academic conferences. You know, the people who constantly play the "Let me show you how woke I am" game of one-upping each other and taking credit for the work of (primarily POC) colleagues while actually contributing nothing themselves. Somehow the virulently anti-social-justice internet caught wind of the term and started applying it to basically anybody trying to start a conversation about social justice; the term is now used to basically shut down the conversation by casting aspersions on the motivations of those involved.

See also: "white knight"

 

[Derren]

Coming from the same thread, what about this question?

, I see that terms like "virtue signalling" (a new one to me) and SJW are not allowed on this forum, but is the same true of terms like "white privilege"

 

[jbear]

I don't really understand why you're telling me about your children.

Consider "virtue signalling" equal to "social justice warrior" in terms of derogatory terms.

Why? Because your 'red flag' comment seems to suggest you were of the opinion that you were moderating the comments of some racist. I wanted to make it clear that if that was the case, the opinion was a very much mistaken one.

In any case, thank you for your detailed, open and insightful response to my questions. I'll let you get back to putting your feet up on the furniture.

 

[Gradine]

Coming from the same thread, what about this question?

Not a moderator, but my guess would be that that's because "virtue signalling" and "SJW" are, by there very nature, ad hominem attacks, meant to shut down conversations by disparaging the others' motivations. What's more, those terms (at least in the context that they're often used these days on the internet) spawned from some very anti-inclusion dark corners of the internet, and Morrus has made it very clear on multiple occasions that ENWorld maintaining an aura of inclusivity is very, very, important to him and to the community as a whole.

"White privilege" is a purely academic term about observable cultural and societal phenomena that is not (or at least should not be taken as) an attack on anybody. If you understand what it actually is (and more importantly, I guess, what it's not) then it's pretty hard to deny its existence, but there's a conversation to be had as to what extent it does and what its true impacts are, and there's very little academic consensus on that point. The point being, it's neither a personal attack nor a conversation ender.

Frankly, I'm surprised people are getting bent out of shape about "white privilege" before "cultural appropriation", which was both (a) more relevant to the thread being referred to here, and (b) more likely to actually be used as an attack on somebody else. But again, I think it's worthwhile to discuss whether a gaming product is an example of cultural appropriation, while on the other hand I would agree that accusing another poster of cultural appropriation would come much closer to (if not actually) crossing the line.

 

[Morrus]

Coming from the same thread, what about this question?

That term is not prohibited, no. But you knew that, didn’t you?