D&D General Jaquaying the dungeon - a term to avoid

[Willie the Duck]

You have no idea how much self-control I had to exert to prevent myself spinning up an alt account called ‘Harold Veeblefetzer’ and taking theatrical umbrage to this suggestion…

It does seem that changing it to a new non-parseable phrase based on his name will always carry the weight of explaining it by reference to the original term, and therefore may be self-defeating.

I like the term Warren as well. Warren-Style dungeons.

Now I want to alt-account in as Warren Styles and offer my opinion on the subject.

 

[Staffan]

I was looking for a Purr-ince to cheer you up, but this will have to do.

 

[DEFCON 1]

The fuller story that I seem to recall from many years ago was that when Janelle originally heard about Justin naming the term after her, she made the comment that since her last name had an 'S' that the correct usage should have been 'Jacquaysing'. Justin was iffy on the proposition not because he had anything against her or her comment, but more just from what sounded better. Which of course every single person who creates names has to do, because bad names can really mess things up for you. He thought the former way just sounded like a cooler term than the latter, so he was reticent to change it (since ultimately it was just a random term for a map generation technique, nothing that seemed all that important in the grand scheme of things.)

I think then discussion went further when she discovered that most of Justin's articles from the past that referenced things all still used Janelle's deadname when discussing products that Janelle had written in the years past, and when she asked him to remove her deadname as well, it took a bit of discussion for him to understand why that was important. To him at the time (and I think we're talking even earlier than when the trans-rights movement really gained steam here in the U.S.) since the products he was referencing had her deadname on them, he thought to change them would cause confusion. Eventually though he learned enough about the situation to realize that Janelle's preference outweighed any potential confusion, and thus Justin was going to go back and change all of this previous references as she desired.

Whether or not that flushing of Janelle's deadname happened first a while ago, or whether Justin just coupled his documentation changes with the decision they both made to remove her name from the 'BLANK-ing the Dungeon' terminology so they happened simultaneously, I do not know.

But whatever the case (and regardless of how people feel about him), I applaud Justin for really learning about this trans issue through his communications with Janelle... and ultimately understanding and empathizing with her situation to acceed to her wishes and be more than happy to do so.

 

[Cordwainer Fish]

Not to mention, I doubt I'm the only person who has an uncommon name and gets really pissed off when people can't be bothered to get it right.

(Swear to frog, I'd change it if it wasn't on all my stuff.)

 

[Vaalingrade]

Not to mention, I doubt I'm the only person who has an uncommon name and gets really pissed off when people can't be bothered to get it right.

(Swear to frog, I'd change it if it wasn't on all my stuff.)

People usually switch the first letter of mine with two whole other letters, so I feel your pain.

 

[Mirrorrorrim]

I agree that the reasoning is sound. He was the one who coined the concept, and had originally named it as an homage to the person who inspired it. If the inspiring person doesn't want their name used going forward, and it's fine if the homage gets moved to the creator of the term. To be honest, anything else might sound contrived or arbitrary.

Often, ideas/theories/arguments/laws that are named after the person who popularized them. This particular change comes from a place of kindness, and is mindful, respectful, and appropriate.

Also, in my head-canon, "xandering" sounds like a non-linear "wandering" with lots of cross(x)-roads/decision points where you can go anywhere, all sandbox-like. I also have been playing around with saying it out loud with a terrible posh British accent, "xahndering" as if it rhymed with "wandering."

That said, I can't stand criticisms that are unnecessarily rude or hostile. Lord knows that all you need is for one hostile word to transform the entire tone of the article. Below are some terms used:

• "half-assed"
• "dumb"
• "Because the Cylons Wizards' designers don't have a plan. They never have a plan."
• "Wizards needs to stop selling their books by lying about them."

This reads like a hit piece on the designers far beyond the scope of the adventure he is supposed to be reviewing. He focuses on scraping up perceived failures as evidence to call them lazy, dumb, liars. I'm officially turned off from reading his content.

But "Xandering" is fine.

 

[Rystefn]

Wow... So, first, Jaquays did not request her name be taken off of the concept. That didn't happen. It's not a real thing. To be clear here: I am not accusing Alexander of making it up. You lot did. The article could not be more clear that the actual objection was not to using her name, it was to spelling it wrong. Stop using "jaquaying" and start using "jaquaysing." That is all she is requesting of you. Alexander wants to change it to "xandering" because he wants to publish a book and using someone else's name like that raised some questions with the publisher, and also, because of course he wants to name it after himself. (And possibly a bit of "I'd rather change it to an entirely word than spell it differently, because I dislike that S for aesthetic reasons.")

Second, the "harassment" being brought up here is only and entirely people saying "use jaquaysing instead of jaquaying" and maybe occasionally taking that objection too far. Again, you made this up, not Alexander. The article spells this out in plain English with no ambiguity whatsoever. Yes, Jaquays is almost certainly catching some highly unpleasant naughty word over trans issues, but that's entirely disconnected from the word "jaquaying" and is not mentioned or even hinted at in the blog post in question here.

Yes, I literally made an account just to come in here and say this, because holy crap, six freaking pages of people saying "she said to take her name off it, so just stop using her name for it" when she literally never said that is way, way too much.

 

[Willie the Duck]

People usually switch the first letter of mine with two whole other letters, so I feel your pain.

I hear ya, Phred.

 

[ichabod]

People usually switch the first letter of mine with two whole other letters, so I feel your pain.

Likewise. As a Craig, I am often a Greg; and as an O'Brien I am often an O'Brian. And most of the computers on the planet treat my last name as an attempt at an SQL injection attack and say it isn't a valid name.

 

[Cordwainer Fish]

And most of the computers on the planet treat my last name as an attempt at an SQL injection attack and say it isn't a valid name.

In Europe that can get them in hot water, and no, technical limitations is not an excuse:

EBCDIC is incompatible with GDPR

Welcome to acronym city! The Court of Appeal of Brussels has made an interesting ruling. A customer complained that their bank was spelling the customer's name incorrectly. The bank didn't have support for diacritical marks. Things like á, è, ô, ü, ç etc. Those accents are common in many...

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