New Rule: Replace the Word "Lynch" in Games

[Elsa Jay]

No point arguing on a site that goes one way on that front Nex. I support getting rid of lynches IRL. I support california and Oregan actually arresting those people. I just, again, don't support removing anything from history because people don't like it.

how do you feel about confederate statues

Hot Take: The victorious side should always tear down the opposition's monuments if they intend to occupy the conquered territory. The Union should have torn those statues down as soon as victory was secured.

Guess Paris lost World War 2 guys. We should burn the Eiffel Tower down. We didn't get it the last time.

[Nexus]

No point arguing on a site that goes one way on that front Nex. I support getting rid of lynches IRL. I support california and Oregan actually arresting those people. I just, again, don't support removing anything from history because people don't like it.

how do you feel about confederate statues

Apart of history, shouldn't be worshipped but catalogued in a museum instead of burnt to ash or thrown on rivers.

idk it was fucking hilarious watching the gammons try and pull the colston statue out of the river

[Firebringer]

this has to be uspol thread. We are talking about us confederate statues in a thread that is supposedly about "mafia rule changes".

This was a clever little trick mod team cooked up for us to make uspol great again by faking us out.

[Something_Smart]

Scale has nothing to do with soft censorship.

Ordering your child to not hold hands with a same sex human being under threat of being disowned, but you're "allowed to be gay behind closed doors", is extremely demeaning.

Okay, I see your point. In both situations someone is asked to refrain from doing a behavior, because that behavior would offend someone else.

It seems to me that being offended by gay people and being offended by racially charged language are qualitatively different to me, in the way that one of them is valid and deserves to be accommodated, while the other does not. I think the line between is clearly fuzzy, but it's also undeniable that there do exist situations on both sides. I'm sure you wouldn't walk up to a person belonging to a minority and use a racial slur right to their face.

The disagreement, then, must be about where this situation lies regards to that line. Judging by the pushback (and the fact that it took so long for this change to be made), it is in that fuzzy area where it's not clear whether this is an objection worth accommodating. We're probably roughly in agreement on how much effort it would take to replace. I think I'm probably a little more excited to take on the challenge of finding the clearest and easiest way to work around the gap, but mostly it's not really the effort that's in question. What's in question is how bad it is for someone to be offended by the word.

And I don't claim to be an expert on the subject matter. I'm a middle class suburban white guy who has barely any direct experience with these issues. But I would assume that the mods have done their homework here and determined that yeah, this word does have a negative effect on people. It doesn't mean they perceive us to be racist; they can still find the word harmful anyway (as panthaleon pointed out). It evokes and draws parallels to some truly awful things in America's history, and those parallels aren't going to disappear from people's minds just because "we didn't mean it like that."

[panthaleon]

Honestly we already have a role for someone that guns people down at their own discretion. Cops don't need two roles

[Blair]

Lynch > Cancel
Cop > Detective
Scum > Problematic

We're almost there. We can solve this.

[Firebringer]

i am cool with changing the role cop to detective.

detective sounds much cooler than cop to begin with.
altho tbh when i first played mafia detective acted as what is called here "tracker" and cop didn't exist.

[Clair]

I'm also happy for the people of color who might have otherwise been put off my the candor with which we use traditionally racialized violence as part of a game

This attitude is actually racist. I know many black people who play mafia and are, in fact, smart enough to disassociate the word "lynch" from fear of actually being lynched. I think they can speak for themselves, for and against this change, without being imagined as fragile people who need words put into their mouths.

[Firebringer]

Lynch > Cancel

YES

LETS CALL LYNCH "CANCEL"! THIS IS PERFECT

[Vi]

This feels... Weird. Like a word being taken out of the dictionary because some people didn't like it. The word 'bitch' still also means a female dog despite its other meaning. I don't get why people are trying to take away the reference to the trials held back in the day because some other fuckwits also used it for other means.

Lynch on Mafiascum would never be associated with the other deeds done to racial groups. Words exist to a community like language. It doesn't mean anything racist here, so why should it be banned? It's like banning Spanish in a Hispanic community because it makes people not feel included. It's stupid.

as someone who has been out in public with scummers at a meet while they played mafia and loudly talked about lynching each other and have had to plead with them to stop because people around us were concerned -- it has racist connotations regardless of where it's being said

this is a public site. people may stumble upon it and have the wrong idea of what we do here because to most people, the word lynch doesn't mean a silly thing in a mafia game. it means something far darker and far worse with awful connotations. any move the mod team can make to erase a harmful word and encourage new vernacular that is less potentially damaging to people is a good one.

As someone who has had a similar experience IRL, this. I'm not a fan of "eliminate" - too many syllables = clumsy, and it reminds me of scientists not being able to handle their own ordure as Annadog said - and would substitute "toss" personally, but whatever, that's not the important bit.

Also yeah what Ythan said about having any non-awk public merch.

(The staff seems to have chosen this day to be Masochism Day :p )

[Firebringer]

Guys,

I am super on board with this now.

Please from now on refer lynch to as "Cancel"

As in, vote to cancel this scum!

[Aurathebirb]

I like execute more as a replacement

Plenty of neat words and phrases to mean kill people tho so this is good

Could be like lets ice those scum

[panthaleon]

I'm also happy for the people of color who might have otherwise been put off my the candor with which we use traditionally racialized violence as part of a game

This attitude is actually racist. I know many black people who play mafia and are, in fact, smart enough to disassociate the word "lynch" from fear of actually being lynched. I think they can speak for themselves, for and against this change, without being imagined as fragile people who need words put into their mouths.

I'll be sure to tell those people who are currently at risk of being lynched in real life that they need to lighten up when people use it in a joking manner

[Elbirn]

Mods: This was a good decision and long over-due. Thank you.

Nay-sayers: I'd like to say that for one thing, several of you appear to be not American. And as a result, you don't have the context of exactly why so many Americans are uncomfortable with that word. I don't want that to sound condescending, simply that you are going to feel differently about the word as a result. In other contexts than mafia the word lynch can be taken to mean an execution as a result of some kind of "mob justice", typically by hanging. So maybe it just doesn't seem like a big deal to you. In the United States that word explicitly recalls lynchings of black men, not just throughout our whole history, or in the 1950's, but

even currently

as several other users have pointed out! We're having cases of black men being found dead hung from trees and our police rule them "suicides".

It is really the most minor of inconveniences to update your lingo to not include a word that carrys so much baggage, please just be cool.

[Haschel Cedricson]

Honestly we already have a role for someone that guns people down at their own discretion. Cops don't need two roles

[Elsa Jay]

Honestly we already have a role for someone that guns people down at their own discretion. Cops don't need two roles

My god, it seems like you just hates cops at this point.

Disassociate whatever the heck you feel about cops here bro. The concept of Police is literally to protect the innocent. Taking away the word isn't the problem here in that regard, that's training them better. The concept of police = good is still a thing.

[Blair]

Guys,

I am super on board with this now.

Please from now on refer lynch to as "Cancel"

As in, vote to cancel this scum!

This is the objectively corect opinion.

You will not be canceled today.

[vonflare]

this change is going to cause a lot of problems in terms of real-life scum meets. before there was a universal standard, but now there will be people who insist on using execute and people who insist on using eliminate and people who insist on using cancel and people who insist on using lynch.

[OkaPoka]

good change, and honestly the least controversial way to handle this

but eliminate aint it chiefs

need something less generic and more specific to the act of majority voting to kill a dude

like executed ty

[Firebringer]

Guys,

I am super on board with this now.

Please from now on refer lynch to as "Cancel"

As in, vote to cancel this scum!

This is the objectively corect opinion.

You will not be canceled today.

i am not a problematic person, so I shall never fear cancellation.

i am just an honest hardworking detective.

[Haschel Cedricson]

Also, I'm somebody who just designed an LSG called "Survivor PD" based around fictional police officers and detectives, and then literally could not fall asleep the night the game went into signups because yeah, glorifying cops is problematic as hell. I think having Detective be the default name is a good idea.

Mods are still free to call them cops if they want, but we lose nothing by having the default be Detective so yeah, I agree with Blair.

[Blair]

Mods: This was a good decision and long over-due. Thank you.

Nay-sayers: I'd like to say that for one thing, several of you appear to be not American. And as a result, you don't have the context of exactly why so many Americans are uncomfortable with that word. I don't want that to sound condescending, simply that you are going to feel differently about the word as a result. In other contexts than mafia the word lynch can be taken to mean an execution as a result of some kind of "mob justice", typically by hanging. So maybe it just doesn't seem like a big deal to you. In the United States that word explicitly recalls lynchings of black men, not just throughout our whole history, or in the 1950's, but

even currently

as several other users have pointed out! We're having cases of black men being found dead hung from trees and our police rule them "suicides".

It is really the most minor of inconveniences to update your lingo to not include a word that carrys so much baggage, please just be cool.

I concede this is probably a fair assessment. Lynch doesn't carry any racial connotations for me.

I also agree it's a minor inconvenience (as I said in my first post in this thread! Don't mistake my shitposting for meaningful resistance).

[Haschel Cedricson]

The concept of Police is literally to protect the innocent.

I have some terrible news for you.

[T-Bone]

Even though we settled on eliminate, I would encourage people who run themed games to experiment with their flavor for this mechanic. Good opportunity to come up with fresh themed terms for games.

[Clair]

I'm also happy for the people of color who might have otherwise been put off my the candor with which we use traditionally racialized violence as part of a game

This attitude is actually racist. I know many black people who play mafia and are, in fact, smart enough to disassociate the word "lynch" from fear of actually being lynched. I think they can speak for themselves, for and against this change, without being imagined as fragile people who need words put into their mouths.

I'll be sure to tell those people who are currently at risk of being lynched in real life that they need to lighten up when people use it in a joking manner

"Black people can't tell the difference between being lynched and someone using the word lynch." This is your position not mine.