2 ms·

Having expressed this understanding of WSB's benign intent in their use of the term "retard", surely you see why some random person at Discord taking offense to

Having expressed this understanding of WSB's benign intent in their use of the term "retard", surely you see why some random person at Discord taking offense to it and whimsically banning the entire community is messed up, right? Discord is host to a massive variety of nominally private (you need a link to join) communities that have real, deep value to those who participate in them. Over time they develop their own unique history and culture that has a complex context that can't be assessed with simple, surface level judgements by some Discord employee to whom said community is the n+1th problem of the day. Banning the community comes off to me as an arbitrary exercise of an unearned moral authority, and feels deeply arrogant and ethnocentric in all the negatives that term implies. Obviously Discord is a private company etc etc. They're also the dominant platform upon which ~140 million people [1] from all over the world communicate, in all the messy ways humans do. I don't know about you, but I'd rather they focus on keeping the platform running, collect their revenue from their customers, and mind their own business. This is what everyone who uses the service expects them to do, after all. 1: https://venturebeat.com/2020/12/17/discord-raises-100-million-as-its-social-hub-hits-140-million-users/ https://venturebeat.com/2020/12/17/discord-raises-100-millio...

epistasis 6y ago
The comment you are responding to is talking about more offensive stuff than the "benign intent" of the core WSB community. I've only been in a handful of discord communities, but none of them would tolerate even the "benign intent" WSB stuff. Also, "benign intent" does not make offensive behavior less offensive. Intent can matter, but it certainly isn't everything.
- malwrar 6y ago
  We agree here that the term is probably offensive even in the context that WSB is using it. If someone used that term here in the same way that WSB people do, I'm sure we'd both wish that dang would remove that post and ban the poster for a bit to cool off. This doesn't address the larger question of whether or not we have a right to enforce our completely subjective standards globally on other communities which we don't belong to. Personally, I wouldn't want some outsider deciding that me and my friends weren't allowed to talk to eachother anymore if we decided to start using the term towards each other privately in jest.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- josefx 6y ago
  > I've only been in a handful of discord communities, but none of them would tolerate even the "benign intent" WSB stuff. On the other hand quite a few of them would probably support stabbing each other in the back. I may have had a run in with a few too many people that like to abuse simple stuff for power plays.

epistasis 6y ago

The comment you are responding to is talking about more offensive stuff than the "benign intent" of the core WSB community. I've only been in a handful of discord communities, but none of them would tolerate even the "benign intent" WSB stuff. Also, "benign intent" does not make offensive behavior less offensive. Intent can matter, but it certainly isn't everything.

malwrar 6y ago
We agree here that the term is probably offensive even in the context that WSB is using it. If someone used that term here in the same way that WSB people do, I'm sure we'd both wish that dang would remove that post and ban the poster for a bit to cool off. This doesn't address the larger question of whether or not we have a right to enforce our completely subjective standards globally on other communities which we don't belong to. Personally, I wouldn't want some outsider deciding that me and my friends weren't allowed to talk to eachother anymore if we decided to start using the term towards each other privately in jest.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
josefx 6y ago
> I've only been in a handful of discord communities, but none of them would tolerate even the "benign intent" WSB stuff. On the other hand quite a few of them would probably support stabbing each other in the back. I may have had a run in with a few too many people that like to abuse simple stuff for power plays.