Let's take a harmless example to go a step further.

Player A and Player B are in a game of mafia. Thus far they are playful and have banter back and forth, sometimes a bit crude and rude, but both enjoy it.

Player B makes mention of needing to go to the bathroom to poop.

Player A says Player B loves to poop and has photos of them instagramming their poop and captioning it. This is meant as a silly, crude joke and not serious whatsoever. Player A does not have said photos and doesn't think Player B would do that.

Player C, who is in the game, thinks this is extremely gross and inappropriate. They report Player A for inappropriate content.

Under this ruling, Player C can be nonexistent and the mods can rule against Player A.

This can be applied to any joke. This can be applied to anything potentially offensive, to anyone, anywhere, any time, any place.

This is a harmless example. Think of the times when you have said something rude to a player in a game and they know you are joking. None of those jokes are meant to be harmful, but this rule weaponizes said jokes into out of context remarks that apply to anyone. And you have no way of contesting the moderator's discretion, since context is irrelevant in the current framing of the rule.

Lock this thread. But seriously, Americans should be allowed to go into public and say racist and homophobic things to anyone they feel like. Once we get to the point where we cannot say racist and homophobic comments I feel it'd be time for a revolution. I'm not homophobic or racist.

This is the baseline under which tyrannical law is codified. Again, either accidentally terrible, or the moderators feel that they should have absolute power over what is said on the site. The latter is not a good example to learn from for the real world. It is in fact, how evil gets translated into judicial authority.

"based on moderator discretion" --> not based on anything other than any particular moderator's opinion

"could be considered" --> theoretical victim/audience that doesn't exist in the context

"but is not limited to" --> this is literal carte blanche

"promotes" --> anything that is even adjacent to said content

"severely offensive/inappropriate discussions or viewpoints" --> take above and apply to this.'severely' offensive/inappropriate is based on moderator's opinion and the theoretical, nonexistent victim, meaning it can be applied to anything out of context.

"viewpoint" --> define viewpoint in terms of content. what constitutes a viewpoint versus simply content? this is another way of broadening the spectrum unnecessarily

"with or without prior notice" --> discussions/viewpoints that apply to this broad spectrum can be removed without any feedback from another moderator, even without notifying the person who made the content or asking for context, and without any further involvement from a person reporting the content - or, there doesn't even need to be a report at all (this is true of the old rule, too, but the explicit wording here encourages active implementation)

My point, shady, is that "inflammatory content" under this wording for the rule, is literally anything the mods want it to be - and it can be orchestrated by any particular mod, if oversight is insufficient or, as it currently is, not necessary due to shortage of time / amount of staff.

This is not proper judicial language.

It is literally the stuff that tyrants write into their codified law to justify tyranny. So no, I'm not being light when I use that terminology.

This is either extremely poor wording by accident, or as I am implying, when instated in real world scenarios, extremely dangerous rhetoric that authorizes tyrannical law.

"Posting content anywhere on the site that,

> based on moderator discretion, could be considered overtly vulgar or

> indecent in nature. This includes, but is not limited to: any content

> that promotes indecent or severely offensive/inappropriate discussions

> or viewpoints, or images/links to content that falls under those

> guidelines. Inappropriate content that is found on the site will be

> deleted with or without prior notice"

Read carefully.

If your entire argument is that "offensive/inappropriate discussions or viewpoints" is vague wording and could lead to mod abuse then yes, I agree. But this is not some sort of defining statement with the earth-shattering ramifications that you imply it has. And I don't know why you think you have the right to discuss whatever inflammatory content you want on an online mafia forum. You probably should rethink your perspective before you throw around the word "tyranny"

What sort of consequences do you expect to extend into the real world from the current rules? I don't understand the implications you're talking about

yes but the people that play on this mafia website interact in the real world.

if they are going to make a set of rules, they should make them correctly, not abhorrently.

Hey bud I don't know if you realized but this is just a mafia website

Moreover, even if it wasn't, why wouldn't you want to respect the values of freedom that America espouses? Are you naive enough to think that the Western value system isn't the best the world has come up with?

I'm not saying Eastern values aren't also equivalent in worth; I'm saying that there is clear equivalency in fact in the principles even the UN elicits as basic fundamental human rights. The concept of free speech is one that is actually protected under these shared human rights, by proxy of the legitimacy of pluralities of sovereign states and their respective laws, norms, and culture.

aquarius says

Oh, and four: I have no idea why people are suddenly upset about a rule that has existed for YEARS... [cont'd]

The problem lies squarely in the language used to enunciate the rule itself. It is inherently tyrannical in the way it is formulated, giving moderators undue amounts of jurisdiction in terms of what is or isn't inappropriate.

Again, the context of Epicmafia means that this rule is likely harmless and limited to, as you say, the game itself and its forums, which pertain to Mafia.

However, as I said in the post initially, I am saying that anyone who believes this is good judicial writing or enunciation is quite frankly very wrong. The writing itself is poor and the structure of what it attempts to govern is not formulated coherently. Instead, it gives moderators potential carte blanche in any given circumstance, which is dangerous and unnecessary.

You say the rule has been around, and it has - but not in this structure or enunciation. The previous iterations were sufficient; this one is inherently evil in its employment and authorization.

And yes, American values matter. Our values are the cornerstone of the world's concept of a free world, whether you recognize that or not. We can call it Western, we can call it 1st world; we can call it whatever you want, but the fact of the matter is that this website is hosted on US soil and therefore must abide by certain principles.

There are numerous lawsuits ongoing dealing with much larger websites over this same sort of issue, and rest assured, it will not go in the website's favor, as it is physically dependent on US internet services and software for its use. Bear in mind, cloudflare is specifically US as well, and therefore the website is also hosted in the US.

So yes, American values and laws matter a fair deal in how this website is run and how it operates legally.

yeah muki, get on it

still waiting to be able to @ people, muki, get on it

numb says

i need a mod

same

@alyssa

you know what would be a better use of time, is adding a feature so that you can ping people by @ing them in the forums

idk, just a thought, just spitballing

maybe, you guys can't figure out a way to word this rule in a good way... because it's a bad rule

what if im talking about pedophilia in the context of pedos on this site

i need a mod

what's an inappropriate viewpoint alyssa

but this is nothing new, the mods have managed to drive away all of the actually interesting people so all you have left are the unfunny trolls

i mean, nobody has ever been happy about IC rule... people have been complaining about it since it was created

And, basically, boost everything that Aquarius said because she nailed it on the head

If "killing off basic human rights" starts with "silencing the dissent", what point are we at now, now that the rules been implemented for years?

This is a rule you're just noticing now(you've signed up in 2014), but it's far more lax than it was all those years ago. There's also wording similar to this in the Terms of Service(that thing you agreed upon with when signing up for the site).