Board Thread:The Seven Seas Court/@comment-4093783-20160602230039/@comment-25164591-20160602232858

At the risk of being what Ned calls the "PC Police," let me explain why I think this is a good step forward for the community.

These past couple weeks have been all-important concerning the future of the wiki. Aside from recent internal disagreements, this is probaby the first time in a while we've seriously had new users that aren't sockpuppets. What this means is that we have to make an effort to - I don't know - care a little more than we would if it were the null months of 2014-2015 where nothing really mattered and we could do what we please because there was no hope of any new users coming.

Conversely, here we are approaching mid-2016, where TLOPO "hype" is at an all time high (I couldn't tell you why, but I digress) and as previously mentioned we have a marvelous opportunity to bring in new membership for the first time in a long time.

Let's be honest, we've scared people away in the past, and it's something we're all guilty of to some degree. Whether it's being ultra-suspicious of all new users fearing a seedling invasion or using obscure inside jokes that could easily be misinterpreted as blatantly morose insults, we haven't had a great track record at finding, much less keeping new contributors.

If we want to change that, we need to move away from all this lax nonsense. The entire wiki is not chat - meaning, what buffoonery goes on in chat cannot reflect on the site as a whole. That means giving up our time honored tradition of jokingly calling each other homosexuals and telling one another to kill themselves - wait, what?

Sure, you can use the thinskinned argument all day, but before you presume to understand everyone else's own daily struggles, perhaps you should try to put yourself in other people's shoes. The elephant in the room regarding these inside jokes has always been my own... predispositions, so to say; I personally hear slurs thrown around all the time both on the internet and beyond and though I'm not one to verbally express my annoyance at every little thing, yes, of course it bothers me sometimes, and that's coming from someone who's exposed to like things on a daily basis here on the wiki.

Imagine, then, someone with a mental illness or something of that nature coming to this wiki in hopes of contributing, but immediately being driven out because they feel completely attacked here. We have rules in place to prevent harassment, but up until the past few months they've been far too vague. We've already outlawed the use of terms and phrases like autistic or kill thyself, so why, must I ask, can we still use words like gay in a seemingly derogatory fashion, even if it is a joke? How can newcomers possibly be expected to know where the line is drawn?

So in the interests of the longevity of the wiki and the thoughts and feelings of users both old and new, I believe this motion must be considered.