Larian Studios Forums General Chat Chat (Anything) Larian tolerates hate speech against autism?

And I'll also add that, as I pointed out in private messaging, I am also diagnosed with ASD. So it's not as if the moderating team have a vested interest in covering it up or generally disrespecting forum members. I am not particularly impressed with it being used as an insult and to a degree I feel similarly affronted but ultimately it says more about the person who would consider it an insult. There is a phrase, "choose your battles wisely", and it is very easy to get carried away and end up looking like the problem rather than the affronted.

Edit: and that was a really horribly-written paragraph not because of ASD but lack of sleep. It may or may not make sense.

May I suggest that most of this diatribe is a case of "lost in translation" and plenty to do with different cultural backgrounds?

While the mod team could have definitely taken more incisive actions against unconscionable and cruel verbal abuse hurled by Tuco, if i have read the messages properly, there hasn't been unpunished ridicule of autism, but inappropriate insults employing slur denigrating autism.

Fits the old saying, American, I think: "making a mole hill into a mountain".

I see you are hard to understand things. I see also you are not alone. I use your example. It is like you are discussing with some people and, after you say "you jew!" people says "look, it is not appropriate to use jew as an insult". So you reply and say "I use jew because it is the most appropriate word to descrive ugly noses, greedyness, avarice, evilness and general human inferiority". Remember that you are NOT TALKING, YOU ARE WRITING. WHAT YOU WRITE STANDS THERE AND OTHER PEOPLE WILL READ.

This is not an insult against all jews? Do you need actual jews to be present in the discussion to recognize a wide thrown insult risulting in hate and discrimination speech?

I am tired to speak with people that for some reason seems unable to understand. I'll send some emails and see what happens, but probably I'll stop responding here, because sorry but I find the majority of the comments actually very poor in a lot of ways (human, intellective etc).

In our messages you also said that you would have acted differently with Tuco (but "someone" did not agree) or I remember wrong?


I wonder who this "someone" is... WHAT A MISTERY!

Raze and I have a slightly different approach to moderating (though not that different) but consensus is important as inconsistent moderation is not helpful. I'm obviously invested in both sides of this particular argument and personally speaking I'm happy enough now that people have stopped throwing insults around. If they start again then the situation will be reappraised.

The problem is that the insults against autistic people still stands there. Any user, new and old, can read that thread and verify that Larian's moderation is ok to let that hate speech content standing on their pages. Even if you're not legally responsible (and I am not sure, I don't exclude that Canada's law could say that you have to remove that content.. I'm not familiar with foreign laws) you ethically are.

I know that the majority of other forums don't manage content this way, they would have at least edit that content, many other would have temporary banned tuco too, and I totally agree with that style of moderation.

I think that the moderation result inconsistent here, despite the intentions, because nobody seems to care about leaving rubbish of various kind between the comments. Nobody seems to care even about the worst and stinky rubbish. The result is that the forum is less readable and that users are forced to read all the shit posted in the threads. Not good at all in my arrogant opinion.

They can also, if they consider it to be any worse than any of the other insults in the topic, use it to inform their opinion of Tuco.

Some time ago I heard a reporter tell a story about a trip to Germany. A person there made a positive comment about an internet figure who had gained some prominence, then in part because of a video where he said some pretty racist things, his influence dropped quite a bit. The reported asked how he could support a racist, to which the answer was that the guy wasn't a racist. The German wouldn't believe the quote the reported gave (I don't recall the exact details) and the reported could not find the video as proof, since it was blocked in Germany for being offensive.

Cleaning up 'offensive' comments wouldn't make posters any less offensive, but it would let them keep a nice, clean image (short of being permanently banned).


In any case, it is unlikely any new forum members are reading the entire thread, even if they post in it, existing forum members who have not been following it are unlikely to start, and the topic itself I wouldn't expect to continue much past an official statement on the matter.

Every time I start thinking to drop this situation, Raze start writing some unrelevant, mistifying, diversionary answer that totally fail to center the core argument, and then I am triggered again. Your answers are insults to the intelligence itself.

I have never seen in decades of internet usage a moderator who talk so much (inconsistently) and moderate so little (and poorly). You are unique in such an undesirable way.

An passant: Tuco is not a public figure, he is a nickname without any real identity related. And he is meaningless. Anyway nobody needs to storage and trace all the shit that exists on internet, if that would happen the web would just be a not desirable place to be. Normal forums clean their pages, instead you prefer to host people in a messy and dirty house.
I am sure you would act differently with other kind of content, the problem here is just that you don't consider hate speech against autism "bad enough" to be edited (and that speaks a lot about your mentality). The unreadable dialectic contortion and the anedotics you try to propose every time are simply never actually relevant nor diriment. They are diversionary and evidence denialing arguments that triggers me a lot, because I hate to sistematically receive answers that only a stupid could accept.

By the way, for the people who was contesting my definition of hate speech, here is how United Nations describe the meaning of this expression. (You can find the pdf on www.un.org)


The term hate speech is understood as any kind of communication in speech, writing or behaviour, that attacks or uses pejorative or discriminatory language with reference to a person or a group on the basis of who they are, in other words, based on their religion, ethnicity, nationality, race, colour, descent, gender or other identity factor. This is often rooted in, and generates intolerance and hatred and, in certain contexts, can be demeaning and divisive.

Thanks, Raze. Some common sense at last.

What is "common" is also mildly stupid in an average society. Your meaningless comment confirms that concept.

Saying to something in a bully way "he/she is autistic" has become an insult especially among PvP players and "vocal minorities" in gaming forums.

This insult means one of three things , or both :

- That someone is an idiot

- That someone has a tunnel vision on something / on a topic

- That someone is only interested in the own thing - almost like being egoistic.

Insulting someone as being "autistic" often is a try to undermine the insulted one's position.
Insulting someone as "autistic" is - apart from the question whether really all options have been thought through - often made by someone who is a REAL egoistic person and can't stand that others have a different opinion.

Insulting people by calling them "disabled" is not something new. I had experienced that in my elementary school, and that's 30-40 years ago.


Imho to deal with this "autictic" insult is best done - again, this is my very personal opinion ! - through this :

1. Applying some sort of self-criticism : Am I really single-minded over something ? Have I really not thought about other options ? Have I not tried to imagine/follow other paths of logic about that discussed matter ?

2. If I have thoroughly asked myself and applied self-criticim, I can see this insult as something it really is : An insult to undermine my opinion as something "irrelevant", because the person calling me "autistic" is the REAL person who is overly egoistic in/with his/ her views !


The problem with the is - on the meta level - that discuussions in forums often have become - as someone had put it in the SWTOR forums - a kind of "forums PvP2, which consists of insulting, undermining, destroying someone's view until he or she gives up - and the insulter is the winner of that discussion !

Discussions are - when done this wa - NO MORE done as discussions over a topic or there. No, they are done as a way to perform might and power and to get a level higher in social ranks - by crushing others).

The topic or theme has become almost irrelevant, then. The only important thing, then, is to become the winner of that discussion. This is often then when people with an overly big ego collide.

You can see that this kind of discussions takes place when only 1-3 people quote each other all of the time, and forcefully ignore any other reply. This discussion has then become a "closed circle" of 1-3 (seldom 4) people circling around each other, like a dance with blades.
They not only ignore all other replies, they don't even ignore them, they simply cast them out of reality, as if other replies simply do not exist. This is what i meant with "they forcefully ignore all other relies", because they use a lot of energy to not achklowledge any other replies as being part of Reality.

And then, this closed circle consits of people having an extreme tunnel vision, and sometimes even call others having tunnel vision. It's like with the old Bible saying : They see the splinter in the other's eyes, but cannot see the HUGE plank/board of wood hanging on their heads ...

You could say the same about Nazis, red necks, hicks, slickers, Bible thumpers, Trumptards, crackers, fascists, holy rollers, druggies, and a whole host of others. It'd be nice if the nonsense ended but it won't and to stop it would be a case of cutting off the arm due to a broken finger, ie, the cure is worse then the disease. It's calls for rolling your eyes and moving on, not making a mountain out of a molehill.