Lastly, while I think her statements were a bit too strongly worded, I think that Escade getting reported for trying to have a serious conversation is ridiculous.
Did you read her post? She is not “trying to have a serious conversation”, she is saying TGW’s actions amount to harassment, leveling a serious charge in a public place against the rules of the forum, rules we all agree to follow. You’ve also been around the game long enough to know the rules, I did what was required, it’s not my place to judge whether the rules are right or wrong, they are what they are and we have to follow them. If Escade or URE can openly break that rule without consequences…then we all can, and order breaks down entirely. Do I agree with this being the best way to handle anything? No. Does it matter what I think? No. Them’s the rules of the forum.
Other than that, I agree that part of the impasse is cultural - no one in TGW command has used “daddy” in a sexual context - it did not even originate as us being a disappointed parent with raider children. TGW “Daddy” came from OG officers dick-waving against each other at update, who was faster than another, who was the most dominant chaser. This predates my time in defending and wasn’t even directed at raiders. It became directed at raiders as a natural expansion of the idea of update dominance. Not sexual dominance, the kind of scoring dominance that makes Pedro Martinez tip his hat and call the Yankees his “Daddy”. “Who’s your daddy, who’s your daddy?” I’m a Sox fan, I live in New England, this is how “Daddy” is used in my world, and how TGW thinks of the concept.
If we actually want to work toward solving this, it won’t be through mod warnings, “serious conversations”, Cormac’s attacks, or NSA’s well-intentioned arguments. No offense intended, but you weren’t here when TBH was being so sensitive that we were not even allowed to use our own theme to describe raiders as “Darkspawn”. I mean for heaven’s sake, it’s our own region theme! TRE calling defenders “barbarians” was ok since it was their theme, but we couldn’t use “darkspawn”? I was not even allowed to poke fun at how TBH accused me of “automating” defending. I posted a meme which included a small image of cars being assembled in a factory and I got warned for it! (technically an unofficial, but basically same thing since it’s noted and counts against you). TBH complained that we were “poaching” their people and that was toxic, all the while running API recruitment on defender regions. TBH complained that we were spying on them and that was toxic…while they spied on defender regions. When we use a script like Breeze, we are called cheaters. When they use a script like Spyglass, they are being time efficient. There has long been a sense in TGW that TBH wants a double standard - if we do something, it is toxic, we are ruining gameplay…but when they do the thing, it is gameplay smack or acceptable tactics, or not even discussed at all. You need to have thick skin to be a defender, so most of what they do that we find objectionable rarely sees the light of day.
When everything is being called toxic, unacceptable, bullying, etc. it becomes like the boy crying wolf - when something that actually makes people feel OOC uncomfortable or unsafe at a serious level comes up, it falls on deaf ears because they’ve been saying that about almost everything else. We lose the ability to differentiate between harmful things and harmless things, and when you do this all the time, you outright telling us something is harmful also loses credibility and becomes meaningless.
I guess what I’m asking for is to not be as hypocritical…practicing what you preach or at least not vilifying others for doing what you do, too. Likewise, not being as sensitive and only dishing things out if you can take things coming in, or at least reserving serious complaints for serious things. On TGW’s end, we can take your complaints seriously and end behavior that is actually unacceptable. TGW command discussed this and have put the brakes on daddy and anything remotely tangentially able to be connected to daddy, indefinitely. We can try to be more fun and less antagonistic opponents.
We don’t want gameplay to be a hostile or unsafe place, we don’t think you are OOC bad people and we don’t want you to think we are OOC bad people. We are not exclusive or elitists or a good ‘old boys club. Most of our gloat posts trend toward a certain aesthetic, but anyone in TGW can write a gloat post and they choose the style. Anyone regardless of identity or status can become a warden and work up the ranks to command the org and shape its policy and culture.
I expect the response to this to be defensive and nothing will change because you will find a way to say what we do is different than what you do and somehow equate it all to being toxic, unacceptable, bullying, or whatever in whatever way, so nothing will change. But, let the record reflect that I opened up and said what our real concerns are and why we think like this. You will disagree with the reasoning, but hey I tried. See you on the battlefield.