Denounce and prohibit homophobia, transphobia and general discrimination [1.6 Rule & Point Changes]

[Sosa]

G'day g'day,

As a member of the LGBT+ community, I feel that this is an issue that needs to be addressed.


THE PROBLEM

Over the past few months, it has become apparent that this site has been very heavily derogatory toward certain community members and its users who say such things are not punished accordingly nor are they impacted in any notable capacity.


THE 'REASONING'

Some users have gone as far as to get into the etymology of the word 'transphobia' stating that they aren't 'scared' of transgender people. This. Is. Not. The. Meaning. Of. Transphobia.
Some users also think that their biblical or personal based opinion is a fact when it is very clearly not.
Other users plead that their discriminatory words and actions align with their country's 'freedom of speech' law. I have said this many times, and I will say it again; having the ability to say whatever you want to say doesn't mean that people won't be offended by it.
But, I don't know why I'm going on about freedom of speech, as it doesn't actually apply on this site.
This site is run under Australian law as Mick Capital Pty. Ltd. is a registered Australian business that this site runs under (as seen in the site's copyright footer).
This means that, in Australia, we have laws protecting the LGBT+ community and any other marginalised cohorts - in simple terms, transphobes and homophobes get fined for their discriminatory words and actions.
From 1st August 2013, discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex people became illegal for the first time under national law. Many people have since received fines up to $5000 AUD, depending on publicity.
For any Australians, namely the one that runs this site, this would be found under the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 and was passed under the Sex Discrimination Amendment (Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity and Intersex Status) Act 2013.

Spoiler: Examples from the site

MY SUGGESTION

In line with Australian laws and common human decency and respect, denounce and prohibit the use of homophobic and transphobic comments, remarks and actions as well as other discriminatory slurs.
This can be achieved by;

• Changing the current 1.6 rule as it is far too broad and needs clarification regarding what is considered 'disrespectful'.
• Editing the warning points for 1.6 violations depending on the severity;
  • Light Offence (basic disrespect) - 5 Warning Points
  • Moderate Offence (homophobia, transphobia, racism, etc.) - 10 Warning Points
  • Major Offence (harassment, excessive moderate offence violations) - 15-20 Warning Points
• Posting a thread 100% denouncing hatred toward marginalised cohorts

 

[Kram]

I agree with a lot of the sentiment behind what's in this thread, but I just want to state that the biggest change you're really suggesting is that warning point amount change.

We are already very strict on disrespectful behavior. Now some people might say that we are not harsh enough and some people say we are too harsh, but I genuinely believe that as a staff team we handle disrespectful behavior well, not allowing for hateful speech. Any slur is not allowed, that's a hard standard I've seen every staff member follow.

I believe 1.6 needs to be broad, disrespectful speech comes in too many forms, to specify what it means beyond what the current rule states just enables certain behavior get away unpunished.

Your warning point suggestion is what I find most interesting here. I agree that at times, 10 points seems far too low for the behavior some members demonstrate. There are times where users will intentionally use slurs knowing full well what they are saying that I personally believe that just giving them 10 points is too little for what they did. With that said, there are also times where 10 points already seem like too much, where the behavior is a verbal warning, but not with malicious intent. What that leaves us with is where it is at right now, 10 points, what I feel like is a middle ground. I remember that not that long ago (at least in my mind) that 1.6 was increased from 5 points to 10 points for the exact reason you're suggesting.
It's not that I'm against increasing the point value, I just wanted to share why it's where it is at right now.

 

[Justis]

Our TOS already explicitly prohibits all forms of discrimination and we already actively warn for this.

(iii) Contains hateful, defamatory, or discriminatory content or incites hatred against any individual or group;

Our warning points system attempts to eliminate subjectivity as much as possible by ensuring the points value remains consistent for all violations of that rule/term. If you want to suggest we change this to allow for the staff member to change the amount of points assigned for a violation, that’d be best in its own suggestion.

TOS violation warnings and disrespect warnings are equally 10 points, and at the moment, I don’t see a reason to increase 1.6 to 15 or higher. It was previously 5 points and it has since been doubled to the current 10, matching the points for a TOS violation. Doing this was met with lots of backlash from our community members who at the time believed it was too much for the offense. It’s an instant suspension. Other violations also resulting in 10 points include posting pornographic content, sharing our members’ personal information, and ban evasion. If a convincing argument can be made for why disrespectful content should be punished more harshly than those things, then I’ll agree with an increase in points. I feel your passion, and I want wrongdoers to see punishment too, but we need to be careful not to grow dissatisfied with the fact that the acts themselves keep occurring and misguidedly seek a solution by repeatedly increasing the warning points associated with that violation, because that path leads only to a permanent ban for everyone's first offense. We want people to learn and improve, not move somewhere else.

Given that discrimination of any form has been a violation of our TOS since the site’s conception, and given that there has never been a point in our history where we didn’t include punishment for transphobia or homophobia in our enforcement, I see no reason why a sudden announcement or thread would be warranted. Anyone who has been found posting discriminatory or hateful content on our site has received a suspension and they know very well that it isn’t tolerated here. I’m very much against all forms of virtue signaling, and a thread being posted just to remind everyone that we’re not bigots, and we don’t tolerate discrimination, would serve no true purpose beyond that.

Actions speak louder than words, and I believe we’re taking action, and have been taking action to eliminate discrimination on our platform as a staff team for as long as we’ve existed. Any situation where we’ve been unable to take the actions we would have wanted to take in order to ensure violators saw punishment has been due only to a lack of available evidence, or a lack of report on the violator by the community or those impacted. We can’t see everything that happens. We do rely heavily on reports and tickets.

I appreciate your passion for ensuring discriminatory content ceases to exist on MCM, and your continued support in ensuring that violators are reported would really help towards that end. Other than that, I look forward to hearing your thoughts on my take on your thread.

 

[Jasmine]

My Personal Opinion:
While I think this overall suggestion is good! I really enjoy it and this is my personal opinion on how 1.6 should be edited.
In my personal opinion 1.6 should be separated into different categories:

Light Offense - 5 Warning Points
Mild Offense - 10 Warning Points
Major Offense - 15/20 Warning Points
(not final, up to the staff if they do like this to change it)
The Main Issue:
I think that this a rule that is enforced quite often and I've had personal experiences
with this. When you're just being rude to a single person over the span of 5-6 messages
in chatbox it will fall under the rule 1.6 | 10 warning points
Now think about someone harassing them over Discord, 20-30 messages in chatbox publicly
degrading someone and saying horrible things about them it still falls under the rule 1.6 | 10 warning points
Conclusion:
I think changing it up would be the best way to go about this. It may look messy, it may be hard for the
staff to moderate this and I completely understand but like what Kram & Justis said above, I don't think there
should be a middle ground because some absolutely disgusting horrible behavior such as homophobia and
other discriminating actions is simply just not the same as being rude about "being broke" or something so small that comes off as irritating than full on harassment. Both are wrong behaviors but it
feels like 10 points sometimes is too light while at other times too strong.

I'd love to see everyone's feedback on my personal take.

 

[Ally]

Given that discrimination of any form has been a violation of our TOS since the site’s conception, and given that there has never been a point in our history where we didn’t include punishment for transphobia or homophobia in our enforcement, I see no reason why a sudden announcement or thread would be warranted.

Wrong. I'm with you and Kram both on your posts especially - but this statement is completely and utterly wrong.
I've been on the receiving end of it, and I can tell you now, in the two major events I am thinking of, the offending user was not punished, with the offending content simply being removed until someone else came along and punished explicitly for it. This was after I had made a support request following several previous offences.
My frustration with the system - at the time - was that nothing was done to protect myself even though this person had gone out of their way to harass me multiple times.
There were other cases too, I'm sure, but transphobia and homophobia have never always been enforced, especially with the old lot of staff members. The current staff team has been significantly different and I have nothing but praise and love for you all, but you cannot deny that the previous major set of staff members didn't overlook significant things.

 

[Sosa]

The suggestion has been edited with Jasmine's idea of the light/moderate/major offence steps.

Kram and Justis, I understand what you're saying, but I do think that users still think it's ok to spread homophobic and transphobic hatred around the site. I could tag a few for you just off of the top of my head.
MCM needs to come out and complete and utterly denounce it.

 

[Kram]

The suggestion has been edited with Jasmine's idea of the light/moderate/major offence steps.

Kram and Justis, I understand what you're saying, but I do think that users still think it's ok to spread homophobic and transphobic hatred around the site. I could tag a few for you just off of the top of my head.
MCM needs to come out and complete and utterly denounce it.

I think it's very clear to those people who have been homophobic on MCM that we don't allow it based on their warning points, I can think of a user who has received over 30 points in recent succession based on his homophobic messaging.

I personally denounce homophobia and transphobia and I believe that every one of the other staff members would do the same, but there are many things we don't allow at all, and to make a thread each time there are members who think some form of horrible behavior is okay becomes unnecessary. A thread like that is spreading the message to those who already understand it. Members who want to be homophobic will not stop being homophobic just because we denounce it.

Jasmine's idea I'm not against completely, I think 3 levels is overkill, a 5 point, and a 15 point is more than enough. I just don't know if it's possible with the current system.

 

[Justis]

Wrong. I'm with you and Kram both on your posts especially - but this statement is completely and utterly wrong.
I've been on the receiving end of it, and I can tell you now, in the two major events I am thinking of, the offending user was not punished, with the offending content simply being removed until someone else came along and punished explicitly for it. This was after I had made a support request following several previous offences.
My frustration with the system - at the time - was that nothing was done to protect myself even though this person had gone out of their way to harass me multiple times.
There were other cases too, I'm sure, but transphobia and homophobia have never always been enforced, especially with the old lot of staff members. The current staff team has been significantly different and I have nothing but praise and love for you all, but you cannot deny that the previous major set of staff members didn't overlook significant things.

I have many complaints with a big chunk of our old staff members, you know that well. I think you’re incorrect to be blaming the system though, when the system hasn’t changed. It’s the same policies, the same rules, just different people holding the mop.
We hired some people, some of them sucked, they’re gone. Luckily, repeating that process a few times has landed us a decent batch of long term staff members who can enforce our policies correctly and respectfully.

I understand what you're saying, but I do think that users still think it's ok to spread homophobic and transphobic hatred around the site. I could tag a few for you just off of the top of my head.
MCM needs to come out and complete and utterly denounce it.

They think it’s okay, as in they think MCM won’t punish them if we catch them posting discriminatory content? Surely not.
If they’ve posted any such content, please report it or make a ticket about it so that we can punish them, rather than tagging them in this thread. I think we’d all like to see them punished for their actions.

What were your thoughts on my response to your suggestion that we post a thread "denouncing" discriminatory content? Or, Kram’s above?

 

[Sosa]

Jasmine's idea I'm not against completely, I think 3 levels is overkill, a 5 point, and a 15 point is more than enough. I just don't know if it's possible with the current system.

My thread contains examples of what would be considered to each category.

They think it’s okay, as in they think MCM won’t punish them if we catch them posting discriminatory content? Surely not.
If they’ve posted any such content, please report it or make a ticket about it so that we can punish them, rather than tagging them in this thread. I think we’d all like to see them punished for their actions.

The fact you just said "surely not" shows your lack of understanding of day-to-day life on MCM and what goes on...

Actions speak louder than words, and I believe we’re taking action, and have been taking action to eliminate discrimination on our platform as a staff team for as long as we’ve existed. Any situation where we’ve been unable to take the actions we would have wanted to take in order to ensure violators saw punishment has been due only to a lack of available evidence, or a lack of report on the violator by the community or those impacted. We can’t see everything that happens. We do rely heavily on reports and tickets.

And at the moment, these people think that making these comments is ok and justified because of the reasoning stated in my thread. Denouncing it will show them that whatever they think is a good reason to say it, isn't a good reason.
Education over discipline.

 

[Ally]

I have many complaints with a big chunk of our old staff members, you know that well. I think you’re incorrect to be blaming the system though, when the system hasn’t changed. It’s the same policies, the same rules, just different people holding the mop.
We hired some people, some of them sucked, they’re gone. Luckily, repeating that process a few times has landed us a decent batch of long term staff members who can enforce our policies correctly and respectfully.

I wish there were a better solution at the time to when that happened, but yeah I know. Usually it was making a ticket (or in my case, support request) that'd resolve it.
Doesn't mean the system was flawless though and the extent of which what I described happened. But... from what I hear, the solution was to simply prevent a single staff member from doing all the reports - and w/ the management now, and current staff team, those issues are all but non-existent.
That being said, it wasn't consistently enforced at one point (which is what I was trying to get at, sorry! I do agree the system isn't/wasn't the issue) just because of the people handling it.

 

[Sosa]

How about that fact that Porn and ban evasion don't lead to suicide, self-harm or depression. Should I go on?

This right here is exactly why it needs to be upped.

 

[Kram]

My thread contains examples of what would be considered to each category.

I disagree with the categories you mentioned.
I really do believe that if there is going to be multiple punishment levels for 1.6 we really only need
5 warning points - Generic disrespectful behavior
15 warning points - Clear malicious disrespectful behavior (Examples would be calling someone a slur, telling someone to kill themselves, etc)
Any in between will just get confusing for both members and staff in my opinion.

And at the moment, these people think that making these comments is ok and justified because of the reasoning stated in my thread. Denouncing it will show them that whatever they think is a good reason to say it, isn't a good reason.
Education over discipline.

I strongly do not believe that people think that it is okay and justified. They just want to continue their immature and disrespectful behavior without any consequences and any excuse is just an attempt at not being punished.

If someone isn't going to stop their behavior after being punished with warning points, suspension, and the possibility of being banned in the near future if their behavior doesn't change, us posting a thread will not change them.

Tickets and warning conversations are not public but oftentimes, for those who are genuinely confused about how their behavior is disrespectful, some staff members have tried to provide an explanation about how it is disrespectful and to not continue that behavior.

A denouncing thread isn't education, it is restating what is already provided in our rules and TOS.


Please keep in mind though, I completely agree with your sentiment, I wish that all we needed to do was create a thread to solve the issues of transphobia and homophobia, but from what I've seen as a staff member and community member, that just wouldn't be the case.

Justis
Alright i was going to bite my fin on commenting on this however im done being silent on such a serious topic
10 points is meaningless and not enough. It takes 75 points to have someone removed via a ban. Thats 8 attempts at
bullying, harassing and pure hate towards people. At what point do you realize that is not even close to a reasonable amount.

If a convincing argument can be made?
How about that fact Porn an ban evasion dont lead to suicide or self harm or depression. Should i go on?
Or the fact we give our personal information every time we accept a paypal transaction.
No one is asking for a first offence ban, But 8 offences before a ban is far too many.
News flash for you, The people doing this dont want to improve there single goal is to hurt people.


"I see no reason why a sudden announcement or thread would be warranted"
You sir need to resign if you truthfully believe that. You just had a moderator harassed, bullied and dox purely because she was Trans and banned a known member.
If you honestly havent seen the shoutbox lately. Never in my time on the site has there been so much hatered. Its degusting.

Kram
"I think it's very clear to those people who have been homophobic on MCM that we don't allow it based on their warning points, I can think of a user who has received over 30 points in recent succession based on his homophobic messaging."
You're right it is clear to them, But news flash again THEY DONT CARE. 30 points? O well he can do it another 5 times before being auto-banned. You think thats even close to reasonable?


"Actions speak louder than words"

I agree and as usual MCM's actions have not been enough. Senior staff have been silent, and completely failed the community over and over.

So I suppose its time for the community to take action since staff refuses. And ill take a income hit to make that happen.
From this point forward Shark's Exchange will no longer serve anyone displaying these actions or pure hate towards anyone.
Anyone else who has a service which a decent following that also takes this stance. I will exchange up to $5000 for just the fees on my end (Of any currency and any Coin).
Since MCM's leadership refuses to condemn & remove these people in a reasonable timely manner that isn't 8 chances to get away with the behavior its time to make the site completely useless to them and there hate. They should have NO PLACE in this community MCM's community is far better then this behavior.

I agree that they don't care, I've had to deal with a lot of the warnings for them.

This just returns to my original post stating how we got to that 10 points value. It used to be 5, and after noticing how long it took someone to get banned at 5, it was increased to 10. As of right now, we don't have any severity in our warning system other than verbal and points, and not every instance of 1.6 is worth 15, 20 warning points. And we can't have a system where a staff member just decides how much an offense is worth because there is absolutely 0 structure to that.

I have said before in chat, in suggestion, in PMs, that we handle disrespect very seriously. If you doubt that, I hope you look at your own behavior and warnings.

And as you are a member who joined relatively recently compared to the span of MCM, I'd just like to say that the behavior in chat and on the forum is nowhere out of the normal. There have been bad people on MCM throughout its span, just like every single place on the internet. In fact, I would go as far as to say that there are fewer of these people on MCM now than there used to be. Both from the perspective of a staff member and as a community member.

Your move of not working with anyone who displays disrespectful behavior is great, and I hope other members follow you.

 

[Sosa]

Y'all don't have decent staff. People can be warned for something as little as "x over-charges" or "How is x violating the rules but xx isn't" Even your LM flat out ignores what the staff member does wrong and tries to deflect by talking about what you did wrong then later when it's brought up in a ticket, act like they talked to that staff member when there was no indication that the LM even acknowledged said wrongdoings of that staff member prior to that.

Making a ticket does jack shit. Reporting does jack shit. It varies from staff member to staff member and if they like or dislike the person reporting (or the person being reported)

Also Ally gg ironic[DOUBLEPOST=1612937880][/DOUBLEPOST]
Wait I'm sorry, what? You want each staff to do x reports a day instead of doing as many as they want? I don't know how many moderators are actually currently active since only 2-3 actually showed their presence on the forums but I noticed back then that it was just Alien and I doing reports. Over 3,000 of them. If Management made staff only do a certain amount of reports a day, the backlog would just be greater and greater. facepalm Management shouldn't enforce staff only doing a certain amount of reports a day to be honest. Especially if only 1-2 are actually doing the reports.

The solution isn't for a single staff not to do "all" of the reports, it's that MCM needs active moderators so it's not just a single staff member doing "all" of the reports.

Hi Eclipse, would love to say big fan of your work but I’m really not.
It seems as if your posts aren’t actually to do with the thread so I’m kindly asking you to remove them or edit them so discussion about this suggestion can continue. Thanks!

 

[Sosa]

Kram and Justis

Since people like to call me "transphobic" then I'll just go with it. I am proudly saying that I do not support the trans lifestyle, that is my opinion, exactly how you saying "i support the trans lifestyle" - that is your opinion and I don't mind you or other people saying that... its their life.

Here's some proof we didn't ask for but came right to our fucking doorstep. This is the shit that needs to be denounced.
"I am proudly saying that I do not support the trans lifestyle".
The amount of shit they get away with and happily state (as you just saw) because the fucking site hasn't denounced or done anything to these individuals.

 

[Kram]

I completely agree with you on this one. The staff do need to be more active and MC-Market would definitely need some better staff members because as far as I am concerned, specific people get special treatment and it sucks... really does.

Activity is an interesting statement and while yes, more active the better, that's always the case, a lot of our backlog is quite low, especially our mod reports.
As for special treatment, I haven't seen a good case of that where we have not dealt with the staff member involved.

Since people like to call me "transphobic" then I'll just go with it. I am proudly saying that I do not support the trans lifestyle, that is my opinion, exactly how you saying "i support the trans lifestyle" - that is your opinion and I don't mind you or other people saying that... its their life.

If you're so interested in me particularly and keep quoting my message where I say "im transphobic and proud" then just so you would know, I come from a religious family and what I've been taught then the entire LGBT lifestyle / movement / whatever, it is a sin. So therefore, I simply don't support it. I don't hate you if you're gay or lesbian or whatever sexuality you define yourself as, I don't judge you. To me it's just a mental illness, nothing else. I can really easily be friends with someone who is gay or lesbian - in fact, I have lesbian friends or bisexual, whatever they define themselves. I just don't support it...

I don't really know what you were thinking here. Normally I would just warn and delete and not give a post like this any time, but considering you chose to respond and say in this thread of all places, let me just make an example.

This is what not to do.

This breaks 1.6, and in no means is allowed on MCM.

Everyone is allowed to their opinion, but if your opinion is that it's a mental illness, that opinion can't be shared here, that's directly disrespectful to every single person who is part of that community.

So don't act like this, especially not on a thread where 2 staff members explicitly said we don't tolerate homophobia and transphobia.