Cultural Differences and Forum Moderation

The Spade is a reference to the Spade (card suit) he uses as his handle being the gentleman villain he is. Shovel is not him.

His Avatar was one of Psygons fantastic City of Cute renderation of a screenshot (i used it proudly on the EU forum). He always wears a tophat, and the grinning skullmask to hide his identity. The colours he uses is darkish purple. Looks real sinister and evil yet refined. To be honest, one of the best costumes I made in 3 years. I loath to lose that avatar as I absolutely love it. Still when it is avatar sized, it does look a bit like a black man grinning . (sorry don't have the url available here)

The post I got was a very polite one from Avatea. Apparently more then one complaint was made and in her opinion, the combination of name and avatar was to easily mistakes as being meant to be offensive.

For the record, I did not intend to offend anybody (I failed changing my name yet even though it saddens me to do so, can't find the form to change it but I stopped using the avatar.)

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SUPPORT - IT'S NOT JUST A GROUPING OF ATs
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More Than a Game
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How about "GrinningSpade"? It keeps the card theme, and the gentleman theme, and isn't offensive to anyone in the EU where he plays.

If it was the combination then are you fine keeping the name without the avatar?

And no one's asking him to change his character's name. Just the forum name (or possibly as JD said, the combination of name + avatar, which, to be fair, sounds like it would be fairly offensive to anyone who knew and considered "spade" to be a derogatory term) - and it may very well have been offensive on the EU forums, just not in droves as it appears to be here.

It would be preferable if he didn't have to change, yes - but in the interests of all getting along? I was merely making a suggestion.

Hmm first of all Britain is a group of small countries each with their own identities and culture. Rivalries are quite prolific. Ask A Scot if he enjoyed the recent Engalnd football game and is he pleased they won you may well find out. But in seriousness its a broad brush to paint calling us all Brits the way alot of transatlantics do. Yeah its lots easier than saying English, Scottish, Welsh or Irish, and usuallly no harm is meant. But sometimes I get this energy from statemtents using it as being dismissive and forgetful of the divrity we have here.

And secondly most of us dont go to these public schools. We go to state run schools which while not havong the odd weird contests our toffs go to. Unfortunately these same toffs end up getting cushy jos in business and government. So in effect we are run by people who are absoloutely nothing like the majority of the population. So if by saying we are the way we are you mena disillusioned by politics and business then yes you may be right. These people tend to think they have a place above us and have special priveledges by birthright and dont like it when we tell them otherwise. The recent expenses scandal is yet another classic example of this.

Other wise I think you just made a generalised sterotypical comment that is as ill fitting and inacurate as having a crusty old black guy in movies picking cotton and saying "Lordy, lordy, lordy... boss" while performing menial tasks for his white master. That mostly went out thankfully but its still for some reason seen as ok or seen as a favour to us here in the UK to throw in some Sterotype of an uppercrust snob or a cockney. I recently had this conversation on another forum I use oddly enough. In my county alone there are numoerous accents and one guy from Yorkshire will sound very different to myself and Coin over here in East Yorskshire... yet its hard to beleive because the distance is relatively short.

Now I know I came across as a little serious there and to be honest I know usually no harm is meant as I said. But it does seem this is the thread to bring these things up in especially after GGs comment. Again I know you meant no harm GG so no worries but I saw the oppertunity for a little educational notice.

Depends on how many more complaints they are getting I guess. So far they wanted me to remove the Avatar at least. When I reread her post removing the Avatar is all they demand of me right now.

Not a good start for me on this merged forum, I am reluctant to respond to topics.

Well, you have MY full support mate, even if you don't want it!

I'd rather us go back to 2 seperated communities than one member from EITHER side have to change their names because the other side doesn't like it.

You said a mouthful there. Personally I can do without a national English holiday named after a Maltese Knight. :P But when it comes down to it the reason we cant celebrate "Englishness" in England because we might offend immigrants then the whole country has turned into a mess. Mind what would we do to celebrate that day? Usually as has been pointed out its another booze day. Be nice if it was something a little more unique.

And on the subject of politcal correctness.

Yeah Ill back you up as well buddy. That is a total act of hypocrisy of what this thread is about. I kind of half expected something like this where the company says one thing for PR sake but doesnt back it.

Well, we could always go out shooting Dragons, but then the BBC might have a bit of trouble making the next series of Dragon's Den.

Thanks for the support FFM. The future will tell more I suppose.

I foresee more culture clashes ahead. We people from the sensible continent have always considered you Brits to be a bit on the funny side but we are used to foreigners and their strange antics. Those poor yanks don't know what will hit them.

And to be fair back, we just talk about Americans or possibly yanks (in British slang yank usually just denotes american and doesn't have anything to do with historic North/South divisions).

I'm not sure how good it is, but often I try to think of the US more like the UK or a federal EU would be. Each US state (including the ones that aren't actually states!) is effectively a seperate country and many dwarf the size (and economy) of true countries...

So referring to americans as some form of single mass is probably a grosser (over-)generalisation than referring to the assorted peoples of UK/Britain as Brits.

Something very dark inside me tells me it would be worth it. And when we run out of those we could go on to hunt makers and volunteers for reality TV shows?

Since I bumped into that wall a couple times in my 50 years playing the game, I should probably point out to my fellow Europeans and all the Brits around here that particular terms aren't the only thing this covers. It's a whole slew of concepts.

It's a bit hard to sum up in a few words, but I for one have never figured out what exactly 'PG-13' is. I get the general idea of not using 'bad words' and keeping down on the sexual references (while, to make the cultural link, on German TV you can tune in to bare breasts at noon on the TV and one of the most successful prime time crime shows 'starred' literally constant swearing). Then I'll say something that I consider 'safe' and promptly get smacked on the head cause apparently... oh wait, I'm not supposed to discuss that thing on the forums anymore.

I also didn't think much of having a buttplug for an avatar once upon a time (an obscure reference to certain people getting 'shafted' by a particular game change) seeing as you can find these things in sex shop windows just walking past. Apparently not so in America it turns out.


I'm not actually trying to brag here, just saying that disseminating words by itself might not be all the cultural differences are about.

"If you're going through hell, keep going."
Winston Churchill

'our community'?...'yours'?

Dude, I'm Welsh. Lived in Cardiff for 30 years. Then I moved here to Poland. My native language is British English. My home server is Freedom, but I hate PLing and farming. I RP but cant stand the RP board so i never post there.

Which community are you referring to as 'mine', exactly?

I understand GrinningSpades chagrin and sympathise, but its obvious why its happened.


And I massively doubt the forum merge will ever be reversed. Calling for such is pointless IMO

Eco

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow [The Incarnate System is] Jack Emmert all over again, only this time it's not "1 hero = 3 white minions" it's "1 hero = 3 white rocks."

And unless I'm mistaken, the original Latin word describing the same bundle is the root of the term fascism. Confused yet?

"If you're going through hell, keep going."
Winston Churchill

Propose it next series...

Theo: You really expect me to spend my kids inheritence on this crazy scheme to hunt me down and kill me like a dog in the street, just to celebrate national identity? Pahhh.. I'm out.

Same here, which is why I'm so incensed over it. It's NOT on! People on BOTH sides need to realise that there ARE going to be differences, some of those differences MIGHT be offensive to you, but you have NO RIGHT to expect them to comply with your sensibilities.

Otherwise I'll just start demanding that Ms Liberty surrender Excalibur as she has no right to it, and that WarWitch's name be changed as it's unfair to Wiccan's to relate their relgion to war!

Trust me, you guys aren't the only people referring to US Americans (and sometimes even Canadians) as Yanks or Yankees.

"If you're going through hell, keep going."
Winston Churchill

You might actually get away with that. I once got someone smacked around for being insensitive to Asatru/Odinist practicioners.

"If you're going through hell, keep going."
Winston Churchill

Then you definitely don't have any Germanic blood in you.

"If you're going through hell, keep going."
Winston Churchill

Well actually I was going to say its a dismissive to brush the US being calling them all Yanks. And thats the thing. I dont. heh maybe its anual of me but I know that term is only relevent to use if you are from the south of the US and talking about the north. Even then I would think its outdated. Mind I know it goes on though.

Its not so much the term as sometimes in context it is done with ignorance. But more to my point was that its the sterotypical "Brit" that gets portrayed that has nothing to do with most of us at all. I think in all honesty its the same mentality and ignorance that made people think it was ok to portray blacks and Chinese in those old movies as idiots or servants or both. You know what I mean if I say its a four letter word beginnning with C and ending with N. That wasnt funny and was a bad and innacurate portrayal of Black people and so is the typical image of "brits" shown in so many American movies and TV shows.

I think that the only time I'd ever hear a Brit refer to a Canadian as a yank would be if they didn't know they were Canadian and mistook the accent.