Roland

Please post in the support forum for technical help. 

Ah thanks!

TFP is a pc game development studio. They don’t develop for consoles.

Tomorrow around midday USA Texas time. About 17 hours from now. 

Great! Please be patient as there are a few applications I have to go through. No need to keep poking.

Replied

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 I know you didn't intend to, but by punning on BLM in conjunction with something as trivial as blocks in a video game, you made light of the organization and the reason it exists. You didn't need to express any opinion in the joke...it's the joke itself that's the problem. Do you understand that now?

I think this is where we must disagree. You believe that making a trivial pun on the name of an organization automatically trivializes what that organization stands for. You feel that by invoking the name of BLM in a frivolous manner, I wasn't respecting the organization itself which then transfers to being frivolous and snarky about the message that that organization is trying to promote. I completely disagree. BLM isn't some unimpeachably  sacred entity. It is an organization that has success and failures like any other organization. Poking fun at an organization is often done and people understand that it doesn't mean that the joke teller is assaulting what that organization stands for or is trying to accomplish. Lots of people poke fun at churches, governments, parenting, etc. which each can have noble objectives and ideals but that doesn't mean that in doing so, those people are trying to undermine the good that they want to do.

Now, what I did wasn't even poking fun at the organization. I wasn't mocking it or making some ironic commentary to try and point out some flaw or shortcoming in how BLM pursues its objectives. My pun simply was a play on words that referenced its name (without actually stating its name explicitly). You are upset because you see block damage in the game as a trivial and frivolous idea that was paired with BLM which is important and deals with important issues and you believe that that somehow will cause others to dismiss BLM, the organization and what it stands for, as trivial and frivolous and from there damage and undermine the whole mission. I don't see it that way but do acknowledge your feelings and am sorry that you took offense at the pun.

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I never said it was wrong or immoral, I said it was in bad taste. Jokes in bad taste are not a crime...people try to be funny and miss the mark ALL THE TIME. The reason why it is an issue that I felt needed to be addressed publicly is because of your position in the community. Do you understand that?

Yes, I understand now that you believe it was simply in bad taste which makes me feel better. I do admit that I was feeling attacked or perhaps even accused of something more than that. But I'll take you at your word that you just found the pun unfunny and inappropriate. Taste is, of course, extremely subjective. I still maintain that the pun I made was perfectly okay. I did ask a friend of mine who is a person of color what they thought after having to explain to her the whole context of a voxel game and what blocks are and how the title of a messaging thread was that blocks were losing life and then telling her what I posted and did she see anything wrong with that. She did not. But that doesn't mean that another person of color also wouldn't. Taste is in the mouth of the taster.

IMO, there are jokes that are pretty generally considered poor taste by the majority of decent human beings and then there are jokes that most people would say are just fine and only a very few are going to hate. I feel that a pun that simply acknowledges the existence of the name of an organization is definitely in the "generally fine" category. There are people who hold an ideal or an organization so sacred that even invoking the name in anything other than the most reverent and deferential tones is offensive. I just don't think those people represent the norm and I don't believe that I or anyone should check in with others before speaking or writing anything just in case one of those people might be around. 

As for responding as you did publicly, I do believe that you were injecting politics into what was a completely nonpolitical pun. My pun simply was a reference joke that to "get it" you simply needed to know that an organization called "Black Lives Matter" exists. Period. You didn't have to understand some alleged flaw in the organization that was being ironically poked at.  In your public response you represented a definite stance about the issue. You didn't have to do that. You could have taught me the error of my ways in a personal message and requested the pun to be removed and it would have been with far less of a footprint. It still happened. Everything was removed. But plenty of people report objectionable material and that material also gets removed. The difference is that nobody uses the opportunity to preach their political stance. That is why I doubted YOUR sincerety in just wanting to teach me and help me be more sensitive. You seemed quite opportunistic in response to the pun.

As I said, you seem to feel that even invoking the name of the organization in anything other than deepest respect somehow transfers disrespect to the ideals and mission of that organization and in that we disagree. In all of my correspondence on this issue I have been very careful to keep my own opinion about what BLM stands for and how it goes about accomplishing its aims private. I refuse to use this conversation as a soap box to preach my own opinion and I categorically deny that the pun I stated would change the culture or make the forums feel unwelcoming to most reasonable people nor would it undermine BLM and what it seeks to accomplish.

It is like when someone around 4-5 years ago wanted TFP to make a change and posted, "Let's make the game great again!".  Most reasonable people would simply smile or roll their eyes-- getting the reference that such a slogan existed at the time. Only the most extreme of political minded zealots might take such a joke and use it to go on a rant either for or against the person who was running on that slogan at the time and the political ideals that that person represented. But who knows....maybe that play on words is also beyond the pale for you. In that case, we probably will never see eye to eye on this. I do feel bad that my pun fell so flat for you but I don't feel bad for making it in the same way that I might feel bad for making a joke at the expense of BLM. Of course, I would never make a joke at the expense of BLM or a joke striving to be ironic about some perceived flaw about how it accomplishes its objectives. 

This is public. Anyone can read what is posted here. You keep casting everything I post the worst possible light. <shrug>. I have a wide spectrum of friends and associates in every demographic you could imagine, thank you. I appreciate your offer to help but, once again, if that was all this was it would have all taken place privately. You made it public and you turned it into something it never was.
 

I feel bad that my play on words referencing the existence of a real world organization so negatively affected you. In that sense I regret posting it but in no way do I think it was wrong or immoral in and of itself. There was no joke at the expense of what that organization stands for and no slant one way or another pro or con. Any of that was solely injected by you. 
I’m not avoiding answering you—I simply don’t know. TFP is an international studio and everyone works remotely. It never occurred to me to find out everyone’s race. I’ve never seen a picture of any of our moderators and I never asked them before promoting them. It just isn’t a criteria. 

The beauty of the forums is that you just interact with people. There are no issues of race, gender identity, religion, sexual preference, or political persuasion muddying the interactions. You asking for specifics in order to racially profile the people who post here is an interesting request from someone obviously sensitive to such things. You put much too much emphasis on who has the right to say what based on their race. You could have easily PMed me your objections and asked me to take it down privately but it is obvious to any reader that you are the one who wants to push a political agenda and so you used this opportunity to do so.

You’re right that we should always choose sensitivity over being funny. I meant no disrespect to the organization whose existence I was acknowledging through that pun. Seeing that you were offended I took it down. But I in no way agree with how you are painting things or leaping to the assumptions you are making.