I wont say I'm surprised about this, the fleet chat can get heated things meant as a joke can quickly spin out of control.
A few things have been spinning in my mind in the hour our so since I've read this, the first was Sticks and stones May break my bones But words will never hurt me. anyone that was ever called names as a kid more then likely was told this, but honestly its not true, words do hurt and they have power. The second was the Buddhist concept of right speech. The best explanation I found about right speech was http://www.esolibris.com/articles/buddhism/buddhism_speech.php basically Right speech, explained in negative terms, means avoiding four types of harmful speech: lies (words spoken with the intent of misrepresenting the truth); divisive speech (spoken with the intent of creating rifts between people); harsh speech (spoken with the intent of hurting another person's feelings); and idle chatter (spoken with no purposeful intent at all) I had been trying to think of how to reply to this thread. In my research I found this http://www.quotelady.com/writings/power-of-words.html. In the end we need to honer each other, our selves, and our words.

I do think it is important to keep in mind that something that may come across as obviously joking when spoken may not come across as that when in written form. Hence my use of emoticons whenever I am making a particularly dry joke. Just to be sure that all parties involved know it is a joke.

Wow. It is really unfortunate that this happened. While I wasn't present for the discussion, it seems more than obvious that it affected the poster. For what it's worth, I have always held myself to a higher expectation than those around me simply because I can easily control what I project but not what others perceive. You can control projection but only influence others' perceptions of you. Something I have to keep in mind a lot due to my job. As a manager, the biggest part of my job is negotiation and conflict resolution. You would be surprised at some of the things that come up but if you handle them correctly, everybody wins and comes out for the better.

There is another thing that I never really understood until I became an adult--I guess you could say when I turned maybe 25 since I was a late bloomer!! I used to think that people said they were sorry because they were saying they were wrong. That can lead to a lot of problems since it is easy to find someone so stubborn that they will never apologize if they have to admit they were wrong. Instead, I came to understand that apologizing to someone simply because you hurt his or her feelings was the right thing to do. It reopens the door that got closed and starts a dialog that otherwise may never happen.

Bashers or those with poor social skills often times find themselves in Yahoo chats where they gang up on people or prey on others for a good time. This fleet is outstanding in its support and its ability to embrace all its members. We have members from all across the world, multiple continents, countries, time zones, etc. All too often, people claim that the world is being too sensitive. That may be true, but when someone goes out of his or her way to slight another person, therein lies the issue.

To the original poster, I'm sorry you had to go through all that. I'm sure everyone in this fleet has been picked on or bullied at least once. I'm proud to be a part of this fleet and if there was an emoticon in the boardcode for a hug, I'd enter it here. >:D

Episode 298 - Deep Space Nine - "Battle Lines" - 4/25/1993

http://www.allstepisodes.com/googlevideodatabase.php?n=3113

he spiritual leader of Bajor, Kai Opaka, travels with Sisko on a trip to the Gamma Quadrant but is stranded with him on a world where the dead are resurrected.

Enjoy!

Quote by NicholasJohn16

He was referring to using it in place of another minority in a prejudicial statement, not saying that black is prejudicial.

For example, some may not hesitate at saying "straight people don't belong in this fleet", but would be much more less likely to say that "black people don't belong in this fleet."

Just for the record, no matter your sexual orientation or race, you are welcome in this fleet.

Ah! Thank you for helping me understand that, Nicholas. ^.^

He was referring to using it in place of another minority in a prejudicial statement, not saying that black is prejudicial.

For example, some may not hesitate at saying "straight people don't belong in this fleet", but would be much more less likely to say that "black people don't belong in this fleet."

Just for the record, no matter your sexual orientation or race, you are welcome in this fleet.

I was going to click the thank you button until I read:

Quote by Propecius

try replacing "ginger" or "straight" with a more obviously unacceptable prejudice, like "black" or "lesbian" and see how your words sound. You might be surprised at how ugly your "joke" sounds to someone else.

What?

Since when is "black" an unacceptable prejudicial word?

Hey all,

I'm starting this thread to volunteer my services as a playtester for your Foundry missions.

If you'd like a friendly fleety to play through your creation and offer constructive feedback before you advertise the mission to the wider world, please post on this thread.

I'll play your mission and provide detailed feedback where I can. I'm pretty experienced with the Foundry, so I usually also try to suggest tweaks, workarounds and fixes where things aren't quite working as well as they could.

Please provide:

Mission name: (e.g. "The Spirits of Ramok Nor")
Foundry ID: (e.g. ST-HI8UI4BLS)
Faction: (i.e. Starfleet or Klingon)
Your STO handle: (e.g. @alimac30)
Level requirement: (e.g. 31+)
Estimated playing time: (e.g. 30 mins / 1 hour / etc.)

Mission summary / intro text: (optional)

Thanks for posting this Propecius. I must admit, my sence of humour sometimes leads me to embarrass my close friends in public, and expects the same to be done to me. I think it's very important to be reminded though that if everyone is not "in" on the joke, it can misfire badly and hurt people. My motto is... know your audience. A joke is only funny if everyone is laughing.

Firstly. Gingers are ace!!!!!!

Secondly, being ni a gay dominated fleet being straight is often viewed by some as being the gay one pretending to be straight in a gay community (especialy if like me you can actualy bew involved in what would only be clased as gay banter about encounters and other subjects relating to anatomy)

End of the day we all have our isms, racism, genderism, ageism. Me im the fiorst to admit im antism which is I get very low tolerance fir those that are meen to others, be it race, sex age creed or religion or sexual preference., I beleive we all have our bad sidfes, lets just have our diferences and try to keep the nsty inside of us to us and not to everyone else.

I respect that we all have fredom of speech and we are all able to speek our minds., We just have to check ourselves before we say things that may be percived by others as harful, meen and just outright nasty.

There is a meme in the gay community that never ceases to shock me: the oppressed becomes the oppressor.

We are all fellow human beings. None of is better or worse than anyone else.

I concur. It's one thing if it's a laugh with your friends, but doing it in a public form is beyond a joke and quite frankly starting to piss me off.

Everyone should be tolerant especially in this community and if their not well I guess they haven't faced much adversity or understand the issues the community has faced as a whole.

I'm really sorry to hear that you have had this experience while in the fleet and I can only feel apologetic about the situation even if I wasn't involved.

I try to hold myself to a high standard when dealing with others with different colours, genders, beliefs, and principles but it can be dammed hard when faced with those who can't help themselves. Unfortunately, we are all human and we all have our own prejudice towards others. There have been a few times when I've had to bite my tongue when reading people talk about religion being the source of all evil etc etc.

As a British citizen I have a very dry wit and can be often seen playing it very close to the line in my way of talking to others and being humourous. I sincerely hope this is never taken as serious and can be taken in the spirit it is meant: a very unfunny man giggling to himself behind a PC about being inappropriate. :blush:

Finally, I just wanted to remind you that there are many people in the fleet who have their own high standards of behaviour who have made me almost cry with how lovely they've been to me via Vent or chat in-game and who have never judged me on what I had to say and offered help with real life situations and in-game.

Game has been delayed until at least Fall

Walkthrough from E3: http://www.gametrailers.com/video/e3-2011-star-trek/716091

Screenshots from my Massively.com post: http://massively.joystiq.com/2011/06/08/e3-2011-a-look-at-star-trek-infinite-space/

Quote by NicholasJohn16

No, we don't use the Facebook group anymore. We do, however, use the Facebook fanpage.

http://www.facebook.com/StonewallFleet

Ah yeah that's the one. No worries. There is an awesome website, so a facebook thingy is not really needed. I just thought I'd ask :)

Episode 297 - Deep Space Nine - "Vortex" - 4/18/1993

http://www.allstepisodes.com/googlevideodatabase.php?n=3112

Odo discovers he may not be the only one of his kind when a visitor from the Gamma Quadrant claims he can contact Odo's people.

Enjoy!

It always surprises me when people in the GLBTQ community--people who know what it feels like to be excluded--display prejudice and intolerance toward other groups. Last night, I witnessed and became part of an unpleasant exchange in the Fleet chat channel that left me with my heart pounding in my chest, feeling much like I felt after an incident of real life gay bashing. I wanted to share my thoughts on this, not to revel in the victim role, but because I think we can do better.

The incident I'm talking about may sound silly to some of you. It started with a discussion of "gingers"--people with fair skin and red hair. Many people were expressing appreciation for them, but one individual started spewing an incessant stream of vitriol toward gingers and disrespect toward those who like them. The person later claimed to be "obviously" joking, but the tone and repetition of the unpleasant comments did not come across as funny. (This was in the fleet text chat channel, and no smileys were used.) I don't consider myself overly sensitive, but like I said, the comments affected me on a physical level. I expressed my concerns, and tried to remove myself from the situation by closing the chat window, but another player was PMing me asking for help, so I kept seeing the comments about how I was being "overly sensitive" and couldn't take a joke.

Yes, I have red hair. Growing up, I was teased with such taunts as, "I'd rather be dead than red in the head," just because I was different. Even if you don't have red hair, I'm guessing most people in this fleet know what it's like to be excluded because of being different. That's exactly why I hold GLBTQ people to a higher standard in such situations. We've been there. We know what it's like. We're the last people who should exclude others from our groups.

Previously, I have also seen fleet members express other prejudices that made me uncomfortable. I've seen some of our straight-ally members confronted about why they're in a gay fleet. And I've heard some gender-related prejudice on fleet channels, mostly from men who sometimes forget that Stonewall is not a gay-men-only club.

Anyway, the purpose of this post is twofold. First I would like to thank those of you who spoke up in my defense last night. And second, I would like to ask us all to be vigilant about our own prejudices.

Just as straight people enjoy a position of privilege, where many of them never have to think about what it's like to be discriminated against on the basis of who they love, each of us is in a position of privilege in one way or another. Some of us have never been discriminated against because of the color of our skin. Some of us don't know what it's like to be paid less than our colleagues because of our gender. But most of us know what it feels like to be attacked with gay epithets.

I encourage all of us (hey, I know I have my own prejudices, too) to work on our empathy, and try to imagine what it's like in the other person's shoes. We all have experience being on the receiving end of prejudice. Use that experience to inform your own actions and words toward other groups.

If you feel like expressing that you, personally, don't find gingers attractive, or don't think straight allies should be in the fleet, try replacing "ginger" or "straight" with a more obviously unacceptable prejudice, like "black" or "lesbian" and see how your words sound. You might be surprised at how ugly your "joke" sounds to someone else.

Quote by Nerapane

I was trying to "like" the Stonewall Facebook fanpage and I can't do it. I think I've done too many runs of Infected and Cure cause I must be stupid hahaha. I can't figure out how to link myself to it hahaha
:blink:

Looks like you're already a fan.

not sad to say goodbye to codemasters, they can go on my Atari pile :laugh:

I was trying to "like" the Stonewall Facebook fanpage and I can't do it. I think I've done too many runs of Infected and Cure cause I must be stupid hahaha. I can't figure out how to link myself to it hahaha
:blink: