Request for politics-free administration when it comes to player names (RE: Z--)

Earlier today I was playing PR on the HOG server, and to my great surprise I saw a player kicked (or possibly banned, I'm not sure) and told to change his name. He was using the name Z-- (or something close to that). He had not done anything to disrupt gameplay as far as I could tell.

I believe that the Russian military is currently using that letter to designate its vehicles, but well, OK. One of the key differences between living in a dictatorship (such as that over which Putin presides) and living in the free world is that we can express ourselves freely here, whereas Russian dissidents can not.

It seems ironic (and concerning) that players are now being barred from taking part in gaming on HOG simply because they use a name which refers to an unpopular foreign power.

One of the defining features of western culture is that we have always had a general shared respect for freedom of expression, and while I understand that this is a private server and not a government organisation, I would hope that HOG admins would be very cautious about casually disregarding those basic tenets of individual freedom. 

You don't have to personally agree with someone's choice self expression to support their right to have it. Please think very carefully indeed about going down the road of increasing/broadening censorship. We are gamers, not a political party. We are likely to disagree on a lot of subjects, but well, that's OK. If someone wants to pick a name which refers to a state that I dislike, so be it.

Nobody has a right not to be offended. I am personally offended by a whole bunch of things every day (K-pop, chewing gum, egalitarian dogmatism, etc) but I accept that part of living in the free world is that I have to just deal with that. Nobody's eyes will start bleeding simply because they were exposed to some text on a screen.

I very much hope that the HOG admins can have an open discussion on this matter and come to a consensus about what is and is not a disqualifying name, and that the decision to bar someone for having the name Z-- will be reversed.

To be clear, I do not know this player, and till he joined my squad today I had not seen him on the server before. My interest in this matter is purely due to having a deep care for the values that both my grandparents fought and risked their lives for in actual wars.

Best wishes,

TT

=HOG= wrote:

2 things -

This particular case was not around Z as it pertains to russia, it was something else that was addressed.

The second: No to your request. Keep politics out of it. If you make it about politics I will remove you.

"It seems ironic (and concerning) that players are now being barred from taking part in gaming on HOG simply because they use a name which refers to an unpopular foreign power."

Let me get this very clear. HOG is not a government. Head admins make choices; some may see this as a dictatorship. Call if what you want, you are in our place of business, and if you want to do business here, we have rules that we maintain.

Thank you for your response.

I am very pleased to learn that the player was not kicked/banned because he used the letter Z as it pertains to Russia.

I note you said in your reply that you have rules that you maintain. Can you please say what rule was violated by a player using the name "Z--"? This would be helpful to know in order to be sure of not falling foul of any such rules in future, should I or someone else create a new player account with a different name.

=HOG= wrote:

no character names, i.e <<>>>>//???

Rule 1.9, we synced behind the scenes and said it was ok after some deliberation.

Ah that's good. So, all's well that ends well. 

Can we please leave the politics out of adminning. Someone choosing a particular name is just text on a screen in a game. It isn't hurting anyone.

I'm sure that it will not be hard to construct a moral argument for why the word AZOV is "bad", but remember the next admin who comes along might feel sure that there is a strong moral argument against Capitalism, Communism, Anarchism, or whatever other system of social arrangements you might come up with. Someone with USA in their clan tag could end up being told to change that because the political ideology of a particular admin was aligned a particular way.

If you get a big enough group of people together in one room, there will always be someone who is offended by whatever is said. So on a game server used by many hundreds of different people, either we have to ban all human expression, or we have to grow a thick skin and accept that some people will use words that we don't like to see and hear.