Thread:DatAsymptote/@comment-11163511-20151004032111/@comment-3991308-20151004231235

Alright. I want everyone involved in the dispute to read this comment.

So I looked on evidence on both sides. That means not only taking into account screenshots, but I managed to find some members involved and convinced them to have a chat. Not only this, a user has sent me a quick run down of the events that occurred, and another user has sent me their take on the matter.

An important thing to note is that this dispute has problems on both sides. So before anyone leaps into whatever I’m trying, I would like to say that I do expect both sides to look at this issue from both perspectives. No one in this dispute was 100% wrong or 100% right.

The sides will be addressed as Side A and Side B. Side A were those initiating the conversation and Side B were those both receiving and continuing it.

I definitely agree with the points made by Side A. Using a Native American tribe as a first name for a character is not only inaccurate, but also insensitive and disrespectful to their culture. Aspects of Native American culture was attacked, accessoried and handled terribly. Pointing this out, especially when one doing so is from the culture themselves is nothing wrong.

In fact, recognising racism, whether its microaggressions or anything larger, should be a major part of fandom, especially on this Wikia, which is full of young, impressionable children. I believe that this action is fully justifiable. The OCs concerned have racist elements and these should be pointed out. Your age, your ethnicity & nationality, anything – it’s not an excuse against making racist characters. '''You need to make yourself aware of these issues and work towards fighting it. Children of colour are expected to do this from the moment when they recognise racism. If they can't escape this issue, why can white people?'''

If OCs with racial slurs in their name, if OCs with their nationality in their name, if OCs whose naming convention is racist and insensitive get deleted or fixed, then this should be no exception.

However, what is not fully justifiable is how this was executed. These were literally kids being addressed. Sure, telling children that their OC is racist? That’s alright. In fact, I actually encourage it. Recognising that you, at this young age, made a major error that contributes to a lot of shit in the world means that when you’re older, you’ll be more aware, and do less ignorant stuff. That’s good, especially since younger people tend to look up to older people.

The thing was, the way in which this was addressed was rather uncalled for. As I said, the important word is encouraging. Doing something in an overly acerbic fashion doesn’t encourage people to increase racial diversity in their OCs, portray ethnicities right, or anything of that matter. Terrible representation is worse than no representation, of course, but isn’t it better for kids on the Wikia to recognise and change their mistakes, rather than be deterred from making OCs anything other than white?

Meanwhile, Side B should have recognised mistakes that they have made, especially mistakes regarding race. You guys weren’t the ones being targeted. The valid points Side A made should have been taken into account, and you should have reassessed yourself and your OCs.

All in all, I’m disappointed in the way all of this has occurred. This issue could have been received in a more civil manner, and not the kind of exchange I want to be seeing on the Wikia.

This time round, there will be no banning. I think this was a perfectly reasonable conversation that got messy due to people not willing to admit mistakes that they have made. As I said, there have been errors made on both sides, and I do expect to see some change in the way in which people deal with racism in OCs.