/tg/Station 13

Hello, as we all know almost 3 years ago Russia began a terrorist war, in which its citizens commit mass civilian murders, they break all war conventions and promise to not ever stop. This servers position was very clearly stated by MSO, who dressed it in the Ukrainian flag colors, and introduced special Discord roles.

As a European, for me its very important to see our common dedication to the sacred goal of maintaining peace at least in our own hearts.

However, I often see individuals who shout or use in-game ruzzian fascist slogans, such as "goida" (гойда), "zov", or just usage of litera "Z" (often called a ruzzian svastika).

It would be unwise to try to ban the letter "Z", I understand, but I offer to inclue words "goida" (as well as "goyda", and russian variant гойда too), and "zov" into ban-list, and persecute its malusers as well as we do with other slurs. This is basically a modern Nazi greeting alternative, its users will insist on joke and ironic manner usage, but I don't see anything funny in it. Do you?

Please discuss

A bit of explanation. It will be difficult for you to find information on the word “goida”, due to the dual nature of the terrorist entity “Russia” itself. If you are familiar with the philosophy of Hannah Arendt, you will understand the concept of “banality of evil". Russian evil is banal in its attempt to pass off evil and violence as humor and irony. “Goyda” is a word from the Old Slavonic language used in the territory of Eastern Europe, now occupied by Russia. It came into use after Orthodox priest, actor and Russian propagandist Ivan Okhlobystin used it at a patriotic rally on Red Square in Moscow. After that, it was used by Russian war criminals as a call to action (analogous to Action Francaise).

Its use on the Internet is intended to promote Russia's soft power. The basic premise is “killing and being a fascist is fun, it's cool, you can do it too”. Those who use it will argue that it's just a joke and that goyda is actually cringe, but if it were really cringe, there would be no reason to use it. Such reasoning is analogous to calling those who are against the usage of the n-word "racists".

The word zov is an abbreviation of the first letters of the Russian armies (zapad, vostok).

you can also read more about this topic here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z_(military_symbol)

I apologize for any mistakes, I was writing fast and used the help of AI-translator.

I'll be honest this is probably already covered by the (unwritten? I think it's a headmin precept or something and not in the actual list of rules) rule of "You gotta be speaking English on the server so we can moderate what you are saying"
You could probably ahelp someone who is regularly speaking in Russian regardless of what it is they are saying

Jacquerel wrote: ↑Tue Jan 14, 2025 7:06 pm I'll be honest this is probably already covered by the (unwritten? I think it's a headmin precept or something and not in the actual list of rules) rule of "You gotta be speaking English on the server so we can moderate what you are saying"
You could probably ahelp someone who is regularly speaking in Russian regardless of what it is they are saying

Nope, it is not covered. Players who use it speak Enlgish, and they write these shouts in their latinized version. You see, on Terry pidgin-English is used so much that it's often hard to distinguish if it's another language or person is just trying too hard to explain themselves...

That's why I am asking to include these two specific words in a word-filter, so I don't have to explain every time to different admins why I am drawing their attention to otherwise normal players, who tend to appraise "the power of the russian race"

usage of these slogans is intended to mimic wide-culutral context in Europe. by that I mean that sometimes it's ok to say "merci" in French, or "auf widersehn" in German and be understood. these players who use "goida" tend to express extreme level of joy and excitement with that. it's really otherworldy type of shit, I'm not lying...

all I'm trying to do is explain the context, so you become familiriazed with it and can make an autonomous decision, without me being an "expert" of some kind.

some russian actor, Putin's friend, decided to draw an old Slavonic word and make a fascist shout out of it. war criminals supported the idea, further using this slogan in their videos where they share the results of their murderous business in Ukraine. these (probably) russian kids think that this is a joke - using it in that way. you gotta understand, in the post-USSR it was considired "cool" among kids to shout Nazi greetings, because they were perceived as oppositional to the Soviet regime. that's how russian fascism was born - as even worse alternative to soviet imperialism. instead of domination - destruction. although these are mostly the same...

you gotta understand it to decide if you want these words to be occasionally used, or you want to do something to at least explain to these players (who may be just stupid, and not conscious villains) that it's wrong. the same thing was done to me, when I was ill in the brain with russian propaganda, and I am grateful for that. please don't refuse them that chance

I don't necessarily disagree, though I don't have the knowledge of Russian culture in 2025 to really back up whether or not this is actually something to be concerned about. That being said, that's kind of how dog whistles operate, so if we can have other Russian players corroborate this, I would support looking at filtering it, or at least taking action against people who are using it in manners that might evoke support of genocide/fascism.

I'm gonna take every claim about those words as true, since I'm too incultured in this kind of stuff.

Well, this is obviously already against the rules without a shadow of doubt, by being political shit, OOC IC, non-English (even if they use latin letters, I can't speak in Portuguese on the game servers either), and ultimately really stupid bullshit. While I don't exactly see an issue with filtering it, is this happening so much to the extent that we have to filter it? Is banning these players not an option? Are they currently successfully evading to keep spreading russian fascist propaganda?

Also, if these words are filtered, their counterparts written in Russian alphabet should probably also be added. If the latin-versions get filtered, nothing really stops this from still happening, especially since it's a little hard to omnipotently spot all bad-word-users.

this qualifies as the expression of bigotry in my book so I feel like you should ahelp these people so we can launch them into the sun

this is my opinion headmins have to rule on this

I've encountered this situation two times, both times with two pairs of different characters, one time it was IC usage, second time it was nuclear operative name "GOIDAAAAA" and consequent deadchat shouts. Both times I reported it to admins, and did not get a comprehensive response, first time responders expressed confusion, the second time I was ignored. And I fully understand why, since nobody is obliged to know meaning of every stupid thing like this.

My motivation in this is simple - I don't want to see this shit in the place where I spend my time. And I would feel obliged to behave accordingly if my own actions or sayings would hurt someone. The whole point of bringing this up is to eradicate confusion and ignorance - that's what are policies for, right?

This is really a ticklish question, since when questioned players will probably plead the jokingly-ironic nature, which in its own turn would call into question the very notion of prohibiting that. That's why it's up to you (/tg/ staff) to decide on a course of action. I agree with all suggested definitions as bigotry, political, OOC in IC and using other language than English. I just want to make sure that next time if this situation happens, admins who are on site will have the chance to be referred to this discussion, in order to take the necessary steps.

Thank you for your attention!

I talked to a few Russian (or Russian-adjacent) folks and they seem to agree that some of these are expressions of bigotry, but it's more likely that we can just handle things like screaming GOIDA as OOC in IC violations anyway.

Up to the headmins ultimately.

Just please don’t ban shouting URA/URAH/ORA!

I have rarely felt brotherhood in SS13 like when people were shouting that while storming the last holdout on the station at the brig with mosins during a rev round.

I am in favor of this, fuck Putin and fuck the dogs that back his war of imperialism

This sounds like something that's already ahelpable.

It helps if you explain this, succinctly, to an admin.

Like "Hey John Gulag is doing such and such which is this and that" etc.

Yeah sounds like OOC in IC. I just feel like jumping so quickly to filter something is setting a precedent that filtering is a universal fix to objectionable language when it should be more about self moderation. It should be treated the same as someone using any reference to real world radical ideologies there are. It already happens when a new flavor of the month meme starts, even though there has been a MOTD stating to not overuse them for years.

ignoring the bad words and phrases for a minute.

isnt there like 3 big in game indicators that point at the existence of space soviet Russia or something.

Drone station, a cargo shuttle event and i think another space ruins.

Assuming they should still canonically speak in normal understandable galactic common english, including players roleplaying to be of descent from that mini-faction but idk if the coders that implemented these things were intending anything else.

MooCow12 wrote: ↑Fri Jan 17, 2025 12:46 am ignoring the bad words and phrases for a minute.

isnt there like 3 big in game indicators that point at the existence of space soviet Russia or something.

Drone station, a cargo shuttle event and i think another space ruins.

Assuming they should still canonically speak in normal understandable galactic common english, including players roleplaying to be of descent from that mini-faction but idk if the coders that implemented these things were intending anything else.

There was some to-do about the Mosin being renamed for being a Russian rifle. I wouldn't be surprised if any Space Russian references get slowly phased out by rabid Russophobia, as if Russia and its people are not also victims of Putin with a long history before current events. I by no means agree with the current war in Ukraine, and I believe that Putin is a shit person and shittier leader. I just think its wild how its normalized having a kneejerk negative reaction to anything even tangentially related to Russia, as if that isn't something that wouldn't be okay in any other context. I fear for the Russian people because of the attitude of people like this that are so willing to cast a wide net of hatred across the entirety of Russian identity with the generalization that the people are all evil because of the actions of a government they have no control over. Its that kind of attitude that has been the start of prejudice towards many other groups in the past.