While most of our updates are around exciting changes or upcoming events, today's update is about a more serious topic: how we treat each other within our community, and how we respond to users that discriminate against others.
We recently issued a suspension to user marutti for a repeated history of posting derogatory messages targeted towards those living in Korea or of Korean descent.
Weighing the severity of these comments (which we won't repeat here), we've ultimately decided to suspend marutti from the World Beyblade Organization website and Discord server temporarily.
We typically don't comment on decisions like this publicly, but we see sharing this information as being in the best interests of the community because:
1. Several members have asked why marutti was suspended, and we want to provide a clear answer.
2. We want to remind the community of the WBO's guidelines around hate speech and discriminatory language.
3. We want to be transparent about what we've learned from this situation, and the changes we'll make based on it.
Our community guidelines
We want to take this opportunity to reiterate the World Beyblade Organizations Community Rules, which exist to keep the Beyblade community a welcoming place for everyone.
Listed within is a specific rule around discriminatory and abusive language:
We want to make it clear: there is no place in the World Beyblade Organization for racism or discriminatory behavior of any kind.
If you see content like this anywhere within the World Beyblade Organization -- in a post on worldbeyblade.org, from another member in a private message, or in our Discord server -- please report it immediately.
We've updated our Community Rules with clear instructions on how to report any issues, which you can read below. (A slightly different version specific to Discord can be found in the #rules channel there.)
About our response
The pattern of discriminatory comments from marutti was brought to our attention on May 17, 2021, although the comments themselves happened at various points in the past. While we'd previously noticed some of marutti's comments and asked him to stop, the scale of the issue wasn't totally clear until it was highlighted to us by a member of the community.
We also often rely on auto-moderation tools to highlight offensive language, but because marutti's posts didn't necessarily include slurs or other obviously derogatory comments, they were never picked up by our flagging tools.
Finally, we realized there is some ambiguity in our moderation guidelines around how suspensions and bans are applied across the worldbeyblade.org platform and our Discord server. Longtime members might know that the Discord server is still a very new thing for us, and we're definitely still learning as we go. We'll be updating our internal moderation guidelines to ensure our moderators feel confident and empowered to take action in the moment.
We've taken some time to make a statement about this, and we apologize for any confusion that it may have caused. The truth is we wanted to ensure that we took the time to respond appropriately and take steps to ensure similar situations aren't repeated in the future.
Going forward, we will be implementing extra measures to ensure that any questionable content such as this is addressed and resolved by the team sooner rather than later and in a way that not only we're satisfied with, but the community as a whole can be satisfied with as well.
Thanks everyone for your understanding in this matter. If anyone has any questions, comments or concerns regarding this matter, please contact a member of the Staff team for further support.
If you have any questions, comments, or concerns about the Community Rules or how they are enforced in general, please feel free to post in the Discuss worldbeyblade.org forum.
We recently issued a suspension to user marutti for a repeated history of posting derogatory messages targeted towards those living in Korea or of Korean descent.
Weighing the severity of these comments (which we won't repeat here), we've ultimately decided to suspend marutti from the World Beyblade Organization website and Discord server temporarily.
We typically don't comment on decisions like this publicly, but we see sharing this information as being in the best interests of the community because:
1. Several members have asked why marutti was suspended, and we want to provide a clear answer.
2. We want to remind the community of the WBO's guidelines around hate speech and discriminatory language.
3. We want to be transparent about what we've learned from this situation, and the changes we'll make based on it.
Our community guidelines
We want to take this opportunity to reiterate the World Beyblade Organizations Community Rules, which exist to keep the Beyblade community a welcoming place for everyone.
Listed within is a specific rule around discriminatory and abusive language:
Quote:8. Hate speech and group slurs - Discrimination, abuse, threats or prejudice against a particular group, for example based on race, gender, religion or sexual orientation, in a way that a reasonable person would find offensive.
We want to make it clear: there is no place in the World Beyblade Organization for racism or discriminatory behavior of any kind.
If you see content like this anywhere within the World Beyblade Organization -- in a post on worldbeyblade.org, from another member in a private message, or in our Discord server -- please report it immediately.
We've updated our Community Rules with clear instructions on how to report any issues, which you can read below. (A slightly different version specific to Discord can be found in the #rules channel there.)
Community Rules Update (Click to View)
About our response
The pattern of discriminatory comments from marutti was brought to our attention on May 17, 2021, although the comments themselves happened at various points in the past. While we'd previously noticed some of marutti's comments and asked him to stop, the scale of the issue wasn't totally clear until it was highlighted to us by a member of the community.
We also often rely on auto-moderation tools to highlight offensive language, but because marutti's posts didn't necessarily include slurs or other obviously derogatory comments, they were never picked up by our flagging tools.
Finally, we realized there is some ambiguity in our moderation guidelines around how suspensions and bans are applied across the worldbeyblade.org platform and our Discord server. Longtime members might know that the Discord server is still a very new thing for us, and we're definitely still learning as we go. We'll be updating our internal moderation guidelines to ensure our moderators feel confident and empowered to take action in the moment.
We've taken some time to make a statement about this, and we apologize for any confusion that it may have caused. The truth is we wanted to ensure that we took the time to respond appropriately and take steps to ensure similar situations aren't repeated in the future.
Going forward, we will be implementing extra measures to ensure that any questionable content such as this is addressed and resolved by the team sooner rather than later and in a way that not only we're satisfied with, but the community as a whole can be satisfied with as well.
Thanks everyone for your understanding in this matter. If anyone has any questions, comments or concerns regarding this matter, please contact a member of the Staff team for further support.
If you have any questions, comments, or concerns about the Community Rules or how they are enforced in general, please feel free to post in the Discuss worldbeyblade.org forum.
![[Image: beybase-signature-is-beyblade-a-sport-Article.jpg]](https://i.postimg.cc/VLksgt2k/beybase-signature-is-beyblade-a-sport-Article.jpg)
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