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Now I'll admit: I could word things I bring up in a less hasty or panicked matter. I'll admit, I get anxious when I read about the various terrible things reality serves up like a heaping platter of "nope" almost daily. I'm a bit coarse in my language. But one of the things that attracted me to this forum is that not only does it focus on The Dark Mod, which is inspired by the original Thief Trilogy, which I adored growing up but could never get because I was too young at the time, and also because Springheel is rather pro-free-speech, something many forums don't allow or severely limit nowadays in fear of being "CANCELLED". I'll admit I used to be far left, and pro-cancelling whatever offended me. But over the years my literally autistic self matured (mostly) and learned that screeching at people to shut up because you don't like their opinion on how to stop legitimately bad things in the world when ssometimes, freedom does, indeed, need to be defended with force. And, as such, I gradually became more center left. I still consider myself a liberal in the classic sense, a strong supporter of secularism, and a violent opposed of authoritarianism and theocracy and the normalization of ties with theocracies and authoritarian states. I'm very thankful that Springheel allows for his platform to allow us to discuss and theorize about the news of the world, withoutbeing moderated by ban-happy mods. So, when you come here and start acting shifty and saying basically either I go and the forums start shutting up about what you don't like, or else you, as a Fan Mission creator (something I wish I could do but for multiple reasons can't) will leave the forums, especially when you could just ignore any threads I start, makes me dislike you as being a childish, weaselly suckup who takes advantage of The Dark Mod's low amount of developers to try and unspokenly blackmail the forums into censoring itself when you could just not participate in my threads.

I believe you can still see topics started by a user you have on your ignore list, which is different to other forums I participate in where the whole topic is invisible. The first post will be invisible, but you can see all the replies.

The suggestion revolves around both uses: Taking to distract guards or not talking to not alert them. It's similar to existing in-game sounds: Sometimes you want to cause them to get guards out of your way, at other times you choose your path and surfaces carefully just to not be loud. Usually the later, the former tends to be the exception. Forcing the player to stay quiet is the more primary intention then. Not to introduce an annoyance but to include more suspense, in a way that brings added realism and makes you feel more integrated into the world like you're really there and your actions manifest. It would offer a new type of mistake the player can make if they forget to be silent... if you did and spoke too loud in the wrong place, you now have to stay silent for longer until the guards calm down to not alert them even further. I can imagine this being quite a fun challenge especially in cramped indoor areas. As an estimation of the difficulty level behind considering such a feature: May I ask how much work would be needed in the engine to support measuring microphone volume in and of itself, potentially hearing your self as well? As in how much is this made easy by the libraries we use like OpenAL and EAX. Is there a simple "access the microphone" call the engine can make to the audio system without needing complex code just for this purpose?

There's a bit to unpack here, but I'll ask that you please read this post and my motivation before giving a verdict. At the moment I'm just opening this thread for debate: If the idea isn't shot down as absurd and we agree it's possible to consider, I may proceed with a bug tracker entry otherwise forget I said anything. Also this post does NOT imply we have developers willing to work on it, if no one in the team considers it an effort worth investing time in I'm not going to beg. It would be a major change that takes time to test, so even if it does happen it would likely be next year at earliest (TDM 2.11 or later). Lastly this is intended solely as an OPTION... as the person suggesting it I don't believe it should ever be enabled by default due to how it would alter the gameplay, only offered as an extra component for players who want the mechanic. That being said, the idea occurred to me yesterday and I've been excited thinking about how it could work, it actually kept me up last night and I'm getting this off my chest to hear some feedback so I can fall asleep more easily tonight Let's get into it. The idea is partly inspired from some horror games I watched Youtubers play a while back. They had a mechanic where the engine accessed the player's microphone to read the volume: If you made too much noise, monsters would hear you and come after you. The player had to stay silent else they'd be in trouble. Last night it clicked with me how perfectly this mechanic would fit into TDM with our AI and gameplay. Imagine if any noise you made IRL risked alerting nearby guards... whereas oppositely you could use your voice to distract them to your location and move past. I'll discuss both uses below, first let's go into some technical aspects. This would obviously require engine changes: The engine needs to learn how to access the default microphone device from the sound system, enough translate the volume into a to 0 - 1 float. The game reads this volume at an interval balanced between accuracy and performance (eg: 0.5 seconds). Based on the loudness it captures that call, the same signal emitted by sound sources to alert AI is propagated from the player's view origin. The effect tapers off with distance in a fashion similar to s_mindistance (full effect below this radius) and s_maxdistance (fully ignored beyond that radius), reasonable defaults might be min 4 / max 16 measuring with the radius of a speaker in DarkRadiant. Multiplied with that distance and the AI's acuity factor, the mic volume determines the alert level being generated. The ranges I'm suggesting for this would be: 0% to 20%: Ignored, doesn't generate any alert. Ambient noise and insignificant sounds are usually in this range for all microphones. 20% to 40%: Can go up to the 1st alert level, makes the AI mumble and say "did I hear something" but move on and ignore you. 40% to 60%: Can produce 2nd alert level in guards, making them stop in place to look around. 60% to 80%: 3rd alert level allowed, guards realize something is up and start searching the area. 80% to 100%: Loud enough to make your presence in the area known, 4th alert level is possible making guards draw their weapon and dare you to come out. 100%: So loud that your exact location is clear to the guard as if you bumped into them, 5th alert level activates and the AI proceeds to attack you. So what is the point of this? Some would see it as an annoyance and the player sabotaging themselves, though just like selecting a higher difficulty level it's a controlled form of making your run more interesting. I for one am in it for the immersion and ingenuity: It would offer a new way to integrate the player into the world, using hardware almost every player has: A headset with a microphone, a mic on their desk, even one in their webcam. This has been done in small games but never attempted in a full stealth game for my knowledge, TDM could be among the first project of this genre to use the idea which would be an extra selling point to make it more interesting and appealing. The first aspect is fear of being heard. Imagine you really are the player in a typical FM, hiding in the shadows as guards are walking past or running around looking for you. The last thing you want to do in such a circumstance is make any noise: You'd be careful about your breathing, and god forbid you need to cough or sneeze. This mechanic would emulate just that: Players have to be aware of their breath as an enemy walks past them... if for any reason you feel like sneezing or coughing, you better hold off or the guards will become alert in-game. To me this sounds super neat... I can already imagine playing TDM with the added fear and adrenaline The second part is how this can be used to attract guards in a controlled way. Jumping in place works but it's hard to make guards come and investigate, with this you'd do it using your voice. The fun here is learning how loud to speak to get the desired alert level: If you whisper to the guards they won't hear you and just walk past, but if you scream too loudly they'll know where you are and attack you on sight! You'll want to say something like "hey" at just the right volume to make them investigate. As a bonus to end the idea, why not introduce this for friendly AI too as a fun detail? You know how some FM's have pubs the player can enter where the maid and party-goers won't attack you; Whenever the player says something in their mic, friendlies and neutrals look at you and use the generic response bark! Imagine how much fun we'll have taking breaks from the objective to say all kinds of stupid things in the mic and each time someone responds with a "hello there" or "you said it" or "yeah yeah"

Seems like the forums been updated since my last visit. Why does everybody have a rocket on their profile picture? Could the ranks either be disabled or filled with proper icons instead of just one rocket? If you need someone to create those icons (maybe Thief related) just give me a call, I may can help.

Yeah? When I played, say, Dishonored and Prey, I sure appreciated having all the HUD customization options in the menus, as opposed to having to hunt down console commands in forums or wiki articles.

There is something in English/American manner of speaking that looks like tons of sugarcoating and beating around the bush, at least when you come from some other country. In other cultures, e.g. Polish or German, people are much more blunt. When they see shit, they call it shit, not "unfortunate bowel byproduct" There is such a thing as being too polite, and it's regarded as contrived or superficial. It can also be an easy way to disarm any criticism or discussion, regardless of their substance. I've seen it bumped to absurd levels on TTLG, where I saw responses like "you're not our friend, you can't criticize us", or "since you don't like it like we do, maybe Thief isn't a game for you". Fortunately TDM forums are nowhere near that level.

It's fortunate that MirceaKitsune seems to take this easy, but it can't be excluded that others in his situation would respond - and have responded - by withdrawing from the forums. This is an important reason why our historically hands off moderation policy is being discussed again.

It's funny that so many cultures associate speaking calmly as automatically being superior in a discussion. You can speak in calm tone and be completely clueless, while you can shout in anger and still have a point. That said, I don't think it's about messing on purpose, it's just his MO. You've already seen it in multiple bugtracker entries too. He barges in, usually without checking wiki or forums on certain functionality, makes up his own ad-hoc interpretation of it, automatically assumes it is canon, and then it takes several people to explain him the "historical context", or that he mistakes bugs for features, etc. Then either he lets it go, or, if he is stubborn, he'll reply with walls of misinterpretation until the other party has no more energy for it.

DarkRadiant 2.13.0 is ready for download. A lot of fixes and improvements made it into this release. Several point files can be selected for display now. DarkRadiant is now capable of comparing maps, both in differential A vs. B comparisons as well as three-way merge scenarios (when both maps share the same ancestor). Windows and Mac Downloads are available on Github: https://github.com/codereader/DarkRadiant/releases/tag/2.13.0 and of course linked from the website https://www.darkradiant.net Thanks go out to all who helped testing this release! Please report any bugs or feature requests here in these forums, following these guidelines: Bugs (including steps for reproduction) can go directly on the tracker. When unsure about a bug/issue, feel free to ask. If you run into a crash, please record a crashdump: Crashdump Instructions Feature requests should be suggested (and possibly discussed) here in these forums before they may be added to the tracker. Changes since 2.12.0 Feature: Ability to choose from several different pointfiles Feature: Aspect ratio preserving Fit Texture option Feature: ModelSelector: add ability to rescan folders without having to reload all models Feature: Add "Show Material Definition" to ShaderSelector tree views Feature: Paste material-header to surface from clipboard with hotkey. Feature: A way to display editor_usage in the Entity Inspector window Feature: Selection by coords Feature: Three-Way and Differential Map Merge Feature: Map Comparison/Diffing Feature: Git Version Control Integration Plugin Improvement: Show axis when 'R'otating entities Improvement: Improve workflow for adjusting light brightnesses Improvement: Map Loading Performance Improvements Improvement: Refresh entity inspector when reloading defs Improvement: Increase maximum zoom level of 2D views Improvement: "Choose entity..." button for all def_ spawnargs Improvement: CTRL + MMB in orthoview: place camera at height of most recent selection Improvement: Added Documentation for Layer Script Interface Improvement: "Shift textures randomly" shifts all selected faces by the same amount Fixed: Problems with particle preview obstructing the view Fixed: Cannot view or copy from built-in Filters Fixed: Auto-save is slow when animation or particle viewer is playing Fixed: Non uniform light volume scaling not working Fixed: BC5 normal maps cannot be loaded Fixed: Copying a particle in the Particle Editor creates an ___editor list entry which can lead to crashes Fixed: Create Entity window no longer remembers the previous item Fixed: Model exporter: no model is exported if folder path doesn't exist yet Fixed: Non power of 2 textures show up black in Fixed: 'Change game/project' fails to save if a decent-sized .map was loaded Fixed: Reload Defs is messing up the entityDefs Fixed: Crash when using Reloading Defs after placing an Entity Fixed: Entity & Speaker windows don't remember their size Fixed: Restore non-uniform scaling for texture browser. Fixed: Some ASE models do not load Fixed: Prefabs importing miles away Fixed: Path entites rotate 15 degrees, each time when dragged. Fixed: Crash when activating GameConnection Feature "update entities on every change" Fixed: Model previewer not displaying ASE or LWO models Fixed: Crash when selecting an MD5 model in "Create Model..." menu Fixed: Crash when activating the Material Editor in Doom3 game config The list of changes can be found on the our bugtracker changelog. Have fun mapping!

There is no point in investing time in a feature which is doubtful to begin with, just because one person on the forums refuses to acknowledge that LOD refers to models, as it stands for Level Of Detail, and not Lights Off, Dumbass.

Obsttorte made a script some time ago, which emulates the older Thief version of highlighting the room the player is currently in and marking the ones already visited. I cannot really search the forums right now, as I am only on my phone, but it should not be too difficult to find. If I remenber correctly this script uses the location system to achieve the effect and has to be set up by the map author. Personally, I agree with people that a mini-map doed not fit TDM. In general, the decision should definitely lie with the map author, so a map generated from the map geometry would be too much and could give too much information. Displaying the ingame map in the corner would be fine, but is also not really necessary in my opinion.

I've been playing with the thought of finally providing a much needed sequel for this mission and realised that this mission, being my first and released 7 years ago, can be rough around the edges. So I've now brought this mission into a more sequel-worthy state with these changes: enhancements to visuals to make the mission look better all around new readables to build out the storytelling, both on the ship and the landing area some voiced lines have been contributed by Narrator and Goldwell to help set the mood collision has been overhauled throughout the ship, so that it's much less likely to get stuck more space in the captain's area for AIs and stealth, as well as a generally cleaner pathing implementation the main cutscene has been shortened and better lit, while all other fades to black have been cut a new loading screen by the painter Ivan Aivazovsky, to replace the slightly bland TDM-made arctic scene the option to set LOD Detail in the graphics settings if maximum performance is needed when outdoors myriad other tweaks, such as smooth fading out for triggered ambient sounds and some gimmicks around clocks and compasses aboard the ship Quite a bit has been touched, so it'd be appreciated if one or two people could give this a try on the betatesting forums and post back if there's something that seemed odd, before I upload the new version to the official mirrors. The mission's length is still the same, since these changes already took longer than expected. My plan is to focus fully on my two WIP missions from here onwards, then ideally return to One Step Too Far with a small sequel (as suggested by Amadeus it could be called Two Steps Too Far).

Not really alternative, more like "historically established" and widely known If you take a look at various descriptions and definitions from other engines, all LOD systems are about the same thing: https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/17283-hide_distance-broken-again/page/4/&tab=comments#comment-463315 and TDM follows that. You can argue that it's a bit broken here and there, or it has some quirks (like with absolute distances from the model instead of relative ones, like everywhere else), but otherwise it's there And in your example, you could simply hide stuff these lanterns light, because, as proven in the last screenshot in this post, the cost of your lights will be minimal: https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/17283-hide_distance-broken-again/page/4/&tab=comments#comment-463272 That's the thing, and I'm really curious to see this looking good and giving meaningful performance boost at the same time. Since other engines have been around for so many years, and none of them is doing that, I think it's pretty safe to assume that other developers already tried it and it wasn't worth it / looked awful. As I said, it would be great to see a meaningful example, but so far we've got a lot of talking and examples that had nothing to do with the subject matter, despite explaining the thing several times over. Let's hope Kingsal comes up with something nice

@kin NHAT v4 is in the beta testing forums right now, so it should be fairly soon. Could maybe do with another tester there, though.

@peter_spySorry for interference, but I think that's the kind of language that can get you in trouble in this forums The silent committee is watching you I personally don't mind a little internet drama, but better me try to warn you than one day you just wake up and find out you're banned. Not that it would be end of the world, but still. Let's be cool.

See subforums: darkradiant feedback and development https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/forum/51-darkradiant-feedback-and-development/ and TDM editors guild. https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/forum/54-tdm-editors-guild/

Need some help here. For language support, I just installed Windows 64-bit Strawberry Perl and downloaded TDM's I18N.pl file. I haven't been able to run it, tho. When I try this command: perl I18N.pl --english away0.pk4 I keep getting the complaint: Can't open perl script "I18N.pl": Permission denied Giving the full path to i18N.pl doesn't help. I've tried running this command in the Win console with admin privileges, and in the Perl-provided console, but still the same. Tried moving the folder from the d drive to c at the top level, still the same. Inspected the I18N.pl properties, and under the Security tab, see that all accounts can read and execute the file. I tried altering the first line within the .pl file to reflect the actual path to the perl interpreter; made no difference. The paths to the interpreter and to i18N.pl have no spaces, as recommended by Strawberry Perl. In the registry, the environment/PATH appears to be OK. Most of the perl forums advice is about linux versions. Anyone else had and solved this?

I learned that the best music is some soundtrack playlist. Ideally with timestamps. Clear, loud lyrics also carry the danger of distracting when you start singing along. Unfortunately I needed music all the time to block out undesirable sounds and focus on the task. The nr. 1 rule is that music doesn't become another thing that procrastinates work. Need to get stuff done. Get a draft with at least half the content ready as it is. Then focus on perfectionism when it's almost ready. So it can be any music. Good music does not have a genre.

He speaks for me. Because of you, the forum view looks like this: The forums look like a news site because of you, and I don't have any way to ignore it.

Ok let me approach this from a different angle. There's ill will euphemisms thrown around, fake bot accounts, provocateurs that cultivate and spread the angst. Usually to the benefit of some political establishments and activists. Not all of that is direct incitement of violence. And working class people don't have the time to do mental exercises and balance this against other opinions. They pick the most sparkling, most loud, most angry views. It's enough to keep throwing fuel at this partisan stand-off for activists and politicians to reap the profits. As society evolves - new categories of population groups can fall under the protection of hate speech laws - new LGBTQ+ groups, new religions etc. Laws are always late for changes in society. That's why hate speech laws are needed. Whereas old hate speech laws often become deprecated and in need of updates, adjustments, improvements. The line is crossed when satire, irony is associated with the author. Many call out the cancel culture as being the culprit. But even here, people simply aren't used to a new perspective on their favorite media. Nor does it mean that ordinary, general discussions on more general, abstract topics should be restricted. Nonetheless the point is that politicians and public figures can always be criticized. Ordinary citizens however, may be protected from some criticism, especially if they do not expose themselves as public figures. This protection can be in respect of their private life, their reputation or their freedom of speech and information. Depending on the case. We have tons of cases of stalking, mobbing becoming more frequent as half the planet is now connected to the internet. The general rule is that the more public you are as an individual - the more inescapable is criticism against you. I figure that this is fair. It's not perfect, but it's a much better approach than letting ordinary citizens be harassed by politicians who have money and media on their side. That is why hate speech laws exist. To outbalance this unfairness. Here's a few curious case study examples of how hate speech can work in the ECHR - Case of Nix v. Germany This case concerned the applicant’s conviction for posting picture of a Nazi leader and swastika in a blog. The applicant argued that the domestic courts had failed to take into account that his blog post was intended as a protest against school and employment offices’ discrimination against children from a migrant background. The Court declared the application inadmissible as being manifestly ill-founded. While accepting that the applicant had not intended to spread totalitarian propaganda, to incite violence, or to utter hate speech, and might have thought he was contributing to a debate of public interest, it considered that the domestic courts could not be reproached for concluding that he had used the picture of f the former SS chief Heinrich Himmler with the swastika as an “eye-catching” device, which was one of the things the law penalising the use of symbols of unconstitutional organisations had been intended to prevent (the so-called “communicative taboo”). Domestic case-law was clear that the critical use of such symbols was not enough to exempt someone from criminal liability and that what was required was clear and obvious opposition to Nazi ideology. In the applicant’s case, the Court saw no reason to depart from the domestic courts’ assessment that the applicant had not clearly and obviously rejected Nazi ideology in his blog post. The Court therefore concluded that the domestic authorities had provided relevant and sufficient reasons for interfering with the applicant’s right to freedom of expression and had not gone beyond their room for manoeuvre (“margin of appreciation”) in the case. Case of Lilliendahl v. Iceland 12 May 2020 (decision on the admissibility) This case concerned the applicant’s conviction and fine for homophobic comments he had made in response to an online article. The applicant alleged that his conviction had breached his right to freedom of expression. The Court held that the applicant’s complaint under Article 10 (freedom of expression) of the Convention was manifestly ill-founded and rejected it as inadmissible. It found that the applicant’s comments had amounted to hate speech within the meaning of its case- law. The Court accepted in particular the Icelandic Supreme Court’s finding that the comments had been “serious, severely hurtful and prejudicial”, and that the decision which had originally sparked the debate, concerning measures to strengthen education in schools on lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender matters, had not warranted such a severe reaction. The domestic courts’ decisions in the case, taken after an extensive balancing exercise between the applicant’s right to freedom of expression and the rights of gender and sexual minorities, had therefore been reasonable and justified. Case of Gündüz v. Turkey 4 December 2003 The applicant was a self-proclaimed member of an Islamist sect. During a televised debate broadcast in the late evening, he spoke very critically of democracy, describing contemporary secular institutions as “impious”, fiercely criticising secular and democratic principles and openly calling for the introduction of Sharia law. He was convicted of openly inciting the population to hatred and hostility on the basis of a distinction founded on membership of a religion or denomination. The applicant alleged a violation of his right to freedom of expression. The Court held that there had been a violation of Article 10 (freedom of expression) of the Convention. It noted in particular that the applicant, who had represented the extremist ideas of his sect, with which the public was already familiar, had been taking an active part in an animated public discussion. That pluralist debate had sought to present the sect and its unorthodox views, including the notion that democratic values were incompatible with its conception of Islam. The topic had been the subject of widespread debate in the Turkish media and concerned a problem of general interest. The Court considered that the applicant’s remarks could not be regarded as a call to violence or as hate speech based on religious intolerance. The mere fact of defending sharia, without calling for violence to introduce it, could not be regarded as hate speech. Everyone has been the persecutor and persecuted? There's probably a few exceptions to that with some really zen populations. At least if you mean military conquest and such - like the Tibetan people who were usually on the defensive and not invading. Other than that there's groups like the Falun Gong/Falun Dafa group. They were mostly persecuted. The Romani people are traditionally viewed as invading migrants although they've always been slaves in Europe for centuries until the trend to abolish slavery started in the 19'th century. Nonetheless even after the Holocaust against them, they aren't the most protected group atm. Romani people never had the money and influence like the Jews to create an image of their own victim-hood. Btw this is another curious point - like, does it really have any meaning to argue today that slavery is ok from a free speech perspective? It's really political if slavery conduct on the scale of a state can be called genocide. There's a lot of whitewashing here just for the sake of argument. For example, labor camps were present in the US during WW2. At the same time America used to drug its own citizens in experiments to create the ultimate soldier, to torture and extract confessions like Project ARTICHOKE, Project MKUltra, Project CHATTER. Half a century ago lobotomy was acceptable in psychiatry, even if it turns people into legumes. Persecuting all the whistleblowers after this means that the USA has a sham instead of genuine free speech. This free speech is meaningless. The peace movement of hippies eventually died out anyway. And so will the current BLM and the cancel culture. But generally the leftists of yesterday will remain leftist and their progeny usually follows in their steps just like the last generation. So I wouldn't be so categorical that things have radically changed lately. It's the same old battle. I don't really "get" the argument that "It just keeps certain discussions from even happening." And that "you cannot have have a remotely honest or open discussion of the topic". This is so abstract that this argument is meaningless. I mean it depends on who you're talking to. Talk to more people and odds are you'll find someone on the left who is open on this. You won't talk to anyone if don't commit to being open minded and outgoing. There's just some people with whom you'll never have any psychological contact. Ever. Period. If they've been gang raped by whites, what are the odds they will be delighted to accept the POV of whites? Don't they have the right to have a small bias? Not everyone feels great about talking on controversial topics. You can't force them to talk to you. I'm extrapolating but you get the point. These wounds don't heal so fast. Rome wasn't built in a day. Other people can be open. There's as many opinions as there are people. Each individual is different. The point of hate speech is to create a proper atmosphere where everyone can be encouraged to speak out. Even uncomfortable views from minorities or often overlooked opinions. It just sets limits that are common sense. The speakers probably won't be involved in violence. They reap the profits. The little people will suffer and die as always. I would argue on the contrary, silence allows people to ruminate, to ponder more on what they want to do with their lives. I don't see how endless bickering against minorities can help. I mean, looking for enemies outside is a basic psychological defense mechanism.

That sometimes a topic drifts to politics occasionally is unavoidable, but in a dedicated forum like this, politics shouldn't take place. A policy subforum in this for will only derive from the theme of this and also tends to create a bad atmosphere among users. In the Vivaldi forum, apart from technical related topics, there are all kinds of content, videos, music, humor, literature and even cooking recipes, but there are two strictly banned topics: Politics and Religion. There are enough general and discussion forums, who wants to lose themselves in political debates, to have to also make it in a technical forum.

All forums eventually get into politics. I think the best way to address that is to create a dedicated sub-forum for it.

I meant an Ignore function on a thread level, not just single posts. I check forums using the Activity tab, because that's the fastest way to see all the recent posts. Right now all posts are from the taliban thread which I'm really not interested in but have to navigate through, to see TDM related stuff.

Protection from the majority. I think you yourself once wrote somewhere that in any country majorities tend to impose their agenda on the minorities. I'm paraphrasing. I don't remember where you wrote it but you may recall it. I think you responded to me on some cringe philosophic, religious post. But my idea is that hate speech counterbalances those disadvantages that any minority suffers in an uneven, multicultural society. It's better to make a mistake trying than not trying at all. The mistakes are always the result of bad interpretation and execution - much more rarely due to bad laws. It all depends on the powers that be on the top of the power structure in each of the branches of the government. - The fact that current legal precedent, statutes, laws don't provide for hate speech laws does not exclude that these laws are the only cause for homicide in the USA. But they are all connected. Over the top exaggerations based on scaremongering fallacies are a guarantee to ensure the status quo. Well, politics is everything that the law is not. Law is predictable, stable. Law can be executed with the coercive force of the state. Politics represents everything that we don't agree with. Politics is everything else outside of the law. The problem is to make certain politics into law and state policies while other politics remain theory. - I agree, sometimes well placed euphemism hurt more than outright swearing. But I think ultimately that's bad moderation too. Some forums restrict discussion on breaking copyright laws. Whereas other forums just have members that recourse to mockery and flouting users. Ultimately hate speech isn't just swearing at things randomly. It's about deliberately having a target one is aiming with intent, constantly, aggressively, without remorse and anything human. Dehumanize and so on. I've also seen public email subscription groups such as Google Groups with a relaxed attitude on hate speech that led to administrators being harassed by users. And I'm talking about professional groups with lawyers, journalists, mass media representatives. When there's profit, group interests - they have no limits in particular. I guess it works the same way on social networks where you can't even trace anyone. Anyone can be anonymous. So, IMHO who cares if you apply the ban hammer a little more often than necessary? One can always create a new account, try a new identity, start with a new page. But the community overall shouldn't suffer because of spam like that. The problem of our age is lots of informational junk. Unlimited free speech does not help. It makes the problem worse. Perhaps some of you, like me, believed that the internet will help the uninformed become smarter. I still didn't lose that belief. But I also believe information must be filtered. Life is too short to read everything. We need to select useful information on public sources. Since that is often hard, especially in off-topic - at least block the totally inadequate nonsense. The average user will say thank you.