This is correct:

Originally posted by Natalie Heylen:

If even one person is offended, something needs to be worked out.

But this is not:

Olivier Jansen
I'm going to have to disagree with this point, and point back to the “reasonable person” standard

The whole idea of creating and protecting a Safe Environment is to be respectful of everyone. What you might think is reasonable, Olivier, is not a valid measure for everyone else.

What I read into Natalie's quote is simply this: if someone is offended, respect that person, and see if there are ways to address their concerns. If a religious person wanders into a Black Sabbath concert, they are (almost certainly) going to be offended, but the only reasonable outcome is to usher them back out. Something was worked out.

If you run a Magic tournament at a religious facility, it's more reasonable to have players respect the environment, and not use offensive sleeves, playmats, tokens, t-shirts, etc.

Reasonable is what we all have to be about resolving this, but claiming to be reasonable and then denying someone else's perspective is not reasonable. That, sadly, is what happens too often when applying the “reasonable person standard”.

d:^D

At what point should we start being proactive and asking people to put things away to avoid offense (compared to being reactive and taking action after someone becomes offended)? This:

Originally posted by Scott Marshall:

if someone is offended, respect that person, and see if there are ways to address their concerns.

is a fine rule for being reactive, but I think we can all agree that there are some images, like the wolf token, that we should be proactive about - and honestly, I'm more worried about being improperly proactive (both overly cautious and overly lenient) than being improper when reactive.

I understand that the answer to this is likely going to be some variation on “it depends”, and personally I prefer to err on the side of ‘too cautious’, but it would be nice to have some sort of rule of thumb.

Bryan, that's an excellent point!

As Head Judge, you can point out anything questionable to the TO/store owner, and get their “local knowledge” on how sensitive you should be. And it's fine to approach a player and say “have you ever had someone object to the tokens|sleeves|playmat?”, if only to gauge their reaction.

Still, there will be times when we simply won't be aware of something, even when it's blatantly offensive. Just don't be afraid to react, when it comes up.

d:^D

I've had a player come up to me to complain about someone's card sleeves before. I went to the TO and discussed it with him. He took care of it after I had asked if I should say something or if he wanted to. That being said, I have a very high personal tolerance for things, but I also don't allow things in a public setting that has mothers, sisters, little brothers, or fathers running around as well. I definitely have noticed that my recent fatherhood has expanded my attention to such things (Sebastian is almost 2 now). Since that pre-release a year or two ago, I am much more proactive about asking players to change sleeves, playmats, or turning shirts inside out, whatever the questionable item may be. In all instances I would discuss the matter with the TO first, or in the matter of a GP/large event, my team leader.

Well, this has been picked up amazingly. Thanks everyone for participating :).

Originally posted by Scott Marshall:

As Head Judge, you can point out anything questionable to the TO/store owner, and get their “local knowledge” on how sensitive you should be. And it's fine to approach a player and say “have you ever had someone object to the tokens|sleeves|playmat?”, if only to gauge their reaction.

To add to this, from personal experience - this is (probably? ;) ) not limited to the TO. As usual when judging, if you aren't sure (and it's not a 1-man-show), get a second/third opinion - talk with your fellow judges, or even players (though do be careful with that last one, you don't want it to seem like your talking down on players behind their back with other players!).
And even if you are, and make a decision (whether it be to have the object in question removed or not), you can still talk about it with others, (especially) including the player in question. More often than not, they did not plan to make others uncomfortable and just used the tokens/playmat/shirt/… without second-guessing (e.g. because they thought it ‘funny’ or ‘cute’), and are actually understanding if you can give reasons to why you disallowed the use of this particular item.
Personally, I found that the ‘game for 13-y/o’, ‘appearance to mothers’ and the ‘grandmother-test’ arguments are taken in very positively, and you can even use the incident to make the community more open and understanding by talking about it. But again, make sure to not talk down on the actions of an individual, even if he has not really accepted your reasoning, as you (probably) don't want to alienate that player either (but do try to educate him further if possible :) ).

Again, thanks for everyone's participation so far, and keep going :).

Originally posted by Scott Marshall:

This is correct:

Natalie Heylen
If even one person is offended, something needs to be worked out.

But this is not:

Olivier Jansen
I'm going to have to disagree with this point, and point back to the “reasonable person” standard

The whole idea of creating and protecting a Safe Environment is to be respectful of everyone. What you might think is reasonable, Olivier, is not a valid measure for everyone else.

What I read into Natalie's quote is simply this: if someone is offended, respect that person, and see if there are ways to address their concerns. If a religious person wanders into a Black Sabbath concert, they are (almost certainly) going to be offended, but the only reasonable outcome is to usher them back out. Something was worked out.

If you run a Magic tournament at a religious facility, it's more reasonable to have players respect the environment, and not use offensive sleeves, playmats, tokens, t-shirts, etc.

Reasonable is what we all have to be about resolving this, but claiming to be reasonable and then denying someone else's perspective is not reasonable. That, sadly, is what happens too often when applying the “reasonable person standard”.

d:^D

I think you may have missed the point (although it is possible I missed the point as well and you're correct). The point, as I understand it, is not “at what point would you work to resolve the situation”, but “at what point is the player doing something wrong that needs to be corrected with judge interference?”

To use your analogy to a religious person at a Black Sabbath concert: Certainly, if a religious person comes to a Black Sabbath concert and is offended, the usher (or bouncer, or whoever) will say to them “hey, seriously? You, a religious person, came to a Black Sabbath concert, and you're complaining about being offended? Do you know nothing about what we are?” and “nicely” “ask” them to leave. However, what is not going to happen is a religious person buys a ticket to a Black Sabbath concert, Black Sabbath gets word of this, and then they censor the lyrics to all their songs to avoid offending that one religious person in the audience. I think that's the difference.

To bring this back around to Magic, if “even one person” is offended, that is not a reason to change the player behaviour, for the same reason as if “even one person” is offended by Black Sabbath lyrics then Black Sabbath should not put on concerts. The standard, therefore, probably ought to be some sort of “reasonable person test”; the alternative is basically cancelling Magic in public places (or just playing the Aikatsu TCG), as everyone is offended by something and Magic players in particular are notorious for whining about nothing. If the standard is “if one person whines about this we as judges need to step in and reprimand the offending player”, we're going to do an awful lot of reprimanding and not a heck of a lot of actually getting tournaments run.

Note again that this is specifically relating to the question of “at what point should we as judges ask a player to refrain from offensive behaviour or presenting offensive materials within an event space”. Obviously, if someone comes to us and says “that Unholy Strength has a pentagram on it and I'm religious”, you deal with that problem; however, the resolution of that issue is different from the issue at hand.

Edited Lyle Waldman (Feb. 3, 2016 01:58:17 PM)

I think your example of what the bouncer would say illustrate how to not
handle a situation like this :).

Which I believe is a bit of what Scott is getting at, though I also could
be wrong.
Den 3 feb 2016 06:55 skrev “Lyle Waldman” <

Originally posted by Eskil Myrenberg:

I think your example of what the bouncer would say illustrate how to not
handle a situation like this :).

Which I believe is a bit of what Scott is getting at, though I also could
be wrong.
Den 3 feb 2016 06:55 skrev “Lyle Waldman” <

My example was obviously overexaggerated, and should not be a model for use by Magic judges. That said, while an employee with the title “usher” might not say such a thing, a “bouncer” might, and a band member almost certainly would :-P

The point basically being that if a spectator has an unreasonable expectation of their surroundings and is offended by something that can reasonably be deemed “unreasonable” to be offended at (such as, for example, the pentagram on the artwork of an unaltered, perfectly legal, Unlimited Unholy Strength), then it's likely worth educating the spectator on what Magic is and the contents of what they have walked into, and possibly politely suggest that they should exclude themselves from the proceedings, rather than reprimand said player. Which is to say, the “reasonable person test” is not wholly inapplicable here.

Edited Lyle Waldman (Feb. 3, 2016 04:22:09 PM)

I had an incident come at a GP that perfectly illustrated this conversation.

A few players were playing with card sleeves that were questionable at best. They depicted a woman in scanty clothes winking at the “camera”. The sleeves made me personally uncomfortable, so I brought up the issue to a higher level judge to get their opinion on the matter.

Over the course of the day the question about these sleeves escalated to include the L4+ judges and HJs present (who invited me to the discussion as well), and an interesting discussion followed. What I thought fascinating was how widely the opinions varied based on things like culture and geography.

At the end of the day we concluded that we should probably ask the players to put the sleeves away at future events (the HJ had already ruled they were okay for the GP, if I remember correctly), but it was a very lively discussion that demonstrated that, no matter how much it would make judge's lives easier, there is no hard and fast line to be drawn in these cases.

As for me, I tend to err on the side of caution. Especially when it comes to images that might turn off women or younger players, since I hope that will help us increase the participation of those groups of people on the whole.

I guess if I had one word of advice it would be, if you ever have a doubt, ask someone for their opinion. Someone you trust and, if possible, someone who you think might be offended by the item in question (most of the time those people have very good reasons and are good articulating whether they see it as a bigger problem or not).

Originally posted by Violet Edgar:

Someone you trust and, if possible, someone who you think might be offended by the item in question (most of the time those people have very good reasons and are good articulating whether they see it as a bigger problem or not).

I disagree with seeking out someone who would share the same opinion (although I am in agreement with your argument about erring on the side of caution). Seeking out someone who you believe would share your opinion feels like seeking validation to make your point right.

Seek out the people responsible for making decisions (TO, HJ, etc), and speak your mind. Hopefully they will be understanding of your concerns, and help you out.

Originally posted by Jeff S Higgins:

I disagree with seeking out someone who would share the same opinion (although I am in agreement with your argument about erring on the side of caution). Seeking out someone who you believe would share your opinion feels like seeking validation to make your point right.

Hmm.. I think maybe I didn't express what I meant…

I guess what I'd say is if, for example, you were worried that a particular playmat might be offensive to disabled people, I would (if possible) contact a trusted friend of mine or judge who was disabled and ask their opinion. They then could say no, that's actually perfectly fine, or yeah, that has some issues but nothing that crosses the line, or no, I really would be turned off if I saw that at a tournament.

It's my experience that people inside those groups have a better understanding of the issues they face than even the most well-intentioned ally, so they can provide invaluable insights to the matter.

And, of course, at the end of the day it's the HJ's decision on what's allowed or not, so it goes without saying that your concerns will have to go through them (if you aren't the HJ yourself). :)

I understand, yet I think it important to note that even in the rather
unlikely scenario you describe, we can learn something about how to handle
ourselves :).

I live in secular Sweden and find the talk of religious indignation foreign
to me. Yet, were I to encounter this (to me) strange complaint, I need to
be aware of how to address their concerns in a diplomatic manner. I also
need to take it seriously and try and understand their point before just
leaping to my decision.

Because a judge can very easily act in a less diplomatic manner around
things like being offended by overly sexual art without the Judge realising
it. I've unfortunately gotten to observe the effects this can have on those
involved several times. It's not pretty and we need to develop our skills
to better handle this.
Den 3 feb 2016 09:16 skrev “Lyle Waldman” <

A note regarding the Black Sabbath counter example: Black Sabbath doesn't have a stated mission of creating safe, inclusive, and welcoming environments.

Telling someone who objects to something they find offensive that this probably isn't the place for them is, by definition, the very opposite of inclusive and welcoming.

Edited Rebecca Lawrence (Feb. 3, 2016 11:04:20 PM)

Right. I think if there's a complaint from a player about, let's say for example, the soldier token from the first page. “I'm sick of all this boob armor, it's historically inaccurate, it's objectifying, etc.!” Most of us would agree, that doesn't quite meet the “reasonable” test. But you have someone in front of you who's obviously upset. We need to deal with this person diplomatically and respectfully. Make an effort to understand their frustration, and sympathize (as best you can), but clarify that you don't believe that it crosses any kind of decency line. Offer to be a sympathetic ear in case any other arise. Follow up later on and see how they're doing. “How's it going? Did you get there against Mono-Red? Everything going ok?”

I´ve an example…
Here (Badajoz, Spain) in one of our greats events (Carnavales - carnivals?) we have groups of singers in “funny-line” with costume… and this year one of these groups dress like “dictators” (one of all they found in the world) and i think…
If im friend of someone of they and have their photo in my playmat??
Can or can´t use it…

Im sure than young people, or people with null relation with they sure was fine meanwhile lot of people can be disrupted by it.



I think that the violet´s example was similar… much people will not fond problems but people can had dislikes…