I agree.

 

I see no offense towards the title [Dear-Leader]. You must not have a full understanding towards the title and are relating it the North Korea.

 

If you find it offensive, ignore it.

 

Around E.C.C, It seems to be more of a 'term of endearment' than anything else. Its been a long-running term and has never gotten out of hand, and nobody in quite-some-time has attempted to make any coloration or reference to North Korea from 'Dear-Leader'. As far as i'm concerned, its nothing more than the same thing as one refer to the Monarchs of England as "Majesty" or "Her Eminence", or the former "Sultans" of the Ottoman empire.

Here on Ecocitycraft, we have The Beloved Andrewkm, the Cacti Cult of Kukelekuuk00, The [Dear-Leader]Welikeike22, and many other terms of endearment for Legendary/Important/Prominent users. These terms are loved and hated equally, and while you may make the coloration to the one i have been gifted by many users, myself and many others simply do not. I speak for myself, my friends, and the entirety of this server when i say we hold no sentiments, negative or positive, towards either North or South Korea, and never have we as a collective entity made any comments suggesting such.

Neither have I ever related it to Politics/Ethics/Political Ideologies. I keep and have kept my political ideologies out of this servers game play, and will continue to do such, but i will continue to use [Dear-Leader] unless directed otherwise by our Owner, because there has never been a negative connotation tacked to it, and to be honest many users would be disappointed. For the future, i hope there never will be any negative relations, because I look upon such a title bestowed upon me by the people of this server quite fondly. I do thank you for your concern, though, and I'll take it into account for the future.

 

Such a dark stroke of black that's been calligraphied here.

Perhaps while ECC meant well, the netizens of the server and any server needs to keep in mind that there are political and racially sensitive people that can take offense to anything. For quick example: One individual it can be viewed as all in good fun. Another player can see that as insensitive and can take major offense to it.

I'm looking at both sides of the field and while I can say that this *term* "Dear Leader" is not used in its irl meaning in relation to North Korea and its leaders (past, present, and future... respectively), perhaps using an alternate title to appease ALL would be appropriate. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Better yet.. EcoCityCraft appropriate titles implemented by the server owner already... why don't we just stick to those?

 

Unfortunately, with being a global server and being so popular, we have to acknowledge and accept the fact that almost anything can be taken in a wrong way, especially with this being the internet and such a massive user-base existent on the world-wide-web. If we were to take everything in a direct, up-front manner, catering to everyone's personal preferences and sensitivities, we would need to take down almost all of the flags in spawn because of international rivalries, and people who just plain-out have issues with Patriotism, and view flag-flying as a form of such. Equally such, there are literal words in languages across the world which are used in common-life, which when heard by people of other nationalities, will be taken in a wrong way. We cannot just change languages and make up new words because of a temporary sensitivity to such.

Only when one correlates something to politics/'Real-Life' as you prefer to put it, do things really get nasty. I've no interest in getting into political discussions whilst playing Minecraft, though admittedly from time-to-time its unavoidable. I also don't think its considered 'singling people out', because I've never made the Wide correlation, but that's your belief.

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And to you, b14ck5n0w, I can personally say that never will the titles implemented by the server owner be adequate for the People of ecocitycraft. Since the start people have been searching for ways to separate themselves from the general body, and they always will. I am not an exception to that commutative Ecocitycraft-law. In my opinion, like i said before, unless something drastic happens, I've never made the connection purposely, and i won't stop using such a term until directed upon by our Owner. I view no reason to, because like you said so perfectly, anyone can take offense to anything.

My former title of 'Kaiser', because of my royal bloodline, can be and was even viewed upon with disdain. My title of 'President', a rank i purchased with real USD before the rank became widely available, was viewed with disdain because people viewed me as "delusional" and "power-hungry". You will never be able to keep everyone happy, and quite a few people will be made upset by the forced-removal of such a term. A game of minecraft is a game of minecraft.

 

With that remark, I can say that Resident, Mayor, et al... welikeike.. is something earned with hard work and dedication through the outlets that this server provides (at least that's how it should always be viewed). Personally, I see nothing wrong though observation to identify you as whatever the highest level of standard title given by the server owner. Anything else, I'm pretty oblivious to. Opinions are like ____________ and everyone has one. People don't understand it took longevity and investment to get to where you were! Congrats.

My suggestion was made clearly to initiate idea... if others were to feel offended by something similar to this. *I noticed the complaint came with no alternatives*

 

i have 2 things to say so here it goes

1. Why is welikeike so popular or so idk favoured? to me he just seems like a regular resident just trying to act big idk why everyone is so obsesed when welikeike comes on there like "OMG welikeike hello hows it going leader" seriously andrew is the leader then to me followed by wewinagain and kukelekuuk00

2. I am tired os welikeike being a bit up him self as apparently he has alot of power and so on to me and things he has responded to me i dont like him to be honest no offence but i wont talk to him unless its realy important

 

98brando, this isn't a discussion on whether or not we like welikeike22. This is a discussion about the title Ike has been given as [Dear-Leader]. Please do not post off-topic posts concerning your opinions on someone when it's not necessary.

Everyone else, the title "Dear-Leader" was not chosen to upset anyone. In fact, it is part of a very long surname chosen in a forum post by users of ECC. It just happened to be the first one chosen and for that, was ultimately the title welikeike22 was given. In no way was it chosen directly and in no way was it chosen to offend anyone.

 

I hate to derail this topic, but:

The reason welikeike is so popular is because he has been here since the server started. He has always been on ventrilo and there was always people who liked him. Other people follow along, they have fun times in ventrilo, more people join in... It's an endless cycle, and with the ever growing server, his [Tycoon] tag, and the fact that he has been mentioned in alerts by Andrewkm himself numerous times makes him popular.

Also, he doesn't have much more power than the rest of us. He is just a normal, popular user. Just because the admin might joke around with him once or twice, doesn't mean anything. I have also 'joked around' with Andrew before, you know, when he had time and was bored. Especially when the server was small. I've also been Supermod before... (You know, when it was the highest rank and it took a lot more trust than now.) You don't see me having any special powers.

I apologize for going off topic in a topic like this, but I'm just like that. >.>


Anyway, back on topic:
The problem with having big servers as stated already is that there will be people who join with offensive names or things of the sort. We cannot get rid of them all, just the obvious ones, because offensive/inappropriate things can be found in anything.
For example, the OP of this thread found Dear Leader offensive due to recent things that have happened IRL. "Dear Leader" was not directly referencing it though, and it was a misunderstanding. Anyone could have decided it'd be funny to be called Dear Leader without knowing about how it looks politically.
The same way, someone can take my name, D0rc, and turn it into 'dork'. From there, it should be obvious what it means... However, that word does have a second meaning of which I will not say here that is inappropriate for in game chat, which was not my intention upon coming up with the name. I meant it to be "dork", yes, but not the particular definition that is inappropriate for chat here. (Well, it's not that bad, but still, you get my point.)

I only get one person telling me what my name means about every 2 months, whereas I'll see people with more obvious ones getting several complaints a day. If a very small number of people find it offensive and it's indirect enough, nothing much can be done. This is one of those things I believe.