If the guild name was meant to refer to the Jewish holocaust, then it would be in very poor taste. But we'll never know if they intended to refer to the Jewish holocaust, and I don't think it's fair to judge their motivations without any real evidence. I just don't buy that naming a guild "Holocaust" is the same as naming a guild "Faggots" (pardon my language), because the latter word is never used to refer to a bundle of sticks. It's only pejorative - whatever meaning it used to have is completely archaic. This is to be expected with an inoffensive word that turns into a pejorative term. But the word "Holocaust" isn't the same - it's an inoffensive word that also came to refer to a historical event. It never became pejorative or offensive. If someone used the word holocaust to refer to the complete devastation of something, no one would gasp or be surprised because that's still an acceptable usage of the word. But if someone referred to a bundle of sticks as "faggots" (again, this is an ugly word so pardon my language), people would probably giggle or be shocked at their usage of the word.
I know that the "Great Calamity" analogy isn't the strongest, but I think it still holds. See this:
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Originally Posted by Mitic
i do see the point of OPs post. americans might not be offended by that name but jews in general and especialy european ones can in fact be offended by the guildname holocaust.
this server is played by people from all over the world and not only from the united states of america.
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I could say the same thing. Americans might not be offended by the name "the great calamity", but surely many Armenians would be - after all, this game is played by people from all over the world, right? So should we accomodate people living in Armenia who would first and foremost see "the great calamity" as a reference to the genocide of their people?
Then we hear that "the great calamity" isn't offensive because few people know what that refers to. Well, the reason for that might be that the Turkish government actively denies the Armenian genocide ever happening, and gets pissed off at any state that recognizes it. That hardly seems fair, that one term (holocaust) is offensive to use casually because everyone recognizes the atrocities that happened, but the other term (the great calamity) is inoffensive because denialism of the Armenian genocide is more mainstream. If anything that would make it more offensive, no?
Don't get me wrong, if I were in the guild "Holocaust", I'd probably vote for changing the name because some people can be offended. But that doesn't mean that it's rational for those people to be offended. Remember, there's a subtle difference between something being "offensive", and someone being "offended".
Also, I should add that this has nothing to do with discrimination towards Jews, at least not for me. I'm trying to give an honest defense of allowing the guild name because I don't think one group should monopolize the interpretation of a word. It should be obvious from many of my previous posts on this forum (especially where I've argued with Wehrmacht, who denies the holocaust) that I have no prejudices against Jews or anyone. This should also be clear from the fact that I'm the leader of the only guild on red99 that openly tries to make everyone feel comfortable, regardless of their background (I think this is somewhere in our recruitment thread, but it's also one of our main policies). In short, I think it's presumptuous and silly to assume that I'd be opposed to the guild name if it concerned some other identifiable group. It reflects badly on the people arguing against the guild name, who were being perfectly civil and reasonable before, when they start assuming things like this.