Is GAF too strict?

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Lancehead255 said:
I imagine the ban was because of the c-word. Its use is prohibited.
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I guess my question is, if it's not used as a personal attack and is still ban-worthy, why not just completely block the word? We know the forum is capable of doing so, the example being banned sites, and with that way we'd at least have more consistency, instead of relying on the whims of certain people and their personal crusades.

Again, this is assuming Sinitar was banned for his comment of, "So unless the insurance company decides to stop being cunts..."
 
Mister Saturn said:
I guess my question is, if it's not used as a personal attack and is still ban-worthy, why not just completely block the word? We know the forum is capable of doing so, the example being banned sites, and with that way we'd at least have more consistency, instead of relying on the whims of certain people and their personal crusades.
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Corporations are people too you know :)
 
Stumpokapow said:
Another moderator gave you a temp ban for this. When you came back, I think you had a passive aggressive protest avatar for a while and I remember maybe a dozen posts since then which basically took the form of "WELL SINCE I'M A JUNIOR!!!!!!!!!!"
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Just want to clarify that the GAF Gold avatar was not in protest. I had actually had that avatar for months before I was Junior'ed. At some point shortly after I was clearly Junior'ed (it was unclear at first, as my tag remained from before), some admin or mod changed my picture to a forced "Junior Member" avatar. I never understood why, but your post makes me think that someone out there thought that my GAF Gold avatar was me trying to be an asshole.

I figure I have about a 0.001% chance of ever being un-Junior'ed, from the sound of things, but I appreciate you at least responding in this thread. I regret how I went about things when I was first Junior'ed, but I just had no clue as to what was happening to my account and felt like I was being ignored.
 
Mister Saturn said:
I guess my question is, if it's not used as a personal attack and is still ban-worthy, why not just completely block the word? We know the forum is capable of doing so, the example being banned sites, and with that way we'd at least have more consistency, instead of relying on the whims of certain people and their personal crusades.

Again, this is assuming Sinitar was banned for his comment of, "So unless the insurance company decides to stop being cunts..."
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Personal crusades of following a policy that was decided

Does that even make sense?
 
Puddles said:
Suppose this thread had been created today. You don't think that user would get juniored for it?
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The way people handle discussion on a forum of 100,000 strangers is a little different than the way people handle discussion on a forum with, say, 500-2000 friends. It's the same reason why an insulting post that wouldn't have derailed stuff 5 years ago would now, or why crazy ass system warriors might have gotten more leeway then than now. The bigger the crowd, the harder it is to control.

If you're looking for a more informal, hang-out, shoot-the-shit forum, there are lots of smaller forums out there that would be a better match than here. I don't really have any recommendations, but there are plenty of GAF off-shoot forums from years past and recent that have many of the same posters as GAF back then and might be a better match.

This isn't me being passive aggressive or trying to force you out, it's just an observation that people should spend their time on a forum that's a good match for what they're looking for, and if that's GAF, great, we're glad they can be here. But if it's not GAF, for whatever reason, that's great too.
 
Mister Saturn said:
I guess my question is, if it's not used as a personal attack and is still ban-worthy, why not just completely block the word? We know the forum is capable of doing so, the example being banned sites, and with that way we'd at least have more consistency, instead of relying on the whims of certain people and their personal crusades.

Again, this is assuming Sinitar was banned for his comment of, "So unless the insurance company decides to stop being cunts..."
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You needn't make your critiques so obliquely.

Blackace said:
Longer than that

I was recruited by MAF
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I first found GAF around the early 00s while on Gaming-Age looking for reviews of some sort or another. There is still a link to NeoGAF there, actually. I just went and looked. I did not register for GAF until years after I first saw it, though. I didn't really lurk it until about a couple years before I registered.

Also: What is MAF?
 
Blackace said:
I was recruited by MAF
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:O

Mumei said:
Also: What is MAF?
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byrnO.jpg
 
Blackace said:
True story MAF DRINKY BLACKACE and SHOTA have all been in the same room together
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A terrifying thought! Can't even imagine what MAF would look like in real life. Except angry and red.

Hmm. Devo, ronito, Cyan, and Timedog have all been in in the same room? ... Yeah, tough to compete with your list. :P It was fun, though!
 
Cyan said:
A terrifying thought! Can't even imagine what MAF would look like in real life. Except angry and red.

Hmm. Devo, ronito, Cyan, and Timedog have all been in in the same room? ... Yeah, tough to compete with your list. :P It was fun, though!
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Next time I'm in the bay area, we will rise again!
 
Someone accused me of calling for bannings in this thread. Just wanted to say that I was intending more for, like, a mod to tell people to quit the relentless, defamatory, crap posting or lock the topic (if they thought the situation warranted it.)
 
shadowsdarknes said:
Are there any banned phrases? The only one I can think of is "ramble on."
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I have never heard of that as a phrase. I have never heard of anyone being banned after having said "ramble on". I can't think of a context where saying that would be rude to anyone.

There is a thread in the FAQ forum on banned phrases--the short version is that it's not the sentence itself that's banned, it's the intent of posting it.

- Thread Whining / Respect to Others. It's not that "Haters gonna hate" is a banned meme, it's that it's often used to be flippant and dismissive to other posters. If someone is trying to explain what they think about something, either treat them with respect or don't reply at all. So when you post "u mad", "deal with it", "haters gonna hate", "the GAF hivemind", "the usual suspects", "but GAF said x and now they're saying y!!!", "entitled whiners" or anything else that suggests that you don't care what other people think, you may be banned if it is taking away from discussion. This is getting to be a pretty big problem, and it's probably the single largest category of bans these days. If you don't want to discuss something, you don't need to post.

This also includes things like "weekend gaf", "sounds like a GameFAQs threads", "tl;dr", "cool story, bro", "Neat" and associated image macros, "who gives a shit", etc. This list is not exhaustive, and using variants of these statements such as "bold please" and "f*ck the haters" is not a good way to avoid getting banned, as the problem is the general message/intent of your post, not the specific words you are using. If you think a particular thread is lowering a quality of the forum, PM a moderator about it.
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The_Technomancer said:
Hm, examples? Honestly curious here.
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Look at the last posts before the gap in my post history around July 30th. Trying to explain why I feel a certain way, banned for it.

I won't go into it, don't even want to talk about it since like I said, having a different view than the majority and talking about it is the easiest path to a ban.
 
No sigs: Excellent

AV limits: Excellent

Minimal forum count: Excellent

Moderation: Great. I've had 2 bans total in my 5 years here, one was Dragona banning me the day she decided that "all aboard the Wii train" was getting offensive in Media-Create threads, and one was Charlequin (I think?) in some thread about girls behaving badly where I posted a Warhammer Fantasy white knight jpeg. A little fineckity? Sure, but thank god for rules.
 
LAUGHTREY said:
Look at the last posts before the gap in my post history around July 30th. Trying to explain why I feel a certain way, banned for it.

I won't go into it, don't even want to talk about it since like I said, having a different view than the majority and talking about it is the easiest path to a ban.
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I'm certainly not a mod, but I can see where you would get a temp ban for your posts.

I find the minefield threads entertaining to read. You can see so many people marching to their inevitable fates blissfully ignorant that they're heading towards a cliff edge. Perhaps the best advice I read is, if you want a long and happy life on Gaf, avoid political threads. Otherwise, it's far too easy to unwittingly break the rules and perhaps develop some resentment over the issue.

(But if you want some advice, try to be a little more sensitive when talking about politically hot topics with people on Gaf especially since the mods are focused on creating a welcoming environment. Saying a whole group of people are essentially insane and shouldn't be allowed treatment supported by the psychological and medical community is pretty harsh. If you genuinely wanted to understand that topic more, why not speak with a member who has experienced it first hand. They have a thread, so they aren't that hard to find.)
 
BeesEight said:
I'm certainly not a mod, but I can see where you would get a temp ban for your posts.

I find the minefield threads entertaining to read. You can see so many people marching to their inevitable fates blissfully ignorant that they're heading towards a cliff edge. Perhaps the best advice I read is, if you want a long and happy life on Gaf, avoid political threads. Otherwise, it's far too easy to unwittingly break the rules and perhaps develop some resentment over the issue.

(But if you want some advice, try to be a little more sensitive when talking about politically hot topics with people on Gaf especially since the mods are focused on creating a welcoming environment. Saying a whole group of people are essentially insane and shouldn't be allowed treatment supported by the psychological and medical community is pretty harsh.)
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I guess. But i've seen a few people say I shouldn't have been banned as well. Guess it's just up to the mods discretion. Even you agree though the two choices you have there are: shut up, or agree. The option to discuss from the other side of the table still seems to be an easy place to get kicked out, which is a little counter productive to the whole point of a discussion forum don't you think? I'm not saying give asylum to people who are blatantly trolling, but let the ignore feature or discussion take care of the problem.
 
Mumei said:
There were recently posters complaining about the ability to go against the grain or to argue against the "hivemind" in GAF topics. These posters neglected to mention that they were banned for comparing homosexuality to bestiality and for comparing transgender people to people suffering from delusions brought on by mental illness.

This is nearly identical to the situation that charlequin addressed earlier in this thread when a different poster was doing something similar:

We know that the moderation policy constrains peoples' ability to express certain kinds of opinions, particularly on the subjects of minorities. This is intentional. It is not going to change.
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Catching up a bit so I know I'm a bit behind here, but I thought this was a valuable post.

I've said it before in threads like this, but I've expressed a lot of unpopular opinions, been dogpiled on by posters, and never once been banned for them. I do think there's a GAF hivemind and it's my least favorite part of posting here. But at least I'm not getting banned for what I have to say. I don't agree with every part of the moderation strategy but it's better than it's ever been before in my tenure here.
 
LAUGHTREY said:
I guess. But i've seen a few people say I shouldn't have been banned as well. Guess it's just up to the mods discretion. Even you agree though the two choices you have there are: shut up, or agree. The option to discuss from the other side of the table still seems to be an easy place to get kicked out, which is a little counter productive to the whole point of a discussion forum don't you think? I'm not saying give asylum to people who are blatantly trolling, but let the ignore feature or discussion take care of the problem.
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I think you can disagree but it matters on how you express that disagreement. I try and take the approach of "If I were in a room full of these people, would I say it this way or would I rephrase it?"

Sure, things might have to be sugar coated but being more polite, I think, encourages discourse more than strong arm opinions. I avoid hot topics, but being more attentive of how you phrase things should see you through those topics.

Really, though, they're more entertaining to watch since few people change their opinions on hot issues anyway. But that's a whole other discussion.
 
I have a noob question here, is there a way I can be emailed if someone replies to my message or quotes it or i have to keep on checking the particular thread where i posted? sorry cuz off topic
 
Plishin8r said:
I have a noob question here, is there a way I can be emailed if someone replies to my message or quotes it or i have to keep on checking the particular thread where i posted? sorry cuz off topic
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There are a few different email notification options for thread subscriptions in the User CP but we don't have a way to only notify you if you're quoted directly, unfortunately.
 
Plishin8r said:
I have a noob question here, is there a way I can be emailed if someone replies to my message or quotes it or i have to keep on checking the particular thread where i posted? sorry cuz off topic
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You have a unique enough username, just put it in the search field and posts that quoted you or mentioned you will pop up. Be sure to select posts to for show results as.
 
Arksy said:
If multiple people comment that they feel this way, in what way is it BS? I myself have seen more then once instance of someone stating a dissenting political proposition that in fact wasn't particularly extreme and getting banned for it.
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You may be operating under a different understanding of the word "extreme" than we are. I agree that some of the opinions we ban for are not extreme because of rarity or because they occupy the fringe of socially acceptable opinions in the real (or at least, American, for my point of reference) world. But they are extreme in terms of being unnecessarily insulting and dehumanizing to a group of people. A good example of this would (depressingly) be the earlier example of a user who made a comparison between mental illness (schizophrenic delusions) and transgender people.

We just have higher standards on those issues.

Devolution said:
You have a unique enough username, just put it in the search field and posts that quoted you or mentioned you will pop up. Be sure to select posts to for show results as.
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This is what I do. I don't subscribe to every topic I post in, so if I want to see if anyone quoted me in anything, I search for my name to find those posts.
 
I have a question for Devo. Did you take some of the "Woulds" as flattery and then it started to get old? Or were you annoyed by it from the start?
 
A Pretty Panda said:
See how there's no ad on the bottom and how there's a red circle thingy in the top right of the browser? Yeah you're not supposed to do that.

Related: can mods like not see ads or something?
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Fucking watergate, man.
 
Don't have ads on the bottom of the page either... only top.

Right now I can get a free razor apparently, hell yea !
 
GAF isn't too strict. It's awesome, people are funny, news are always here extremely fast, you can say shit and fuck, and best part, there's no forum signatures that makes me instantly hate people.
 
GAF isn't too strict, it just doesn't allow the fuckery that is common on the internet. My only beef w/GAF was it closing and erasing the marijuana thread. I understand why it had to be done but it hurt more than Old Yeller's ending.
 
TurkishEmperor said:
I was banned for port begging. Are there any more unwritten bannable offenses like these?
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People have been banned for port begging for as long as I have been here (7 years). The Epic Mickey thread had a huge body-count due to rampant port begging. Port begging is often just System Warz in disguise though, so I can see why it results in bans. It sucks when you don't have the money to buy every system, and miss out on a few games you are interested in, but "Wii? HD on PS3 plz" doesn't really add much to the conversation.
 
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