SleepingDragon
Member
This is fine and all but people are forgetting the real problem here.
Moderators: the new ban on social and political discourse
- Thread starter GarthVaderUK
- Start date
They hid it, so Tyler wouldn't just walk in without asking for permission.
Widdle Puppy
Banned
Ok, I laughed
Dating thread is gone too and so is poligaf.
Basically half the threads I liked are gone. Also I'm going to miss people posting dumb threads about their lives in OT...
I was basically an OT poster.
Hydrogen Bluebird
Member
Also I'm going to miss people posting dumb threads about their lives in OT...
This is no longer possible? I did this too from time to time. Work, relationships, health, self-help, etc.
He would then merge that one with the mental health thread to try to cover his ass.
Laughing Banana
Weeping Pickle
Dude, nobody forces those threads on you. I don't get how the quality of your GAF experience decreases when people lamenting that cops killing yet another black man in the off topic. By your admission you only want to talk about video games, that's cool, those threads though, they were strictly off topic so I am not even sure why you feel the need to be bothered by it.
I mean, can you point me the last time people posting cop killing blacks thread in the gaming section?
Sanctuary
Member
I don't come to GAF for the OT, but I completely understand why so many do. Plus, there's a reason the gaming and OT sections are separate. If you only want to read about video games, then read the gaming section. No one is forcing you to read topics that you don't want to read in the OT. Simply ignore them and move on to another that you do want to participate in.
It doesn't really matter that GAF started out as a primarily gaming forum. Why can't forums be more than one thing at the same time? Anyway, I'm not apologizing for how bad things could get in certain topics. That's primarily why I didn't bother to stay in them too.
Weird. I must not be reading enough.
Must be a pewdiepie bro
dreamcastmaster
Banned
Ok, I laughed
Dating thread is gone too and so is poligaf.
Basically half the threads I liked are gone. Also I'm going to miss people posting dumb threads about their lives in OT...
I was basically an OT poster.
Ah yes i also missing dating topic friend!
If you go out because of this, imma let you know I did chuckle.
Agent Gibbs
Member
Damn if you get banned for that it is a spectacular way to go
Kudos Pennywise i'll float with you
KarneeKarnay
Member
It's almost as if the banning of social and political threads and blaming OT as the problem was a way for EvilLure to divert attention from his own shitty behavior.
neurosisxeno
Member
No, they're just exaggerating. Apparently you couldn't approach one of the hundreds of topics that bounced around on Gaming Side without stumbling over a bunch of political posts--which is absolute nonsense. I actively sought out Political Discussion and rarely found any of it on Gaming Side.
What people really mean about "Political" content in Gaming Side, is when GAF as a whole started talking about how shitty some people in the Gaming Industry are. It's not literal politics in Gaming Side, it's "politicized issues". You know, the kind of "stupid" posts about how it would be nice to see more people of color and women as protagonists, or how making one dimensional female characters is lazy and archaic.
It's also an issue of them being "shamed" for supporting some awful people at times, and used as a misdirection to justify people still supporting them.
PewDiePie using the N-word on stream--stop politicizing Gaming! Naughty Dog might be full of sexist pigs--stop politicizing Gaming! The Last Night is made by a GamerGate loving misogynist--stop politicizing Gaming! JonTron is awful and helped work on Hat in Time, why aren't more people talking about it???--stop politicizing Gaming!
It's a cop out that basically boils down to, they would rather not know what is going on in the industry, and rather these very real people not suffer the consequences of their very real--and even literally harmful--actions, because they are more worried that Naughty Dogs next game will suck than that women could quite possibly get raped by their employers. They're more worried some Swedish asshole they find kinda funny will disappear than that we grapple with the fact that normalizing things like Racial Slurs in multiplayer gaming has harmful effects. They're worried they will get looked down on for playing a really pretty game because the guy who created it wrote it as a giant middle finger to equal rights advocates.
michaelius
Banned
The problem is some of those threads were spilling into gaming section. Not the cops killing threads of course but every Japanise game new annoucement was usually filled with shitposting about characters look.
Agent Gibbs
Member
That might be true but the people bringing up cop threads had to have gone looking for them, drawing ire at Trump threads, cop threads, political threads etc is because it doesn't suit their own personal feelings so they don't want others to be allowed to discuss it! all done under the guise of wanting OT to just be sports, movies and TV
OT was a varied place and allowed multiple topics, you had to physiclally go into them to get annoyed
claims there should be one Trump thread, one Cop thread etc are silly, by that logic there should be one football thread or one tv genre thread, its just people saying shit so their arguments don't seem as shitty
You could've always blocked those that disagreed with you.
Also I'm going to miss people posting dumb threads about their lives in OT...
Yeah if that ability doesn't come back I will definitely miss some of those random OT posts I saw pop up from time to time too.
InterMusketeer
Member
I think it's a bit odd to say that politics were not a big factor in the gaming section when discussion on certain games was literally banned.
Hatred, Criminal Girls, and more recently Huniepop 2, discussion on those games was forbidden because the mods didn't agree with the content of these games, and/or their developers. I've even seen people get banned seemingly for just stating their interest in a game that was (later) deemed harmful by staff. Games that have been found perfectly legal and fit for release by the government, publishers, platformholders and others, by the way.
On almost any other forum you'd be able to discuss those games freely, but not here. How does the same thing people are arguing for political threads not apply here? If you don't care about those games, don't click on the thread.
I also agree that certain people were allowed to do things others would've been banned for. If you just opened one of the threads about Trump doing something stupid again, you'd find dozens of posts with just "Fuck Trump" or something along those lines. How is that not shitposting? Does a post like that add to the discussion? I think those were fine in the staff's eyes because they agreed with the sentiment.
Hatred, Criminal Girls, and more recently Huniepop 2, discussion on those games was forbidden because the mods didn't agree with the content of these games, and/or their developers. I've even seen people get banned seemingly for just stating their interest in a game that was (later) deemed harmful by staff. Games that have been found perfectly legal and fit for release by the government, publishers, platformholders and others, by the way.
On almost any other forum you'd be able to discuss those games freely, but not here. How does the same thing people are arguing for political threads not apply here? If you don't care about those games, don't click on the thread.
I also agree that certain people were allowed to do things others would've been banned for. If you just opened one of the threads about Trump doing something stupid again, you'd find dozens of posts with just "Fuck Trump" or something along those lines. How is that not shitposting? Does a post like that add to the discussion? I think those were fine in the staff's eyes because they agreed with the sentiment.
Serpens007
Member
I think people fail to realize that if you're part of a society, you cannot escape political discussions. Specially in such a politic time we're living, with society polarizing EVERYWHERE in the world. EVERYWHERE.
You'd have a better chance just literally hiding from any social interaction if you don't want politics "shoved down your throats".
You'd have a better chance just literally hiding from any social interaction if you don't want politics "shoved down your throats".
Raptomex
Member
I agree with this 100%.
I think the staff forbidding the discussion of games like Hatred is completely ridiculous. I understand the subject matter but this is still a video game message board. We should be able to discuss it. It's a game and just like any other game out there, some people may like it, others may not. Is Postal forbidden here? Hatred is basically a grittier version of that game.
All Trump threads resorted to name-calling. That's all you would see in the first set of replies. I don't like the guy either but being immature and shitposting contributes nothing positive. Those discussions were never civil. Ever.
There are others like you and I sympathize with the notion - to an extent.
It doesn't change the fact that NeoGAF as a community as well as an institution in gaming will never again be what it once was (regardless of any upcoming changes in leadership/ownership/site policy - or lack thereof).
Strazyplus
Member
Before the maintenance few certain bans, I had seen surprised me and had made me little wary. Now... last few days bans have been massively increased so much so I barely dare post anything as everything is messy atm.
I wait and see how things go in silence and maybe return once all facts are known.
I wait and see how things go in silence and maybe return once all facts are known.
Does the Puerto Rico situation count as social/ political?
I got family/ friends there and information is still but a light trickle so I'd like to keep tabs on somemembers experiences/ stories if I can but I wouldn't want to get banned for engaging in a discussion that upsets the leftover dregs.
I got family/ friends there and information is still but a light trickle so I'd like to keep tabs on somemembers experiences/ stories if I can but I wouldn't want to get banned for engaging in a discussion that upsets the leftover dregs.
mckmas8808
Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
Those threads were great too
Dude Abides
Banned
I don't see what opposition to serial murder fantasies and loli shit has to do with politics. Censoriousness, yes. Politics, no.
I think you might not be fully informed on the Hatred situation and why it was banned.
http://fucknovideogames.tumblr.com/post/100204212288/hatred-is-a-genocide-simulator-developed-by
Raptomex
Member
Is that the whole thing about the developers may be involved with white supremacists thing? I'm at work so I won't click the link. I believe the devs responded saying they were not associated with white supremacists, no?
It doesn't matter what the developers said in response. It doesn't change the actual facts.
Clamping down on political and social discussion and somehow trying to excise it from the site immediately following what happened is very questionable, and removes a significant chunk of the community this site had.
I don't know what may or may not be true of all the accusations and whatnot, but shutting down for such a long period and then coming back and right away trying to stamp out those areas of discussion seems very poorly thought out. Whatever happened, it just gives the appearance of trying to squelch any discussion related to the controversy and those who would speak out most about it.
Video game news is easy to come by. Those other areas are what helped the site be a go-to source of news and discussion.
I don't know what may or may not be true of all the accusations and whatnot, but shutting down for such a long period and then coming back and right away trying to stamp out those areas of discussion seems very poorly thought out. Whatever happened, it just gives the appearance of trying to squelch any discussion related to the controversy and those who would speak out most about it.
Video game news is easy to come by. Those other areas are what helped the site be a go-to source of news and discussion.
Tranqueris
Banned
It's almost as if the banning of social and political threads and blaming OT as the problem was a way for EvilLure to divert attention from his own shitty behavior.
Yep, it shuts OT people up and helps him gain support from the "I just wanna talk games" crowd that like to bust out the word SJW every now and then when they think they won't get banned for it.
Username1198
Member
Kinda behind on the news, but will OT ever come back? Will we one day be able to talk about politics and other shit?
Or are we done?
Or are we done?
Noboru Wataya
Banned
No one couldn't discuss excitement for The Last Night without being branded a misogynist every couple of posts and being fine with funding GamerGate. That thread is a shit show.
Battlechili
Banned
Gaming is not a white nationalist haven, and the reason Wolfenstein II upsets people is not because of the game itself, but how its being advertised and how its advertisement relates to the current country-wide political environment. There is nothing sinister going on in the community (at least not on the whole; I'm sure there's some strange going-ons in very tiny isolated fringe sections of what one would call the overall community of gamers. No one has a problem killing nazis in video games. You can look at some of the WWII oriented games that came out recently as examples. People weren't complaining about fighting nazis in those.
The complaints have to do with:
- Pacifists pushing and encouraging non-violence regardless of situation
- Libertarians and liberals that believe in freedom of speech to an extreme degree.
Trust me when I say that people WANT to play Wolfenstein to kill nazis. People want to play a game about liberating America from such evils. People aren't upset because they want to protect neo-nazis. People are upset by the game's advertising and its relationship with the current modern political environment. There is nothing going on insidious going on in the overall gaming world.
The reasons behind their banning in many ways could be deemed political. Specifically, the intent that moderators gave when brought up is that they didn't want "to give those games oxygen". The goal was to try and keep them from being noticed and disallow them from being successful. Games like Hatred were perceived by the moderation team as encouraging violence and hateful views. There was also an overall distaste for the developers due to sketchy backgrounds that may be true. (though the game itself was mostly just about playing a sociopath killing people). Games like Criminal Girls or Dungeon Travelers 2 were perceived as encouraging sexism and possibly pedophilia due to their containing a somewhat large emphasis on sexual content, with some of that content involving anime characters that are childlike in appearance. Games like Huniepop 2 were banned because the developers' display controversial personal politics on Twitter that could be viewed as offensive, and, with regards to the game itself, seemed to have some level of offensiveness within the game itself (specifically regarding one minority character).
In explaining the political part of all this: To this day people still can't find out for 100% sure whether or not violent video games cause violence for instance, but nonetheless numerous times in history those in politics have tried to put restrictions on games and/or those who play them precisely for these reasons. To hide away things they personally have a distaste for out of fear of those things having real world consequences, which is what I think many feel the moderation team was doing and thus comes off as political. Do violent video games cause actual violence? Do fanservice oriented video games result in irl sexual deviancy or perhaps sexist opinions and views by different people? Plus a lot of people often separate creators from what they've created, and in banning the games from discussion, disallowed people from actually taking on that standpoint or even criticizing the creators of these games.
...I suppose in this I can see what people mean by politics being hard to avoid, because I am basically saying that the reasoning behind the censorship was to some degree arguably political, especially since the effects playing games like this have on people has never really been proven beyond a doubt and the whole death of the artist thing.
I'm not even sure how someone can say this when groups like Gamer Gate flourish in the gaming sphere.
Paracelsus
Member
It's an open secret that for a while even just admitting to voting for Trump in some liberal cliques made you akin to a nazi. The distinction between a republican, a white supremacist or in general a nazi has been blurred by the media quite a while ago. Let's not pretend such things don't happen, because they do.
I mean, if you want to play pretend we can do that, but if you combine the above with the unfortunate marketing campaign (not my america, make america nazi-free again) their comment on the matter
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1444100
Comes off as someone typing with the tongue firmly planted in their cheeks.
Mammoth Jones
Member
It's almost as if the banning of social and political threads and blaming OT as the problem was a way for EvilLure to divert attention from his own shitty behavior.
Yea, I don't get how people are falling for this and so quick to throw OT under the bus.
Link
The Autumn Wind
No, its been blurred by Trump. Sorry if the truth hurts.
Also I'm going to miss people posting dumb threads about their lives in OT...
Weekendgaf was so god damn good.
GrizzleBoy
Banned
Crosspostcopypasta:
Do people actually realise what they're saying when they want to make debates more fair for non left or more centrist leaning posters, by killing off the debate completely?
So just to put this into some context.
I complain to my boss because some of my coworkers get gym memberships and I dont. My boss says that hes going to make things fair by removing all gym memnerships. And I'm happy as fuck about that! Mission completed!
That means I didn't give a fuck about fairness (or fitness).
It wasn't that I wanted or even needed that gym membership others were getting.
It wasn't that I wanted to be treated equally.
It wasn't that I felt my person wasn't as respected.
It was the fact that those people over there had a gym membership. Im literally only happy because they don't have a gym membership anymore. I didn't want one. Im elated NOBODY gets a gym pass.I just didn't want them to have theirs.
I'll walk past that gym on a daily basis now and not even remember it's there. Whereas walking past the gym and seeing those guys in there exercising when I just wanted to walk to the canteen and talk about pop music without their lunch time workout clogging up my mind was just too much!
I just feel happier knowing that I can now Talk about Taylor Swift in a room a few doors from the gym, with the knowledge that those guys can't go in the gym anymore. It just feels better now, I guess?
Fairness?
Equal opportunities to voice opinions?
Is that what nuking the entire debate does?
Do people actually realise what they're saying when they want to make debates more fair for non left or more centrist leaning posters, by killing off the debate completely?
So just to put this into some context.
I complain to my boss because some of my coworkers get gym memberships and I dont. My boss says that hes going to make things fair by removing all gym memnerships. And I'm happy as fuck about that! Mission completed!
That means I didn't give a fuck about fairness (or fitness).
It wasn't that I wanted or even needed that gym membership others were getting.
It wasn't that I wanted to be treated equally.
It wasn't that I felt my person wasn't as respected.
It was the fact that those people over there had a gym membership. Im literally only happy because they don't have a gym membership anymore. I didn't want one. Im elated NOBODY gets a gym pass.I just didn't want them to have theirs.
I'll walk past that gym on a daily basis now and not even remember it's there. Whereas walking past the gym and seeing those guys in there exercising when I just wanted to walk to the canteen and talk about pop music without their lunch time workout clogging up my mind was just too much!
I just feel happier knowing that I can now Talk about Taylor Swift in a room a few doors from the gym, with the knowledge that those guys can't go in the gym anymore. It just feels better now, I guess?
Fairness?
Equal opportunities to voice opinions?
Is that what nuking the entire debate does?
D
Deleted member 325805
Unconfirmed Member
Because OT was a depressing shit hole.
Widdle Puppy
Banned
OT did nothing...
Last I checked it was EL's response to his mods and them stepping down.
Has nothing to do with OT. Seems like they are willing to gut it cause they aren't willing to face their own consequences.
Claude Augario
Member
This is some slippery slope bullshit. The president of the United States is all of those things wrapped up in wrinkled cheetos coating.The entire point of the alt-right is to take right wing extremism and tie it with a shiny bow that makes it far more digestible than white hoods and swastikas so they can blend in - or basically politically correct white supremacy. They blurred the lines. There's a reason they marched through Charlottesville dressed like Trump rather than Hitler.
There's nothing "unfortunate" about making America nazi-free again. If you're not a nazi or a klansman then you don't have to worry about a video game's marketing campaign.
I counted 80+ people catch bans across two threads for port begging Epic Mickey. 80 people angry enough about a Mickey Mouse game coming to a fucking Nintendo console to risk their accounts.
If OT is a shit hole then gaming side is its prolapsed final form.
Yep. Friday night posts were excellent.
Not sure how closing down information and discussion on current events makes sense. There are tons of newsworthy events that merit discussion, from politics to science to art and technology.
Today alone I was looking forward to discussing the opioid crisis declaration, the Tesla deployment in Michigan and a half dozen other things.
Just moderate but otherwise let the discussion take place. Are there situations where there will be piling on? Sure, because there are situations where the views expressed are in a vast minority. Are the situations where there will be fair and balanced nuanced discussion? Sure and that's why the majority of us come here. And should we have some off-limit topics? Sure, even reddit is cracking down on the most extremist, violent and inflamatory content. Hate should not be respected, encouraged and enabled.
Camper Van Beethoven
Banned
It's almost as if the banning of social and political threads and blaming OT as the problem was a way for EvilLure to divert attention from his own shitty behavior.
Theres been a thread open dedicated to shitting on Evilore for days.
Evilore is a cunt, but hes clearly letting people pile it on for awhile.
mckmas8808
Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
Hold on......you serious? Unfortunate? I thought it's clearly the year's BEST advertisement for any game or media this year! I can't think of a better way to advertise a video game.