I dunno guys, I just have to say, I think the majority or Era posters are normal folks who avoid the hardcore SJW scene that rightfully earns its share of mocking scorn to a point. If you ignore those Era topics, or furthermore judiciously use the ignore feature, you can chat and generally stay under the radar and have a positive experience. But, the way this thread continually day in and day out mocks and reposts and wallows in the worst of Resetera, I've come to think there's just something unhealthy in it. Like, who gives a fuck, we know how stupid some of these people are, why do we need to constantly refresh it and reassure ourselves about it? There are plenty of people here at GAF I've already put on ignore over the last few months because no forum is going to have a monopoly on idiots. Ignore and move on folks, Ignore and move on.
See, you're not wrong in principle. There's definitely valid people there,
and this thread does look a little unhealthy at times.
In practice, though, Era is a toxic place and not at all fertile ground for discussion. No matter how many idiots you ignore, you're at constant risk of ban just for speaking your mind in a totally normal way. You don't need to be inflammatory, rude, sarcastic, hostile, or to actively derail topics to be banned. You will get banned because of reasons (BTW, "because of reasons" was one of old GAF's favorite mottos, and its overuse mysteriously went away with the people who used it a lot).
You can't have discussion without being free to express grounded, logic opinions.
You can't have discussion without being free to express opinions that clearly don't want to offend anyone.
You can't really have a discussion if you have to ignore
hundreds of members of a community just to filter out some of the noise, have some peace of mind, and avoid being ban-baited.
You shouldn't have to ignore hundreds of members just so you don't actively hate the place.
You shouldn't be banned for enjoying sexualized character designs in video games.
You shouldn't be banned for not caring about someone else's opinion.
You shouldn't be banned for saying you'll buy a product even when there's some artificially created controversy about it in a single place on the Internet.
I could go on, but to put it short: you shouldn't be banned from a public forum for having an opinion that doesn't conform to the moderation team's and to that of a small, extremely vocal, incredibly toxic, group of people that clearly have more than a few loose screws, if they're not actively deranged.
How could video games developers more or less openly hate GAF but like Era, which is just as obnoxious? Because Era bans the "lazy devs rhetoric"? That's very, very little compensation when Era actively harasses devs for not conforming to their ideal vision of the world, makes mountains out of molehills, sees malice where there isn't (sombrero Mario? Dee Jay Diddy Kong?), try to dictate what should and shouldn't be in a product meant for public consumption, and make people who actually
do stuff hate themselves and drop out of good work (see: the recent controversy about the fan translation of Goemon). They do all this while mocking people who denounce actual censorship, criticizing religion for being repressive and punitive, accusing their "enemies" of being "freethinkers" like it's a bad thing, and quoting the MGS2 speech about context like mantra for the world at large without realizing what they're doing in their bubble is exactly that.
Do you not see the absurdity of having to ignore half, possibly more, of a forum that big just to avoid the daily ban baits, which results in you not actually being able to discuss topics you might be interested in?
Do you not see how stupid it is to not be able to be ignorant about some topics because you'll get immediately accused of being "in bad faith" and "just asking questions"?
Do you not see the absurdity of being expected to have a certain background to join an apparently free, open community?
Do you not see that that place claims to want to be as "inclusive" as possible while openly professing to want to exclude whoever they want on a whim?
Do you not see how that place is founded on, and grounded in, pure hypocrisy? Do you not realize that they will actively rewrite posts and reasons for bans just to clean their hands of their own dirty behavior? Do you not see that dozens of threads there are locked because "we don't believe this can lead to constructive discussion" after barely a single page of replies, while "discussions" that incite hate and violence against certain groups of people get just locked temporarily when the amount of reports probably tips the amount of actual posts? Do you not see how quickly threads are abandoned or locked when facts emerge that contradict the general narrative?
You're right, maybe this thread here isn't the healthiest. It does reek of obsession at times. But the reason behind that is that in spite of all its promises, Era still hasn't delivered the dream community they left here to found, and it appears it never will because they're too busy not seeing what they're doing wrong and banning people left and right - oh, sorry: right and right. They ruined GAF from the inside, left it en masse but not before taking the time to post disgusting stuff, and set off on a high horse promising a better future and frantically bury any evidence that they ever were here. But they didn't deliver, and put up a cult-like place instead. There's plenty of reasons to mock them. That community is damaging people, workers, careers, fans, families, and the very sector of entertainment of which they claim to be the beacon.
