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Veknoid_Outcast on 13 December 2017
vivster said:

I want to talk about a thing that's been on my mind for a while.

As everyone knows the forum rules and mods have a self inflicted extreme bias for companies that own one of the major 3 consoles. Any negative comments against those 3 companies will usually earn warnings and bans while any other company outside of that spectrum gets a free pass to be shat on. This includes of course individuals working at those companies.

Examples:

Blizzard is complete garbage for introducing lootboxes. -> totally acceptable and cheered on by everyone
Sony is complete garbage for making people pay for online. -> instant ban

Ubisoft hasn't made a single good game in 10 years. -> totally acceptable and cheered on by everyone
Microsoft hasn't made a single good game in 10 years. -> instant ban

I hope Battlefront 2 fails and EA goes out of Business. -> totally acceptable and cheered on by everyone
I hope the Switch fails and Nintendo goes out of Business. -> instant ban

Bobby Kotick is the worst piece of trash that ever walked the earth. -> totally acceptable and cheered on by everyone
Iwata is the worst piece of trash that ever walked the earth. -> instant perma ban

See, I don't really like this dichotomy. It feels weird and is not entirely fair. Especially considering that the console companies are basically the spotlight of this forum and most threads revolve around them. Of course substance is king and none of those sentences should ever be posted standalone without further explanation. Yet, only half of these posts would be punished.

A special example here is the hope or wish that some things will not succeed. Those are usually punished, especially when it's about the big 3. But that doesn't really add up.Wishing for something to fail has the exact same selfish reasons behind it as wishing for something to succeed. A big component in this forum are predictions. Everyone loves to make them and we let through even the most ridiculous ones. For a lot of those predictions it is important that certain things don't sell more than you predicted so it feels natural to hope that it won't sell as much to not be wrong.

So predicting things is fine, hoping for your predictions to come true is wrong. Wishing for your favorite company to succeed so you can have more games is fine, wishing for your lesser liked companies to fail so the resources are rerouted to something more useful to you is wrong.

It's no secret that I am not a big fan of consoles. I dream of a future without proprietary terrible closed platforms. A future with one single open platform that can be used by everyone and augmented by both consumers and companies. So it's natural to hope that every single console will fail to make room for a better future without arbitrary walls and more competition.

This, of course, includes Nintendo, which, in my opinion, is the absolute worst offender when it comes to terrible hardware platforms that are terribly limited and give zero choice to anything. So yes, I do want to scream that Nintendo should stop making consoles. And if they don't stop making consoles without going completely under, then so be it. I don't want Nintendo to not exist, I just want them to stop making terrible hardware and strong-arming people onto that terrible hardware by making all their good games exclusive to said terrible hardware.

I think that is an absolutely reasonable stance to have. Though if I posted that in any actual Nintendo thread, everyone would have my head. But if I want to go into an EA thread and proudly proclaim that Andrew Wilson should eat shit and die, I would probably be crowned King of VGChartz or something.

So stop deciding arbitrarily which fanbase's feelings you want to protect and start treating all things equally. No fan base holds the holy grail to stand above others.

But what you're comparing here isn't equal. A lucid explanation of why you prefer Nintendo to exit the hardware business, backed up with reasonable points and framed in a respectful way is not the same as a violent, incendiary outburst about Andrew Wilson. 

Your first part could begin a conversation; your second would be a non-starter. As long as you explain and unpack your controversial opinions in a civil way you shouldn't be banned. Now, if you want more freedom for hit-and-run attacks on Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, it's never going to happen.

As to your main point, slander against EA or Activision is more acceptable because it doesn't bother most people. In a vacuum, yes, all companies should receive the same treatment. But on VGChartz, where attacks upon certain companies, games, and figures are going to cause more problems and bans than others, that hypothetical fairness goes out the window. It's the mods' job to keep the peace here, in this specific place, where Sony and Nintendo are loved and EA held in contempt.

tl;dr - a substantial, polite framing of any controversial opinion should be protected. When the opinion is unsubstantial and impolite, it's more acceptable when the target is something despised by most of the community.



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vivster on 13 December 2017
Veknoid_Outcast said:

But what you're comparing here isn't equal. A lucid explanation of why you prefer Nintendo to exit the hardware business, backed up with reasonable points and framed in a respectful way is not the same as a violent, incendiary outburst about Andrew Wilson. 

Your first part could begin a conversation; your second would be a non-starter. As long as you explain and unpack your controversial opinions in a civil way you shouldn't be banned. Now, if you want more freedom for hit-and-run attacks on Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, it's never going to happen.

As to your main point, slander against EA or Activision is more acceptable because it doesn't bother most people. In a vacuum, yes, all companies should receive the same treatment. But on VGChartz, where attacks upon certain companies, games, and figures are going to cause more problems and bans than others, that hypothetical fairness goes out the window. It's the mods' job to keep the peace here, in this specific place, where Sony and Nintendo are loved and EA held in contempt.

tl;dr - a substantial, polite framing of any controversial opinion should be protected. When the opinion is unsubstantial and impolite, it's more acceptable when the target is something despised by most of the community.

Thanks for the reasonable response.

Though I do think your view on which things here are generally liked and which not might be skewed by your own opinion and that of the most vocal users on here. A lot of people here think that their opinion is valid because the majority of all people and not only this forum is on their side, which of course contradicts scenarios where the majority of all people doesn't give a fuck about the opinions on this forum.

Basically I just don't like imbalance, but if that's how it's supposed to be then I guess I can't do anything about it. Just wanted to point out that there is at least one person annoyed by this.



If you demand respect or gratitude for your volunteer work, you're doing volunteering wrong.

Veknoid_Outcast on 13 December 2017
vivster said:
Veknoid_Outcast said:

But what you're comparing here isn't equal. A lucid explanation of why you prefer Nintendo to exit the hardware business, backed up with reasonable points and framed in a respectful way is not the same as a violent, incendiary outburst about Andrew Wilson. 

Your first part could begin a conversation; your second would be a non-starter. As long as you explain and unpack your controversial opinions in a civil way you shouldn't be banned. Now, if you want more freedom for hit-and-run attacks on Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, it's never going to happen.

As to your main point, slander against EA or Activision is more acceptable because it doesn't bother most people. In a vacuum, yes, all companies should receive the same treatment. But on VGChartz, where attacks upon certain companies, games, and figures are going to cause more problems and bans than others, that hypothetical fairness goes out the window. It's the mods' job to keep the peace here, in this specific place, where Sony and Nintendo are loved and EA held in contempt.

tl;dr - a substantial, polite framing of any controversial opinion should be protected. When the opinion is unsubstantial and impolite, it's more acceptable when the target is something despised by most of the community.

Thanks for the reasonable response.

Though I do think your view on which things here are generally liked and which not might be skewed by your own opinion and that of the most vocal users on here. A lot of people here think that their opinion is valid because the majority of all people and not only this forum is on their side, which of course contradicts scenarios where the majority of all people doesn't give a fuck about the opinions on this forum.

Basically I just don't like imbalance, but if that's how it's supposed to be then I guess I can't do anything about it. Just wanted to point out that there is at least one person annoyed by this.

That's entirely possible. I'm not a big fan of the business tactics of many modern "AAA" publishers.

And I fully agree the minority should be protected. I believe the site should welcome and accommodate groups that aren't fully represented -- and maybe all the pot shots at EA, Activision, et al. are keeping fans of those companies off the forum. I also feel strongly that something like "EA is, in my mind, the worst video game company because reasons A, B, and C" is a lot more constructive than "EA sucks donkey dick."

But if no one reports the latter proclamation, does it register as an offense?



COKTOE on 13 December 2017
vivster said:

I want to talk about a thing that's been on my mind for a while.

As everyone knows the forum rules and mods have a self inflicted extreme bias for companies that own one of the major 3 consoles. Any negative comments against those 3 companies will usually earn warnings and bans while any other company outside of that spectrum gets a free pass to be shat on. This includes of course individuals working at those companies.

Examples:

Blizzard is complete garbage for introducing lootboxes. -> totally acceptable and cheered on by everyone
Sony is complete garbage for making people pay for online. -> instant ban

Ubisoft hasn't made a single good game in 10 years. -> totally acceptable and cheered on by everyone
Microsoft hasn't made a single good game in 10 years. -> instant ban

I hope Battlefront 2 fails and EA goes out of Business. -> totally acceptable and cheered on by everyone
I hope the Switch fails and Nintendo goes out of Business. -> instant ban

Bobby Kotick is the worst piece of trash that ever walked the earth. -> totally acceptable and cheered on by everyone
Iwata is the worst piece of trash that ever walked the earth. -> instant perma ban

See, I don't really like this dichotomy. It feels weird and is not entirely fair. Especially considering that the console companies are basically the spotlight of this forum and most threads revolve around them. Of course substance is king and none of those sentences should ever be posted standalone without further explanation. Yet, only half of these posts would be punished.

A special example here is the hope or wish that some things will not succeed. Those are usually punished, especially when it's about the big 3. But that doesn't really add up.Wishing for something to fail has the exact same selfish reasons behind it as wishing for something to succeed. A big component in this forum are predictions. Everyone loves to make them and we let through even the most ridiculous ones. For a lot of those predictions it is important that certain things don't sell more than you predicted so it feels natural to hope that it won't sell as much to not be wrong.

So predicting things is fine, hoping for your predictions to come true is wrong. Wishing for your favorite company to succeed so you can have more games is fine, wishing for your lesser liked companies to fail so the resources are rerouted to something more useful to you is wrong.

It's no secret that I am not a big fan of consoles. I dream of a future without proprietary terrible closed platforms. A future with one single open platform that can be used by everyone and augmented by both consumers and companies. So it's natural to hope that every single console will fail to make room for a better future without arbitrary walls and more competition.

This, of course, includes Nintendo, which, in my opinion, is the absolute worst offender when it comes to terrible hardware platforms that are terribly limited and give zero choice to anything. So yes, I do want to scream that Nintendo should stop making consoles. And if they don't stop making consoles without going completely under, then so be it. I don't want Nintendo to not exist, I just want them to stop making terrible hardware and strong-arming people onto that terrible hardware by making all their good games exclusive to said terrible hardware.

I think that is an absolutely reasonable stance to have. Though if I posted that in any actual Nintendo thread, everyone would have my head. But if I want to go into an EA thread and proudly proclaim that Andrew Wilson should eat shit and die, I would probably be crowned King of VGChartz or something.

So stop deciding arbitrarily which fanbase's feelings you want to protect and start treating all things equally. No fan base holds the holy grail to stand above others.

There are 3 platform holders right now, and since all of them are engaged in the same activity, singling out one of them should be seen as an act of flaming, or at the very least, stupidity. MS were the progenitors of charging something for nothing. If any company deserves a measure of scorn for paid online, it's them......:) Oh! I hope Battlefront 2 fails and EA goes out of business.

-edit. Kotick and Iwata? C'mon man. Kotick IS trash. At least as far as his impact on the gaming industry is concerned. I doubt any gaming site would ever ban anybody for saying it.

Last edited by COKTOE - on 13 December 2017

- "If you have the heart of a true winner, you can always get more pissed off than some other asshole."

vivster on 13 December 2017
Veknoid_Outcast said:
vivster said:

Thanks for the reasonable response.

Though I do think your view on which things here are generally liked and which not might be skewed by your own opinion and that of the most vocal users on here. A lot of people here think that their opinion is valid because the majority of all people and not only this forum is on their side, which of course contradicts scenarios where the majority of all people doesn't give a fuck about the opinions on this forum.

Basically I just don't like imbalance, but if that's how it's supposed to be then I guess I can't do anything about it. Just wanted to point out that there is at least one person annoyed by this.

That's entirely possible. I'm not a big fan of the business tactics of many modern "AAA" publishers.

And I fully agree the minority should be protected. I believe the site should welcome and accommodate groups that aren't fully represented -- and maybe all the pot shots at EA, Activision, et al. are keeping fans of those companies off the forum. I also feel strongly that something like "EA is, in my mind, the worst video game company because reasons A, B, and C" is a lot more constructive than "EA sucks donkey dick."

But if no one reports the latter proclamation, does it register as an offense?

I think a better question here would be what is offense and why is offense indiscriminately taken. I'm fine with the mantra that if no one reports it then it's fine but we should also have a hard look at the times when people take offense. Not all offense is equal. Depending on reports the difference between no reports and 10 reports might not be anything at all. And that's where the weird weighting makes everything complex again.

Let's say for example that I reported someone who said something mean about an Activision exec in a thread where there are 100 posts railing on that person. I'm going to assume that nothing at all would happen because apparently the consensus of the forum is that the person deserves this. So there was definitely an offense taken but it was weighted too low to even be recognized as offense. Yet for certain topics just a single report will lead to a ban because that offense was apparently more offensive than the other one.

See, it just muddies things up. And that doesn't even account for fake or completely exaggerated taken offenses.



If you demand respect or gratitude for your volunteer work, you're doing volunteering wrong.

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vivster on 13 December 2017
COKTOE said:

There are 3 platform holders right now, and since all of them are engaged in the same activity, singling out one of them should be seen as an act of flaming, or at the very least, stupidity. MS were the progenitors of charging something for nothing. If any company deserves a measure of scorn for paid online, it's them......:) Oh! I hope Battlefront 2 fails and EA goes out of business.

-edit. Kotick and Iwata? C'mon man. Kotick IS trash. At least as far as his impact on the gaming industry is concerned. I doubt any gaming site would ever ban anybody for saying it.

The examples were deliberately extreme, though I do firmly believe that there is not as much difference between those CEOs than people would like to believe. That image of the lovable CEO that only ever cared about fun and happiness is a ridiculous caricature of what an actual CEO is and does. It's just  marketing and appearance, behind the scenes they're all the same scumbags.

Singling out entities is necessary to keep on point in a discussion. Generalizing only distracts and derails the topic at hand. That's the same tactic the Trump administration is using. "Why are we the bad guys when everyone else is also bad?". The thing here is that adopting something reprehensible is just as bad as inventing it.



If you demand respect or gratitude for your volunteer work, you're doing volunteering wrong.

COKTOE on 13 December 2017
vivster said:
COKTOE said:

There are 3 platform holders right now, and since all of them are engaged in the same activity, singling out one of them should be seen as an act of flaming, or at the very least, stupidity. MS were the progenitors of charging something for nothing. If any company deserves a measure of scorn for paid online, it's them......:) Oh! I hope Battlefront 2 fails and EA goes out of business.

-edit. Kotick and Iwata? C'mon man. Kotick IS trash. At least as far as his impact on the gaming industry is concerned. I doubt any gaming site would ever ban anybody for saying it.

The examples were deliberately extreme, though I do firmly believe that there is not as much difference between those CEOs than people would like to believe. That image of the lovable CEO that only ever cared about fun and happiness is a ridiculous caricature of what an actual CEO is and does. It's just  marketing and appearance, behind the scenes they're all the same scumbags.

Singling out entities is necessary to keep on point in a discussion. Generalizing only distracts and derails the topic at hand. That's the same tactic the Trump administration is using. "Why are we the bad guys when everyone else is also bad?". The thing here is that adopting something reprehensible is just as bad as inventing it.

As far as the CEO thing goes. Sure. I obviously can't say which CEO is better behind the scenes, and will acknowledge that "scumbag" seems to be high on the list of characteristics possessed by anybody with that title, but Kotick has repeatedly, and blatantly offended my sensibilities, whereas Iwata has not. It's a sentiment that's both personal, and I think it's safe to say, quite common. I was joking about the paid online bit.



- "If you have the heart of a true winner, you can always get more pissed off than some other asshole."

vivster on 13 December 2017
COKTOE said:
vivster said:

The examples were deliberately extreme, though I do firmly believe that there is not as much difference between those CEOs than people would like to believe. That image of the lovable CEO that only ever cared about fun and happiness is a ridiculous caricature of what an actual CEO is and does. It's just  marketing and appearance, behind the scenes they're all the same scumbags.

Singling out entities is necessary to keep on point in a discussion. Generalizing only distracts and derails the topic at hand. That's the same tactic the Trump administration is using. "Why are we the bad guys when everyone else is also bad?". The thing here is that adopting something reprehensible is just as bad as inventing it.

As far as the CEO thing goes. Sure. I obviously can't say which CEO is better behind the scenes, and will acknowledge that "scumbag" seems to be high on the list of characteristics possessed by anybody with that title, but Kotick has repeatedly, and blatantly offended my sensibilities, whereas Iwata has not. It's a sentiment that's both personal, and I think it's safe to say, quite common. I was joking about the paid online bit.

You should actually like Kotick more then. Because he is a scumbag and openly bragged about it, conveniently alerting you about that fact. But how insidious is it to be a scumbag and have a smiley exterior to keep you in the dark of how much he will scumbag your ass and you'll take it with a thank you.



If you demand respect or gratitude for your volunteer work, you're doing volunteering wrong.

COKTOE on 13 December 2017
vivster said:
COKTOE said:

As far as the CEO thing goes. Sure. I obviously can't say which CEO is better behind the scenes, and will acknowledge that "scumbag" seems to be high on the list of characteristics possessed by anybody with that title, but Kotick has repeatedly, and blatantly offended my sensibilities, whereas Iwata has not. It's a sentiment that's both personal, and I think it's safe to say, quite common. I was joking about the paid online bit.

You should actually like Kotick more then. Because he is a scumbag and openly bragged about it, conveniently alerting you about that fact. But how insidious is it to be a scumbag and have a smiley exterior to keep you in the dark of how much he will scumbag your ass and you'll take it with a thank you.

Ha. Well, there are levels to these things though, right? I think Kotick is worse than most. And like I said, "blatantly". He's hand-ticked "asshole" into his family crest. I mean, I guess there's something to be said about the knowledge granted by someone being openly terrible, as opposed to trying to hide it with a facade. 



- "If you have the heart of a true winner, you can always get more pissed off than some other asshole."

Veknoid_Outcast on 13 December 2017
vivster said:
Veknoid_Outcast said:

That's entirely possible. I'm not a big fan of the business tactics of many modern "AAA" publishers.

And I fully agree the minority should be protected. I believe the site should welcome and accommodate groups that aren't fully represented -- and maybe all the pot shots at EA, Activision, et al. are keeping fans of those companies off the forum. I also feel strongly that something like "EA is, in my mind, the worst video game company because reasons A, B, and C" is a lot more constructive than "EA sucks donkey dick."

But if no one reports the latter proclamation, does it register as an offense?

I think a better question here would be what is offense and why is offense indiscriminately taken. I'm fine with the mantra that if no one reports it then it's fine but we should also have a hard look at the times when people take offense. Not all offense is equal. Depending on reports the difference between no reports and 10 reports might not be anything at all. And that's where the weird weighting makes everything complex again.

Let's say for example that I reported someone who said something mean about an Activision exec in a thread where there are 100 posts railing on that person. I'm going to assume that nothing at all would happen because apparently the consensus of the forum is that the person deserves this. So there was definitely an offense taken but it was weighted too low to even be recognized as offense. Yet for certain topics just a single report will lead to a ban because that offense was apparently more offensive than the other one.

See, it just muddies things up. And that doesn't even account for fake or completely exaggerated taken offenses.

I agree. That's why you need a good team of mods to sift through the garbage and identify the reports that are both real and actionable.