Swordmasterman on 17 October 2016
| Shadow1980 said: Something else I wanted to add that I didn't mention the other day is that things are bad enough in a gaming forum when people argue about video games. If simple entertainment is enough to get people riled up, then subject matter with real life-and-death consequences involved is going to end extremely poorly, with many users likely growing to hate each other. People getting in verbal fights over whether PlayStation or Xbox or Nintendo is better, or whether Marvel or DC is better, or whether Star Wars or Star Trek is better is bad enough, but when fundamental aspects of a person's worldview are involved, you have a powder keg ready to go off, and no shortage of lit matches. Civility would be nice, but one thing I've learned as I've gotten older is that politics and religion are subjects that don't lend themselves to civil discussion. There's a reason that the phrase "Never discuss politics or religion in polite company" exists. Related to that, I've learned that people on all sides of a given topic are in many ways not that dissimilar. They have a lot more in common than they'd care to admit when it comes to how they behave, and predictably enough every side will insist "only the other side does this." More often that not, people sound more like juveniles arguing on a playground when it comes to these subjects. Many on both sides would love to see opinions they don't agree with be silenced. They think their side is always right and never wrong, and that anyone who disagrees with them is not just wrong, but stupid, insane, corrupt, or flat-out evil. Conservatives and liberals often use similar rhetorical tactics, most notably resorting to calling each other "Nazis" (conservatives also throw around "socialist," "communist," and "Marxist" around a lot). Religious fundamentalists and militant atheists are the flip sides of the same coin of hate and intolerance, with both regarding anyone who doesn't share their beliefs as a dangerous, deluded fool, and sharing this vague, authoritarian-tinged undercurrent that "Everyone ought to believe the exact same way I do." Needless to say, this hyper-partisan atmosphere is toxic and corrosive to discourse. At the end of the day, this is supposed to be a community focused on video games. It's hard enough to keep a close-knit community when people engage in flame wars over an electronic box. Adding politics and religion into the mix is just asking for trouble. |
Vgchartz has a good community of moderators. But it will be hard for them to keep track of those random people starting wars on threads.
