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JWeinCom said:
To my knowledge, no, the mods do not have the authority to rewrite the rules. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong on that. As I saw it when I was a mod, the site owners make the rule, and my job was to enforce them. If the rules were rules I disagreed with, I would stop being a mod, because it's not my site. As for your post, it does not read as a genuine effort to further the conversation. You start by saying "I'll probably get banned for this" which sets an antagonistic tone. And really, the first sentence of your post would have been sufficient to make your point. We all know what you meant when you said "I think a lot of the mods here have decided that anything that doesn't tow the party line is a bannable offense when it comes to race, identity, sexual orientation, nationality, and gender identity." And even if you just added "for example saying sex and gender are the same thing", that would have been plenty clear. Instead you went on a whole rant about trans people. So, a question which I imagine will go unanswered. If you had just said, "For example, sex and gender are the same thing and you are the sex you are born as". Would that have clearly described the type of speech you think is unfairly punished by mods? If so, and one example was sufficient, why did you give like 6 more? Why did we also need to know your opinion on trans athletes? On what situations gender affirming care is warranted? On pronoun usage? On how as an atheist being forced to use pronouns is the same as being forced to pray (which lol)? Really was describing all of that necessary for the purpose of this topic? Clearly, you just wanted to get something off your chest about trans people. And you saw an opportunity to skirt the rules by trying to be like "Gee I'm not trying to start an argument about trans people, I just innocently wanted to provide some examples". Which is exactly why we need the rules to allow some flexibility. Cause otherwise people try that kind of bullshit. If I were to hazard a guess I'd say most people who left (for reasons other than the site being not significantly upgraded in years and the sales numbers becoming pretty meaningless) more likely left because, regardless of their political stance, they just wanted to talk about games, and that became increasingly difficult. We just don't hear from those users because they don't have an axe to grind and are probably just posting about games somewhere else. What am I an example of exactly? I'm not a mod. I have no authority. If that's an example of the problem you're describing, then the problem clearly isn't about the mods. It's that you want a soapbox to stand on and if someone calls you out you whine about how you're being oppressed. |
I have a tendency to expound on a topic too much because I'm afraid of missing something or giving the wrong impression. If I had just said "You are the gender you are born as", that would have made people think that I don't like trans people or think they don't have a right to a happy life or that I'm against gender affirming care. So I had to add an explanation of why I support gender affirming care despite disagreeing on the very definition of gender. But then if I had just left it as "Everybody should be able to live their lives as they see fit so long as they aren't hurting others", then that would give the false impression that I support trans-athletes in women's sports. So I added in a bunch of other explanations and statements so that I could fully unpack my stance. And even then I failed because I forgot to mention intersex people. So I had to go back and add that when quoting another user. I felt that describing all that was necessary because my views on the topic are complex and varied. I know that probably doesn't make any sense to you, but please understand that we are not the same person. We do not think the same way.
I do understand what you mean by people not being able to have a conversation without annoying side-issues being brought up. People should be able to discsuss GTA6 for example without constantly hearing about woke this or woke that. I get that.
You're an example of someone deciding they can read someone else's mind and then deciding that said person should be banned based on that alone. Yeah, you're not a mod anymore but it doesn't matter. The point is that it happens because as it stands now any mod can ban you for anything they personally don't like so long as one other mod agrees with them. And then banning people becomes subjective and up to the bias of one mod or another. And just to make it clear I'm not soley in this thread to talk about political bans. Unfair political bans are just another symptom of a problem that vgchartz has had for years. That problem is that people are banned based on loose interpretations of the rules and psy-ops banning. Did you say something that two other mods thought was a dog-whistle, when you never intended for it to be one? Haha banned! Did you argue for why Xbox hates physical games far more than Sony and did two mods that happen to love Xbox agree that you were "trolling"? Banned! Did you read and agree with all the forum rules, with every intention not to break them? Too bad because some mod somewhere will add their own personal asterisks to random sections of the rules (creating entirely new rules in the process) and ban you!
TL/DR: 1. I didn't want to give the wrong impressions on a complex issue so went into detail that others would have taken as unnecessary or viewed as flame-bait.
2. Mods frequently assume they can read the minds of other users. Mods frequently use their own loose interpretation of the rules instead of the actual rules. Both examples result in unfair bans.
Last edited by Cerebralbore101 - 1 day ago
