Politics and moderation

[JWeinCom]

Cerebralbore101 said:

JWeinCom said:

Shadow said you could not question specific mod decisions. He did not say you could not define what you mean by "right wing speech" or "politically incorrect speech".

Well, any examples I gave would just harkin back to Shadow's mod decisions which I disagreed with. 

JWeinCom said:

For example, back to trans stuff. The mods are genuinely pro-trans (as they should be), but that's really not the whole reason we policed that so heavily. A big part of it was that we knew that once someone started talking about trans people that's what the thread was about. Anyone who wanted to talk about the actual topic would inevitably leave and it would boil down to two people arguing about trans issues. And trying to nip any conversation in the bud before it derailed a topic was simply more workable than trying to wait till it got out of hand to reign it back in.

Yeah so in other words you never genuinely thought I wanted to derail the thread. You just already had this policy in place of accusing people of wanting to derail threads in order to keep the forums more civil. Nice. 

The problem isn't that people want to say racist/sexist/transphobic/homophobic things. The problem is that people in extreme left wing corners have decided that anything that doesn't tow the party line is inherently racist/sexist/transphobic/homophobic. Everything is a dog whistle and nothing can be taken literally. Anything even slightly controversial can get you banned if a couple of random mods decide to twist the rules like silly putty. And with that I'm done with this thread too. I'm just arguing with one hand tied behind my back here because I can't actually discuss mod actions. -_-

Edit: If you really want examples PM me. I'm happy to discuss in private but I'm not breaking forum rules, when I've already been given fair warning. 

Lol what? 

I have a policy? I'm a random user now. I was last on the mod team like 5+ years ago. Do you think I have my own personal VGchartz policies? Do you have policies? 

I'll respond to this because I don't want to say anything that might unfairly reflect on the mod team. There was no policy, mine or anyone else's, at any time I am aware of to accuse anyone of derailing anything if they spoke about trans issues.

What I said, which tbh I think was abundantly clear but w/e, is that we knew trans issues were likely to derail threads, so we had heavier presense in certain threads where it was likely to come up (for instance anything involving TLOU2 because one of the major characters was kind of butch which made transphobes really upset for some reason) and would not necessarily prevent anyone from talking about trans people, but would try our best to be ready to jump in and redirect as soon as possible and give warnings/bans as necessary. That's all. Point is a lot of the time it was less about limiting certain topics because we wanted to push a specific view but was just about us knowing which topics people could not discuss like rational adults and being extra vigilant when those things came up.

To be clear, I 100% honestly and truly did believe that you were attempting in bad faith to derail the thread and that you cared more about expressing your thoughts about trans people than actually discussing moderation. I already explained why. Not gonna PM you about this.

Chrkeller said:

JWeinCom said:

I'm not sure that is responsive to what I said. What I asked for was examples of right wing speech that should be allowed but isn't.

I would need to see the context for those to really address them all and give an actual explanation. Which I'm not interested in doing, frankly because I feel like I've kind of wasted enough time in my thread. But I'll just assume all of these are accurate and there's no missing context. Already discussed the post about republicans, so going to skip that one.

Honestly, I would personally agree with you on most of those points. But, that's not generally the policy of the mod team, at least from my experience, which I haven't been a part of for years now so I do not speak for them.

The team had always been more lenient with any kind of speech about people who are not actually on the forums (i.e. celebrities or hypothetical executives) then comments that were made directly towards members of the forum. I'm pretty sure I argued pretty much the point you're making, that anything violent should always receive the harshest penalties even if the target is not an actual poster. Which is not to criticize the mod team, they just saw it differently. 

As for the comments about stabbing and exploding, I'm pretty sure if Captain Explosion said he was going to blow me up (and if I recall correctly he did once) I'd probably get a chuckle out of it. I would take it as hyperbolic and silly and think he was kind of crazy, but I would not really care that much. On the other hand, in my early 30's, I did have to move back in with my parents for a while. I genuinely felt super ashamed of it to the point where even now I'm upset thinking about it. If someone had said that to me on a forum, I would likely be super upset and not want to post here anymore. Bringing up personal information about a user in a negative way meant to embarass them was actually something that would always receive very harsh penalties.

The point is, mods are not necessarily objectively evaluating which speech is "worse". A big part of it is what the mods feel is more likely to be disruptive to the forums. For example, back to trans stuff. The mods are genuinely pro-trans (as they should be), but that's really not the whole reason we policed that so heavily. A big part of it was that we knew that once someone started talking about trans people that's what the thread was about. Anyone who wanted to talk about the actual topic would inevitably leave and it would boil down to two people arguing about trans issues. And trying to nip any conversation in the bud before it derailed a topic was simply more workable than trying to wait till it got out of hand to reign it back in. 

So I would probably agree objectively that saying you want to blow someone up is objectively more unacceptable than saying someone lives at home (which isn't really something to be ashamed of we're all doing our best our best here), I think the latter comment is much more likely to derail a thread and make users less likely to come back. Whether you believe me or not, that being treated more harshly is 100% what I would expect without knowing anything about either user's political views.

Comments which are likely to evoke strong negative emotional reactions from users are typically treated far more severely. If I were to say I want to beat Jaleel White to death with a sock full of pennies, that is a horrible thing to say, but honestly, I think it would slide because despite being violent, no particular user is likely to feel any sort of way about it. Meanwhile, if I said "user X is a pathetic loser" that would much more likely get a ban. Not saying I agree, but that's what my experience has been. 

So no, I do not think you have been personally targetted. I think teasing is in many cases generally treated more severely than violent speech whether that should or should not be the case. I personally do not believe it had anything to do with you being particularly targeted. Take that as you will.

That is my point.  I think the argument is being misunderstood.  I don't think people are annoyed at not being able to voice their opinion.  I think the issue is the unbalance in warnings/bans.  At least the half dozen people who left when I did, we all felt this way.

My knock at captain was because he kept calling for assassinations and domestic terrorism.  I reported it every single time (as I was told to do) and nobody cared.  So I took a shot out of frustration.  IMHO, when reported 12 different times, action should have been taken.

Really it boils down to many of us, not understanding the rules.  Calling for assassination is fine...  but jokingly saying the adults are talking, well that is a problem.  To your point, which we agree, objectively that makes no sense.

Many of us are simply confused.

Either way, time to play Fortunes Weave.  And Shadow heard the concerns and is working on it.  Thus, give faith to Shadow in fixing what is a problem for many of us 

Edit 

I did want to mention that you and Sundin, both agreeing that violent posts should have ramifications does sincerely make me feel better.  I am being genuine when I say violent posts being accepted legitimately has bothered me.  

While I'm here.

I would not agree that it makes no sense. I think I explained what I thought the logic was. Its not always about an objective judgment of how bad what was said was, it's sometimes about what is most problematic for the community. And that's not always the same things. I'll agree that blowing up data centers is bad. But is someone talking about doing so really disruptive to the community? In my opinion probably not. Is people talking about other people's personal lives going to be more disruptive? Imo probably. Is that a good reason to ban the latter more heavily? Not my call. 

In my opinion, based on what you told me, it's just based on your values not aligning with what the mod teams prioritize. And I don't necessarily disagree with you, but again, I think if you were a liberal user, the situation would have played out exactly the same. 

Honestly, of all the people I banned virtually all of them claimed I did it out of some sort of bias whether it was political, against their favorite console, or just because I had some personal vendetta against them.  Not going to name names, but even a person who I genuinely liked (who I believe is fairly liberal I might add) somehow came to the conclusion that I was personally out to get them for reasons I still don't understand. Like I got up in the morning thinking "man how can find an excuse to mess with user X". Bwuhahaha. You'll have to take my word that was not the case. 

Fun fact we used to do mod surveys. One of the questions was about if the mod had a bias towards a particular console. Mine came out that I was biased towards XBox. Which is far and away my least favorite of the three manufacturers. Because a lot of the bans I made were about people trolling XBox (since it had the least fans and therefore more potential people to troll it). And certainly zero of those people actually did anything wrong, so it must be because I love XBox so much and definitely not because they were being trolls. *Shrug* I would say if you did a survey of all the people we've banned somewhere close to 100% would insist it was due to some sort of bias. Which, to be honest, is why I maybe was a bit dismissive of you at first. Because it's kind of a boy who cried wolf situation. Having talked with you more, I get why you interpret things as you're doing, but I just think you're wrong.

Now, I really do intend to stay away this time, but I suggest a little thought experiment. Or an actual experiment if you really want. Browse through the forums, or some other internet place. Find some people arguing. How often do you think one side says "oh you know what? I was wrong this time. My bad." Close to never right? I'm sure almost everyone insists very strongly that they are correct and the other side was unreasonable, biased, bad faith, w/e (and I think if there's an authority figure inolved the other sight right or wrong tends to dig in deeper). But logically, at least half of them must be wrong.

So, I'm sure you and the other people you mentioned genuinely feel you were treated unfairly. But a lot of people who genuinely feel very strongly that they're right must be wrong. That could be you. That could be me. Just food for thought.

Anyway I'm also going to be playing fortune's weave now. Good luck in the heroic games. 

Last edited by JWeinCom - 17 hours ago