I understand the sentiment as expressing frustration, not an actual intent. In that context, wishing for and wanting to are the same thing. There's is no real intent nor capability.

The fear is actually on the side of the poster. AI taking away jobs, further destroying the environment, driving up electronics and electricity prices, progressing the surveillance state. So in your definition the building of (more) data centers is the actual terrorism.

It's not a call for domestic terrorism, looking at some of the context of such posts it's a call for regulation, destruction as a last resort.

Despite the fact this poster has said it well over dozen times, spread over months...   lol.

I don't have words and got my answer, indirectly.  Cheers all.  

Just FYI, being a mod is unpaid volunteer work. We are not omnipresent entities. Also, we have lives of our own. We have jobs. Some of us have families. Some of us are gone for days or even weeks at a time. Some of us are barely active at all. Even in our group chat, sometimes things brought to the team's attention get overlooked. Banning or even warning someone cannot be done unilaterally by a single mod, and requires at least one other to concur. As a result, stuff falls through the cracks.

That being said, I brought up the subject of violent rhetoric with the mod team earlier this morning, and suggested it should be dealt with far more harshly than other types of behavior. It may take time for the others to reply, because as I said being a mod isn't a full-time job and we have lives outside this site.

@Cerebralbore101 

User 2 Example A = I need context.

It was a complete non-sequitur post in reply to a news story about Shuhei Yoshida being fired from Sony.

User 2 Example C = Misgendering shouldn't be a bannable offense. You can't tell people there are five lights when there are really four and then ban them when they say there are four lights. You can't point to a green pen and say that it is black and that anyone who calls it green will be banned. Like I said earlier, forcing someone else's reality on another person is wrong. Might was well ban me for saying God doesn't exist, because that is somehow hurtful/hateful towards religious people.

Yeah, it should, in much the same way using racial slurs are banned. It's deliberately transphobic behavior. It's not comparable to disagreeing with someone's religious beliefs. It's more comparable to saying "This demographic group is inherently less human/inherently less deserving of full rights under the law/is inherently a threat to society/etc." Transphobia is a serious problem in society, and trans people are subject to discrimination and governments outright trying to deny their very existence. If you don't think being trans is a valid thing, keep it to yourself.

User 2 Example D = I need context. What is sweet baby inc? Some of the statements made could be just factual but without context I don't know the user's intent. IMO right now, without context I see it as a 50/50 chance the user deserved that ban.

Sweet Baby Inc is a company that does consultation with game developers and also assists with script writing. They've been a popular punching bag for right-wing gamers for the past couple of years for the typical reasons, such as them hating anything perceived as "woke" or "DEI". Anyway, the fact that the user was complaining about "forced lgbqti+" in video games in the same sentence before even mentioning SBIis obviously a bannable offense, as was his later reply in the same thread. The user clearly hates LGBT+ people and has vocally expressed such sentiment on multiple occasions, which is why he's been banned on multiple occasions.

User 4 = The question by itself is a fair question. I don't think it's fair to take a question like that and apply previous banning history to ban said person. Imagine if someone had a history of being banned for racist comments and then said "Wow that actor sure is dark skinned!" in a genuine statement of surprise. And then post history is applied and said mod assumes they can read said users mind and the psy-ops begin

It's a common anti-trans dogwhistle, much like how "echoes"/triple parentheses are a common antisemitic dogwhistle. That's why it's against the rules. It has nothing to do with reading people's minds and everything to do with understanding how bigots use coded language and other ways of expressing their bigotry without just flat-out spewing slurs.

There. You've gotten the clarification you requested. Now drop it, because I'm not going to have a constant back-and-forth with you over whether we should allow transphobic behavior on the site. It's against the rules. Period. Deal with it.

Thank you.  I do appreciate it.  I look forward to seeing where the mod team nets out on their position.

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.

Someone else brought up abortion as an example of how anything could be considered hateful. I had to explain my stance on abortion to explain why the view is not inherently hateful. If anyone should be banned it should be person who brought up the topic of abortion, but I actually believe they initially did so in an attempt to actually give a pertinent example. Their follow up I think was more of an effort at a gotcha on me, but w/e. Point being, I obviously didn't mean to start an irrelevant conversation about abortion because I'm not the one who brought it up with no reason. If you think it was off topic then go talk to Julius about it. 

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. 

Which is kind of justifying the policies which if anything I feel are too soft. Because certain people just have to bring up their thoughts on LBGT people, or on whatever they consider wokeness at any possible opportunity. Take the conversation about the GTA VI reveal. It devolved into a conversation about what wokeness. Because on a gaming forum gamers apparently can't talk about one of the most anticipated games of the last decade without that nonsense. Just like we can't have a conversation about the moderation policy without someone saying "well let me tell you exactly how I feel about trans people". Because trans people live rent free in certain people's brains for some weird reason.

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. 

"We need more Luigi Mangeones."

Posted 20 minutes ago, same person who "wants" to blow up data centers...

There's no rule explicitly stating that misgendering someone is a bannable offense. I'm sure you mean this rule though...

"Blatant forms of racism, sexism, homophobia, or any other sort of hatred towards a group of people(s) will not be tolerated, and will be met with firm moderation."

But that rule doesn't explicitly say that misgendering people is against forum rules. I shouldn't need to read between the lines on every last rule. Rules are black and white. They shouldn't be open to interpretation. You can't go adding your own personal asterisks to a rule, just because it fits your agenda. This goes for extreme left-wing agendas or extreme right wing agendas or extremely pro-Xbox agendas or extremely pro-Nintendo agendas or whatever. 

And keep in mind, if there were indeed a rule that explicitly banned misgendering people, I would follow it whether I disagreed with the rule or not. My problem is that the rules are poorly written in a way that any mod can apply them anyway they so choose. 

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.

This isn't up for argument or discussion. We say something is not allowed by both the letter and spirit of the rule, then it's not allowed. Period.

And when I said "drop it," I meant it. There's two other rules for the site as well: "Backseat Moderating - You are not a moderator! Use the Report button or contact a moderator via PM if you see anything that needs attention" and "Do not post about moderator decisions on the forum, articles or on walls. Instead, PM a moderator if you have any feedback." I already gave you the feedback here, so we're done. Again, drop it.

That goes for everyone, BTW.

Also, I've already submitted a draft for a revision/clarification of the rules. All I need is feedback from (including possible revisions to my draft or additional amendments) and authorization from the other mods and it's a go. A new thread will be posted once that happens.

And if this thread veers too hard into nitpicking over rules or accusations of mods playing favorites, it's going to get locked. We've taken the feedback into consideration. Certain users have been verbally warned via PM what will happen if they continue their behavior if and when the new rules go into effect. I already got a sense of outright defiance from one, so their time here may be short once the new rules go into effect.

My opinion on a couple things that were mentioned:
-Advocating for violence should be an ban: eg. "We need more Luigi Mangeones"
-Advocating for property damage should not be a ban: eg. "We need someone to blow up a data center"
-Direct threats should be a ban: eg. "I am going to blow up a data center"
-Expressing an opinion about an event that happened should not be a ban: eg. "I'm glad Charlie Kirk got killed"

Note: The "non-bannable" options could still result in a ban if they fell under other forms of bannable conduct