Cerebralbore101 said:
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.
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.
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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!
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You seem to be acknowleding that I was correct. That expressing your personal opinions on trans people did not actually do anything to advance the conversation about moderation, and was just because you wanted people to know exactly how you felt on the issue. Which was not the point of the thread at all. And I imagine you can see how that would very likely lead to a whole discussion about trans people. So, yes, I think saying that post was derailing was accurate.
You are right that I can't read minds. But, you are also right that your explanation does not make sense to me. While I'll take your word for it that you did not mean anything malicious. But, if I were a mod, I would have to use my best judgment.
While I don't want to put words in your mouth, it seems you agree that in this case, viewing your post as an attempt to derail this into a conversation about trans people was a reasonable interpretation. Or, you would at least agree that in some cases people might post similar things which actually are dog whistles and attempts to troll. Correct? So, if mods give everyone the benefit of the doubt, then you wind up with a lot of that shit slipping through the cracks.
So, as the mods can't read minds, that puts them in the position where they have to use their best judgment and determine when to act. And they're not always going to get it right, because they are humans. There is no rule fix that is going to change that because as I said before, if you make rules to formulaic, it opens the door for people to very easily comply literally with the rules while completely circumventing the intent.
And honestly, if the mods are just ban happy monsters who want to ban anyone who disagrees with them... what do the rules matter? They could do it anyway. But you haven't actually shown that is the case. You're bringing up things like people being banned for dissing rap music or saying that XBox hates physical games... but has that actually happened?
The only bans we've seen referenced in this topic is for people who are constantly shitting on lbgtq people, and any woman who doesn't exist for the sole purpose of arousing them, and the mods are strict on that because, as you seem to have agreed, certain people won't shut the fuck about it to the point where it disrupts people from talking about games.
Also, the point you're missing is that, in theory, someone above the mods have an actual financial incentive in getting people to frequent this site. So, the mods are, in theory, accountable. Because if I owned the site and mods were arbitrarily banning people for no reason and hurting my revenues, I would find new ones. That is where the accountability should be coming from. If the site owners are allowing this, either directly or by not replacing the mods, then the mods are being consistent with what they want out of the site. And since this is a private enterprice, that's their right.
Last edited by JWeinCom - 1 day ago
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