PCGamer opened a forum that prohibits users from talking about guns, religion, sexuality, abortion, politics, economics (up: policy taken down)

[Dervius]

To those that are in support of this move, and arguing for spaces where "we can just talk about games" I'd ask, what's stopping you now?

This forum is one where a significant amount of political discourse around gaming occurs, but then the majority of what I see is the type of conversation you seem to desire. That of the more tangible elements of games such as mechanics, visuals or whatever. That all still occurs in great volume.

On a forum where political discourse is not banned, these threads of conversation interweave on discussions about a game. Conversations about Cyberpunk will include discussion about the representation of gender as well as those about if the shooting will feel good. One does not preclude the other.

The argument many are making is that the line being drawn is arbitrary. The overarching themes of a game can represent as significant a part of a game as the art style or the loot system. It's down to you which parts of that you personally engage with.

This new forum seems to draw a line in the sand saying "these parts of games cannot be discussed" likely in response to the current political climate, but it's essentially inhibiting conversation about the very same games.

Tl:dr - You can still engage in conversation about a game strictly based on the enjoyment of it without touching on GRAPES already, without those topics being outrightly outlawed. This move simply stifles any conversation about the wider gaming package that doesn't adhere to this arbitrary line.

 

[Eeyore]

I guess time will tell but until then it doesn't sound like a bad idea to have an option you can visit every now and then where it will just be about games. Yeah yeah games are political in nature and I doubt the rules will be as extreme as people make them out to be. But commentary that is going to cause the user base to be at each other throats will be prevented and that is a good thing.

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It really won't. Conflict is only a bad thing when one or both sides engage in insincerity. Otherwise having a discussion about something is healthy and asking questions from one another is how people learn.

Take Valve for instance, if you ever want to discuss the inner workings of the company, how do you do so without violating those dumb ass rules? It's PCGamer!

 

[Stop It]

I guess time will tell but until then it doesn't sound like a bad idea to have an option you can visit every now and then where it will just be about games. Yeah yeah games are political in nature and I doubt the rules will be as extreme as people make them out to be. But commentary that is going to cause the user base to be at each other throats will be prevented and that is a good thing.

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But you're literally advocating a position that bans discussion of parts of games.

Games are art, games are political, games have messages.

The gaming industry exists, that's all part of gaming.

This isn't about banning an OT section completely unrelated to games but making discussion of games into some weird pseudo reality where games and their place in the world are separate.

 

[Stop It]

It really won't. Conflict is only a bad thing when one or both sides engage in insincerity. Otherwise having a discussion about something is healthy and asking questions from one another is how people learn.

Take Valve for instance, if you ever want to discuss the inner workings of the company, how do you do so without violating those dumb ass rules? It's PCGamer!

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Indeed.

Discussion of EGS and Steam would be banned as economics.

I mean, I'd like that sometimes but that's silly.

 

[Stop It]

Selective reading I see
I didn't say it should be avoided at all costs, I just don't think it has to be mandatory everywhere. Whatever happened to the mind set of "their forum their rules" does that not apply because it's not a forum you like? That place is for a discussion for video games, this place is a discussion of video games & more. ERA was set up to be more than just a video game forum and the PCGaming Forum is not. They can both exist.

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If you think that politics within games and the industry isn't part of gaming, I don't know what to tell you.

I can tell you that the GRAPES rules have been removed from the PC Gamer forum, so they clearly have reconsidered.

 

[Wulfram]

To those that are in support of this move, and arguing for spaces where "we can just talk about games" I'd ask, what's stopping you now?

This forum is one where a significant amount of political discourse around gaming occurs, but then the majority of what I see is the type of conversation you seem to desire. That of the more tangible elements of games such as mechanics, visuals or whatever. That all still occurs in great volume.

On a forum where political discourse is not banned, these threads of conversation interweave on discussions about a game. Conversations about Cyberpunk will include discussion about the representation of gender as well as those about if the shooting will feel good. One does not preclude the other.

The argument many are making is that the line being drawn is arbitrary. The overarching themes of a game can represent as significant a part of a game as the art style or the loot system. It's down to you which parts of that you personally engage with.

This new forum seems to draw a line in the sand saying "these parts of games cannot be discussed" likely in response to the current political climate, but it's essentially inhibiting conversation about the very same games.

Tl:dr - You can still engage in conversation about a game strictly based on the enjoyment of it without touching on GRAPES already, without those topics being outrightly outlawed. This move simply stifles any conversation about the wider gaming package that doesn't adhere to this arbitrary line.

Click to shrink...

1. Sometimes you just don't want to deal with any political stuff at all, even lightly and in passing. That's not generally me, but just after the (UK) general election I was feeling really terrible about the world and really needed to take a break. Also, it can take a significant amount of self control to avoid getting dragged in.

2. Political discussion contributes to an overall toxic and hostile atmosphere, even in largely unrelated areas. And can invade any topic at any time.

3. I think you can turn this around - if you enjoy this sort of discussion, how are you hurt by there being a place with different rules and a different emphasis? No one is proposing extending the rules to Resetera or any other of the many places you can discuss games and politics.

 

[NoName999]

I think people are obsessed with politics in video games tbh. I have no idea if death stranding is about trump and whatever but this kinda of stuff is what turn discussions from a game and its mechanics to a shitty discussion about politics and personal beliefs.

Also art is subjective, anyone can interpret it however they want. Some will see trump and brexit, some other will see something else entirely. If not then its not art and its a statement. I like to see games as art.

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You really think art can't be political?

Whatever helps you sleep at night two year old with only 40 posts and it's totally not a burner account.

 

[Dervius]

1. Sometimes you just don't want to deal with any political stuff at all, even lightly and in passing. That's not generally me, but just after the (UK) general election I was feeling really terrible about the world and really needed to take a break. Also, it can take a significant amount of self control to avoid getting dragged in.

2. Political discussion contributes to an overall toxic and hostile atmosphere, even in largely unrelated areas. And can invade any topic at any time.

3. I think you can turn this around - if you enjoy this sort of discussion, how are you hurt by there being a place with different rules and a different emphasis? No one is proposing extending the rules to Resetera or any other of the many places you can discuss games and politics.

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To point #1, that's just the world we live in. Banning discussion isn't the way to achieve that sanitised experience. It's down to you to engage or not. The majority of gaming discussion that occurs here (and in hangouts) seems to be exactly that, discussion about the tangible parts of the game experience. But to unilaterally ban the additional discussion you actively remove a facet of the discussion around that game.

To point #2 it can lead to friction. The conflict is inherent to opposing views and debate. In practice this can lead to some toxic environments but that is not tied directly to the topics in GRAPES. Straight up gaming can plenty toxic as it is, just look at any prolific MP game. Banning GRAPES topics will not remove toxicity from gaming discussion. It also doesn't invade topics if it's an inherent element of the topic being discussed.

And to point #3 I didn't suggest that at all. I'm not clamouring for the PC Gamer forum to removed from the internet, I'm criticising the reasoning behind it. They'll make what they wanna make, but it's open for discussion and criticism.

Edited for clarity.

 

[SPRidley]

GRAPES will invariably lead to WHINE production.

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Now this... this is perfection.

 

[Crossing Eden]

To those that are in support of this move, and arguing for spaces where "we can just talk about games" I'd ask, what's stopping you now?

This forum is one where a significant amount of political discourse around gaming occurs, but then the majority of what I see is the type of conversation you seem to desire. That of the more tangible elements of games such as mechanics, visuals or whatever. That all still occurs in great volume.

On a forum where political discourse is not banned, these threads of conversation interweave on discussions about a game. Conversations about Cyberpunk will include discussion about the representation of gender as well as those about if the shooting will feel good. One does not preclude the other.

The argument many are making is that the line being drawn is arbitrary. The overarching themes of a game can represent as significant a part of a game as the art style or the loot system. It's down to you which parts of that you personally engage with.

This new forum seems to draw a line in the sand saying "these parts of games cannot be discussed" likely in response to the current political climate, but it's essentially inhibiting conversation about the very same games.

Tl:dr - You can still engage in conversation about a game strictly based on the enjoyment of it without touching on GRAPES already, without those topics being outrightly outlawed. This move simply stifles any conversation about the wider gaming package that doesn't adhere to this arbitrary line.

Click to shrink...

👏

 

[HStallion]

I think the funniest thing I'm reading in this thread is that somehow banning these topics will make everyone get along. You fucking kidding me? They'll just argue about something else like picking sides over whatever the best RTS was.

 

[Deleted member 2172]

To point #1, that's just the world we live in. Banning discussion isn't the way to achieve that sanitised experience. It's down to you to engage or not. The majority of gaming discussion that occurs here (and in hangouts) seems to be exactly that, discussion about the tangible parts of the game experience. But to unilaterally ban the additional discussion you actively remove a facet of the discussion around that game.

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The irony in this post. Its fine to have this viewpoint(I actually completely agree) but lets not pretend for even one second that Era is the kind of place where you can have an open discussion on many of these topics where people with different view/opinions can chime in without facing a hefty ban depending on how against the grain it is. If PCGamer want to cut all that bullshit out then that is their decision to make. Time will tell whether it was a good decision or not.

I think the funniest thing I'm reading in this thread is that somehow banning these topics will make everyone get along. You fucking kidding me? They'll just argue about something else and pick sides over whatever the best RTS was.

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Well, can't disagree with that.

 

[Stop It]

The irony in this post. Its fine to have this viewpoint(I actually completely agree) but lets not pretend for even one second that Era is the kind of place where you can have an open discussion on many of these topics where people with different view/opinions can chime in without facing a hefty ban depending on how against the grain it is. If PCGamer want to cut all that bullshit out then that is their decision to make. Time will tell whether it was a good decision or not.

Well, can't disagree with that.

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Check the title.

The policy has been removed from the forum rules.

 

[Ser_Luke]

Alright I'll bite.
What do you want to talk about exactly?
What are some things that you want to talk about that you feel you cannot in fear of getting insulted?
I'm not discrediting what you say but I'm going to need some examples is all.

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I think a few posts up is an example of what I'm talking about, someone claiming all republicans are nazis, sadly this plays into Trump's rhetoric that he is out to protect conservatives from the liberals and causes his base to cling to him even more cause they think he's their last hope or some crap like that.

 

[Bit_Reactor]

To those that are in support of this move, and arguing for spaces where "we can just talk about games" I'd ask, what's stopping you now?

This forum is one where a significant amount of political discourse around gaming occurs, but then the majority of what I see is the type of conversation you seem to desire. That of the more tangible elements of games such as mechanics, visuals or whatever. That all still occurs in great volume.

On a forum where political discourse is not banned, these threads of conversation interweave on discussions about a game. Conversations about Cyberpunk will include discussion about the representation of gender as well as those about if the shooting will feel good. One does not preclude the other.

The argument many are making is that the line being drawn is arbitrary. The overarching themes of a game can represent as significant a part of a game as the art style or the loot system. It's down to you which parts of that you personally engage with.

This new forum seems to draw a line in the sand saying "these parts of games cannot be discussed" likely in response to the current political climate, but it's essentially inhibiting conversation about the very same games.

Tl:dr - You can still engage in conversation about a game strictly based on the enjoyment of it without touching on GRAPES already, without those topics being outrightly outlawed. This move simply stifles any conversation about the wider gaming package that doesn't adhere to this arbitrary line.

Click to shrink...

Maybe one person can, but look at any topic released the year that Xenoblade 2 came out pertaining to that game.

I know I harp on that one a lot but this forum just couldn't stop talking about some of the blade designs and normally every thread became a flood of discussion about sexism/designs/etc instead of about the game's story or mechanics, especially leading up to release. And these topics get very heated and/or blown up to the point where typically it's the same handful of users discussing the same points that have been discussed before, and/or not getting anywhere as both parties are already entrenched in their respective view points.

I can understand in a climate where literally everyone is constantly being berated with politics and these topics that yes, some people just "want to talk games" and not be bombarded with accusations of their political leanings or social groups. If every time someone goes "I like X game" is met with "You know it's super sexist because Y right?" it just (imo) gets tiring. Twitter, Facebook, Video games, etc someone is trying to tell you that you're liking something wrong or the content creator you like is problematic or derailing topics (less so here due to the existence of the etc side of things) with the current political ongoings.

While I don't think you CAN really separate it, I can see why people would want to. Hell you can't even talk about Star Wars without being accused of some kind of -ism or negative emotion. But I think we're past the point of no return in text discourse at this point. I mean even here people can be banned for several things just based on someone else's read of their text. The us vs them mentality has set in, and making people only talk about the game won't really fix the problems of communication we have. That's not to say this forum is like...gamefaqs or 4chan level, but I do agree that when shit is going bad in my day to day the last thing I want to read is how shitty I am for liking some anime game or something. -shrug-

 

[Jonathan Lanza]

I think a few posts up is an example of what I'm talking about, someone claiming all republicans are nazis, sadly this plays into Trump's rhetoric that he is out to protect conservatives from the liberals and causes his base to cling to him even more cause they think he's their last hope or some crap like that.

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Okay, fair enough. There is more than enough reason to associate right winged politics and goals with regression as it is consistently fueled by and openly accommodates racism and nationalism. Hence the use of the word Nazi. Do consider that this type of thing has been explained hundreds of time often falling on deaf ears to the point that perhaps some people may not necessarily feel obliged to entertain your inquisitiveness as many of these things can be easily found and explained with a Google search. I don't think anything you've said so far is worth any scorn or insult but what you say does come off as blissfully unaware at most and it can be hard or impossible to discern if that is genuine or deliberate.

 

[TheGhost]

I can tell you that the GRAPES rules have been removed from the PC Gamer forum, so they clearly have reconsidered.

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Well then there is no reason to discuss further then.

 

[Ser_Luke]

Okay, fair enough. There is more than enough reason to associate right winged politics and goals with regression as it is consistently fueled by and openly accommodates racism and nationalism. Hence the use of the word Nazi. Do consider that this type of thing has been explained hundreds of time often falling on deaf ears to the point that perhaps some people may not necessarily feel obliged to entertain your inquisitiveness as many of these things can be easily found and explained with a Google search. I don't think anything you've said so far is worth any scorn or insult but what you say does come off as blissfully unaware at most and it can be hard or impossible to discern if that is genuine or deliberate.

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Perhaps it would be helpful if I gave some context to my own views. I'm a Christian, I highly believe in compassion and helping those in need, and protecting life rather that be the lives of babies or the lives of immigrants, I don't make the one or the other distinction like most do. Most of my conservative friends would probably call me liberal and list of my liberal friends would call me conservative.
Sorry I went off on a bit of a tangent there, I see the massive support for Trump among Christians(not all but a lot of it is there) and it breaks my heart because Trump is the opposite of everything I was taught to be as a Christian yet people support him out of fear of the other side which is wrong and I hate it, I might be naive I just wish we all could come together or at the very least be a bit more civil towards each other, sadly people just seem to get more afraid and more angry.

 

[Deleted member 46489]

The irony in this post. Its fine to have this viewpoint(I actually completely agree) but lets not pretend for even one second that Era is the kind of place where you can have an open discussion on many of these topics where people with different view/opinions can chime in without facing a hefty ban depending on how against the grain it is. If PCGamer want to cut all that bullshit out then that is their decision to make. Time will tell whether it was a good decision or not.

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Yeah, the way Era bans people for racism, sexism, transphobia etc. really prevents bigots from having an open discussion about these issue here. Real shame I tell you.

Spoiler

/s

 

[Nekro]

You really think art can't be political?

Whatever helps you sleep at night two year old with only 40 posts and it's totally not a burner account.

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I never said art cant be political.


Also what about my post count? Do i need to have thousands of posts for my opinion to matter?

 

[Slayven]

Games will never be respected as a real artform whilst a large proportion of the audience insists that the right way to talk about them is to ignore all of their substance.

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Even worse when companies piss on you and tell you is raining. "Tom FUCKING Clancy isn't poltical"

 

[Mizeris Lutz Ether Lanai]

You keep creating this straw man situation where people call you a nazi if you don't spend 24/7 fighting against mild bigotry. That is not the situation I am talking about, and it is not a realistic situation. I think you need to read what I wrote more carefully instead of trying to bolster your complaint. What I am saying is, when a game makes a political statement, like "kill the brown people they are bad", if you ban political discussions, no one will be able to argue "actually maybe killing brown people endlessly isn't cool" - it's against the rules. Hence the status quo remains what the game posits, you cannot argue against it, but the game exists and unless you ban discussion of it its statement will be left as de facto. And considering most mainstream games have at least some amount of right leaning ideas (imperialism, capitalism, gun violence, etc) the status quo ends up being right leaning by default.

Let me tell you this. I am middle eastern. Born and raised there. Throughout the 2000s and 2010s, I saw game after game demonize the middle east. For you, maybe it's easy to "tell all that to eff off and talk about the games, man", but for me every mainstream FPS game was another example of dehumanizing me, my background and my fellow people. Maybe you can sit back and just shoot some dudes or whatever, but being able to talk about how these games support ideas that are actually maybe not that cool has been pretty important to me. Whenever I brought it up on reddit back then I was downvoted and told to keep politics out at best, and insulted in bigoted ways at worst. Keeping politics out of games discussion only works to bolster the "default" viewpoint.

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I feel you dude. Half my family is muslim. I know what it was like in the post 9/11 era. I know what it's still like, even among a lot of people who consider themselves liberal.

All I would say here is that I'm talking about a single forum, a single space trying to be internet Switzerland. I'm not advocating shutting down discussion in general.

This isn't me discounting racism or imperialism. It's me trying to dislodge the totality of their hold over people. Creating mental space for yourself outside that system is its own form of resistance & disruption. I'm not saying live in that space, but visiting it once in a while & reclaiming personhood over subjecthood is a necessity imo.

 

[Jegriva]

If they allowed talking only about Guns, it become the RAPES Forum.

 

[ZeoVGM]

Okay so you call your republican family members "Nazi trash"? Or other people in real life that are republican? How does that go over?

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My parents are Trump supporters. My mother is a racist.

My partner's parents are Trump supporters. Her mother was kicked out of a business for saying the N word.

This is exactly what I'm talking about, you can't tolerate any disagreement without insulting me by implying I'm naive or don't know what's going on, I actually have well informed opinions that go beyond Fox News or MSNBC talking points,

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You haven't shown any well informed talking points yet.

And by pretending Fox News and MSNBC are two sides of the same coin, you're proving otherwise.

people on the right would accuse the left of being baby killers

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Which is factually incorrect.

eople on the left accuse the right of being racists fascists and women haters

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If you support a racist president, you are a racist.

 

[IwazaruK7]

Under such rules, people could not discuss games Shin Megami Tensei or Silent Hill 1/3, btw, as they are heavily tied with religion and multicultural background.

 

[TheGhost]

If they allowed talking only about Guns, it become the RAPES Forum.

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Hospitals in NY have RAPE meetings weekly

It's a acronym for Radiology, Anesthesiology, Pathology, Emergency Room

Why they decided to use such a disgusting word for weekly meetings is still beyond my understanding

 

[Jegriva]

Hospitals in NY have RAPE meetings weekly

It's a acronym for Radiology, Anesthesiology, Pathology, Emergency Room

Why they decided to use such a disgusting word for weekly meetings is still beyond my understanding

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The could have called them PEAR. People love pears.

 

[Monolith]

Wait. Did they go back on going back on this rule? I thought they removed it already due to the backlash. Anyways even if it was reinstated the rule being there alone won't stop the discussions from happening anyhow. This goes for any sort of rule. Unless there's a mod team there all the time there will always be something that slips through the cracks and something like grapes will surely get through all the time.

 

[Ser_Luke]

You haven't shown any well informed talking points yet.

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I wasn't aware I needed "talking points" to say that hurling insults back and forth isn't helpful and only makes things worse?

 

[TheGhost]

The could have called them PEAR. People love pears.

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Yup

 

[Ser_Luke]

Thankfully I don't live in the US and my family members aren't nazi trash
I have no issue calling Republicans nazi trash

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okay let's go with that line of thinking, what should be done to nazis? Hunted down as war criminals right like the actual Nazis? So you think all republicans are nazis and should be treated as such? If not maybe we should cut down on the hyperbole a little bit? Unless mass graves and gas chambers are fine then I think the Nazi comparison would be more appropriate. Don't get me wrong I hate how immigrants are being treated and it needs to stop, but throwing the Nazi term around minimizes they genocidal actions of actual nazis at worse and and heat makes people write you off as an extremists. Words mater and have weight, let's not minimize the weight of them eh?

 

[ZeoVGM]

I wasn't aware I needed "talking points" to say that hurling insults back and forth isn't helpful and only makes things worse?

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I like how you purposefully ignored everything else in my post. You're very transparent here.

 

[Ser_Luke]

I like how you purposefully ignored everything else in my post. You're very transparent here.

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Given you ignored everything else on my posts I don't see your point? You literally left letters off words in your quotes.

 

[NoName999]

Imagine derailing a topic to defend your family that votes for the Nazi equivalent party.

 

[Hey Please]

Generally, the folks who don't like their views challenged under the notion of tradition and publicly espouse the notion of "mutual respect" for difference in opinion so as to abate any encroachment of counter views to their world beliefs are the type who narrowly define what entails "politics" in a game- you know the ones who generally say things like "Diversity for diversity's sake should not be a thing".

And again, setting aside personal responsibility, we ought to remember that the game creators and publishers have cultivated this filter whereby their works that operate i.e. inherently subservient to a set of political practices and may or may not have overt themes pertaining to said world order are apparently "apolitical". This is why people generally breakdown games into their mechanical components for their reviews. To many, it is what the player is allowed to do in the world mechanically and not what the world represents and how the player's involvement alters the state of said world.

Recognizing this insidious attitude to erode endemic political aspects of the medium to ensure maximum revenue does not absolve those GG or their kin consumers but as conscientious buyers on this forum, we should know where exactly to lay blame for this attitude of obliviousness to the obvious.

 

[Heid]

Why is economics included in there tho O.o Do they mean no comparing console popularity...?

 

[Protome]

Why is economics included in there tho O.o Do they mean no comparing console popularity...?

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The GRAPES acronym is copied from a bunch of standard HR shit. It's not something they made up, most of this probably isn't intentional maliciousness it was just laziness.

 

[MechaJackie]

Banning politics is impossible, that's why the "No Politics" crowd is just a bunch of right wingers that want to ban discussion on what goes against the status quo and/or whatever the majority of the userbase decides is or isn't political, and in a video game forum the majority of the userbase is cis, straight, white and male.

 

[Morrigan]

To those that are in support of this move, and arguing for spaces where "we can just talk about games" I'd ask, what's stopping you now?

This forum is one where a significant amount of political discourse around gaming occurs, but then the majority of what I see is the type of conversation you seem to desire. That of the more tangible elements of games such as mechanics, visuals or whatever. That all still occurs in great volume.

On a forum where political discourse is not banned, these threads of conversation interweave on discussions about a game. Conversations about Cyberpunk will include discussion about the representation of gender as well as those about if the shooting will feel good. One does not preclude the other.

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Yup it's pretty dumb --

Discussion of EGS and Steam would be banned

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-- Changed my mind. This forum sounds like heaven ;)

I think the funniest thing I'm reading in this thread is that somehow banning these topics will make everyone get along. You fucking kidding me? They'll just argue about something else like picking sides over whatever the best RTS was.

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Yep, just look at Pokemon threads or Next-Gen threads here. >_<

 

[Ocean]

On the whole, it's better that such a platform exists. Instead oh having folks derail these discussions in a forum where they're encouraged, they can just go to a place where the conversation is focused on the aspects they care to discuss.

Think about a new DLC announcement. Some folks genuinely don't care to discuss the larger implications of changing business models and stuff and just want to focus on what content is gonna be delivered. This may not seem as interesting or consequential to most of the people here (which is why we're here and not somewhere else), but I would't disqualify people who want to engage with gaming news this way as ignorant.

 

[riotous]

I think a lot of you are mixing up crowds here:

"I don't want politics in my games " - common right wing thing

"I don't want to talk politics on a game forum" - just a normie thing

Right wingers spend endless amount of time on forums discussing politics in games, whining about diversity in games, whining about not being able to play a character in a g-string, etc. These rules they took down would ban all of that; and yes also ban more left-leaning conversations too.

But don't lump all people who "don't want to talk politics on a game forum" in with right wingers; right wingers WANT TO TALK about politics on game forums. These rules don't cater to the right.

 

[Darkstorne]

but I would't disqualify people who want to engage with gaming news this way as ignorant.

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I'm tempted to. Willfully ignorant. It's a pretty privileged life if politics and social issues are so irrelevant to your existence that you feel the need to live in an enclosed space where you can genuinely ban people for daring to mention them around you and your video games.

Anyone can choose not to engage in these conversations if they're bothered by them for whatever reason on ResetEra. Forcing everyone into silence is just... bonkers. And as has been mentioned plenty of times, is ironically political through being apolitical.

 

[Wulfram]

I'm tempted to. Willfully ignorant. It's a pretty privileged life if politics and social issues are so irrelevant to your existence that you feel the need to live in an enclosed space where you can genuinely ban people for daring to mention them around you and your video games.

Anyone can choose not to engage in these conversations if they're bothered by them for whatever reason on ResetEra. Forcing everyone into silence is just... bonkers. And as has been mentioned plenty of times, is ironically political through being apolitical.

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Its a pretty privileged life if politics and social issues are so irrelevant to you that you never feel the need to escape them.

Its dishonest to equate forum rules with "forcing everyone into silence".

 

[EsqBob]

I do agree that it's ridiculous what PC Gamer is doing here but it's incoherent to read these valid criticisms from ERA, a place where you can easily be banned for things like making an innocent inoffensive joke ("drive-by trolling") or saying something that isn't precisely aligned with the forum's left wing ideology

 

[Ocean]

I'm tempted to. Willfully ignorant. It's a pretty privileged life if politics and social issues are so irrelevant to your existence that you feel the need to live in an enclosed space where you can genuinely ban people for daring to mention them around you and your video games.

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This cuts both ways. It's a pretty privileged life if representation on character creators and diversity among video game voice actors, is one of the issues that gets yo riled up. Not that these aren't important, don't get me wrong. But it's definitely not gonna be on the radar as even remotely significant unless you're privileged enough to take a ton of lower levels on the Maslow scale for granted.

Does that give me the right to get exasperated here that you're myopically focusing on this kind of thing instead of discussing more pressing issues? No, because there's other spaces for those conversations. This is a space for these others. And PC Gamer suggested creating a space for yet others. Don't really see the harm in that as long as they moderate these rules in good faith.

 

[Horza]

This cuts both ways. It's a pretty privileged life if representation on character creators and diversity among video game voice actors, is one of the issues that gets yo riled up. Not that these aren't important, don't get me wrong. But it's definitely not gonna be on the radar as even remotely significant unless you're privileged enough to take a ton of lower levels on the Maslow scale for granted.

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Lack of minority representation in popular media is a serious issue, and whether there are people starving in this shithole country is a separate problem completely.

 

[TheChrisGlass]

I do agree that it's ridiculous what PC Gamer is doing here but it's incoherent to read these valid criticisms from ERA, a place where you can easily be banned for things like making an innocent inoffensive joke ("drive-by trolling") or saying something that isn't precisely aligned with the forum's left wing ideology

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Careful. Your true colors are starting to show.

 

[Eeyore]

I do agree that it's ridiculous what PC Gamer is doing here but it's incoherent to read these valid criticisms from ERA, a place where you can easily be banned for things like making an innocent inoffensive joke ("drive-by trolling") or saying something that isn't precisely aligned with the forum's left wing ideology

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It's hard to understand the people that push ERA as if it's a singular entity that decides these things on a whim, or a collection of people of different backgrounds that disagree about how to fix the world from a more liberal lens. With the amount of arguing I see in a lot of threads, I tend to favor the latter. In either case, I find your complaining about the moderation staff to be toothless without examples, which sadly will derail the thread. So your post is the equivalent of "but but but you're a hypocrite because you ban people here!" No one bans discussion of the topics that were banned for a bit on PCGamer's forums. So it's not equivalent.

 

[sibarraz]

Do "gamers" get into heated debates when talking about abortion?

 

[Horza]

Wait. Did they go back on going back on this rule? I thought they removed it already due to the backlash. Anyways even if it was reinstated the rule being there alone won't stop the discussions from happening anyhow. This goes for any sort of rule. Unless there's a mod team there all the time there will always be something that slips through the cracks and something like grapes will surely get through all the time.

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Am I missing something here?