Official Staff Communication
- Stop the meta-commentary. Era member this, era members are not this. Community is progressive or not progressive. Everyone is different and draws their lines differently, supports different things in different ways and have different understandings and approaches. Era is far from perfect and persistently showing off the flaws to make any sort of point is only further frustrating whatever the conversation is.
- Subject ban request or discussion. That is "x should be banned from discussion because y was also banned" type stuff. Comparisons to prior bans are never correct and will only serve to further frustrations. It is inconsistent? Definitely, each situation was evaluated with a multitude of different reasons over a long period of time. Stop comparing them. We do ban for this type of commentary even though I hate doing it. No more please.
- It is fine to talk about why/why not to buy, play or like a game. You don't have to be defensive or dismissive or antagonistic about it.
- Sarcasm and snark. Don't @me if you get moderated because we didn't get your sarcasm or we deem it too spicy and thus more problematic than de-escalating. I'm frustrated. Members are frustrated. Just because moderators give you the benefit of the doubt doesn't mean members might and that can mean moderators need to consider de-escalation. A /s sign off is 2 characters and can go a long way.
- If you're tired of seeing the criticism and disappointment from commentary about sexism within the industry, that is perfectly understandable... I am also tired. Tired of people being dismissive about it when others manage to muster up energy to talk about these important things even when I don't have the energy to do so. The doors to other platforms that don't allow these discussion are just about in every direction you can see. I'm going to be a lot less lenient in reviewing this type of commentary going forward in this thread because its 2024 and Resetera has been trying to be better allies for a long time now. Lets try a little harder.
- Sexualisation is not inherently sexist. This is not a defense. Sexism includes considerations of sexualisation and if you still don't get it then I'll lay it out for you. The crux of these conversations deserves to be from a sexism lens. Not a this design/character/game ok or not. You could look at it in isolation but know that many are not and if you are commenting on it from solely this perspective then it might do you well to say so as to not come across as disregarding the elephant in the room.
- Sexism is rampant in our hobby. While we are disappointed when some of the more eggregious examples are still supported we need to do better than simply trying to shame members. We're not going to stop them from buying the game regardless and it deteriorates the topic from talking about the issues into talking about the users. I know its frustrating but I'd rather not have this escalate to the point I must start banning people for antagonising each other. By the number of reports I may still have to.
- Asking each other why we're still supporting a thing is... fine. Antagonising is not. Realistically we could look at all the other problematic thing and fall to very likely similar reasonings. There is no right or wrong answer and there is unlikely a happy one either. Still, this isn't off topic provided we're being sensible about it. I (somewhat hesitantly as I eye the reports queue) encourage discussion here. I think it is important for understanding and reflection but if you want honest answers we need to also accept responses that may not be to our liking. We need to allow that honestly for a chance to communicate in good faith. Shaming, antagonism is unlikely to be productive.
- Some members are likely conflicted and/or do not have a good understanding or cannot properly articulate their reasons and desires, sometimes trying to do so falls afoul of being dismissive or they don't post lest this happens. That is fine. For what its worth, as a moderator I'm judging the contents of a post not your character. We need to come to accept that some members want to enjoy the game and don't know how to come to terms with the problems. They remain silent sometimes not because they don't care but because they don't trust themselves not to make it worse for you and me and everyone.
- A lot of members would do well to better their understanding of sexism and all its insidious systemic forms within our favourite hobby (and beyond really). We are not good at identifying it and worse at discussing it. Perhaps worse yet is that many of us are bad at listening and then another large portion fall silent and let things get worse and boil into a bit of a silent boys club feel. I understand being tired of everything but effort is needed and appreciated. If you don't know how to navigate these threads and these feelings. If you fear you might get banned when posting. If you don't understand why evoking your wife who doesn't even play games' opinion is inflammatory. If you feel attacked. If you cannot read past the venting. If nothing I say makes a drop of sense. It might be worth reflecting on this and scheduling some time to try and work out why. No one knows everything. We are all ignorant of everything until we learn.