We need a better way to argue in controversial, serious, sensitive topics.
- Thread starter Speevy
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ERA will never be anywhere near GAF's peak. The era of social media enables users to keep up with and get in touch with their favorite developers or gaming personalities much easier than posting on a forum that prohibits generic email handles. It's time we separate from GAF in total and start to craft ERA towards its own legacy because chasing after the legacy of the other forum is impossible.
As I said, the TOS permits political discussion were appropriate, I have seem mods ban people who derail threads by posting without bringing arguments to the discussion. At the same that if someone creates a thread about a figure that has horrible views on things I believe we should be allowed to discuss those views without having someone go ''stop talking about what a horrible person he/she is, talk only about their work!''
These threads are already echo chambers. But a clear marking could decrease the number of warnings and bans by making a lot of users avoid these threads.
His fuckin' ban messages would be longer than the rest of the thread.
Can you even use bold or italics in ban messages? That might be a deal breaker, if not.
Bobby, your posts in this thread are maybe the most ironic fuckin' posts I've ever seen, and I've been posting on boards since before a lot of members here were even born.
Just be an adult about shit. At the end of the day if you get banned off an internet forum, what does it really matter? A permanent ban might suck if you are part of communities on the forum, but usually, most posters do something worthy of a perm. A temp ban? Live with it and accept shit happens. Obviously, try and pay a bit of attention to what got you banned, and learn, or at least accept if you want to be part of this private forum, you have to behave in a certain way.
Another bit of advice on a forum, you can't be friends with 30,000+ people, as within a sample size that large there is going to be people who hate you and people you might not like. Just try and treat others like members of the public you don't have any interest in, with a bit of mutual respect, and then use the ignore function. I don't have anyone on ignore as I like reading, but I don't doubt some people have me on ignore. That's life, don't take it personally that you're not the centre of attention to everyone who's around you ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Speaking of that, remember there is a real world offline, as much fun as internet culture/forums can be. Some people take forums waaaay too seriously, even if there is a serious side to them (topics about series matters/health/well-being/support/etc).
It's a graduated penalty system. The mods warn once. If someone's had a warning in the last week, they get banned for 24 hours. After that it's (roughly) 2 days, a week, a month, three months... Mods have total discretion to adjust as necessary up to about a week. The mod captains (admins) determine if a longer ban is justified. These are all loose rules. If someone is obviously just here to be a troublemaker, they're given longer bans. You can ask an actual mod or admin for more details.
User banned 72h history of bad faith posting, even after being warned
But would you say that ONLY the sexism is keeping out woman out of tech companies and that the constant articles about how horrible tech companies are to women, have no effect on their decision?
First-time employees have no direct experience how sexist their new workplace is/would be, they can only go with hearsay.
Attitudes like this don't help a single bit, and I was under the impression we were leaving this shit behind by making a new forum.
Usually when i see people complain about this it actually is related but they dont want to hear about it (such as the chappelle thread), But yeah your example would be ridiculous if, say, it goes from talking about a new civic model to issues with Israel's apartheid state unprompted. I cant say ive seen that be an issue though
I'm terrifed to say how i feel in most topics that arent game related out of fear of being accused of everything and anything. I come into offtopic sometimes but usually just backout real slowly after seeing the madness that discussions often turn into.
"Having an opinion" is not as valuable as having a little humility sometimes and just listening to what other people have to say. Not every topic needs to be a demolition derby of conflicting opinions.
I have learned a lot of things from reading the posts of people different from me. I have changed my mind about some things, while some other times I don't. I don't see the need to respond to every controversy. There is way too much clutter in these discussions with the constant disruption from bad arguments.
If your approach to a controversial thread is only to think "I'll avoid it because I'll say something that will get me banned", you could maybe try reading more and posting less.
I have learned a lot of things from reading the posts of people different from me. I have changed my mind about some things, while some other times I don't. I don't see the need to respond to every controversy. There is way too much clutter in these discussions with the constant disruption from bad arguments.
If your approach to a controversial thread is only to think "I'll avoid it because I'll say something that will get me banned", you could maybe try reading more and posting less.
Well, that's probably not what the original poster had in mind, but there was a time when the old place was incredibly aggressive and toxic against industry people, trying to get people fired, starting literal harassment campaigns against Industry people (anyone remember that Microsoft guy who said something bad about people with bad internet connections on twitter).
But this has already been adressed in the TOS of this site afair, so you can't shit on individual persons anymore just because you don't like their game/business model/whatever.
I think there is certain language that brings out the worst in people, or at least flags a noticeable pushback; 'toxic' and 'problematic' being the shorthand for unsavoury behaviour/circumstances comes with a lot of baggage in how those terms have been used and by who (the latter of which I agree on, sort of cheapens an argument immediately).
Anytime people say some shit like that it's always interesting cause they never respond
If it is really that serious to you, you're in luck because the administrators will be implementing a topic ignore feature sometime in the future. Until then, some community members have been kind enough to implement their own thread ignore functions by modifying the old topic ignore script from Neogaf (2nd link is the creator of the script): https://www.resetera.com/posts/299181/ and https://www.resetera.com/posts/1794187/
Along with the great ignore users feature here on Resetera, you have enough tools at your disposal to curate your experience.
You said the n word and they probably aren't familiar with your posts.
This might catch me a ban but wtf.
There is an orthodoxy on Era. If you do not follow it, you will be warned and then banned. I'm all for arguing anything, but the power structure on this board is such that there are positions that will get you banned and the threads for these issues are a trap for members that don't see the world in the same way as the "powerful" posters, i.e. mods and the kinds of people that you will see post 10 times per page on any controversial subject. You know who these people are, I know who they are. They set the tone.
Era should be transparent about this and post an explicit list of positions that will catch you a ban.
If, like me, you're kind of sick of the predictable nature of these threads, resolve just to stay out of them. If you're the kind of person who doesn't automatically take the side that's expected, don't post in those threads. Even if you believe you're posting in good faith, the mods and super users won't and you're in for a bad time.
End of the day, I'm 35. I don't need to argue sexual morality or race or what the fuck else will get you easily banned. I should know better than to even be posting in those threads.
Just know this: the world looks nothing like these threads.
There is an orthodoxy on Era. If you do not follow it, you will be warned and then banned. I'm all for arguing anything, but the power structure on this board is such that there are positions that will get you banned and the threads for these issues are a trap for members that don't see the world in the same way as the "powerful" posters, i.e. mods and the kinds of people that you will see post 10 times per page on any controversial subject. You know who these people are, I know who they are. They set the tone.
Era should be transparent about this and post an explicit list of positions that will catch you a ban.
If, like me, you're kind of sick of the predictable nature of these threads, resolve just to stay out of them. If you're the kind of person who doesn't automatically take the side that's expected, don't post in those threads. Even if you believe you're posting in good faith, the mods and super users won't and you're in for a bad time.
End of the day, I'm 35. I don't need to argue sexual morality or race or what the fuck else will get you easily banned. I should know better than to even be posting in those threads.
Just know this: the world looks nothing like these threads.
This. And all 4 of these points are already at more extreme levels than I ever saw at the other place. Everyone is dialed up to 11 all the time.
Yea if you think your opinion is likely to lead reasonable posters to accuse you of something, probably better to (1) keep it to yourself and (2) explore why so many people would be led to that conclusion. Because that's not normal.
Those articles wouldn't be constant if the companies were better.
Some women read them and think "fuck that," others read and think "fuck that but I still want to give it a shot." That's cool but it doesn't let the perpetrators of sexism in those places off the hook.
What's offensive about Gaf's past glory days?
I think you have me confused with that other Negro you decided to slight.
Quoting this for increased visibility. I try to live every moment of my life by this.Just gonna drop The Four Agreements again in here as well. I really do think it's a helpful starting point for marginalizing toxic dialogue on the internet and try to apply it as often as possible.
And I try to function on the Internet with this in mind:
ERA is definitely better than basically any other site I've used. But (aside from the moderation which I think is stellar) much of that might have to do with the number of users, and therefore the constant and varied new content that I can choose between. I don't feel compelled to go into a thread about a topic that might frustrate me because there are always other new threads that are more relevant to my interests or knowledge.
The are only a couple issues I've encountered - or at least just trends that frustrate me - one is of automatically presuming other posters' intentions and framing all of their posts around that presumption. I only had it happen to me once; a poster was responding to me in a way that I couldn't make sense of, refusing to elaborate so I could wrap my head around what was going on, very passive aggressively quoting the text of my posts without actually quoting me, bolding certain phrases to imply something, but refusing to actually explain to me what was problematic in what I said, or what they interpreted from my words. It was all "oh you should know, and if you don't, I know, and I don't have to explain it to you. What I said speaks for itself." Well, from the perspective of the person you were actually engaging with, what you said was nonsensical so it doesn't have much to say for itself - unless you're just responding to me to make an example of me to others.
Which highlights my number one biggest concern with how some discourse goes down. I am going to try to word this as carefully as I can, and I hope this doesn't come off at attacking any specific group or trying to minimize any issues they go through. I understand that marginalized groups deal with a level of harassment, on all levels and from all directions, that I will never be able to fully comprehend as a white male US citizen, and they have no responsibility to tolerate abusive or harmful language. Through my own personal growth and then engaging with old acquaintances in the hillbilly community where I grew up, I have recently come to understand how tedious it is to basically start on square one with every new conversation on these topics. It's not your job to coddle these people.
But you also don't have a responsibility to respond to their posts, either. This forum has a perfectly functional ignore and report system. There are people like me who are absolutely willing to confront these people and do the dirty work that you are in no way obligated to do. I absolutely believe it's the responsibility of people in a certain demographic/community to check and educate their own when they see problematic shit within thay demographic/community. What is attacking the posters in this manner going to accomplish that is more effective or better than those of us who are willing trying to discuss in good faith, then reporting the user when it's clear they aren't here to do the same? This can be done without immediately presuming what a post "means" and attacking that when it could have just been a post that was worded like shit.
As I said it simply frustrates me, because minorities do not have to coddle or tolerate anyone who is directing hostile or problematic language at them, I can't really harbor any ill will toward anyone acting this way out of a sense of self-preservation and I am not even trying to say that every instance of responding to a problematic post with "wtf is this shit" or similar should disappear (that's in no way my call anyway), but I also see instances where discussion goes from 0-100 nigh immediately and sometimes it seems like learning opportunities never materialize by how quickly things can end up framed in a "you're with us or against us and God help you if you're against us" way. And that is not directed at all discussions on these topics. I am naiive af but I am not so dense to deny there are some real shitty alt-right positions brought up sometimes that pretty clearly communicate a nefarious intent. And it also worries me because mass-quoting posts, even to call them out for the bullshit they are, is still amplifying their presence and drawing continued attention to it when otherwise it might have been slapped with a warning/ban and lurkers would see more of the constructive, educative content (see video posted above).
On the other side, and to show I mean all of this with the best intentions, I do see people who are way too quick to go into a discussion with some persecution complex that they're being silenced because people don't want to tolerate their abrasive ass language. They come in already having decided that everyone is going to be "against" them, and have no desire to actually engage in a conversation. No desire to learn from others, no drive to function in a way that implies they care about being part of the community. To which I have to ask, well why are you even here then?
Look, if people bitch at you or you get slapped with a warning, sit down and fucking ask yourself how you can better communicate with others. This is a discussion board and not your blog where you can just spit whatever op-ed you want however you want and disable the comments to avoid engagement. This shit always astounds me because where I grew up having the kind of attitude I see some folks sporting here would put them in the hospital really fast.
Also, hell no to likes or upvotes. I was about it for a while but then I considered how that might encourage like-fishing and then I remembered how many times I would see mods mass-liking really dismissive and flippant posts on other sites and that just puts a terrible taste in my mouth over the whole idea.
I'm really sorry if I worded this like shit, I don't mean to attack anyone personally I just naturally find myself analyzing how people interact and trying to find solutions to bridge gaps in communication and foster better conversations.
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Ain't that hard to say that instead of asking a question without any depth to it
Also.....People need to spend less time posting in threads and more time just reading n shit
Why? See what I just said above. Be an adult about your opinions. If you think you can defend them/back them up, then stop being scared of a little bit of challenge. If it's a warning/ban you're worried about, then you must already know internally whatever you believe somehow goes against the rules or is controversial to the point of being objectively harmful.
He (probably) talks about Industry-heavy-weights or other developers who twittered that they were relieved, that "that toxic Forum" was gone. Mostly devs that got shitted on by gaf because of an opinion they held or just because they paid a person for voicework 2 years ago and that person did something racist now.
Just post as humbly as possible about. If you suddenly find yourself arguing against a million people, it might be worth stepping back and bowing out of the conversation gracefully. People in practice are a lot more generous than we give them credit for.
True.
Some people get insta-offended if more than two users quote them with disagreeing posts. I don't know how they function in real life social interactions unless they just hang with people who nod and smile at whatever they say.
You know I was talking about the posting style don't be disingenuous.
"Having stones" means nothing.
He was recently banned for this own toxic behavior and for whatever reason, is going back and editing a ton of old posts and deleting all of the text.
And I don't think anyone who says, "The community is packed full of shitty, low-effort, toxic, racist/misogynistic men. It just is. That's not even debatable." is someone who should be a mod. I like Bobby but that certainly is debatable. And when you have that kind of negative view of the board already, you're entering the position of moderator from a clearly biased point of view.
What if your genuine opinion is "I don't believe this woman?" Why is that bannable?
I'd like to see some concrete examples of the Era Illuminati suppressing "different opinions" and creating an environment where a man can't argue against the grain respectfully without catching an instaban.
As someone who was on GAF for a couple of years i get what you are saying 100%. I lurked on era for a couple of months before making an account because i wanted to see if that same posting mentality had transferred over, and it did. There are users on here who i feel are immune to bans or warnings and only post in certain threads. I made a decision when i made an account on here and its to not engage when being taunted.
I don't think being neutral is the same as being apathetic. Being neutral is not taking sides. Being apathetic is to make a conscious decision to be indifferent.
Moderators are like judges in that they are bipartial. They are supposed to be able to weigh both sides, regardless of their own position.
Well that's not very accurate. better stated: YOUR world looks nothing like these threads.
As your world is purely a reflection of people you must associate with (family, co-workers), those who you choose to associate with (organizations you join, people you accept into your life as friends and associates), and what sources and people you've chosen to believe.
35 isn't too old to make better friends and learn from social mistakes and become a better man or woman.
I expect an influx of new accounts with very interesting positions.
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