I just wish the word 'trash' wasn't used as a catch all for 'genuinely terrible' through to 'somewhat disappointing'.
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It feels like it's getting harder to discuss thing calmly in the gaming community
- Thread starter TheEchosOfTheCyborg
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[LONG POST WARNING]
This is something I've been mulling over for quite some time now, and this thread seems like a good time to finally post it.
First off, this is not a problem that is endemic to ResetEra - it's the entire gaming community on the internet. Large groups of people that all have varying interests will naturally flow towards some form of confrontation. Console wars, for instance, have been a thing for decades. We all have our "favorite thing," and even if we outwardly say otherwise, we always find a way to feel incredulous when we discover that someone else didn't like the thing as much as we did. That's something that each of us needs to do better, myself included. We all prefer different systems, genres, series, individual games, and that's OK.
There are a few specific things revolving around this I want to touch on -
LTTP threads -
If someone makes an LTTP thread about a game and they thoroughly enjoyed it, jumping in to say "nah, OP, that game was terrible" doesn't add anything to the conversation. That's not to say you have to like the game in the same way the OP did, but you don't need to go out of your way to convince the OP and others that they are wrong. That's just needless confrontation and serves to distract from the point of the OP's thread, which was to celebrate their experience.
Conversely, if someone didn't like a game, you don't have to convince the OP that they were wrong, either. It's appropriate to have a discussion on things they didn't like and see if the OP simply missed something, -
e.g., "Hey OP, you said that one part of Level 3 sucked. Did you know you can double jump? Makes that part a lot easier."
OP: :o
OTs, Preview, Review, and News threads are the best places for those who like/dislike it to come together. Same rule applies, though - if you want to have a discussion on the finer points of the game and why they are good or bad, then have that discussion. But going into the thread with the intent of riling people up because you have a difference of personal opinion on a thing that others like or dislike is just asking for trouble.
Dogpiling -
In general, this stuff needs to calm down. Somewhat related to the LTTP threads, just because someone likes/dislikes something doesn't mean they need to be brigaded or have a million replies to come back to. The biggest offender of this in recent months is any thread that has to do with EGS.
The #1 reason people buy games is because they want to play them. I know that sounds like common sense, but sometimes I think we get lost in a lot of extraneous technicalities and nuance that doesn't always apply. Not all of us have the same "capitalistic barometer" that others have - if I want to play a game, and it turns out that the only place is going to have it is EGS, then I'll get it on EGS. Will I miss having the functionality of something like Steam? Sure. But my main goal was to play the game. I don't need hundreds of people telling me how much I suck just because I don't have the same level of need for certain things.
That said, if someone makes a thread where someone is pissed off that something is going to EGS, that's ok. Be angry about it - you have different priorities than I do, and that's ok. I SHOULD NOT go into your thread and say "whatever, man, I'm gonna get it anyway" - what's the point of that statement? It's simply dismissing their entire argument and shoving my middle finger into their face. On the other hand, if someone makes the OT for the game, which is a thread for people to discuss their progress and expectations for the game, it doesn't need to be shat up by people being angry that the game is not on their platform of their preference.
Apart from EGS, I also agree with the OP regarding things like the Ghost of Tsushima thread. It's one thing to pile on someone because they unintentionally made a joke (and are ultimately ok with being the butt of the joke - like B-Dubs), it's another to jump onto someone who had an honest misunderstanding and the like. Looking at that thread, there are plenty of people who gave perfectly fine answers to the OP's question.
Here's something that moderators take into account when looking at reports, and I think it's something that members can and should think about as well.
- What's the context of the post?
- Is the user genuinely confused/misunderstood, or does it appear to be malicious in nature?
- Are people reacting in a conversational way to the post, or is it simply people deriding it? Is the user of the reported post interacting with people past the initial post?
Sometimes people post things without knowing the full context, or they just are a little clueless when it comes to things. It happens. They don't need to be ridiculed for it.
Anger/Boycott Threads
These are two types of threads:
- Something comes up due to a developer or someone in the leadership of a game's development does something horrible and ends up being (rightfully) called out for it. Ion Fury is the most recent one, but we've also had threads on CDPR, Dragon Quest, and others.
- Something comes up that's a design decision on an upcoming/current game, and people don't like it. Like the OP mentioned, the lack of a National Dex in Pokemon Sword/Shield is an example of this.
First things first - these threads are fine. Please, go ahead and make them. People should have the full knowledge of who/what they are supporting or what exactly is in a game before making purchasing decisions.
Similarly to what I said about EGS, everyone also has their own "moral barometer" - i.e., what they are willing to forego or accept in making a decision. Some of that also includes a form of moral selectivity - e.g., "I am fine with boycotting this thing because I don't use it as much, but I won't boycott this other thing because it's one of my favorite things ever."
I'll single out Dragon Quest here, since it's a series near and dear to my heart. Koichi Sugiyama, the composer for the games, is homophobic and is war-crime denier. Over the past year, especially leading up to the release of DQ XI, we had several threads on this topic, bringing it to light for many of us who didn't know about it. That's good stuff to know, I agree.
I still bought DQ XI. I loved the game just as I've loved other DQ games. Ion Fury looked interesting, because I loved the Doom/Duke games as a kid, but I'm fine with never picking it up now.
We all do this. Damn near everything we buy has some sort of problematic thing happening in the chain of its inception to getting to us, and we all make decisions based on our perceived expectations of what we'll get out of it. I got 100 hours of joy playing a game I loved. Others may not find that to be an acceptable trade-off, and again, that's fine. If you're angry about something like Sugiyama's involvement in DQ, then sound off, discuss, boycott. There should absolutely be a thread on that. Change can only happen if the offending parties are made aware.
As for instances like the National Dex thing, again, go ahead, be angry. Voice your displeasure in a thread or on Twitter.
Now, the corollary to this is - if someone makes a thread on Sugiyama or something similar, going into that thread to say "whatever man, I'm still gonna buy it" is just being an asshole. Go talk about it in the preview thread or something. On the other hand, going into, say, the preview thread and attempting to shame people who are planning on buying the game isn't cool either. As I said, we all make decisions based on our own perception and adherence to our morality. Turning every thread on the game into a shit-flinging fest over who is the most moral [consumer in a capitalistic endeavor] person doesn't help matters. Bringing the information to light is definitely going to turn some heads and make some people rethink their purchase, but it most likely will not affect everyone. And that's ok, every little bit helps.
I want everyone here to feel like they can voice their displeasure and excitement over the one thing here that bonds us all together - our love of gaming. We're all on the same side here. We all, myself included, need to have a little introspection - thinking about how we post here and how we want to shape this community. A majority of our reports are all things like personal attacks and drive-by posts. Cutting those down would be amazing progress. We do our best to handle the trolls, bigots, gaslighters, etc., but we do need you all to help set the tone of the forum.
ResetEra is what we make of it. We have a thriving community of thousands of users who all love to play and discuss games. Already I think we are leagues better than other forums, but we can be better. We can always be better.
To repeat what we said at the very beginning of this forum, from a couple of wise men:
BE EXCELLENT TO EACH OTHER.
tldr: ^
This is something I've been mulling over for quite some time now, and this thread seems like a good time to finally post it.
First off, this is not a problem that is endemic to ResetEra - it's the entire gaming community on the internet. Large groups of people that all have varying interests will naturally flow towards some form of confrontation. Console wars, for instance, have been a thing for decades. We all have our "favorite thing," and even if we outwardly say otherwise, we always find a way to feel incredulous when we discover that someone else didn't like the thing as much as we did. That's something that each of us needs to do better, myself included. We all prefer different systems, genres, series, individual games, and that's OK.
There are a few specific things revolving around this I want to touch on -
LTTP threads -
If someone makes an LTTP thread about a game and they thoroughly enjoyed it, jumping in to say "nah, OP, that game was terrible" doesn't add anything to the conversation. That's not to say you have to like the game in the same way the OP did, but you don't need to go out of your way to convince the OP and others that they are wrong. That's just needless confrontation and serves to distract from the point of the OP's thread, which was to celebrate their experience.
Conversely, if someone didn't like a game, you don't have to convince the OP that they were wrong, either. It's appropriate to have a discussion on things they didn't like and see if the OP simply missed something, -
e.g., "Hey OP, you said that one part of Level 3 sucked. Did you know you can double jump? Makes that part a lot easier."
OP: :o
OTs, Preview, Review, and News threads are the best places for those who like/dislike it to come together. Same rule applies, though - if you want to have a discussion on the finer points of the game and why they are good or bad, then have that discussion. But going into the thread with the intent of riling people up because you have a difference of personal opinion on a thing that others like or dislike is just asking for trouble.
Dogpiling -
In general, this stuff needs to calm down. Somewhat related to the LTTP threads, just because someone likes/dislikes something doesn't mean they need to be brigaded or have a million replies to come back to. The biggest offender of this in recent months is any thread that has to do with EGS.
The #1 reason people buy games is because they want to play them. I know that sounds like common sense, but sometimes I think we get lost in a lot of extraneous technicalities and nuance that doesn't always apply. Not all of us have the same "capitalistic barometer" that others have - if I want to play a game, and it turns out that the only place is going to have it is EGS, then I'll get it on EGS. Will I miss having the functionality of something like Steam? Sure. But my main goal was to play the game. I don't need hundreds of people telling me how much I suck just because I don't have the same level of need for certain things.
That said, if someone makes a thread where someone is pissed off that something is going to EGS, that's ok. Be angry about it - you have different priorities than I do, and that's ok. I SHOULD NOT go into your thread and say "whatever, man, I'm gonna get it anyway" - what's the point of that statement? It's simply dismissing their entire argument and shoving my middle finger into their face. On the other hand, if someone makes the OT for the game, which is a thread for people to discuss their progress and expectations for the game, it doesn't need to be shat up by people being angry that the game is not on their platform of their preference.
Apart from EGS, I also agree with the OP regarding things like the Ghost of Tsushima thread. It's one thing to pile on someone because they unintentionally made a joke (and are ultimately ok with being the butt of the joke - like B-Dubs), it's another to jump onto someone who had an honest misunderstanding and the like. Looking at that thread, there are plenty of people who gave perfectly fine answers to the OP's question.
Here's something that moderators take into account when looking at reports, and I think it's something that members can and should think about as well.
- What's the context of the post?
- Is the user genuinely confused/misunderstood, or does it appear to be malicious in nature?
- Are people reacting in a conversational way to the post, or is it simply people deriding it? Is the user of the reported post interacting with people past the initial post?
Sometimes people post things without knowing the full context, or they just are a little clueless when it comes to things. It happens. They don't need to be ridiculed for it.
Anger/Boycott Threads
These are two types of threads:
- Something comes up due to a developer or someone in the leadership of a game's development does something horrible and ends up being (rightfully) called out for it. Ion Fury is the most recent one, but we've also had threads on CDPR, Dragon Quest, and others.
- Something comes up that's a design decision on an upcoming/current game, and people don't like it. Like the OP mentioned, the lack of a National Dex in Pokemon Sword/Shield is an example of this.
First things first - these threads are fine. Please, go ahead and make them. People should have the full knowledge of who/what they are supporting or what exactly is in a game before making purchasing decisions.
Similarly to what I said about EGS, everyone also has their own "moral barometer" - i.e., what they are willing to forego or accept in making a decision. Some of that also includes a form of moral selectivity - e.g., "I am fine with boycotting this thing because I don't use it as much, but I won't boycott this other thing because it's one of my favorite things ever."
I'll single out Dragon Quest here, since it's a series near and dear to my heart. Koichi Sugiyama, the composer for the games, is homophobic and is war-crime denier. Over the past year, especially leading up to the release of DQ XI, we had several threads on this topic, bringing it to light for many of us who didn't know about it. That's good stuff to know, I agree.
I still bought DQ XI. I loved the game just as I've loved other DQ games. Ion Fury looked interesting, because I loved the Doom/Duke games as a kid, but I'm fine with never picking it up now.
We all do this. Damn near everything we buy has some sort of problematic thing happening in the chain of its inception to getting to us, and we all make decisions based on our perceived expectations of what we'll get out of it. I got 100 hours of joy playing a game I loved. Others may not find that to be an acceptable trade-off, and again, that's fine. If you're angry about something like Sugiyama's involvement in DQ, then sound off, discuss, boycott. There should absolutely be a thread on that. Change can only happen if the offending parties are made aware.
As for instances like the National Dex thing, again, go ahead, be angry. Voice your displeasure in a thread or on Twitter.
Now, the corollary to this is - if someone makes a thread on Sugiyama or something similar, going into that thread to say "whatever man, I'm still gonna buy it" is just being an asshole. Go talk about it in the preview thread or something. On the other hand, going into, say, the preview thread and attempting to shame people who are planning on buying the game isn't cool either. As I said, we all make decisions based on our own perception and adherence to our morality. Turning every thread on the game into a shit-flinging fest over who is the most moral [consumer in a capitalistic endeavor] person doesn't help matters. Bringing the information to light is definitely going to turn some heads and make some people rethink their purchase, but it most likely will not affect everyone. And that's ok, every little bit helps.
I want everyone here to feel like they can voice their displeasure and excitement over the one thing here that bonds us all together - our love of gaming. We're all on the same side here. We all, myself included, need to have a little introspection - thinking about how we post here and how we want to shape this community. A majority of our reports are all things like personal attacks and drive-by posts. Cutting those down would be amazing progress. We do our best to handle the trolls, bigots, gaslighters, etc., but we do need you all to help set the tone of the forum.
ResetEra is what we make of it. We have a thriving community of thousands of users who all love to play and discuss games. Already I think we are leagues better than other forums, but we can be better. We can always be better.
To repeat what we said at the very beginning of this forum, from a couple of wise men:
BE EXCELLENT TO EACH OTHER.
tldr: ^
Great post overall. Better articulated than I ever could.
One thing that stands out to me is the bolded part. That's my expectation as well.
But in reality I see so many "gamers are trash" posts here that I wonder if I'm in a gaming forum at all.
This is what gets me
" Gamers are bad , so i'm going to ignore the unchecked effects of capitalism and preying on those vulnerable to certain things. Because fuck gamers or whatever "
Great post. I especially agree that problems with a game/developer should be discussed. So people should make separate threads about them.
This helps to prevent every thread turning into the same dogpiling derailment.
There hasn't been great game discussion on this forum since it started. Feels like most topics are just trying to shit on everything.
Partly because it only takes one edge lord to come in within the first 5 posts and make a snarky comment with the express intention of shitting up the thread.
It has gotten better, but it's still a fairly rampant problem and it's incredibly frustrating how often it goes unchecked.
I'm guilty of this one. I think a lot of it comes from the voracious fanboys who dislike thing and carry a sense of entitlement. Although that could be said about almost any fandom - every fan thinks that they are the One True Fan and damn the rest. That's kinda where I look at when I said something like "ugh, gamers."
I think it should still be involved to an extent. I'd even recommend OT creators to include links to those threads with possibly summaries for people who may have missed it. Their grievances should still be heard.
I don't believe it's a "rampant" problem or anything, but it does happen. It's something that's difficult to assess, but we can usually make an educated guess on what the intent of a post is and we'll deal with it accordingly.
As for a user's part - try not taking the bait. Report it for us to look at and we'll go from there. No need to escalate it and end up getting banned yourself for going overboard.
I don't disagree. Only when it becomes a derailment. Which happens way too often.
How should that be reported?
To clarify, I'm not making policy here. These are just my personal thoughts. This is something we'll keep working on.
It's not just in the gaming community.
You can't discuss anything online these days.
"If you're not with me, you're against me, so i'm going to insult now" seems to be the norm.
I've never seen people so angry at...everything. We basically forget there's a person on the other side reading what we post.
You can't discuss anything online these days.
"If you're not with me, you're against me, so i'm going to insult now" seems to be the norm.
I've never seen people so angry at...everything. We basically forget there's a person on the other side reading what we post.
Hecht I was talking about how this contributes to the toxic environment that no one wants to take part in, yet I see it happening all the time, and not very moderated even though it's obnoxious and most users dislike it.
As for reporting, I sent one your way this morning, I couldn't have asked for a better example, if that post doesn't turn discussion toxic, what does?
As for reporting, I sent one your way this morning, I couldn't have asked for a better example, if that post doesn't turn discussion toxic, what does?
I know, lol. Just looking for a starting point. I guess I'll just start to use the report function more, and see if things getter better
I just don't want things to stay the same, because we have to all see that what's happening now isn't the best.
Sometimes we feel like it doesn't necessarily seem like bait, and that it could be resolved through discussion. Sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn't. Just because someone gets heated doesn't mean it obviously against the TOS - sometimes people just need to step away and come back. It's not an exact science with determining intent over the internet.
If you have further questions on that case, feel free to PM me so we don't derail this here.
Some really great, thoughtful posts in this thread.
For my part, I just wish people would take a few moments to try to understand what a member means with their post rather than taking their text and somehow extrapolating an exaggerated position based on it. I don't know how many arguments I've seen from people who are basically on the same side of something.
For my part, I just wish people would take a few moments to try to understand what a member means with their post rather than taking their text and somehow extrapolating an exaggerated position based on it. I don't know how many arguments I've seen from people who are basically on the same side of something.
Yeah. I feel like I walk on eggshells here to avoid getting retaliated or banned. See too much outrage to even attempt to argue.
There are folks throughout the net that paints this forum as far worse than others, for various and more recent reasons, and I can't completely blame them.
I found, however, there are plenty of people here who enjoy video games as much as I do, without reading too much into things, and that's why I try to continue to stick around.
There are folks throughout the net that paints this forum as far worse than others, for various and more recent reasons, and I can't completely blame them.
I found, however, there are plenty of people here who enjoy video games as much as I do, without reading too much into things, and that's why I try to continue to stick around.
Great post! Maybe it'd be interesting to have something like a codex or etiquette that is introduced to new users and/or at the top of the webforum. In German it's actually called 'netiquette' which adds a nice and sympathetic element to it. Discussion following certain rules has always been very positive, I learned it when doing classical British debate at university in oral communication courses. Even individual OT or LTTP threads could have a short statement above indicating what OT and LTTP should be about. All opinions within certain boundaries should be valued, but derailing attempts, console warring and hate speech still be sanctioned. I'm very happy ResetERA allows political discussions, too. Other forums have banned them because they are too controversial. I think this is not the right way and you are doing better even if it sometimes produces the clash of opinions.
Just my two cents.
I think a big problem here and elsewhere is that most people just don't know how to debate. There's a formula to argumentation, and if you resort to ad hominem, you're out. Problem is, like this thread mentions time and time again, the dogpiling leads to angry mobs hopping on people.
Just look at that thread in EtcetEra Forum where a dude who didn't follow US politics asked what Antifa was, and an angry mob trashed the thread up with "THAT'S BAIT!" and drive-by shitposts even though the poster was a well-established ERA user and not a burner account. And then they tried gaslighting that he made the thread in bad faith and he's an alt-right troll.
Like, tell me why that's acceptable?
I feel like the moderation and admin team really needs to put their heads together to discourage the mob culture here, because what I just described is a perfect example of why polarized "you're with us or we're killing you" mob mentality will make people hesitate to participate. It's killing conversation here because you can just look through this thread and see how many people--myself included--just tell themselves it isn't worth getting shouted down by vocal cliques of wasps.
Related on console wars, we could improve GOTY votings and similar by having those only per platform. At current state the visibility of great games in each platform is overshadowed by the one overall GOTY winner that is often the most hyped exclusive to majority favourite platform. And as such, it just become ammo for console wars. For example, this Platform Awards 2018 is great until the "Best Platform" -section that really is not needed there.
I've outlined my issues with Resetera and previously on Neogaf, at this point we regularly have these same discussions so I am doubtful of change; it is what it is. I'll say that there is some good in this community (otherwise I wouldn't be here), that said if you want to make the most out of Resetera you need to curate your experience and that means making ignore features your best friend. Ignore users and block threads with the Hide Thread extension, take it from me it'll make your time here much better.
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Great thread OP. I think the mods or admins should consider stickying this thread. While that will likely not happen because the thread is unfortunately highlighting a negative characteristic of the forum, perhaps an equivalent summation of the many good points brought up here could suffice?
Seeing it up top might help remind people to check themselves and take a breath before hitting the submit button on some vitriolic diatribe.
Seeing it up top might help remind people to check themselves and take a breath before hitting the submit button on some vitriolic diatribe.
I see this happen a lot and have been on the receiving end of this and it's very frustrated. Someone always has to be right, when we are saying the same thing.
On a side note I'm also concerned when I see post of very distraught people on the etc. side. I get the impression that the general air of negativity and cynical/negative discussion that occurs here is coloring their worldview.
Some people get upset when others dislike what they like and vice versa, I don't see that changing anytime soon. Blocking/banning it seems ridiculous, unless you really want a forum where everyone just agrees all the time.
I'm guessing it's far worse on other forums, so I'll stick with Resetera.
I'm guessing it's far worse on other forums, so I'll stick with Resetera.
Thank you for this post, and I'd like to address this part.
It's probably not just me, but before replying to someone's post, I sometimes check their post history first. That way, I can more or less understand the intent behind their post. It helped a lot in my case, more often than not I scratch that intent to reply after I found out that it was a genuine post. This is related to the privacy options of this forum, a lot of users hide their post history so we can't look them up. I know that mods can still view them, but somehow I think it's an unnecessary feature. Hopefully with the feature disabled, we can understand each other more.
Honestly i think there's just a lot of negativity in general right now, especially in the US, and especially especially with young people feeling a lot of hopelessness for the future, and especially especially especially marginalized people for whom things were getting better for a while and now it feels like 1 step forward 2 steps back wherever a terrible person is in charge.
It's tough. Because unless you echo a chamber's sentiment, or happen to be a member of a forum that's perfectly moderated (good luck), it's almost inevitable you're gonna run up against a tidal wave of counter opinion.
A very good post. This is certainly not a unique problem, but it does seem particularly pronounced on Era and I think a great deal of that comes down to site moderation. Don't get me wrong, I don't doubt it's emerged as a result of the very best intentions on the part of the team, but as so many assenting voices in this thread attest, the problem is a real one.
When I first joined this forum it felt like an exciting opportunity to reset the game and start afresh, but honestly, I've increasingly avoided contributing to discussion here.
It would help if folks could realize that not every opinion has an agenda attached to it. Someone enjoyed Kingdom Come? Guess what, they probably aren't a nazi. Someone thought Captain Marvel wasn't a very good movie, good chance that person isn't some MRA redpill asshat.
Not everything has an ulterior motive, sometimes an opinion is just an opinion. And by sometimes I mean like 99% of the time.
Not everything has an ulterior motive, sometimes an opinion is just an opinion. And by sometimes I mean like 99% of the time.
That's why this forum sucks. Everyone here thinks you're part of this particular group that's their enemy. One day they call you a nazi, next day they call you a libtard.
Just yesterday I saw how someone thought I had an agenda against a certain game just because I pointed out something I didn't like about it. This person already put me in a group of people who they see as 'the enemy', because one couldn't possible have anything negative to say about the game. A game that I'm looking forward to and will be buying day one by the way.
It's either be with me or fucking die, no middle ground or room for debate.
This forum didn't improve over the old one at all, it just picked up right where the other one ended: at its worst
To be honest, this kind of attitude is a bit of the problem too. There was plenty of good faith critism against films like Captain Marvel here that no one made such accusations against, and Kingdom Come is certainly one of the more controversial games in our community, but we also have a huge and dedicated fan base for it, and an OT that's surpassed 100 pages, far larger than most other communities.
Just as not everyone as an ulterior motive, a lot of people talk about these bits of media in good faith, and these types of attitudes and accusatory behaviour isn't nearly as prevalent as some like to believe. It's just one some like to latch on to, and sometimes pretty crappy reasons.
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This right here has been my same thought for a few years now.
This is kinda where I am. I always try to inject some sarcastic humor into as many of my posts as possible and just try to create fun threads, but I often feel like much of the playful nature of many gaming forums of years past, the stuff that attracted me to them in the first place as a teen, is all but absent here.
That is not an uncommon reaction to many news these days. I understand the intent and the people it is meant to refer to but I still think that it is a mistake. Many of us, especially older gamers, grew up in environments that assigned a hideous stigma to gaming. It took years and years for gaming to be recognized by the mainstream as a 'normal' passtime, an activity for everyone and not just for little kids. For this reason it is really disheartening to see that the gaming community itself has seemingly decided to use the term 'gamer' themselves as a derogatory term.
I don't think it is right to just hand over the term 'gamer' to a small minority of toxic individuals just like that. I am 40 years old, a lawyer by profession and, among other things, a gamer. I don't want to have to pretend that my passion for gaming doesn't define me in some small way and I don't want to be ashamed to call myself a gamer even when I'm among people who share the same passion. I don't want to surrender that part of my identity as a person to trolls, haters and toxic people. I have nothing in common with them, the vast majority of gamers in general have nothing in common with them and I believe that we as the gaming community should fight to remove this new stigma instead of encouraging it and signal boosting it.
I feel that everytime someone uses such a broad brush to paint huge groups of people as toxic, it breeds toxicity by itself because it indirectly forces people into circling the wagons. There's a name for toxic people inside the gaming community, the film community, the comic book community, the football community etc. It's not gamers, film buffs, comic book fans, football fans. It's toxic people. These people have no claim to the general term that should describe communities of like-minded people that know how to behave themselves.
I appreciate op wanting to actually address the problem.
I remember how incredibly friendly and welcoming Era used to be. The community threads, LTTPs and OTs are still fine for the most part. The tone with the other threads has mostly become hostile. It's easy to ignore console wars threads but threads related to important issues (such as minorities) are close to my heart. It's these threads that have become painful to experience. The amount of hostility, massive bans and not giving the benefit of the doubt has made me feel, as a left-leaning woman, worried. There are certain threads that are doing more harm than good, even if they are well intentioned. There was a member who, for a while, kept making LGBT threads that were obnoxious in tone. Eventually, the mods removed the member's privilege to create threads (good).
I have mentioned this before and I'm grateful that I have been given the benefit of the doubt instead of getting banned outright or getting dogpilled. Still, I hope we can find a way to discuss such topics in a more inviting manner. I know there will always be trolls or alt-right members and those clear examples should always be met with a swift hand. But, we shouldn't be extreme and hostile to everyone.
I have mentioned this before and I'm grateful that I have been given the benefit of the doubt instead of getting banned outright or getting dogpilled. Still, I hope we can find a way to discuss such topics in a more inviting manner. I know there will always be trolls or alt-right members and those clear examples should always be met with a swift hand. But, we shouldn't be extreme and hostile to everyone.
I've been outright attacked for making silly posts, or dogpiled for being 'wrong' about something when I meant it as a joke. Once a poster gave me multiple paragraphs about how this place is for serious discussion only and joking is disengenuous.
Now obviously there's a time and place for joke posts, and some things shouldn't be joked about at all. But if we can't have fun topics on a GAMING forum I just don't know where I'm going to post anymore.
I do feel confident we can pull things around here, and I don't want to come off as negative. There's some great thoughtful posts in this thread and plenty of people that want a great community. I think maybe harsher rules on which topic you're posting certain types of replies could definitely help. Maybe allowing some of the lighter "weekend Era" or joke type topics to stick around longer. I've been posting here since inception and GAF since around 06. I really feel like if we survived an entire website shift we can get our shit together here as well.
Very hard problem to deal with. Internet culture gets stupider by the day. Keep in mind that we have posters here that may have been 12 years old 5 years ago and grew up with social media that was already nasty by that point and has only gotten worse. It's imperative to appreciate how deep and wide this goes.
The problem is not one that we can fix. Mitigating the worst damage specific to era is the smart thing to do. Of course, we have to identify what that is first.
And a hundred people may have a hundred different answers. For my part, it's the problem of dissuading the nicest and/or smartest (there's some really smart and intellectually honest people who are rough around the edges) people from posting. I can dismiss most of the stupid posts, but what I find alarming is the posts I don't see.
Some of our best members are gone, and think about all of the shy members who want to chime in, but feel too anxious to hit the post button. Maybe you've never thought about them, but they're here.
I'd just start trying shit in the face of the inevitable push back. And again to be specific, I'm talking about the harassment towards posters with no history of infraction, or perhaps those that contribute in a meaningful way.
The first thing I'd try, is to have a flag thrown when a poster with no infraction history is getting quoted by those who do. If people want to have a shouting match, they should be able to interact with others that want the same. And same for those who want to have a properly formed argument with someone, and especially the same for those who aren't here to argue at all. Like matchmaking lol.
Basically, go pick on someone your own size.
The problem is not one that we can fix. Mitigating the worst damage specific to era is the smart thing to do. Of course, we have to identify what that is first.
And a hundred people may have a hundred different answers. For my part, it's the problem of dissuading the nicest and/or smartest (there's some really smart and intellectually honest people who are rough around the edges) people from posting. I can dismiss most of the stupid posts, but what I find alarming is the posts I don't see.
Some of our best members are gone, and think about all of the shy members who want to chime in, but feel too anxious to hit the post button. Maybe you've never thought about them, but they're here.
I'd just start trying shit in the face of the inevitable push back. And again to be specific, I'm talking about the harassment towards posters with no history of infraction, or perhaps those that contribute in a meaningful way.
The first thing I'd try, is to have a flag thrown when a poster with no infraction history is getting quoted by those who do. If people want to have a shouting match, they should be able to interact with others that want the same. And same for those who want to have a properly formed argument with someone, and especially the same for those who aren't here to argue at all. Like matchmaking lol.
Basically, go pick on someone your own size.
As soon as OP alluded to concern trolling and mentioned criticism being mischaracterized as harassment, I knew this was at least somewhat Pokémon related. Those initial threads of commiseration were helpful to me as a fan who felt the games slipping away from him. As things dragged on, though, the backlash to the backlash became extremely toxic and drove me away from those threads and Pokémon communities entirely. I'm not saying that there weren't people on my side of the argument that were asshole, but people who disagreed were also far to ready to paint in broad strokes and say our cause was just entitled harassers. Like, nah dude, I just want to talk to people about how sad I am that my favorite series has moved on from me. Thanks for fucking that up for me too.
The internet has largely become a place for snark or yelling, as exemplified by your Tsushima and EGS examples. I don't think this is just a gaming thing. I also had the impulse to be condescending in that Tsushima thread, but thankfully I'm in the habit of taking a moment after I've written my post to determine whether it is worth adding to the discussion. A lot of people don't have that habit, I guess. We all just want to be heard, so sometimes we throw something out into the void just hoping it will get attention. Snark and yelling do that.
It's easy to stay out of it when it's something I'm not very invested in like EGS. I ignore those threads because it doesn't seem to me like any intelligent or productive discussion can come of them. The whole topic is so dumb I can't believe people waste their time getting red in the face over it. But Pokémon hit different, so that's been the thing that really alienated me.
I don't know what could really be done differently, outside of closing topics sooner.
The internet has largely become a place for snark or yelling, as exemplified by your Tsushima and EGS examples. I don't think this is just a gaming thing. I also had the impulse to be condescending in that Tsushima thread, but thankfully I'm in the habit of taking a moment after I've written my post to determine whether it is worth adding to the discussion. A lot of people don't have that habit, I guess. We all just want to be heard, so sometimes we throw something out into the void just hoping it will get attention. Snark and yelling do that.
It's easy to stay out of it when it's something I'm not very invested in like EGS. I ignore those threads because it doesn't seem to me like any intelligent or productive discussion can come of them. The whole topic is so dumb I can't believe people waste their time getting red in the face over it. But Pokémon hit different, so that's been the thing that really alienated me.
I don't know what could really be done differently, outside of closing topics sooner.
Just yesterday, I think I finally experienced what it was like to be dogpiled here. Someone posted during the Gamescom thread that Sony was acquiring Insomniac games and I just followed up with "Sunset Overdrive PC never" since I 100% HONESTLY did not know that Sunset Overdrive got a PC port, and in the span of SECONDS, I got at least 10+ notifications of people correcting me, some of which coming across as snarky. What some people here do not realize is that some of us do not follow every little last piece of gaming news, and even some of us that try to may overlook something or honestly forget, case and point here. This is actually something that permeates at every angle of nerd culture, where if you are wrong about any little thing, be prepared for a horde of fucking geeks to roll up and be like "WELL AKCHUALLY" and all that. As such, many newcomers end up becoming intimidated by the barrier to entry and just don't post at all. I feel that many other enthusiast cultures don't really have this issue. Basically, if you see someone get something factually wrong, don't be abrasive, especially if you see a bunch of other people replying to the comment and saying literally the exact same thing.
Have you seen the gaming side? Actually, have you seen this whole site? Politics permeates the vast majority of discussion on here.
it's never been calm for me.
even back in the PS2 days there was so much fuckery over CJ in GTA:SA
some people are just now realizing how toxic their friends, acquaintances and randoms are
the rest of us have been saying it for decades, we just weren't being believed
even back in the PS2 days there was so much fuckery over CJ in GTA:SA
some people are just now realizing how toxic their friends, acquaintances and randoms are
the rest of us have been saying it for decades, we just weren't being believed
I'd love to see examples of what you mean.
The majority of 'politics' revolves about not being a shithead to minorities. Sorry if that spoils it for you...
Omg, yes. This is what I was trying to convey yesterday. It's either with, or against. No gray.
Agreed, it's smooth sailing as long as you're on the bandwagon, the second you get off it, watch out for the bullying dog piling from fanboys and apologists. People throwing obscure rules at you to try and get you banned because you have a different opinion, it's toxic. Also people with the awful logical fallacy of trying to make the reply about YOU and why YOU think this and why YOU'RE wrong, not about the product itself.
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