Banned Escapists To Be Granted Amnesty On New Forums.

[SolidState]

So the thing with moderation, at least for me, is that as long as things stay civil and people aren't making personal attacks, or threats, or you know, saying very clearly obvious things that you shouldn't say, I leave it alone.

I think civil discourse has really taken a hit from social media and people not being able to discuss different ideas without getting dogpiled or attacked. That's where Kyle and I very much disagreed with one another, because he wanted to literally "teach" people to think the right way, which is always going to take you down a path of people thinking "you're better than them and they're wrong because I'm always right".

That's not how you moderate a discussion, and if you're going to have a forum, people need to be able to speak their mind. But it's a private forum, and we make the rules, so technically, yes. If I don't like something you say I can sure as hell ban you for whatever reason I want and there's nothing you're going to do about it, but if I do that then what's the point of having a forum unless you just want it to be an echo chamber.

I don't step in until things either are taken too far, or people make a personal threat, or insult against someone because that shows me they're incapable of having a civil discussion and that's not the kind of people I want in this community. I'll still treat it on a case by case basis, but yea, the average age of someone reading The Escapist is like 25-34, so if by that point you can't discuss something without making an ass of yourself, then you're probably not gonna fit in our community.

With all that said, people do seem to forget forums are private and by that nature, free speech isn't a thing on these things. It's a privilege to speak on a private forum, or any private setting. Some moderators take that too far to do exactly what I said, remove anyone they disagree with, but if you want a true discussion forum with people from all different backgrounds and ideals, then you're probably not going to run a forum that way.

At this point in this forum's life history, I think it's safe to say that every possible approach to moderation has been tried, by different consecutive administrations, with varying degrees of success (or sometimes no success at all).

As you say, we've had the jackbooted and ironfisted approach with the likes of Kyle and other predecessors. That didn't work for the reasons you mentioned; it becomes too oppressive, the userbase is trimmed ruthlessly, and it leads to an echo chamber.

But we've also had your approach as well. The "please be civil" / "no personal attacks" / "don't be a jerk" approach, where everything else is fair game.
The problem with this - and we've seen this manifest itself time and time again - is that certain users have developed ways of getting around this. In particular, through the use of extreme and excessive passive-aggressiveness.

The comment has been made, by many a user, that the passive-aggressiveness that permeates here, is actually more annoying and more off-putting than just letting everyone jump straight to full-blown insults. And with the way the rules are worded, and the way the passive-aggressiveness is usually crafted, it often flies under the radar most of the time.

I think your approach to moderation is one of the better ones, but please keep in mind the pitfalls that have befallen previous site admins. The passive-aggression on this forum often seems to take them by surprise.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

I'm generally not a fan of banning people outright unless they were never a contributing member and joined just to troll or post porn or something like that so this is a good step. Only a very insecure forum would need to rely on bans to solve disagreements.

I guess you've never had to moderate or run a forum.

I did back in the 90s. And a Counter-Strike server in the 2000s, which isn't so different. I preferred a light touch, but there's a point where disagreements explode to a point you absolutely have to shut it down. And if you have a repeat offender, kick them out. These days, if forums are there to make money (advertising, building community and membership) and you have users who piss too many people off to the point they exit, you kick them out or they cost you dear.

I mod a discord with over 10000 members which is not quite like a forum but it's similar when it comes to banning people. We only really ban people who don't listen to instruction and post things that can get the discord shut down or something to that effect but not just because there's disagreement, the approach there is to tell the person who is put out by the disagreement to block the other person, rather than taking sides and banning someone because someone else was feeling hurt. Pissing people off is part of free speech and I believe that if someone is truly behaving in an unbecoming way they effectively make the argument against their stances by themselves, so everyone else will end up disagreeing with them anyhow.

At some point, a topic can be deemed finished and if someone keeps annoying people it is within their power to ignore it and talk about something else. When someone is giving in to the annoyance they feel and prolongs an unproductive conversation that is just as much a willing act as the act of being annoying and since it's arbitrary to define what is or isn't annoying (and a popularity contest is not a fair way to decide this) banning someone over something like that is definitely unfair.

When you say annoyance, do you mean insult?

It includes insults but isn't exclusively limited to them. You can be annoying by making valid points to the face of ignorance, because someone ignorant will be annoyed by or even insulted from being corrected about something, so you wouldn't wanna validate ignorance simply because someone ignorant is also sensitive.

Insults are largely the same thing. The suggested approach to insults is to ignore them. Sticks and stones and all that stuff. The inability to not be offended by an insult and to not just wave it off as someone having issues is not something to be celebrated. It's something to be ironed out. Because you can actually iron that out but you can't iron out idiots, they'll always exist.


To give you a specific example, I deal with a lot of gameplay mechanics that are mathematical in nature (counted by frames per second) so when a disagreement arises out of someone not understanding these mechanics and someone else insulting them over being ignorant, the approach is to tell the person insulting the other person to be nicer and to also agree with them and explain what they were trying to say with more precision and less N words. Sometimes, the person won't accept that they were wrong even when you explain it to them fully rationally, since at that point they've engaged their lizard brain and are not responding to new information. At that point, banning the other guy because someone is annoyed is definitely unfair.

Usually, if you agree with someone, they tend to stop insulting people, since they feel validated. Insults come from insecurity so if you provide security people have no need to be aggressive.

You wouldnt be banning someone for being right. You would be banning someone for being an asshole. Just becuase you are right, doesn't make you being an asshole okay.

Why would you get so offended at someone who is wrong that you need to insult? How is that helping anyone? It certainly doesn't make you right. Also, doesnt that fly in the face of your presumption of why people insult? The insecurity is the fact that you cant let someone else think the way they do, it's hasn't got much to with being right. It's about controlling others

So the thing with moderation, at least for me, is that as long as things stay civil and people aren't making personal attacks, or threats, or you know, saying very clearly obvious things that you shouldn't say, I leave it alone.

I think civil discourse has really taken a hit from social media and people not being able to discuss different ideas without getting dogpiled or attacked. That's where Kyle and I very much disagreed with one another, because he wanted to literally "teach" people to think the right way, which is always going to take you down a path of people thinking "you're better than them and they're wrong because I'm always right".

That's not how you moderate a discussion, and if you're going to have a forum, people need to be able to speak their mind. But it's a private forum, and we make the rules, so technically, yes. If I don't like something you say I can sure as hell ban you for whatever reason I want and there's nothing you're going to do about it, but if I do that then what's the point of having a forum unless you just want it to be an echo chamber.

I don't step in until things either are taken too far, or people make a personal threat, or insult against someone because that shows me they're incapable of having a civil discussion and that's not the kind of people I want in this community. I'll still treat it on a case by case basis, but yea, the average age of someone reading The Escapist is like 25-34, so if by that point you can't discuss something without making an ass of yourself, then you're probably not gonna fit in our community.

With all that said, people do seem to forget forums are private and by that nature, free speech isn't a thing on these things. It's a privilege to speak on a private forum, or any private setting. Some moderators take that too far to do exactly what I said, remove anyone they disagree with, but if you want a true discussion forum with people from all different backgrounds and ideals, then you're probably not going to run a forum that way.

I more or less agree with you, I just like to think about the fact that people have different standards of civility, so someone who may be being uncivil in our eyes may just be from a country or culture that is just less polite than ours, so when they say something which to us can seem uncivil they're just being forceful. I do think expecting everyone to uphold coastal american social justice informed standards of civility when operating a forum that anyone from around the world can join in is a little silly, for example. And no of course you still have the right to do such a thing, just, you don't have to. This is where I come from with this subject.


To give you a more concrete example, there was this AI on twitter that was parsing tweets for examples of hate-speech and the AI discovered that on average black people used the most hate speech, but the AI doesn't take into account the fact that in certain youth cultures words which the AI is programmed to see as hate-speech are actually just common parlance. That the person who is uttering hate-speech is doing so in an actually civil manner, simply because it's in the context of a culture that deems specific forms of profanity and homophobia civil.

This is kind of the issue with moderating. You need to know a lot more things, some of which it's very hard to glean from a post, before you can genuinely decipher the intent of a poster as being that of a troll or of a genuinely hateful person, and not that of someone who just communicates differently than you or I do (or that we think anyone should). Too often someone who thinks "well, nobody SHOULD have such a culture where these things are seen as civil and normal!" takes it upon themselves to right the world and that's just flat out abuse of power and doesn't work for the sake of the forum or of anyone really other than that person's virtue status among his clique.

 

[Saelune]

I'm not gonna join until they make avatars big.

Avatars are big now.

Saelune showed up briefly, but I think she deleted her account

That was an imposter. Or at least, the first one was. We banned and deleted the account.

---

Speaking of... if anyone else here sees an imposter, that isn't them, posting under their name on the new forum, please let us know on this forum (since your identity is essentially verified on this forum). We'll deal with the intruder. And don't worry, you'll still get to use your username, it won't be stolen forever.

Imagine being so obsessed with someone you impersonate them on an internet forum. Christ. Good thing you all caught that!

I caught it, cause ya know, it was not me. And yes, a fair number of people are weirdly obsessed with me.

I'm not gonna join until they make avatars big.

Avatars are big now.

Saelune showed up briefly, but I think she deleted her account

That was an imposter. Or at least, the first one was. We banned and deleted the account.

---

Speaking of... if anyone else here sees an imposter, that isn't them, posting under their name on the new forum, please let us know on this forum (since your identity is essentially verified on this forum). We'll deal with the intruder. And don't worry, you'll still get to use your username, it won't be stolen forever.

Imagine being so obsessed with someone you impersonate them on an internet forum. Christ. Good thing you all caught that!

You can still see the impostor being quoted here:
https://forums.escapistmagazine.com/threads/.20/post-90

And yeah, reading over it again, something definitely seems 'off' about that post. Like someone was trying their best impersonation routine, but not getting it quite right. (Does Saelune even play Minecraft? First I've heard of that)

I do play and love MC, but it is far from my favorite game. I thought it was more common knowledge I love Morrowind. Or atleast go with Skyrim maybe?

I'm not gonna join until they make avatars big.

Avatars are big now.

Saelune showed up briefly, but I think she deleted her account

That was an imposter. Or at least, the first one was. We banned and deleted the account.

---

Speaking of... if anyone else here sees an imposter, that isn't them, posting under their name on the new forum, please let us know on this forum (since your identity is essentially verified on this forum). We'll deal with the intruder. And don't worry, you'll still get to use your username, it won't be stolen forever.

Imagine being so obsessed with someone you impersonate them on an internet forum. Christ. Good thing you all caught that!

You can still see the impostor being quoted here:
https://forums.escapistmagazine.com/threads/.20/post-90

And yeah, reading over it again, something definitely seems 'off' about that post. Like someone was trying their best impersonation routine, but not getting it quite right. (Does Saelune even play Minecraft? First I've heard of that)

It was probably a right winger who tried to smear Saelune in being associated with a bad game.

No doubt it was probably someone from that discord. I do wonder their overall intent though. Was it just to see if they could pass as me? Would they have eventually tried to besmirch me by trying to become an increasingly erratic parody of me? Or would they have just stopped there? I have no idea.

Whoever it was though, that was a horrible line to cross, and they are even more pathetic than however I probably thought they were before.

 

[Saelune]

So the thing with moderation, at least for me, is that as long as things stay civil and people aren't making personal attacks, or threats, or you know, saying very clearly obvious things that you shouldn't say, I leave it alone.

I think civil discourse has really taken a hit from social media and people not being able to discuss different ideas without getting dogpiled or attacked. That's where Kyle and I very much disagreed with one another, because he wanted to literally "teach" people to think the right way, which is always going to take you down a path of people thinking "you're better than them and they're wrong because I'm always right".

That's not how you moderate a discussion, and if you're going to have a forum, people need to be able to speak their mind. But it's a private forum, and we make the rules, so technically, yes. If I don't like something you say I can sure as hell ban you for whatever reason I want and there's nothing you're going to do about it, but if I do that then what's the point of having a forum unless you just want it to be an echo chamber.

I don't step in until things either are taken too far, or people make a personal threat, or insult against someone because that shows me they're incapable of having a civil discussion and that's not the kind of people I want in this community. I'll still treat it on a case by case basis, but yea, the average age of someone reading The Escapist is like 25-34, so if by that point you can't discuss something without making an ass of yourself, then you're probably not gonna fit in our community.

With all that said, people do seem to forget forums are private and by that nature, free speech isn't a thing on these things. It's a privilege to speak on a private forum, or any private setting. Some moderators take that too far to do exactly what I said, remove anyone they disagree with, but if you want a true discussion forum with people from all different backgrounds and ideals, then you're probably not going to run a forum that way.

At this point in this forum's life history, I think it's safe to say that every possible approach to moderation has been tried, by different consecutive administrations, with varying degrees of success (or sometimes no success at all).

As you say, we've had the jackbooted and ironfisted approach with the likes of Kyle and other predecessors. That didn't work for the reasons you mentioned; it becomes too oppressive, the userbase is trimmed ruthlessly, and it leads to an echo chamber.

But we've also had your approach as well. The "please be civil" / "no personal attacks" / "don't be a jerk" approach, where everything else is fair game.
The problem with this - and we've seen this manifest itself time and time again - is that certain users have developed ways of getting around this. In particular, through the use of extreme and excessive passive-aggressiveness.

The comment has been made, by many a user, that the passive-aggressiveness that permeates here, is actually more annoying and more off-putting than just letting everyone jump straight to full-blown insults. And with the way the rules are worded, and the way the passive-aggressiveness is usually crafted, it often flies under the radar most of the time.

I think your approach to moderation is one of the better ones, but please keep in mind the pitfalls that have befallen previous site admins. The passive-aggression on this forum often seems to take them by surprise.

I've seen that plenty too. It's pretty easy to tell when someone isn't engaging in good faith, and that will be taken into account when moderating. Some of it folks are just going to have to deal with obviously if they're not overstepping our rules.

Either way, I've had a lot of success with the YouTube community, of all places, in cultivating a more positive community just by being involved in discussions and setting the tone of our community threads there. Even on the website I think we've mostly accomplished this by kicking out the bad actors swiftly and giving room for reasonable people to share their voice.

Hell, the conversation on the first Slightly Civil War was actually really clean and productive which was a nice big surprise this week. Long as we set the right tone, I think we'll be fine.

I'd prefer we don't become anything like ResetEra haha.

Just remember, civility is not about being polite to Nazi ideology, it is about not condoning Nazi ideology.

And do not be a school principal about it either. Punish the bullies, rather than waiting for the bullied to fight back then punishing them for standing up for themselves.

 

[gsilver]

I'm not deeply into this board, so while I can't comment too much on some of the more infamous cases, I have occasionally clicked on users who got banned, and some of the posts didn't even seem that bad to me. Worth a delete and a warning via PM? Probably, but there seemed to be a lot of banned users around here, way more than other forums.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I'm not deeply into this board, so while I can't comment too much on some of the more infamous cases, I have occasionally clicked on users who got banned, and some of the posts didn't even seem that bad to me. Worth a delete and a warning via PM? Probably, but there seemed to be a lot of banned users around here, way more than other forums.

Most times it is "just" a warning. But those stack, and 8 equals a ban.

 

[Trunkage]

I'm not deeply into this board, so while I can't comment too much on some of the more infamous cases, I have occasionally clicked on users who got banned, and some of the posts didn't even seem that bad to me. Worth a delete and a warning via PM? Probably, but there seemed to be a lot of banned users around here, way more than other forums.

There was a time here when minor infractions didn't get removed after a set period. I have one feom a while ago and I dont know how and when or even if it's going to be removed

So a bunch of minor infractions over many years lead to bannings. Ezekiel was the most recent example

 

[Thaluikhain]

Where at all, in any of my statements, did I ever indicate that civility was about being polite to "Nazi ideology". Why is that even something you felt the need to remind me of?

Not wanting to speak for Saelune, but I myself saw a potential problem before here:

saying very clearly obvious things that you shouldn't say

What does "clearly obvious" mean? Any number of people have any number of ideas about that. We'd not need moderators to enforce rules if everyone agreed on the rules in the first place, after all.

If you want it clearly stated, anyone that comes into our forums spouting Nazi ideology is gonna get banned on the spot. But we're also not going to just label people Nazis or alt-right, or SJWs or whatever other term is now a thing in popular culture. I'm not allowing any of that garbage. Zero tolerance for it.

So, for example, I can spout almost but not quite Nazi ideology and that's fine as long as I barely stay on this side of the line, but should Saelune call me a Nazi they get in trouble?

Now, I'm not saying that to be petty, that sort of thing was a problem on the forums in the old days and just wasn't really addressed properly. For that matter, the alt-right hides behind rules of civility all over. That's not to say I suspect you personally, or the Escapist of supporting or ignoring them, just that it's an ongoing issue and I'm not at all surprised to see people skeptical about how this will turn out.

 

[Saelune]

Where at all, in any of my statements, did I ever indicate that civility was about being polite to "Nazi ideology". Why is that even something you felt the need to remind me of?

Not wanting to speak for Saelune, but I myself saw a potential problem before here:

saying very clearly obvious things that you shouldn't say

What does "clearly obvious" mean? Any number of people have any number of ideas about that. We'd not need moderators to enforce rules if everyone agreed on the rules in the first place, after all. Hug

If you want it clearly stated, anyone that comes into our forums spouting Nazi ideology is gonna get banned on the spot. But we're also not going to just label people Nazis or alt-right, or SJWs or whatever other term is now a thing in popular culture. I'm not allowing any of that garbage. Zero tolerance for it.

So, for example, I can spout almost but not quite Nazi ideology and that's fine as long as I barely stay on this side of the line, but should Saelune call me a Nazi they get in trouble?

Now, I'm not saying that to be petty, that sort of thing was a problem on the forums in the old days and just wasn't really addressed properly. For that matter, the alt-right hides behind rules of civility all over. That's not to say I suspect you personally, or the Escapist of supporting or ignoring them, just that it's an ongoing issue and I'm not at all surprised to see people skeptical about how this will turn out.

I am not one to throw around the term ?Nazi? at people unless they?re an actual Nazi. If someone is literally coming into to the forums to promote things like genocide, or anti semistism then of course they?re getting the boot. The same goes for people being hateful, racist, whatever. I have no tolerance for it.

You?re taking what I?m saying and assuming that we?re gonna let people straddle the line on those things, and I?m categorically telling you that people that do that sort of thing on our forums aren?t gonna be allowed to do it.

I?ve ran my own communities for 10+ years, and I?ve moderated all of them, and I?ve never had a community overrun with literal Nazis or really, assholes in general.

I don?t put up with it, and so the people worried about our current 3 strikes your out system shouldn?t be worried about it if they want the forums to stay friendly and clean. We?re not gonna police everyone, and if there?s someone doing bad shit, they?re gonna be reported, and we?re gonna take care of it.

The Lunatic. The Lunatic is a Nazi but it took for fucking ever for them to finally be banned for it.

I said what I said because of all the people on here who have done everything short of outright praising Hitler and not getting punished for it. Because of all the people advocating for white supremacy and anti-LGBT and anti-women views getting a pass and everyone pointing it out being put down or worse for it.

Literally, see the problem is, they know that. So they use dog whistles to do it. They use attempts at subtly and vague stand-ins to dance around the rules of what counts as bigotry, but you and I and everyone else knows.

I HOPE you prove me wrong, I sincerely do. No, seriously, please prove me wrong! I WANT my cynicism and doubt to be wrong, I WANT the Escapist to thrive again, I WANT things to be great! I would not keep coming back otherwise.

I just want to know you have heard my concerns and actually are taking them into consideration.

 

[Drathnoxis]

The Lunatic. The Lunatic is a Nazi but it took for fucking ever for them to finally be banned for it.

Lunatic was banned before Nick even made an account here. Let's give him a chance to prove himself and not drag up baggage from before his time.

 

[Red Sentinel]

The Lunatic. The Lunatic is a Nazi but it took for fucking ever for them to finally be banned for it.

Lunatic was banned before Nick even made an account here. Let's give him a chance to prove himself and not drag up baggage from before his time.

This thread is literally about letting Lunatic (and everyone else) back in again.

People have a right to be concerned.

 

[McElroy]

I guess it's all fine and cool to bring up some "concerns", but those that were once banned can't exactly defend themselves, now can they?

 

[Signa]

The Lunatic. The Lunatic is a Nazi but it took for fucking ever for them to finally be banned for it.

Lunatic was banned before Nick even made an account here. Let's give him a chance to prove himself and not drag up baggage from before his time.

This thread is literally about letting Lunatic (and everyone else) back in again.

People have a right to be concerned.

We're not letting "everyone" back in. The current mods are informing me of folks that really shouldn't be let back in for a variety of reasons. I've heard enough about some folks to know they're not getting back in. We're just talking smaller infractions here, and again, it's a case by case basis.

Just so you're clear here, Nick, "Nazi" is a word that's being thrown around at those that aren't allowed to defend themselves, because some people here are not willing to ignore or engage with them. I've been in a Discord server with a bunch of these Escapist pariahs for over two years now, and not one has been seen spouting national socialist ideals, or even white supremacist ideals. Not even in private with others who have been forced out or wronged by this community for not agreeing with everything that's said.

Skipping over the 5 or so ranty topics that just popped into my head that don't really need to be addressed unprompted, I hope you're taking the information you receive with a grain of salt, from literally everyone. There's been a lot of bad blood between two sides of the community, and even the mod team, and no one that I see still posting here will ever give someone a charitable chance if they disagree with something they said. I don't envy you throwing yourself into the middle of it all, and I hope they don't tear you apart. From what I've seen while I occasionally lurk, you're an actually cool dude that's probably going to bow to the pressure from the very loud, obnoxious people still posting here, still making participation in this community impossible if you're not already part of the in-group. I'd like to join your V2 forums, and get a fresh start, since I've been related to this community for a third of my life, but the lack of openness and welcoming I've seen will prevent that. If this is to be the fresh start you want it to be, everyone should be let back in so you can ban the ones that actually misbehave, instead of letting that bad blood get in the way all over again.

Good luck out there.

 

[Saelune]

I guess it's all fine and cool to bring up some "concerns", but those that were once banned can't exactly defend themselves, now can they?

They had their entire time before being banned to prove they do not deserve to be banned.

The Lunatic. The Lunatic is a Nazi but it took for fucking ever for them to finally be banned for it.

Lunatic was banned before Nick even made an account here. Let's give him a chance to prove himself and not drag up baggage from before his time.

This thread is literally about letting Lunatic (and everyone else) back in again.

People have a right to be concerned.

We're not letting "everyone" back in. The current mods are informing me of folks that really shouldn't be let back in for a variety of reasons. I've heard enough about some folks to know they're not getting back in. We're just talking smaller infractions here, and again, it's a case by case basis.

Just so you're clear here, Nick, "Nazi" is a word that's being thrown around at those that aren't allowed to defend themselves, because some people here are not willing to ignore or engage with them. I've been in a Discord server with a bunch of these Escapist pariahs for over two years now, and not one has been seen spouting national socialist ideals, or even white supremacist ideals. Not even in private with others who have been forced out or wronged by this community for not agreeing with everything that's said.

Skipping over the 5 or so ranty topics that just popped into my head that don't really need to be addressed unprompted, I hope you're taking the information you receive with a grain of salt, from literally everyone. There's been a lot of bad blood between two sides of the community, and even the mod team, and no one that I see still posting here will ever give someone a charitable chance if they disagree with something they said. I don't envy you throwing yourself into the middle of it all, and I hope they don't tear you apart. From what I've seen while I occasionally lurk, you're an actually cool dude that's probably going to bow to the pressure from the very loud, obnoxious people still posting here, still making participation in this community impossible if you're not already part of the in-group. I'd like to join your V2 forums, and get a fresh start, since I've been related to this community for a third of my life, but the lack of openness and welcoming I've seen will prevent that. If this is to be the fresh start you want it to be, everyone should be let back in so you can ban the ones that actually misbehave, instead of letting that bad blood get in the way all over again.

Good luck out there.

Nazi is a word to describe White Supremacists like The Lunatic who was blatantly racist against black people. They had their chance to prove they were not a Nazi for the many years they were here prior to being banned.