It's not the politics I miss...

The recently locked thread that managed to skirt around the ToS made me realize it's definitely not the Political Discussion I miss, but people actively discussing something beyond how horrible PoE is while playing it for hours each day.

You know, the comments that actually make you think about what is being said instead of something like someone raging about HC being too OP despite them never hitting 90 or touching any of the real end game bosses.

I mean that's fair, but to play devils advocate, why should GGG have to deal with non PoE stuff anyway?

That was one of the reasons why I said that off-topic should just go away, rather than be a shell of itself when the CoC changed.

Then when the main reason was given that it was impacting employees mental health I lost all respect for the CoC/moderation in general. Simply eliminating everything you dont want to see or disagree with is arguably more unhealthy and promotes bubble culture.

But again, to be fair, is this really a GGG issue? I guess not really, its understandable, but super weak. I mean to stop a community discussion because an employee disagrees with a topic or stance, while by all other accounts the thread is moving along fine? What are you even doing?

But hey the forums are dying, and likely PoE has already seen its glory days. Maybe 4.0 will be an arpg revolution, but what we have seen this year, probably not.

I'm not looking forward to reading multiple Chris apology threads about performance, development cycle, crunch, ect...its just exhausting.

The moderator explanation makes literally no sense.

Or they would have to be charity workers that don't get payed a wage for doing their job.

The argument was analogue with a gardener complaining he has to even out the grass and his boss saying "why of course, that isn't part of your contract".

Anyway, getting to know somebody else beyond a superficial point means asking a sequence of "why" question which inevetably end up in the religious or "world-view"(=read political) fields of social conversation.

It's a quick and dirty way to stiffle your community to shallowness.

My more cynical nature would guess they wanted to save costs on moderators or put the forum moderators on in-game chat saving costs that way.

The alternative would be they actually have moderators that cant cope with social discussions and feel they have to exert their power to change it which i hope is not the case.

Peace,

-Boem-

I get the impression neither have you have been on the opposite side, like tech support or community relations. While impacting mental health sounds lame, I can see that being truthful - albeit not the primary reason/justification.

The easiest way to summarize it is that it really takes its toll having to be completely professional when irate folk are yelling and cursing at you, especially given the situation they're upset about is typically one of their own creation.

Off-topic is anything that isn't PoE related - and there are plenty of things that aren't specifically political or religious and nature that can come to mind.

And just in case it hasn't come to mind - gamers can be real pieces of shit sometimes. It's bad enough with the doxxing, but swatting can get people killed. People can go to extremes over the littlest thing, so I can see why any company would not want to invite that level of anger in the first place.

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SeCKSEgai wrote:

I get the impression neither have you have been on the opposite side, like tech support or community relations. While impacting mental health sounds lame, I can see that being truthful - albeit not the primary reason/justification.

The easiest way to summarize it is that it really takes its toll having to be completely professional when irate folk are yelling and cursing at you, especially given the situation they're upset about is typically one of their own creation.

Off-topic is anything that isn't PoE related - and there are plenty of things that aren't specifically political or religious and nature that can come to mind.

And just in case it hasn't come to mind - gamers can be real pieces of shit sometimes. It's bad enough with the doxxing, but swatting can get people killed. People can go to extremes over the littlest thing, so I can see why any company would not want to invite that level of anger in the first place.

No, it was never forum goers being hostile to GGG, or even each other really. It was simply topics that GGG employees felt strongly about personally, and made the whole situation awkward for themselves.

So a GGG employee didnt like Trump or was pro-choice, as soon as a comment or topic came up to the antheisis, they were "stressed" or whatever the fuck else.

Its actually ridiculous imo, but in the end they can do whatever they want, regardless of how absurd it sounds.

^I have talked plenty with people in customer service and ive talked with people who work in shops and if you think online anonymity makes people more vile when they "lose their marbles" to use an euphemism your sorely mistaken.

I never said the job was easy or that you don't end up taking the brunt of a rough deal on occasion or the unloading of a bad day from another person.

The problem is, if that emotionally distresses you i would argue it's not your line of work.

Thinking your going to go in customer service and never meet a bad-actor is a pipe dream and using it as argument to justify the change was poor on multiple levels.

If it was my show to run, i would either fire such a person so they can find a job better suited for them or place them in another function.
Or provide them with training required to tackle the job.

What i wouldn't do is pretend they are in the right for being emotionally threatened or discomforted for doing whats in their job description, that isn't helping anybody, not in the least the person feeling that way.

My general conviction is that i want people to be strong and capable, so removing challenges or preventing their growth is the last thing i would advocate as an argument for policy changes.

As for the off-topic part, i did specify getting to know people beyond the superficial. As in getting to know how they operate and why, you can have all kinds of small talk that don't devolve into world-view, like whats your favorite book or tv show etc etc. Your going to get to know their taste for things, just not the why part of the question which is usually when the fascinating stuff happens and the different experiences and history's tend to pop up.

Politics and religion are broad categories in my mind though, so maybe that's just based on my interpretation of the categories.

Peace,

-Boem-

edit : the moderator being politically biased was quite astounding, yes.
They would have done better to create a private account and come join the discussion and defend their ideas rather then force a ban on the topics because they felt discomfort.
It's the antithesis of a "forum".

The moderators here I am pretty sure are kids out of college that have never worked a job before. And with this gig they didn't start yet.

I'm pretty sure no one cares about the political opinion of a mod except the mod.

And they have always been blatantly partisan.