About the Code of Conduct... Discuss!

Perhaps I should've specified European countries in my rather more serious than taken post. Done here. =9[.]9=

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Raycheetah wrote:

Perhaps I should've specified European countries in my rather more serious than taken post.

I took it seriously, just saw a hole in the logic that I could pursue.

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Raycheetah wrote:

Done here. =9[.]9=

I like that face, Fw/eTW.

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Raycheetah wrote:

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bwam wrote:

I don't know how something "blow[ing] up" would be detrimental for their product or their company. But 10c might not like it bc of Beijing, right? But GGG hasn't officially said. :P

Well, short of pr0n or other legally actionable posts, actual "hate speech" (however that may be defined) can be problematic for GGG, Tencent or no. People are being jailed in some countries for publicly stating their personal opinions; should such opinions show up on the PoE forum, if those countries should catch wind, it might cramp GGG's business in those countries. ='[.]'=

So there's a coronavirus thread here. Has been up for sometime, so the mods evidently have no issue with it. I posted there a news article (mainstream news site, confirmed by the German govt. and plenty of other news, etc.) about how the US govt. is trying to poach scientists from Germany who're developing a vaccine for the virus so as to have it made exclusively American.

BAM. Post Removed. Reason - Violates CoC, particularly "Discuss inflammatory topics, such as Politics or Religion" (aka the point of this thread). A story concerning the coronavirus, on a coronavirus thread, which the mods haven't taken down.

And meanwhile someone else's completely unsubstantiated comment there about how the Russians have supposedly already developed a vaccine was left up.

Care to explain how this CoC system works well now? Cos it seems to me that mods just have their heads up their asses.

Outlawing topics as broad as 'politics' isn't the ideal situation, but gamers are a fairly insular and belligerent group, the POE forum community no exception. So encouraging them to spend a bit less time searching for any opportunity to launch into a rant or show off how dismissive they can be of others does seem like it has been, on balance, a positive change.

It is what it is. I enjoyed the discussion. But, the rules are set by GGG and they own the forums and get to do what they want.

As a final thought, if you look at the All Hail President Trump thread please note that I had the last word! :-) hehehe

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Turtledove wrote:

It is what it is. I enjoyed the discussion. But, the rules are set by GGG and they own the forums and get to do what they want.

Using the "it's their space" argument is exactly what allows, for example, large social media companies to silence, skew and manipulate opinion as befits them. Censorship is still censorship, and it's harmful no matter who does it. Fact of the matter is that almost the ENTIRE internet is a private space, which means that if this argument is allowed to stand unquestioned, it could potentially apply to almost all online spaces. There would be no space to discuss banned ideas (and that doesn't have to mean just extreme or dangerous ones, could be even ordinary political discussions - after all, govts. have a vested interest in suppressing that, and/or corporate CEO's have their ideological preferences). You'd only ever be able to talk about such things at home, and that's assuming technology doesn't creep ever further into managing that space as well. Besides, even then a lot of these things don't even have any power if they can't get out into the public.

So no, there aren't plenty of alternatives, because the exact same argument you made can apply to the entire internet. It's just a matter of whether each of those spaces' owners decides to exercise their "right" to censor or not.

If there was some sort of world commons, then maybe this could be okay. But there isn't. Private spaces dominate our lives, and are also increasingly highly concentrated, and if they get a free pass to be as restrictive as they want, then we're going to be left with little in the way of open conversations at all. And, insidiously, that state of affairs is conducive to them, and govt., gaining even greater control over us as well.

In addition, private fora are arguably even worse places to give this sort of deference to. At least (democratic) govts. are answerable to their people, but private companies have to care about no one's opinion on their policies apart from their board and (major) shareholders.

Oh, and guess which spaces get ever more popular when the heavy hand of censorship gets ever more restrictive across ever more of the regular web? The few Wild West spaces of the internet aka 4chan and its ilk. This kind of approach is actually good for them, and they're happy to revel in activity of every kind, including the dangerous kind. But they'll be the only spaces left, even among those who would not normally indulge in those kinds of places.

Been here for a VERY VERY long time... pretty active to me.

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Exile009 wrote:

Using the "it's their space" argument is exactly what allows, for example, large social media companies to silence, skew and manipulate opinion as befits them. Censorship is still censorship, and it's harmful no matter who does it.

It's also what allows organisations to have codes of conduct at all.

I mean if companies weren't to be allowed to control speech in their spaces, then we'd get absurd situations where POE could have a feedback forum, someone posts an irrelevant spiel about their government in there, and, what, GGG are just supposed to...not do anything about it? Are they obligated to leave that be?

Concerns about the influence of huge media companies are fine, of course, but abstracting out a discussion about one videogame company's product forum to that level isn't exactly helpful.

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Exile009 wrote:

So no, there aren't plenty of alternatives, because the exact same argument you made can apply to the entire internet.

The latter is not a contradiction of the former, though? The fact that you can apply this argument all over the place hasn't prevented there being plenty of places on the internet where politics and religion are regularly discussed.

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GusTheCrocodile wrote:

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Exile009 wrote:

Using the "it's their space" argument is exactly what allows, for example, large social media companies to silence, skew and manipulate opinion as befits them. Censorship is still censorship, and it's harmful no matter who does it.

It's also what allows organisations to have codes of conduct at all.

I mean if companies weren't to be allowed to control speech in their spaces, then we'd get absurd situations where POE could have a feedback forum, someone posts an irrelevant spiel about their government in there, and, what, GGG are just supposed to...not do anything about it? Are they obligated to leave that be?

You seem to think I'm arguing for a completely unrestricted online space. Understandable I suppose, since I've mostly argued against what restrictions we have right now. But no, I'm not. I'm arguing against the deference given to spaces to dictatorially decide their restrictions however they please. My point over there was to counter the idea that restrictions should simply be accepted, no questions asked. Even a public square has some restrictions, but they're (hopefully) minimal and widely agreed upon. I don't see why that shouldn't be the case more widely, and this retreat into the ownership excuse is just a lazy copout imo (btw, technically govts. often have 'eminent domain' rights, which does allow them to claim ownership of whatever they'd like - if they dared to). I'm arguing against the unquestioned acceptance of authoritarian fiat, whether it comes from a public OR private entity.

The way it sounds, it sounds like you think I'm arguing for pure chaos i.e. everything goes. I'm not. Look at the purpose of this thread. We can discuss what the CoC should be till the cows come home, is GGG gonna change it at all (even if there happens to emerge widespread agreement on something)? Nope. Hell, even if they did, it'd be seen as a magnanimous gesture on their part - the masters indulging their subjects - rather than a basic expectation. That doesn't sound like a real community at all, more a kingdom.

And I'm saying that should not dismissed as okay. That isn't what community is about. Threads like this ought to be frequent, and impactful. They ought to matter. Of course as things stand GGG isn't legally obligated to pay them any mind, but what worries me more is how many people seem content to just let that fact go, using this line of argument.

On this space, and so many others...

And this isn't merely about politics and religion. It's more fundamentally about an essentially authoritarian attitude towards moderation and codes of conduct in general, and that's far more common. Including in spaces that are for politics and religion. There's very few spaces where moderation even tries to be a true community endeavor.

Which is why the people who do it are so often hated. We even occasionally see people posting comments asking for empathy because those individuals recognize that fact - that being a mod is often a thankless task that often gets you roundly despised (sometimes justly, other times not). But we never bother asking why it has to be that way. Why are mods often disliked? Not just by the specific people they censor, but even by a lot of the bystanders. It's (at least partly) because they usually don't represent the community will. Look at GGG's much-loved community manager, for example - she's the exception, not the norm. A lot of game's community managers eat a lot of shit, because the community doesn't accept them. Yet Bex has been fairly popular through good times and bad, often unmoored to whether the current league itself is widely liked or not. People are more understanding of her, and Chris, because they forged a relationship with said community. But that was their own initiative - they could've chosen to be like some of those other unpopular community leaders who just serve as mouthpieces for their organization. They could've done nothing to gain approval - they did because they themselves chose to. And they could always choose to change their mind on that one day. The mods of this forum are much the same, 'cept they haven't already got that cachet cos they made that alternate choice. It shouldn't even be a choice. Right now we depend on the masters to indulge us - and I'm simply saying that should not be the nature of the relationship.