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 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 Whirlwind wrote:
Why would people object to playing games at a school?

Don't ask me, and especially don't ask me here .
If you want the link:
https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/763061.page#10133130
(The SJW part and subsequent discussion has been removed by the mods, but imagine if it had not happened in the first place because SJW was a banned expression. So much of value would have been LOST! That's the kind of discussion we apparently need to protect by allowing the SJW expression...)


(What are PHB and DMG???)

Or they could've used the yellow triangle of friendship, pointed out the error, and gone on their way rather then.. You know, taking a topic off-topic, continuing against moderator results, and overall making a ton of fuss that generally wasn't even close to being on topic.

Baron, you do me a great injustice, sir . Only 1% of my posts are in OT (some sections you can't see as they're moderator-only, etc, so I'm not sure how these show up )

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 RiTides wrote:

But the rest of the site is the same (politics has Always been off limits there), so the scenarios people are asking about, or the selective enforcement of tighter rules, are not something we're planning to do at all. Business as usual, talking miniatures - just no politics threads in OT. Simple

At first I wondered if you and I were on the same site, but then I checked and you mostly post in the crunch and OT sections, so... yeah...

Come on down to 40k Background sometime (particularly if other sites are running FSM articles, it's a thread deletion marathon). Or 40k General. Or OT Video Games.

In sane times, you're right, there can be a division of subjects, but these are hardly sane times.

What about the Anita Sarkeesian gets a spot at the convention one we had in Dakka discussions. It was about the hobby during the ban on politics. It was an absolute gakfest of flaming and downright abuse of rule #1, it got shut down because it became 'too political' in the end. I mean the whole thing started off political and gak, but only got closed down when the side showed up arguing the hobby has always been political. Where do you draw the line on this sort of thing.

Baron has a point about sane times, I can't remember a time the hobby 'became' this overtly political about the most minor of things.

Bringing up terms like SJW instantly turns things political, might be better to start adding terms like that to the filter as they are used for no other purpose.

My 2 cents, I like the political parts of off topic, I kinda fell out of the hobby because of family issues and the off topic kept me in the loop and made me browse other parts of Dakka. It had some great quality posters lile Sebster and LoH who made some great posts, its sad it went the way of the dodo.

 RiTides wrote:
Baron, you do me a great injustice, sir . Only 1% of my posts are in OT (some sections you can't see as they're moderator-only, etc, so I'm not sure how these show up )

My main point still stands though, that we have very different posting habits, and where you would, indeed see little change, I on the other hand would see quite the shake up.

Though, as BrookM says, it's only been two days, and has not even been enforced yet in many areas I've seen. Maybe when enforcement actually starts in some places, we'll see a very different tune from the posting base. and mods who think that this is the easier path.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
Players Handbook and Dungeon Masters Guide.

Thanks!

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
Or they could've used the yellow triangle of friendship, pointed out the error, and gone on their way rather then..

Sure. "Hey mods, I'm letting you know through the yellow triangle of friendship that this guy is using the expression SJW!" "Yeah, we know, but we think this should totally be allowed, we'll only come back to it if (i.e. when) the thread has already degenerated".
They could have just used the yellow triangle of friendship, sure. Not sure why they'd do that, given it wouldn't change anything, but they could.

About fething time on the politics ban. Arm-chair political pundents can feth off to Facebook, InstaGram, Twitter, or political discussion forums. I am surprised it took this long to fething get done. The OT had become a fething cesspit.

Edit: it’s a shame about the UK discussion being lost, as I did follow that civil thread. However, if the trade off is hard stop on the fething donkey-cave posters, I will say “Fair trade, sorry.”

Let’s get back to discussion on miniatures, Star Wars movies, and gakky GW rules.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
If there are no political discussion here, how are you going to even know they are an Altrighter.

Don't worry, it's not like there needed to be any real reason to call someone that. You'd just have to not agree with certain types and they'll eagerly apply a dismissive/hateful label to you.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
Whenever a thread opens asking about the disconnect in GW artwork and model lines compared to their lore (such as asking where the women Imperial Guard models are), which is a perfectly valid topic of discussion for a toy soldiers forum, you're going to have people complaining about SJWs trying to ruin the game and how politics shouldn't be in the game etc. They'll be using veiled language and dog whistles to avoid saying it outright, much like the current problem users in the political threads but the meaning is still there.

Except 'where are female guard' is never the topic, now is it? It's always "WE NEED [You-know-what]", and I've tested the theory- all you have to do is disagree and then you're getting a barrage of insinuations that you hate women, you're some kind of bigot, etc.

There's no 'dog-whistles'. That's just a weasel-phrase that means "That person didn't say something wrong but I want them to". How people purposefully elect to misinterpret an argument is not on the speaker.

That topic gets shut down because for every "Muh SJWoowoo" there's someone who has to weigh their desire for a model toy with a heap of sociopolitical commentary, and suddenly "I disagree because I like the current lore" is on par with "Women belong in the kitchen with babies in their guts".

My opinion? Good riddance to the Politics. It was seemingly just a pit for people from all over the world to whinge about Bad-Hair Orange Man. A lot of interesting restrictions there, too- but I'll keep that to myself.

Every FLGS I've been to is pretty strict about political discussions. If you can't discuss the game without getting hyper-political, I've got a pretty strong feeling you're not getting much table time in.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 kronk wrote:
About fething time on the politics ban. Arm-chair political pundents can feth off to Facebook, InstaGram, Twitter, or political discussion forums. I am surprised it took this long to fething get done. The OT had become a fething cesspit.

This.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
Or they could've used the yellow triangle of friendship, pointed out the error, and gone on their way rather then..

Sure. "Hey mods, I'm letting you know through the yellow triangle of friendship that this guy is using the expression SJW!" "Yeah, we know, but we think this should totally be allowed, we'll only come back to it if (i.e. when) the thread has already degenerated".
They could have just used the yellow triangle of friendship, sure. Not sure why they'd do that, given it wouldn't change anything, but they could.

Yeah. One thing that's frustrating is that the mods seem incredibly reluctant to criticise individual posters, no matter how clear it is that it's one or two bad posters dragging a thread down. Yes, they'll post warnings or lock a topic for being 'heated', but don't appear to care about who was dancing around with a can of petrol and a cigarette lighter.

Like I said earlier, some people are perfectly capable of discussing toxic topics with civility, dignity, and honor. It isn't toxic topics, but the toxic posters who are incapable of that civility, no matter what the subject may be. There is already extant proof of that in this very thread. The problem isn't whether there is a ban on political discussion, the problem is that some people simply cannot abide by Rule 1 in their daily online lives.

 kronk wrote:
Let’s get back to discussion on miniatures, Star Wars movies, and gakky GW rules.

Did you miss the political/culture wars trainwrecks that the Star Wars movie threads became? Mention movie number 8 and some already start frothing at the mouth (regardless whether they think it was good or bad).

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
Did you miss the political/culture wars trainwrecks that the Star Wars movie threads became? Mention movie number 8 and some already start frothing at the mouth (regardless whether they think it was good or bad).

Discussing those movies isn't a safe bet anywhere any more. I've found that out the hard way. I'm not sure if it was the fans or the media, or just enough of both- but I've been really getting away from everything tied to Star Wars because I've seen people get into bickering matches in person and that's too much for me. My current opinion is that the movies are 'bad' but I'm not going to why any more. "I don't like them" is about all people get from me in person, and I start looking for a direction to walk.

On one hand I personally prefer a more wide open ability to discuss and I worry the contentious discussions are just going to bleed in to other conversations. However it can work, my second favorite wargaming site has a no politics religion rule and it works pretty well although there's probably a small size difference between the two. One item that's been brought up multiple times but not addressed is if you cant have a discussion about a topic then it shouldn't be in someones sig block (And I'm not just talking about the Mod other people were)

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
Whenever a thread opens asking about the disconnect in GW artwork and model lines compared to their lore (such as asking where the women Imperial Guard models are), which is a perfectly valid topic of discussion for a toy soldiers forum, you're going to have people complaining about SJWs trying to ruin the game and how politics shouldn't be in the game etc. They'll be using veiled language and dog whistles to avoid saying it outright, much like the current problem users in the political threads but the meaning is still there.

Except 'where are female guard' is never the topic, now is it? It's always "WE NEED [You-know-what]", and I've tested the theory- all you have to do is disagree and then you're getting a barrage of insinuations that you hate women, you're some kind of bigot, etc.

There's no 'dog-whistles'. That's just a weasel-phrase that means "That person didn't say something wrong but I want them to". How people purposefully elect to misinterpret an argument is not on the speaker.

That topic gets shut down because for every "Muh SJWoowoo" there's someone who has to weigh their desire for a model toy with a heap of sociopolitical commentary, and suddenly "I disagree because I like the current lore" is on par with "Women belong in the kitchen with babies in their guts".

Case in point.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
Case in point.

I think not. I think pointing out the problem with the thread devolving into a pointless argument is hardly your 'case in point'. I'm also having difficulty seeing what part of my statement would rub you the wrong way.

This is where I get to say "Case in point".

I did some tidying in this thread and removed the rather horrible off-topic back and forth sniping that does NOT belong here.

I would also like to remind ALL participants here that rule #1, being polite, is NOT optional.

 Disciple of Fate wrote:


My 2 cents, I like the political parts of off topic, I kinda fell out of the hobby because of family issues and the off topic kept me in the loop and made me browse other parts of Dakka. It had some great quality posters lile Sebster and LoH who made some great posts, its sad it went the way of the dodo.

Yeah, I somewhat feel that way as well. I originally lived almost exclusively in the 40k background and general boards here on Dakka, but slowly migrated to the OT board over time, having been drawn in by threads over Ukraine and Crimea. I eventually got burned out on posting in 40k background (I almost exclusively posted in OT for the past year or so), but I kept visiting Dakka because of interesting discussions in OT, which also kept me still reading the other boards. For all the times that political and religious threads in OT became cesspits, there were also times when there was a civil, intelligent, thought-provoking and highly enjoyable discussion going on (whether the debate was intelligent or toxic usually depended on the presence or absence of individual posters). Over the years, Dakka OT has definitely helped shape the way I think and reason, it has helped me improve my debating skills, it has learned me lots of things about a wide variety of subjects (though mostly related to UK and especially US politics and society) and all-around I think it has been important in my development and made me a better person. And if not, than it has at least massively improved my English language skills. All my friends are wondering how I got so good at it.

That being said, I do think this a chance for the better. Political and religious threads in OT often also brought out the worst in people, including me at times (OT threads about Crimea or US-Russia relations where the only places where I got warnings and bans). Banning politics removes the biggest source of toxicity on this forum, but it also bans some engaging discussion, which is probably one of the reasons why the mods took so long to make this decision. But if the mods show a bit of leniency (regarding politics ban, not regarding other rule violations) in some threads, I think we can still have plenty of engaging discussion about subjects that are (partially) political but generally a bit less toxic (such as the ISIS thread or the F-35 thread) than US or UK politics are in general. And otherwise I guess I will just migrate back to 40k Background

Adeptus Doritos wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
Case in point.

I think not. I think pointing out the problem with the thread devolving into a pointless argument is hardly your 'case in point'. I'm also having difficulty seeing what part of my statement would rub you the wrong way.

This is where I get to say "Case in point".

So you barging into the thread and responding to my post about how some people cannot civilly discuss issues which are related to gaming but are still political, such as representation in gaming media, by strawmanning the argument:

Except 'where are female guard' is never the topic, now is it? It's always "WE NEED [You-know-what]"...

then moving on to deny that dog-whistles exist:

There's no 'dog-whistles'. That's just a weasel-phrase that means "That person didn't say something wrong but I want them to".

and capping it off with this:

That topic gets shut down because for every "Muh SJWoowoo" there's someone who has to weigh their desire for a model toy with a heap of sociopolitical commentary

where, in response to a post about how discussing more representation in media is a sociopolitical topic but also one that is important to have due to the impact discussing such issues can have on the environment of the hobby, you decry people posting sociopolitical commentary and equate it to the people who attack other posters with terms like SJW in order to silence their criticism.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
So you barging into the thread and responding to my post about how some people cannot civilly discuss issues which are related to gaming but are still political, such as representation in gaming media, by strawmanning the argument:

Except 'where are female guard' is never the topic, now is it? It's always "WE NEED [You-know-what]"...

I mean, I'm not wrong. Plenty of people here have seen it. And I think you saw how I pointed out that there were two sides of the argument.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
then moving on to deny that dog-whistles exist:

There's no 'dog-whistles'. That's just a weasel-phrase that means "That person didn't say something wrong but I want them to".

'Dog Whistles' are most of the time exactly what I've said. Yes, of course there are people who'll use not-so-clever code to reference certain things, but I believe in your case you're trying to say "He's actually being a bigot, if you twist his words". I don't think you have any right to determine someone else's intent. It's a cheap way of saying exactly what I said- "He didn't say that but I want him to".

Anything else?

Because you seriously jumped right back into doing the exact thing that gets threads locked and shut down. Like, I'm almost sure you had this copy/pasted ready to go.

Self-awareness. I'm really working on mine, and I recommend you doing the same.

 Elemental wrote:
Yeah. One thing that's frustrating is that the mods seem incredibly reluctant to criticise individual posters, no matter how clear it is that it's one or two bad posters dragging a thread down.

Honestly, the magic of "completely opaque moderation" is that you don't know if they do. Maybe that person got a temporary ban because of their message. Just that they took a week of debating what was the appropriate sanction, sent them a PM, and noone was ever aware that they were banned. Which makes people believe that if they act the same way, they won't be banned. Which leads to more people acting this way.

 kronk wrote:
About fething time on the politics ban. Arm-chair political pundents can feth off to Facebook, InstaGram, Twitter, or political discussion forums. I am surprised it took this long to fething get done. The OT had become a fething cesspit.

Can you not see however that this type of language can escalate tensions when there doesn't have to be. The above statement is overly combative and although may not break any rules raises the temperature of any discussion. Barring I disagree with the statement and that we should all be "armchair political pundents" all the time, the above statement is so broad that anyone that talks about politics could be deemed to need to "feth off".

You could have quite easily stated instead:-

"It is my view that political discussions are better discussed in wider forums, such as Facebook, instagram or twitter rather than on this site. Those that deliberately provoke unnecessary tensions through personalised or generalised attacks could be better dealt with there".

You would be saying the same thing but people are likely to respect that wording much more and it won't escalate tensions by taking a scattergun when really you need a scalpel to remove the tumour. If someone on the other side bites back because they are 'hit' by the scatter gun approach and they respond likewise then the temperature increases again; it repeats until most people are in a tit-for-tat argument/row rather than ahead debate.

This ends up with situation we are in now where mods feel that have to close the topics. The only people that win are thoe the deliberately want to troll or cause eruptions and the disruption that causes to everyone.

 Whirlwind wrote:

 Hordini wrote:
For anyone interested, I've started a thread in the Wasteland for Dakka political refugees here.

I don't think this will work, because there is no admin, no moderators and so forth. It is also has a reputation apparently. Additionally for it really to get a head of steam it will need an active sticky link from dakka (and back again) to allow both to support each other. I've asked this but it's getting no response?

I don't think anyone is really asking for such an uncontrolled environment. Just a place where heated debates can happen where there is protection against abuse. Sometimes I think the two can be easily confused because people have different points of view and people can become very uncomfortable when they have to shine a spotlight not heir views that they don't want to uncover.

There actually is an admin and a few mods there, and there has been at least one occasion where a member was banned.

 Hordini wrote:


There actually is an admin and a few mods there, and there has been at least one occasion where a member was banned.

Ah OK just responded to your other post. I got the impression following the conversations that there was no one left (just a caretaker type position!)

 Whirlwind wrote:

 Hordini wrote:


There actually is an admin and a few mods there, and there has been at least one occasion where a member was banned.

Ah OK just responded to your other post. I got the impression following the conversations that there was no one left (just a caretaker type position!)

Yeah, if the site starts getting significantly more traffic, we might be able to convince some of them to come back.

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
So you barging into the thread and responding to my post about how some people cannot civilly discuss issues which are related to gaming but are still political, such as representation in gaming media, by strawmanning the argument:

Except 'where are female guard' is never the topic, now is it? It's always "WE NEED [You-know-what]"...

I mean, I'm not wrong. Plenty of people here have seen it. And I think you saw how I pointed out that there were two sides of the argument.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
then moving on to deny that dog-whistles exist:

There's no 'dog-whistles'. That's just a weasel-phrase that means "That person didn't say something wrong but I want them to".

'Dog Whistles' are most of the time exactly what I've said. Yes, of course there are people who'll use not-so-clever code to reference certain things, but I believe in your case you're trying to say "He's actually being a bigot, if you twist his words". I don't think you have any right to determine someone else's intent. It's a cheap way of saying exactly what I said- "He didn't say that but I want him to".

Anything else?

Because you seriously jumped right back into doing the exact thing that gets threads locked and shut down. Like, I'm almost sure you had this copy/pasted ready to go.

Self-awareness. I'm really working on mine, and I recommend you doing the same.

I think part of the problem is that the mods deleted your posts where you explained yourself (and, again, I owe you an apology for getting you confused with someone else)

We'd like to thank Mod BrookM for having made the situation WORSE rather than BETTER.



Ok, politics folks, we're packing the old Politics thread off to HERE:

http://otzone.proboards.com/thread/7450/na-poltiics-general?page=1&scrollTo=126665

Come on down!

Honestly I can see why the mods would want to shut down the thread and ban politics and religion.

Though they now have to be very careful because as was seen in the past if there is not a united front definition (which was heavily lacking before the ban and in all honesty seems like it still is) on what is and is not okay it will go downhill very quickly.

In the end I can see this either working out well or creating much more work than what the pre-ban was, not much in between.

I still have no idea what the rational for not banning the use of inflammatory expressions like “SJW” is. Got sanctions for using inflammatory language, notably when I criticized Saudi Arabia for “spewing hate”, but somehow “SJW” is… not inflammatory enough? Or, the kind of inflammatory that Dakka mods think is okay? Not sure.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
I still have no idea what the rational for not banning the use of inflammatory expressions like “SJW” is. Got sanctions for using inflammatory language, notably when I criticized Saudi Arabia for “spewing hate”, but somehow “SJW” is… not inflammatory enough? Or, the kind of inflammatory that Dakka mods think is okay? Not sure.

SJW doesn't have to be inflammatory. In some cases it's an apt description.

UK politics thread moved to HERE

http://otzone.proboards.com/thread/7451/uk-eu-politics-general?page=1&scrollTo=126670

Mods, can we get some official links to these someplace so that them what want's to knows?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Hordini wrote:

SJW doesn't have to be inflammatory. In some cases it's an apt description.

Hord, given my views on tits, I'm almost the opposite of a SJW and I get called that on occasion.

 Hordini wrote:
SJW doesn't have to be inflammatory. In some cases it's an apt description.

It is always inflammatory, even when it's an apt description.

 Elemental wrote:

Yeah. One thing that's frustrating is that the mods seem incredibly reluctant to criticise individual posters, no matter how clear it is that it's one or two bad posters dragging a thread down. Yes, they'll post warnings or lock a topic for being 'heated', but don't appear to care about who was dancing around with a can of petrol and a cigarette lighter.

As has been pointed out above, a lot of moderation is carried out privately. But it also often depends on the situation. If someone gakposts in the thread, and someone reports it rather than escalating it so that we can deal with that one poster and that one post, we'll generally do that. If everyone else in the thread has promptly run around throwing the furniture on top of the burning heap, it's more likely to wind up with a general warning to the thread or a threadlock, because by that point who started the fire is largely irrelevant. It's up to everyone to follow the rules, and 'He started it!' doesn't work as an excuse for anyone over the age of 3.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
I still have no idea what the rational for not banning the use of inflammatory expressions like “SJW” is. Got sanctions for using inflammatory language, notably when I criticized Saudi Arabia for “spewing hate”, but somehow “SJW” is… not inflammatory enough? Or, the kind of inflammatory that Dakka mods think is okay? Not sure.

The rationale is that the term itself is fine, but if it's used in an inflammatory way, then it's a problem.