On Politics Threads and the GameDev.net Community

Can we at least ban the "politics for the sake of politics" threads? If a thread is discussing politics-in-relation-to-development, then it might have useful content. Plain politics threads are worthless and should be closed immediately.

For my part, I'd say...I probably could have just focused just on the topic and leave the smart-assery behind, but I kinda find it hard to do in the 'heat' of the moment, even if it's online. In any case, I apologize for that.

I'll probably stay away from political threads in the future for that reason, just to be on the safe side.

Yea we got pretty heated in the end there. As someone who does discuss politics a lot (I've started a couple of threads on GDNet, including the latest, so clearly I discuss a ton), I'd say it's only getting tougher and tougher to not have these threads get very heated with just the way our current political climate is.

Since y'all are opting not to ban them I can only say that most politics threads will require some pretty heavy handed moderation. I think most of us will agree that passions run pretty hot for anyone actively participating and contributing.

19 minutes ago, Nypyren said:

Can we at least ban the "politics for the sake of politics" threads? If a thread is discussing politics-in-relation-to-development, then it might have useful content. Plain politics threads are worthless and should be closed immediately.

What would you define as a "politics for the sake of politics" thread though? Is it easy to define this? I'd agree that any broad politics topic is pretty worthless, but where do you want to draw the line?

24 minutes ago, deltaKshatriya said:

What would you define as a "politics for the sake of politics" thread though? Is it easy to define this? I'd agree that any broad politics topic is pretty worthless, but where do you want to draw the line?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_know_it_when_I_see_it

13 minutes ago, Nypyren said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_know_it_when_I_see_it

Fair enough.

***removed content for being off topic***

- Khawk

This is already going the wrong way.

To me, thread topic is not the problem here, but the abuse of the rating systrm, which by the way had moderator participation last I checked.

51 minutes ago, deltaKshatriya said:

I think most of us will agree that passions run pretty hot for anyone actively participating and contributing.

This is not true for everyone. If this is true for you, that you cannot discuss politics without a degree of negative emotional response, then in my view you should not be participating in (or starting) political threads in forums not geared towards, or permissive of, that sort of heated discourse, since you will be unable to participate.

I am happy that the other threads were closed because it is virtually impossible to have any kind of productive civil discourse when absolutely everyone is allowed to participate and contribute and there are multitudes of political activists on the internet who specialize in infiltrating social networks and attempting to proselytize in the name of their respective causes.

We wouldn't, for example, expect a religious debate on here to go well. For the same reason, I can't see any political debates going well. Especially when opinions are all regarded as equally qualified and valid and people continue to attach emotional importance and self validation to their political beliefs.

My intent in the original thread was to say just this very thing... our ability to civilly discuss political matters has been lost. It's not about the facts or causes, anymore, it's merely my side vs your side and the withstanding notion that anyone who does not agree with my side is the enemy and must be defeated/destroyed by any means available, even if that means reporting all of their posts to moderators or downvoting them with multiple user alts.

That's sad but it's exactly where we are at. I would love to see a dialogue about that... much more than any political horse race or the same old talking points ad nauseam.

Can't we all just get along?

Take the damn politics somewhere else along with any other off-topic nonsense.

I don't know why the mods/admins here think that it is a good idea to have political discourse here. It's not like there are not hundreds of sites just for such purpose.

24 minutes ago, Unknown33 said:

Especially when opinions are all regarded as equally qualified and valid

I don't see why this should necessarily be the case. Opinions are often based on something which is falsifiable. "I think x is good." "Why?" "Because of y" -- if y in this case is a fact, opinion x can be attributed with more or less value and/or validity.

I wouldn't ask my neighbor what kind of training regime would be best for rehabilitation of a fractured knee, but the opinions of a doctor/physiotherapist would carry more weight. I don't see why opinions need be set on any pedestal based on whether they are political of nature.

31 minutes ago, Unknown33 said:

It's not about the facts or causes, anymore, it's merely my side vs your side and the withstanding notion that anyone who does not agree with my side is the enemy and must be defeated/destroyed by any means available, even if that means reporting all of their posts to moderators or downvoting them with multiple user alts.

That's sad but it's exactly where we are at.

So, given that you speak so highly of facts, I assume you have proof of your claim of multiple user alts being used to down-vote? If yes, have you reported them to the moderators for them to deal with? If not, why not? And if no proof, this is precisely the kind of rhetoric I think should be abolished. They present a scenario as being the truth, without acknowledging that the presented scenario is a hypothesis or subjective experience of the situation. It's dishonest at best.

Any why is reporting posts to moderators being considered negative? Users who report frivolously will be dealt with, and if the reports aren't frivolous then the posts, by definition, deserve to have a light shined on them.

34 minutes ago, Unknown33 said:

Can't we all just get along?

There isn't always a middle-ground or a valid compromise to every scenario. Pretending there is seems insincere to me. If a sys-admin says every password must be 16 characters long because of certification requirements, and the CEO says they want a special rule just for them allowing a 4 character long password for personal reasons, one side will have to win. Get certified, or allow a short password. There is no "getting along", compromise or similar in this circumstance. Certain scenarios are binary, which should be a concept well-understood among game developers especially.

19 minutes ago, fleabay said:

Take the damn politics somewhere else along with any other off-topic nonsense.

The Lounge is for off-topic stuff.

Disregarding that, politics are not necessarily off-topic. Games, as a whole, are political. There might be instances of games which aren't, but there's also a plethora of games that quite clearly are. Also, given that there's usually not more than a couple of political threads open at once, they are fairly easy to ignore if you don't like them.

Down voting because of too much shite directed at a sole individual who could be considered a virtual victim in this case and very little towards community betterment goals.

3 hours ago, khawk said:

Some changes we will be making in the near future:

• Removal of reputation voting from the Lounge. This is unfortunate to have to do because I think there is value in allowing it for most cases, but if we're going to allow contentious topics then this is probably necessary
• Reinforcing the moderator-participant rule, where moderators participating in a topic may not moderate the topic.
• Enforcing a stricter policy toward Politics and other contentious topics on GameDev.net

I wholly support defanging political discourse on a technically-minded site, especially when the resulting scathing affects technical credibility. Downvoting over politics, religion, and whether The Hulk stands a chance against Batman is just ripe for mob rule.

I’d agree that getting rid of voting in the lounge makes the most sense, especially given that political discourse will be allowed.

Since this is a game dev site maybe we should express our opinions this through games, the same way other artists do. It appears that a majority of people in this conversation are from the same country but may have differing beliefs and backgrounds. Aside from a few gems and a bunch of asset flips most games are a collaborative effort and I agree with the sentiment we should all try and get along. Shot in the dark here, but do any of you guys want to work on a game together? It doesn't have to be about politics but I would like to make it comedic and based is contemporary America. The art style I am going for is a mix between South Park and Osomatsu-San. This is just concept art, the final sprites will probably be a bit more polished. Some of my other sprites were posted in the other thread as well. Let me know if any of you are interested, not to single anyone out but Unknown33 in particular, I am reaching out to you, maybe differing opinions can make something great that doesn't take itself too seriously and can find a broad appeal, or maybe it will end up a mess that appeals to no one and never gets made, either way I don't have anything but free time that could be used better to lose. Here are some more examples of my sprite work. I'm not proficient in coding but like using game maker just because there is a good library of most commands and I am not planning to work in 3d. Anyone wanting to work on the project is welcome, some of the content may be potentially offensive but I promise none will be offensive for the sake of being offensive.

1 hour ago, GoliathForge said:

Down voting because of too much shite directed at a sole individual who could be considered a virtual victim in this case and very little towards community betterment goals.

Given that my post was one of the ones voted down, I must assume my post is one of those you consider to be too much shite. May I ask why? (Also, the potential virtual victim in this case explicitly said they would love dialogue on the points raised in the post I quoted.)

As for community betterment - to reiterate and rephrase what I said in the previous post, I would very much like to see more accountability in the discussions. "I like cucumber" isn't something you can discuss. "I do too!" or "I don't!" is roughly the extent of what you can expect to get out that. "I think cucumber is healthy, because of x" is falsifiable, and can thus actually reach some sort of consensus instead of just shouting one's opinion into a void. "Actually, this study claims it isn't" -- "Oh, but this newer one does, but also says that apples are actually the healther option given a choice". If someone makes a claim, they should be prepared to either back it up with sources, or rescind their argument. If proved wrong, there should be consequences if the same argument is returned to without any new sources. I.e. posters should be expected to argue in good faith, and be penalized if arguing in bad faith, especially continually. (Deciding what is considered bad faith would, of course, be up to the moderators -- that's their role.)

[EDIT: Closely related, I think drive-by posts add little meaningful to the conversation, and should be looked down on harshly by the moderator team if deemed to be trolling or similar.]

The "can't we all get along" sentiment is something I also think shouldn't be the main goal, nor do I think it's good to pursue in many cases. If one group is advocating no change, and another group is advocating a change, there is no compromise. A lot of things, regulations and laws especially, are quite binary, and we shouldn't pretend we're following laws in a quantum manner. While it might seem reasonable to post such rhetoric, I find it a diversion tactic, not something to be lauded or strived for.

I, too, would like The Lounge (or potentially only the threads you already flag as contentious?) to not have any voting capabilities, for the reasons already mentioned by others. Me thinking potentially only the contentious topics is due to there often being tech-related posts here, or something else of interest outside of the "ripe for disagree = down vote" mentality commonly seen in the contentious topics.

Idea:
Mandate that political threads be tagged as such by OP, and the tag triggers removal of voting for that thread.

All what you need to know about political discussion in the internet:

-- Do you sure that you not in "We have only 2 views - my own and wrong"?
-- Yes, yes! I am totaly agree! agree-agree-agree!

-- I think, it's not OK to invade other countries. Or too fast and too big migrations.

-- You are nazi! Stupid nazi! die!

Speaking as a member and not a moderator, these are the things I'd like to see:

• All politics threads must have some kind of plausible connection to games or the game industry. Sorry but most of your guys' opinions are terrible and I've grown tired of reading the latest stupidity.
• Minimum reputation to even participate in political threads, and I'm not thinking small here. Perhaps a hundred points. Alternately minimum post counts/account ages? Either way, I believe that new accounts should have no right to participate.
• An understanding that stepping out of line in these threads is grounds for an insta-ban, much more readily than we might normally do so.
• I don't think we've had much of a problem with this yet, but there are certain domains/sites I would blacklist, and YouTube links should be off limits as well. You all know why.
• An outright explicit ban on threads that touch on race, gender, sexuality. Nothing good can come of these discussions.

As a moderator, I'd very much like the ability to force particular members out of political threads permanently. We've seen an influx of people lately who kinda sorta do some game stuff here and there but mostly have an axe to grind on political ideology and just can't help themselves. A couple are already in this thread.

As much as I hate current politics, its relevant because as the technical bar lowers the more liberal arts, university educated and endocrinated people enter.

This is why the gaming press is full of hard liberal ideology and often non games focused... Ie gamers are dead, etc, etc.

Add to this their hate of freedom of speech and their name calling, well you quickly have an echo chamber dumpster fire and as far removed from real life.

Thanks for this Opening post, I saw the closing of a few threads and thought 'here we go again'.