Suggestion Should we ban religious / LGBT / political threads?

[MadMageKefka]

This started as a status message, but it sparked some interesting discussion, so at the advice of someone on my status, I made a thread to see what everyone else thinks.

Now, its not my place to decide the rules of this site, nor am I the kind of person to usually censor what people talk about. However, I am seeing more and more of these threads every day, and its getting out of hand. They always, without fail, devolve into bigotry and arguing. With this being a video game website, and these sorts of threads causing so much drama, maybe it would be for the best?

An example I would like to give is the thread from the other day about the Afghanistan bombing. After several pages it devolved into several people saying how gays should be executed. The thread was deleted shortly after. My question is, why aren't those people being punished and having their comments deleted? Why was the entire thread removed? Some of that conversation was legit discussion. I have a feeling the staff here is tired of the crap too (please correct me if I am wrong).

So what do you all think? I don't wanna censor people really, but at the same time I think it would make the site a more friendly, enjoyable experience for everyone. Maybe another option would be to create a separate forum for this stuff, so at least it doesn't appear on the front page? Please, let me know how you all feel too.

EDIT: At this point, after discussing this for so many hours, my opinion on the matter is that outright banning this sort of thing is not the answer. I do, however, feel that off-topic discussions of this nature don't belong on the front page of a gaming / hacking forum. A lot of people are tired of seeing it and it just plain makes us looks bad as a community when 4 out of the 10 topics on the front page are off-topic shit shows of bigotry and hate. This is obviously not too often the case, but it does seem to be happening more frequently.

 

[MadMageKefka]

Man, if you get so worked up about 1-2 treads popping up (Which you dont even have to click on!)
I just simply have to say that you should stop crying about things you dont like. Just because you think that its not interesting doesnt mean it should be banned. Its extremly selfish and childish. Its called off-topic for a reason, even if its on a gaming forum.

1-2 threads.... Good joke. It's not that I can't handle it, its that it lowers the quality of our community as a whole. Believe me, I am one of the hardest people to offend online. I used to troll around on /b/ when it was at its worst, back when the raid boards were a thing. This is nothing compared to that.

 

[sarkwalvein]

Well, let's hope people don't get salty about you saying that. Doesn't bother me if someones says they hate or dislike furries, and I'd want to know as to why.
Otherwise, going out on furries, saying they're cancer, saying they should leave temp, or die in a burning fire is the equivalent of saying that black people are exactly the same, or illegal immigrants. Not trying to start a war, but statements like that are just bullshit. Why can't we all just get along, and respect each others beliefs and opinions.

I just don't like it, I find the whole thing very cringy.
It doesn't mean I would go on harassing somebody else for liking it.
That is stupid, I find the harassing in this regard unjustifiable behaviour, and the comparisons of it to zoophilia just a byproduct of overreaching and ignorance.

Hell, I hate e.g. "The Big Bang Theory" with a passion, but I don't go around kicking some friend because he loves that PoS. /s

 

[Dionicio3]

I just don't like it, I find the whole thing very cringy.
It doesn't mean I would go on harassing somebody else for liking it.
That is stupid, I find the harassing in this regard unjustifiable behaviour, and the comparisons of it to zoophilia just a byproduct of overreaching and ignorance.

Hell, I hate e.g. "The Big Bang Theory" with a passion, but I don't go around kicking some friend because he loves that PoS. /s

Ikr, I don't like pizza, but I don't go around telling people it's the food of the devil or something like that

 

[Justinde75]

1-2 threads.... Good joke. It's not that I can't handle it, its that it lowers the quality of our community as a whole. Believe me, I am one of the hardest people to offend online. I used to troll around on /b/ when it was at its worst, back when the raid boards were a thing. This is nothing compared to that.

Jokes on you, but your thread is the only political thread I see on the main page...
Looks like it made more people talk about that sorta stuff instead of making them stop.

 

[Stephano]

Ikr, I don't like pizza, but I don't go around telling people it's the food of the devil or something like that

I've yet to meet a person who does not like pizza. I can now say i have.

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Jokes on you, but I your thread is the only political thread I see on the main page...
Looks like it made more people talk about that sorta stuff instead of making them stop.

I'm not really sure if you would call this a political thread.

 

[The Catboy]

Honestly, I have to disagree with that part. Maybe on some other instances more staff is needed (those threads that get 10 messages every 30 seconds get pretty insane), but on this case it isn't. These threads remain active for a ridiculous amount of time after they're derailed (some up to 16 hours or so) without any mod doing anything about it. I've only seen one cleanup so far. However, the threads do get eventually deleted, once their content goes way too far and starts actively insulting pretty much everyone (not in a "triggered" way but in a legit offensive manner, which can easily provoke other users into replying to them, aka bait).

The fact that they do get deleted makes me think the mods actually do know what's going on and that the thread will eventually get deleted, but they either don't know when to remove it or just want to know how far the users will go. Independently of which one it is, they know who are the ones trying to light up the shit bag on the front page.

As a matter of fact, the one who created the most recent religion-related thread was the one who started insulting gay people in the previous one, insisting that they should be executed! I'm all for free speech and stuff, but that's going too far.

I didn't say it was a perfect solution to a problem, it's still just another bandage on the issues. But the staff are people too, they have their own personal lives, personal ideas, etc. They can't sit moderate a thread 24/7 and the rest of the site. It doesn't help that a lot of times these issues start popping up when there's like 1 or 2 staff members online, who are watching the entire site.
We used to actually have just "Moderators" who's jobs were just to watch over an entire section. So we had one over the NDS scene, GBA scene, etc. But also helped out when needed in other sections. This helped independently moderate each area with their own group of people to watch over them. They also all worked together over the entire off-topic area (Off-topic, EOF, Art, etc.) So there's almost always a member of the staff dealing with these kinds of areas.
Although maybe bring back one team wouldn't fix everything, but the staff do need help. They either need more staff or members actually reporting the troubled posts. If someone is actively going out of their way to derail a thread, they need to be reported, not replied to. It doesn't take a lot of effort to completely derail a thread and it normally only starts with one reply.

 

[gamesquest1]

I think we should ban all threads and just replace everything with pictures of kittens

 

[Issac]

The reports and offences come and go in waves though. Right now there's an increase of meme posting, as well as an increase of political and religious threads. It happens every now and then, but it's not too bad. The same seems to happen at the start of a hacking scene where there pops up twenty new threads about the same thing, or speculations, or whatever. 200 users asking if 2.2.0 Switch firmware is safe for homebrew and whatever.

Speaking of threads that are "alive" a bit too long... it comes down to us seeing where it all leads. Will the flaming stop, does valid input get added in between the shit missiles? Cleaning up is a daunting task when there's a lot of arguing, who quotes who, what's okay and not... decisions decisions. If a couple of cleanups and warnings doesn't stop it, then the thread's a goner.
Sometimes we're discussing while the thread's still alive... There are always reasons for our actions or lack thereof.

 

[MadMageKefka]

Jokes on you, but your thread is the only political thread I see on the main page...
Looks like it made more people talk about that sorta stuff instead of making them stop.

Youre not reading then. People here are discussing their view on that content being on the site, not discussing the content itself. Like I said in the OP, I don't wish to censor people, but I do hope that some form of solution comes from all this, in any form.

 

[Stephano]

I think we should ban all threads and just replace everything with pictures of kittens

http://cashcats.biz/

 

[Wolfvak]

If someone is actively going out of their way to derail a thread, they need to be reported, not replied to.

I've actually reported several posts/threads some time ago (not related to this, mostly in the 3DS and Vita sections) and they don't seem to care about them. Maybe they didn't think it was bad enough to be removed or something, but what I've learned is that reporting never works (not like replying is better anyways).

 

[Dionicio3]

I've actually reported several posts/threads some time ago (not related to this, mostly in the 3DS and Vita sections) and they don't seem to care about them. Maybe they didn't think it was bad enough to be removed or something, but what I've learned is that reporting never works (not like replying is better anyways).

Reporting work a lot of the time

 

[Kioku]

I've actually reported several posts/threads some time ago (not related to this, mostly in the 3DS and Vita sections) and they don't seem to care about them. Maybe they didn't think it was bad enough to be removed or something, but what I've learned is that reporting never works (not like replying is better anyways).

Reporting them definitely works.. You just have to give a mod a good reason.

 

[gamesquest1]

I've actually reported several posts/threads some time ago (not related to this, mostly in the 3DS and Vita sections) and they don't seem to care about them. Maybe they didn't think it was bad enough to be removed or something, but what I've learned is that reporting never works (not like replying is better anyways).

I often find posts promptly removed if they are genuinely offensive/derogative I guess as with everything it boils down to opinion, it has to go over the line before its just removed

 

[DinohScene]

The reports and offences come and go in waves though. Right now there's an increase of meme posting, as well as an increase of political and religious threads. It happens every now and then, but it's not too bad. The same seems to happen at the start of a hacking scene where there pops up twenty new threads about the same thing, or speculations, or whatever. 200 users asking if 2.2.0 Switch firmware is safe for homebrew and whatever.

Speaking of threads that are "alive" a bit too long... it comes down to us seeing where it all leads. Will the flaming stop, does valid input get added in between the shit missiles? Cleaning up is a daunting task when there's a lot of arguing, who quotes who, what's okay and not... decisions decisions. If a couple of cleanups and warnings doesn't stop it, then the thread's a goner.
Sometimes we're discussing while the thread's still alive... There are always reasons for our actions or lack thereof.

I can understand leaving a thread open for a while but ~15 hours before meme spam gets cleaned up is a bit to long.
The staff is just overworked, like you said yourself, there's a backlog of reports to go through.
Due that that, the most idiotic posts (one word posts, obvious flame posts, single image replies) tend to stay on the board for a long time whilst they are usually the quickest to be dealt with.

 

[Issac]

or members actually reporting the troubled posts. If someone is actively going out of their way to derail a thread, they need to be reported, not replied to. It doesn't take a lot of effort to completely derail a thread and it normally only starts with one reply.

This.

Report posts instead of replying to them. And especially don't report AND reply (that's just more work for the mod who now has to delete the offending post and the reply to the post-to-be-deleted).
You have no idea how many times people reply to necrobumps with "you shouldn't necrobump"... that's not helping the issue. Or bumping spam, or bumping a bump by saying they shouldn't bump... gah! Just report it and move on!

And actually write something helpful in the report.
Sometimes a report is just "wat" or "." - not that helpful and forces the mod to make sense of it all much more than if the reports had more info. Then the work of handling them would decrease immensely, giving some context to the issue.

 

[MadMageKefka]

Let's not shift this to what mods are and arent doing please. I have full confidence that they all care about the site and do the best they can, and like @Issac said, there is a reason for everything they do. I would rather discuss if this issue is a problem to the majority of the site, and if yes, what can be done about it.

 

[Wolfvak]

-snip-

 

[Issac]

I can understand leaving a thread open for a while but ~15 hours before meme spam gets cleaned up is a bit to long.
The staff is just overworked, like you said yourself, there's a backlog of reports to go through.
Due that that, the most idiotic posts (one word posts, obvious flame posts, single image replies) tend to stay on the board for a long time whilst they are usually the quickest to be dealt with.

The backlog isn't always there, and not that big of an issue. A lot of the time it's because we haven't decided on something, that the reports are still there. It was just to demonstrate that it is quite a bit of work involved.
I always go through the reports whenever I get on, and look for the shitposts and memes just because they're the easiest to deal with. And if some are left, it's because they haven't been reported OR if mods aren't on.

 

[gamefan5]

When the reports are coming in, and having a backlog of reports to go through, it can be a lot of work. Any report means you have to read it, see what the reporter said about it, read the post, read the whole thread, get an idea what it all is about. Is it 4 pages of flame war, is it 1 single shitpost, is it some hacking related new stuff... is it illegal? is it something that are against the rules? Do I have to speak with other mods to discuss the matter? Then I'll have to make a well thought out decision on what to do. Deleting a post, deleting a thread, just locking it, locking out a member from posting in said thread, warning the user? And if I warn, how many points, is he or she a repeat offender, go through the history of that person's posts to see if this was a one time thing or someone who's just an asshole. Should they be suspended even? for how long?

Now, imagine doing that for a report.... and then you have a backlog of 25 reports. While new are coming in.

At the same time, members may be PM'ing you for various reasons, asking for help or reporting other's... and then, you have to do mod work on everything you find that's NOT reported as well (we can't just rely on the reports).

So there's a lot of work, that's for sure. But it's one that I'll do with a smile on my face, hopefully being appreciated by those I help AND those I end up warning
This has been my home for over 13 years, so it's work I'm happy to do.

But this was somewhat off-topic!

It may be off-topic, but I personally always wanted to know how it is to be a moderator around here. Thank you for sharing that with us!