It is no secret that this section is somewhat divisive among some number of site members at times. Quite why this is I am not always entirely sure (there is enough new content around here every day that I presume you skip thread for devices/games/hacks you don't know about, don't wish to know about or don't care about. Not sure that makes this section any different). "never discuss religion or politics" is sometimes an informal piece of "wisdom" for setting up sites, however it is what it is and we have this section. Discussions in turn seem to then be getting scattered around in private messages, blog posts, profile posts (a horrible way of conducting a conversation I find), so thought might as well make one here wherein it can stay around for all to see.
There is a line of thought that says doing it in this section might exclude those that already dropped it from https://gbatemp.net/account/new-content but I figure they already made their choice, though one that takes active measures to block something is someone I am also curious to hear from. Might cross post in the site suggestions section.
Anyway
Freedom to discuss things, benefits of blocking things, benefits of promoting things, neutrality of the site, promotion of site goals (if any are had, some places actively avoid having any here -- some don't care if companies/entities donate to a cause, others care very much that they donated, others only care if it is for them, others care if they didn't donate to the current cause célèbre), security (think guest posts), pleasantness for members and visitors (which are different as far as the site is concerned, and all may well have very different definitions of what that is), ease of use of the site (Give Me Convenience or Give Me Death and all that, seemingly termed "friction" in web design parlance)... all these and more are considerations when enacting decrees upon what is and is not permissible.
Feel free to make your suggestions below but some examples of things to follow if you want a jumping off point.
Waffle section, skip if you want
Popular (or unpopular as the case may be) examples of things that get called for, or are logical extrapolations of said same are
Blacklisting certain words
Blacklisting certain notions, can be entirely (positive and negative, can be just negative, can be just positive too)
Blacklisting certain viewpoints and world views. This can be anything from political philosophies, to activist movements, to more general philosophies, to blacklisting content from certain individuals and more besides. "If a kid reads it they might look into it and believe it" is a popular phrase in discussing this sort of thing, though the easiest way to ensure a kid does something often is to make it forbidden. Those that lack mental fortitude can indeed find themselves drawn in by various groups (it is how cults work, and note intelligence does not equal mental fortitude). What is the individual once banned from discussion "changed", or simply had a single work that could never trouble anybody? What about the notion that you, or perhaps others, want to know what your "enemy" is doing? Fighting a caricature, a pastiche of disparate but never the less "oppositional" viewpoints.
Blacklisting whole sites. "alt tech" is a popular one here, especially as those banned from those places inclined to seriously restrict content will tend to be among the earliest to populate them. At the same time many will scoff when a politician goes up on stage and says "we should ban email because someone might use it to send something naughty".
Replace blacklisting there with downplaying or hiding certain things. Shadow banning is a term you might have heard here and applies somewhat, though it is far from the whole story.
Blacklisting is in turn, or can easily lead to, forcing someone to say things which is ethically dubious in many cases, or leads to it being done insincerely ("apologise and mean it this time" and all that). If you further believe words are mind control then are you potentially brainwashing someone by doing that?
Should a philosophy, political or otherwise, be promoted as the default one and anything that deviates needs to justify itself? Of course no politician has ever made a mistake either and gone against interests, or sacrificed the good of many for the good of a few. For instance economics has many schools (Classical, neoclassical, Austrian, Chicago, Keynesian, Marxist to name but a few of the big ones) and while they agree on much they also have some fundamental disagreements. If wanted I can include a few different videos that showcase some of the different mindsets here, indeed from rather different people.
All those above might have exceptions. Hard to talk about a word, history, current place, if nobody can say the word and it is not being directed at anybody. It is also noted "speaking in code" is often an immediate side effect of such things.
Jokes, exceptions if the term is considered derisory to a group but members of that group might use it because they are it (prove you are a group member being a rather tricky thing to enact, legally and philosophically in some cases).
Code words and alternative phrases are one thing, however many such things have a great number of fuzzy edges which may be the subject of intense debate. Classic one "magic test is doable tomorrow that will tell just like we can tell if you have a broken leg. Should deaf parents be allowed to ensure their child is deaf?". Legally and philosophically there are no easy answers there.
Does blacklisting do any good even if you keep up to the moment on code words? There is a line of thought that says the best disinfectant is sunlight. Code words and alternative words often themselves become mainstream, sometimes even the old "bad" words become free to use again or at least anybody that remembers them.
"Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me" is a philosophy that many advocate, never the less one can find many examples of people (some claim entire groups, or such huge percentages of them that it might as well be the case) that will be reduced to quivering wrecks with but a few generally innocuous words, or mouth sounds that mean nothing to those speaking other languages. Assuming said word list could be populated then such people might find themselves flocking to the site (or inclined to contribute more than page views), or at least that is the logic. Or is simple the "harm" caused by such things existing enough to blacklist? Alternatively is blocking things likely to see those seeking a good debate take their leave, never join, or take a reduced role? If you are forced to do certain things and unable to have a discussion then why bother being here? Groups are a popular thing here but individuals can also have fairly unique combinations that will do it that one might never know beforehand. Hard to enforce that, and even a list of popular ones is long and restrictive.
If we are inclined to do groups for some of the above are there any groups inherently subject, debatably subject*, inherently not subject (can't make fun of them Nazis and all that. What about the communists?)?
*in something of a joke reply in another debate some posited that short people should be a protected class. It is a genetic condition (or maybe a product of childhood neglect, either way not really a choice), studies on it have shown interesting effects https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0272775715301448 https://www.apa.org/monitor/julaug04/standing , the ladies tend to note "tall, dark and handsome" (and if order means anything...) or have lines like "I wouldn't feel safe with a shortarse" (we can do a more objective sample of dating preferences as well if you want). How many groups would justify special consideration at some level with "I was born this way", "society does not like us, here are some stats that show that" and "often it gets in the way of interpersonal relationships".
There are various "rules of order" for debates. Some have, seemingly jokingly, asked to enact such a setup. Full setups are complicated to run and enforce (recall the "ease of use" part from earlier) but there lessons that can be taken from them.
It does however potentially lead to good places if everybody arguing has to be some flavour of expert (which are never wrong, to say noting of the difficulty in establishing credentials for a given area), age is a popular gate but hardly that useful (if countries that speak the same language, have the same genetic and actual history until 300 years ago, and enjoy the same standard of living can't agree on what ages people are allowed to see, or indeed should never be allowed to see, what then what hope do we have?), and everybody gets to source everything or break down arguments before going forward then that does often yield something interesting.
Sourcing everything mentioned above is interesting. What count as valid sources? For instance how many news sites routinely write utterly baseless and completely hit pieces on games? If they can't manage games are they going to do better when it comes to something else? Or if you want another you are probably an expert in something. Go read news articles from general purpose news sites on it (though science and trade journals are hardly free from error either) and tell us that they are essentially correct all the time. Do we allow opinion columns at newspapers? A lot of them are comprised almost entirely of that these days. Does being elevated to the rank of reporter on a news site make you reliable? What if a news site actively avoids reporting on the news event (a lie by omission as it were)? Mass collusion of various forms is fairly well represented in media too. Equally even if most statistics are not made up on the spot (citation needed?) then the ability to use statistics to distort outcomes is a field of maths unto itself and known issues for every field of human endeavour.
"show both sides" is sometimes uttered as a thing to do, however both implies two sides and even some of our simplest games have three sides, some might even make it to four.
If you are an expert in debate then that alone might grant you an advantage. If you are an expert in fallacies ( https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/ ) and your debate opponent is not, indeed most times you see someone "destroyed" in a debate it is more likely one is skilled in debate and the other not (and debate, or logic and rhetoric as it would likely have been known at that point in time, is a subject seldom taught as much as it once might have been). If you are an expert in debate, fallacies and statistics with no particular commitment to the truth or a desire to further your philosophy (here are my 30 sources, disprove the lot) then you are seriously potent, and while expert in debate arguably includes persuasive psychology (businesses would not pay a celebrity the silly money if they did not see returns on their endorsements) then that could be a further thing. Control your emotions and it gets better still. This whole post probably broke a key one in not being concise, possibly being flowery language at points and maybe by not having much in the way of a core philosophy underpinning it. https://www.openculture.com/2016/05/george-orwells-six-rules-for-writing-clear-and-tight-prose.html
While some might tell us that free speech is a legal concept it is one that did not magically spring into being with the US' first amendment having never been discussed beforehand. There are also limitations given to it, copyright for example (something that this site walks right up to the line for all the time).
Waffle section over
-------------
Generally I see no terribly easy answers to a lot of that, and that is before we account for fuzzy edges of things (not that groups necessarily have exclusive right of determination, nor indeed are they even necessarily going to be accurate or legally persuasive, but if there is inconsistency among them, much less with the law or a more general philosophy, then what does one do?). Discussion though is a good thing and thus we are here in this thread for one. For at least this setup post I have tried to keep this reasonably neutral, however the mere fact I got to choose the contents (recall the lie by omission part earlier, did I omit anything that might be relevant in this?) and frame examples (did I do a strawman? If not a strawman then something disingenuous, leading language perhaps?) might well count.
Without going down the everything is a social construct path (am I mocking the notion with that?) then one might note that I did it in the somewhat more modern western tradition as well for I made no effort to say "well of course the prophet Muhammed and Islam is off limits but everything else is up for debate" (did I just mock Islam, did I mock the social construct people, did that last list entry mock them, is this a rhetorical flourish?).
While this attempted neutrality, with what I think the closest thing to a contentious topic being the deaf example (one we have actually had on the site before), the rest of this, including replies from me, might not be neutral. That is fine, expected even, however something to be aware of if you do find yourself taking offence at things (assuming it is taken, and not given).
What will come of this I do not know, though I will say if you assume your enemy is a fool or evil then you have probably already lost and even if you disagree vehemently then you will do better against them if you understand their underlying logic and reasoning
There is a line of thought that says doing it in this section might exclude those that already dropped it from https://gbatemp.net/account/new-content but I figure they already made their choice, though one that takes active measures to block something is someone I am also curious to hear from. Might cross post in the site suggestions section.
Anyway
Freedom to discuss things, benefits of blocking things, benefits of promoting things, neutrality of the site, promotion of site goals (if any are had, some places actively avoid having any here -- some don't care if companies/entities donate to a cause, others care very much that they donated, others only care if it is for them, others care if they didn't donate to the current cause célèbre), security (think guest posts), pleasantness for members and visitors (which are different as far as the site is concerned, and all may well have very different definitions of what that is), ease of use of the site (Give Me Convenience or Give Me Death and all that, seemingly termed "friction" in web design parlance)... all these and more are considerations when enacting decrees upon what is and is not permissible.
Feel free to make your suggestions below but some examples of things to follow if you want a jumping off point.
Waffle section, skip if you want
Popular (or unpopular as the case may be) examples of things that get called for, or are logical extrapolations of said same are
Blacklisting certain words
Blacklisting certain notions, can be entirely (positive and negative, can be just negative, can be just positive too)
Blacklisting certain viewpoints and world views. This can be anything from political philosophies, to activist movements, to more general philosophies, to blacklisting content from certain individuals and more besides. "If a kid reads it they might look into it and believe it" is a popular phrase in discussing this sort of thing, though the easiest way to ensure a kid does something often is to make it forbidden. Those that lack mental fortitude can indeed find themselves drawn in by various groups (it is how cults work, and note intelligence does not equal mental fortitude). What is the individual once banned from discussion "changed", or simply had a single work that could never trouble anybody? What about the notion that you, or perhaps others, want to know what your "enemy" is doing? Fighting a caricature, a pastiche of disparate but never the less "oppositional" viewpoints.
Blacklisting whole sites. "alt tech" is a popular one here, especially as those banned from those places inclined to seriously restrict content will tend to be among the earliest to populate them. At the same time many will scoff when a politician goes up on stage and says "we should ban email because someone might use it to send something naughty".
Replace blacklisting there with downplaying or hiding certain things. Shadow banning is a term you might have heard here and applies somewhat, though it is far from the whole story.
Blacklisting is in turn, or can easily lead to, forcing someone to say things which is ethically dubious in many cases, or leads to it being done insincerely ("apologise and mean it this time" and all that). If you further believe words are mind control then are you potentially brainwashing someone by doing that?
Should a philosophy, political or otherwise, be promoted as the default one and anything that deviates needs to justify itself? Of course no politician has ever made a mistake either and gone against interests, or sacrificed the good of many for the good of a few. For instance economics has many schools (Classical, neoclassical, Austrian, Chicago, Keynesian, Marxist to name but a few of the big ones) and while they agree on much they also have some fundamental disagreements. If wanted I can include a few different videos that showcase some of the different mindsets here, indeed from rather different people.
All those above might have exceptions. Hard to talk about a word, history, current place, if nobody can say the word and it is not being directed at anybody. It is also noted "speaking in code" is often an immediate side effect of such things.
Jokes, exceptions if the term is considered derisory to a group but members of that group might use it because they are it (prove you are a group member being a rather tricky thing to enact, legally and philosophically in some cases).
Code words and alternative phrases are one thing, however many such things have a great number of fuzzy edges which may be the subject of intense debate. Classic one "magic test is doable tomorrow that will tell just like we can tell if you have a broken leg. Should deaf parents be allowed to ensure their child is deaf?". Legally and philosophically there are no easy answers there.
Does blacklisting do any good even if you keep up to the moment on code words? There is a line of thought that says the best disinfectant is sunlight. Code words and alternative words often themselves become mainstream, sometimes even the old "bad" words become free to use again or at least anybody that remembers them.
"Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me" is a philosophy that many advocate, never the less one can find many examples of people (some claim entire groups, or such huge percentages of them that it might as well be the case) that will be reduced to quivering wrecks with but a few generally innocuous words, or mouth sounds that mean nothing to those speaking other languages. Assuming said word list could be populated then such people might find themselves flocking to the site (or inclined to contribute more than page views), or at least that is the logic. Or is simple the "harm" caused by such things existing enough to blacklist? Alternatively is blocking things likely to see those seeking a good debate take their leave, never join, or take a reduced role? If you are forced to do certain things and unable to have a discussion then why bother being here? Groups are a popular thing here but individuals can also have fairly unique combinations that will do it that one might never know beforehand. Hard to enforce that, and even a list of popular ones is long and restrictive.
If we are inclined to do groups for some of the above are there any groups inherently subject, debatably subject*, inherently not subject (can't make fun of them Nazis and all that. What about the communists?)?
*in something of a joke reply in another debate some posited that short people should be a protected class. It is a genetic condition (or maybe a product of childhood neglect, either way not really a choice), studies on it have shown interesting effects https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0272775715301448 https://www.apa.org/monitor/julaug04/standing , the ladies tend to note "tall, dark and handsome" (and if order means anything...) or have lines like "I wouldn't feel safe with a shortarse" (we can do a more objective sample of dating preferences as well if you want). How many groups would justify special consideration at some level with "I was born this way", "society does not like us, here are some stats that show that" and "often it gets in the way of interpersonal relationships".
There are various "rules of order" for debates. Some have, seemingly jokingly, asked to enact such a setup. Full setups are complicated to run and enforce (recall the "ease of use" part from earlier) but there lessons that can be taken from them.
It does however potentially lead to good places if everybody arguing has to be some flavour of expert (which are never wrong, to say noting of the difficulty in establishing credentials for a given area), age is a popular gate but hardly that useful (if countries that speak the same language, have the same genetic and actual history until 300 years ago, and enjoy the same standard of living can't agree on what ages people are allowed to see, or indeed should never be allowed to see, what then what hope do we have?), and everybody gets to source everything or break down arguments before going forward then that does often yield something interesting.
Sourcing everything mentioned above is interesting. What count as valid sources? For instance how many news sites routinely write utterly baseless and completely hit pieces on games? If they can't manage games are they going to do better when it comes to something else? Or if you want another you are probably an expert in something. Go read news articles from general purpose news sites on it (though science and trade journals are hardly free from error either) and tell us that they are essentially correct all the time. Do we allow opinion columns at newspapers? A lot of them are comprised almost entirely of that these days. Does being elevated to the rank of reporter on a news site make you reliable? What if a news site actively avoids reporting on the news event (a lie by omission as it were)? Mass collusion of various forms is fairly well represented in media too. Equally even if most statistics are not made up on the spot (citation needed?) then the ability to use statistics to distort outcomes is a field of maths unto itself and known issues for every field of human endeavour.
"show both sides" is sometimes uttered as a thing to do, however both implies two sides and even some of our simplest games have three sides, some might even make it to four.
If you are an expert in debate then that alone might grant you an advantage. If you are an expert in fallacies ( https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/ ) and your debate opponent is not, indeed most times you see someone "destroyed" in a debate it is more likely one is skilled in debate and the other not (and debate, or logic and rhetoric as it would likely have been known at that point in time, is a subject seldom taught as much as it once might have been). If you are an expert in debate, fallacies and statistics with no particular commitment to the truth or a desire to further your philosophy (here are my 30 sources, disprove the lot) then you are seriously potent, and while expert in debate arguably includes persuasive psychology (businesses would not pay a celebrity the silly money if they did not see returns on their endorsements) then that could be a further thing. Control your emotions and it gets better still. This whole post probably broke a key one in not being concise, possibly being flowery language at points and maybe by not having much in the way of a core philosophy underpinning it. https://www.openculture.com/2016/05/george-orwells-six-rules-for-writing-clear-and-tight-prose.html
While some might tell us that free speech is a legal concept it is one that did not magically spring into being with the US' first amendment having never been discussed beforehand. There are also limitations given to it, copyright for example (something that this site walks right up to the line for all the time).
Waffle section over
-------------
Generally I see no terribly easy answers to a lot of that, and that is before we account for fuzzy edges of things (not that groups necessarily have exclusive right of determination, nor indeed are they even necessarily going to be accurate or legally persuasive, but if there is inconsistency among them, much less with the law or a more general philosophy, then what does one do?). Discussion though is a good thing and thus we are here in this thread for one. For at least this setup post I have tried to keep this reasonably neutral, however the mere fact I got to choose the contents (recall the lie by omission part earlier, did I omit anything that might be relevant in this?) and frame examples (did I do a strawman? If not a strawman then something disingenuous, leading language perhaps?) might well count.
Without going down the everything is a social construct path (am I mocking the notion with that?) then one might note that I did it in the somewhat more modern western tradition as well for I made no effort to say "well of course the prophet Muhammed and Islam is off limits but everything else is up for debate" (did I just mock Islam, did I mock the social construct people, did that last list entry mock them, is this a rhetorical flourish?).
While this attempted neutrality, with what I think the closest thing to a contentious topic being the deaf example (one we have actually had on the site before), the rest of this, including replies from me, might not be neutral. That is fine, expected even, however something to be aware of if you do find yourself taking offence at things (assuming it is taken, and not given).
What will come of this I do not know, though I will say if you assume your enemy is a fool or evil then you have probably already lost and even if you disagree vehemently then you will do better against them if you understand their underlying logic and reasoning
This is also not a battle. You might find someone has more common ground with you than you realise. Do however take to heart the "knowing yourself" part for a weak understanding of your points is seldom a good position to be in.Sun Tzu said:
