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FAST6191

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Politics section is fine. If you don't like it, you can't reason your positions or it doesn't interest you then don't go in there.

Blogs would go if it were me.
 
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AmandaRose

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The politics section or as it's also known the one place where I get transphobic abuse if I post absolutely anything in it section, really needs to be gone from the site. It's only purpose is as a place for people to bully or be bullied. Nobody can deny that 9 out of 10 threads in it end up with multiple posts deleted, arguments, name calling, bullying, and so on. It serves no purpose other than to make the site look bad. I know some staff member probably @FAST6191 will say having a politics section is good because it contains such bullshit to one section of the site. Well there is an easy solution to that.The site just needs to bring out a new rule banning all political talk from the whole of the site. Punishment should be strict for anyone failing to follow the new no politics rule

First political post. Warning
Second. Suspension
Third. Perma ban.

The strictness of such rules would soon put an end to the bullshit political nonsense that goes on in the site. People would soon catch on that they can't get away with posting political stuff. The site would be a better place and it would also slightly lessen the work for the staff. Somewhat of a win win situation for everyone.
 

Stealphie

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The politics section or as it's also known the one place where I get transphobic abuse if I post absolutely anything in it section, really needs to be gone from the site. It's only purpose is as a place for people to bully or be bullied. Nobody can deny that 9 out of 10 threads in it end up with multiple posts deleted, arguments, name calling, bullying, and so on. It serves no purpose other than to make the site look bad. I know some staff member probably @FAST6191 will say having a politics section is good because it contains such bullshit to one section of the site. Well there is an easy solution to that.The site just needs to bring out a new rule banning all political talk from the whole of the site. Punishment should be strict for anyone failing to follow the new no politics rule

First political post. Warning
Second. Suspension
Third. Perma ban.

The strictness of such rules would soon put an end to the bullshit political nonsense that goes on in the site. People would soon catch on that they can't get away with posting political stuff. The site would be a better place and it would also slightly lessen the work for the staff. Somewhat of a win win situation for everyone.
Exactly. Also this is a fucking videogame forum (occasionally movies, TV, music or shitposting but mostly g@ming). Being reminded of how terrible the real world is when i'm here to talk about fucking VIDEO GAMES isn't my cup of tea. imo if these people want to discuss shit about politics, just GO ON ANOTHER SITE, A SUBREDDIT, LITERALLY ANYTHING ELSE.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

Also, I have no problems with people talking about stuff like Formula 1 in there. If that section gets deleted, i suggest a new one should be made for threads about stuff like formula 1, soccer, hockey etc etc.
 

FAST6191

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Containment is but a half nice perk at times. I am not so bothered by having things contained.

What is politics and what is political? There are apolitical discussions you can have but they are less common at times.

The last thing I was quoted on before this thread was in a thread dealing with the Civilisation game series. Is that game in and of itself not advocating for a world view?

Is allowing hacking a political position? There is any amount of law all over the world, and political will, to shut it down hard (I mean I scanned over a thread about a hack setup being DMCAed to get here).

Is allowing people to talk about what is going on in their lives likely to open the door to political discussions?
"where I get transphobic abuse"
Some would have the existence of, and treatment provided for, transexuals be a political position (it certainly involves a lot of legal time, government discussion time, educational questions (which is political when all is said and done), political activism, general activism and more besides, or might they be pointless as everything is done and sorted and those still active are just wasting their breath like me advocating for the widespread adoption of electricity?). Positions that some in this thread may find abhorrent (quickfire round -- the sports question, payment requirements vis a vis insurance and government healthcare, illness or not, children and their position, presuming something for the illness thing then misdiagnosis, what terms are offensive and also what historical precedents might someone look at, deadnaming vs free speech, educational assessment of things? If you have easy answers for those then you are probably wrong or massively oversimplifying) not even being outside the mainstream, assuming "mainstream" is even a useful delineation worth looking at in this (everybody must be mainstream is boring as anything, and is meaningless given this is a worldwide site wherein vastly different approaches might be mainstream).
Do we do a no discussion of any such issues rule as it is political and we ban all political talk?
Related to that
https://gbatemp.net/account/personal-details
Screenshot_2020-08-25_04-03-04.png

Is this forum horribly gender conformist by not doing infinite user defined options, saving that everybody "other" is lumped into non specified which also includes lazy/legacy types that did not bother? What about if you have one of the "changes with temperature" varieties?

I would also note politics discussion is not a new thing on the forums. We have had such discussions for as long as I have been here, and as far as I can tell before that too. I don't see it as having taken a dark turn such that we would want to remove it on a forum that values discussion.
 
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godreborn

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I don't like the political section. it leads to a lot of angry posts. I have it blocked when I'm signed in, but there are ways around it like if it's a blog or something. or, if I'm not signed in... I don't keep my credentials on my phone in case it gets stolen. I'm not really a phone person other than checking the internet or listening to music. I do get a bit annoyed seeing a post that's bound to piss you off if you open it. I don't open them (usually), but I don't like it regardless. I understand people sharing their opinions, but some posts are just flame wars with two sides. it's unhealthy.
 

FAST6191

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I don't like the political section. it leads to a lot of angry posts.
I have seen flame wars over everything for decades now, especially in games (mario vs sonic, fifa vs pro evo, Sonic classic vs Sonic in name only Adventure, Sega vs Nintendo, MS being a outsider, Sony being an outsider, the N64 being a failure vs not, the Wii U "just being badly advertised", the gamecube controller being good, cheats vs no cheats, whether hacks disrepect the vision of the creators and thus should not be allowed...
Is politics section so very different?
 

Kioku

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I have seen flame wars over everything for decades now, especially in games (mario vs sonic, fifa vs pro evo, Sonic classic vs Sonic in name only Adventure, Sega vs Nintendo, MS being a outsider, Sony being an outsider, the N64 being a failure vs not, the Wii U "just being badly advertised", the gamecube controller being good, cheats vs no cheats, whether hacks disrepect the vision of the creators and thus should not be allowed...
Is politics section so very different?
People have harmed, maimed or otherwise killed over politics. Can't say I've ever seen a fist fight over the N64 being good or bad... It all boils down to the severity of consequence. You can't sit here and compare politics (or even religion) to console wars. It's wrong and outright ignorant. You, of all people, should know better.
 
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FAST6191

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but political posts are just inviting it.
So because someone might be upset at reading something, can't (or won't) defend a position they adopted or can't be bothered to filter their reading lists (even if it involves scrolling on past it like I did with "Retroarch + exFat = corruption? in Switch - Emulation, Homebrew & Software Projects" to get to this thread) we should draw an arbitrary line in the sand as far as discussion on the forums to say no mention of any laws, current events, reasons for alteration of media (or depictions in media deviating from history perhaps), maybe with a small exception when it is directly about games*, when it is directly about hacking for games purposes being opened up or shut down, maybe when it is about intellectual property for games (we saw third party servers variously allowed in the US for games where the official server is gone a while back), maybe when some moron politico wants to ban games (though no calling the politico a moron, only discuss the merits on the basis of free speech vs protection of people as artistic works make people violent I guess), possibly no discussion of Epic game store because some people consider them the absolute worst and we have had some fairly contentious topics there, no discussion of the government funded game addiction clinic as that might lead to a discussion about healthcare, guns feature in games but we only allow that for games as US 2nd amendment discussions (and different takes from various states) get heated, you must accept others are your betters vis a vis what pronouns to use as well as how many genders that there are and what to think about their many faceted structure there (never mind there is endless debate in those circles) or possibly just adopt the California tech site orthodoxy... (in which case why wouldn't I be on Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, Youtube and co

*the battlefield cramming the ladies into front line whatever despite us claiming historical accuracy not 30 seconds earlier, the persona games removing the pushy gay guy because "negative stereotypes" is apparently a thing that needs to be avoided for some flavour of minority (whatever that might be, and who knows if in the future minority status gets lifted), what Steam banning Hatred at one point is I am not sure but I will include it here.

It all seems to arbitrary, and likely to end up with "I can't review the newest Call of Duty because is celebrates the American imperialist mindset, instead Tetris this year features 1.1x gravity of the baseline grand masters title, no wall kick, only single next piece viewable and has an average input latency of 15ms above theoretical minimum with my particular setups".

Exactly. Also this is a fucking videogame forum (occasionally movies, TV, music or shitposting but mostly g@ming). Being reminded of how terrible the real world is when i'm here to talk about fucking VIDEO GAMES isn't my cup of tea. imo if these people want to discuss shit about politics, just GO ON ANOTHER SITE, A SUBREDDIT, LITERALLY ANYTHING ELSE.
Is this a computer game forum or a general forum with a leaning towards computer games and hacking thereof?
Did you perhaps pick the wrong site to join when you picked this one if you thought it was only about games? Do I go on the sewing machine forums and ask them to instead talk about cars and we should be able to talk about cars?
Also is the real world terrible? I only really have history to compare it to and things look pretty good out there compared to that.


People have harmed, maimed or otherwise killed over politics. Can't say I've ever seen a fist fight over the N64 being good or bad... It all boils down to the severity of consequence. You can't sit here and compare politics (or even religion) to console wars. It's wrong and outright ignorant. You, of all people, should know better.
We must have been on very different playgrounds, and is that wilful ignorance of the very shady dealings various computer game companies have got up to over the years? Also plenty of people seem to have been hired and fired over games this last few years, some evening lifting their head up high and blowing their brains out. If stripping someone of their income, or possibly even career in some cases, is not pretty severe then yeah.
There are also millions of political discussions per hour, and have been for probably centuries. World seems pretty OK. There are some arseholes but probably always will be. Do I want to let my life be dictated by them?

Edit
and my alternative choice is reviews.
A curious choice.
Reviews for a very long time were on the forums (you can still see them https://gbatemp.net/forums/official-gbatemp-reviews.99/page-5 if you want), however the formatting options, placement options and the like proved to be a limitation, hence the creation of the review section. Even without that reviews would often appear during releases discussion threads.
What then is it about the reviews section that would see you delete it over say a random section like https://gbatemp.net/forums/dingoo-gemei.230/ assuming we are doing a "you must delete one else it will be bad for you" type scenario?
 
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FAST6191

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you've already proven our points. you can't handle our opinions.
I appear to still be here and about as comprehensible as up all night and 5am me ever gets.
I could recite the opinions listed and attribute them to their holders.
I am not sure what else is required to "handle" opinions.

I am however struggling to see
a) what sorts of restrictions might want to be put in place to achieve a "no politics" discussion goal, or a limited subset of suitable discussion points if that is more likely to be the case for lines in the sand are ever hard to achieve in practice (not that formulating a limited subset, never mind aiming for a "I'll know it when I see it" style, is in any way easy).
b) why those asking for such things are asking for radical changes to the site despite the site being that way before they joined/since the start/in the stated and evident by choices made goals.
c) what improvements to the site in the short and long term that such a move would yield. What metrics would I use to assess that?
 
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godreborn

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well, I don't want to get upset, and I don't want you to get upset either. that's why I steer clear of that sort of thing. my opinions will remain hidden even though I do have some pretty strong ones. I learned a long time ago that it's pointless trying to get someone else to see your side to something. words don't quite convey how you feel, which leads to misunderstandings. politics is bad in general, but it's really bad on a forum, because a lot of people don't care who they hurt. some people take it personally when someone has a different opinion.
 

FAST6191

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well, I don't want to get upset, and I don't want you to get upset either. that's why I steer clear of that sort of thing. my opinions will remain hidden even though I do have some pretty strong ones. I learned a long time ago that it's pointless trying to get someone else to see your side to something. words don't quite convey how you feel, which leads to misunderstandings. politics is bad in general, but it's really bad on a forum, because a lot of people don't care who they hurt. some people take it personally when someone has a different opinion.

That is a way to go through life.
It seems simpler however to go with "the world is a scary place, sometimes you will disagree with what others have to say, whether you withdraw or push on in an attempt to understand why that is the case is up to you. Forcing others to hide it for you, and hide everything for everybody else with potentially vastly different and mutually exclusive ideas on things, then makes for a nightmare to organise. Far easier then to allow it, maybe direct it/focus it a bit, or provide a suitable ground for it to flourish, and go from there.

As far as pointless getting someone else to see your side. Rarely will you convince the extreme (though it can happen, usually persistence and any amount of self sacrifice, anger and vitriol typically being counterproductive, forcing someone to not be able to express an opinion should they so choose then being one of the heights of anger and vitriol) but those uncertain, those less far down that path, those unversed in any of it... those you can get all day long.

If words don't convey your thoughts then you are using the wrong ones. Words is a subtly different skill to vocalisation/in person, see the never ending fun and games with sarcasm in the written word for but one example, and many would do more to assume good faith or press for further details when such things inevitable fail to be suitable.

Some may take it personally if someone else has a different opinion. What benefit for a general discussion forum* do I gain from creating a facade that nobody else differs from anybody else in a meaningful way?
Do I also risk the opposite?
"We exist without skin color, without nationality, without religious bias…" Mentors last words, one of the guiding principles of hackers, and if this site is nothing else it is a meeting of such minds.
How many have had such things drilled into them, or maybe "independently" came to such a conclusion, only to find someone they worked with, discussed things with, possibly helped in a time of need (or were helped by) was in fact actually OK people and change accordingly?

*if your job is to make widgets, hunt an animal, build a wall or similar then there is some merit to task focus. However if the task of a general discussion forum is... discussion, and always was, then yeah.

Could removing the politics discussion, presumably in favour of some kind of "don't rock the boat", utterly verboten and "we know it when we see it", or, worst of all, you follow the staff/consensus world view, yield say less moderation actions? Ignoring that "don't rock the boat" has vastly different interpretations within countries (cutting both/all ways at that), never mind between them and changes with respect to time**, then possibly. Would those, be it from lack of intellectual fortitude or damage in their past, that can't stand to have their ideas, assertions and understandings of the world challenged potentially have a less... emotional time on the forums were such rules enacted? Ignoring moderation delays and potential hypersensitivity being induced then yeah I imagine so. Would doing that yield more of what the forum cares most for, even if it comes at the cost of what would then once have been a guiding underlying principle? That I have a hard time seeing. What if it costs the presence of those that have been forged in the fires of internet/intellectual debate that can no longer discuss, possibly even if only to mock (no politics is no politics)? What if in doing so we see some of those that would have been forged in the fires of said same miss out?

**if you have a no offence protocol in play then you arguably create an incentive to render other/further things offensive, to say nothing of a the sociopath problem wherein a sociopath gets to dictate whatever they like as offensive.

"I may not agree with what you have to say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it". Is this not a solid principle and one fairly easy to adhere to?

Or TLDR. Banning politics discussion, assuming we can even figure out what that might look like (it is not a trivial task, not even close). What are the benefits? What are the costs? Do the benefits outweigh the costs, some of which are considerable and speak to the foundational elements of the site? In essence why should the site change what it is and has always done for you, especially when there are seemingly sites matching your desires already out there?
 

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