How come the Giant Bomb Resetera forums tend to be more active than our forums?

I remember that discussion about fixing blogs. Apparently they're finally rolling out wiki fixes on Comic Vine, so it's only a matter of time before the engineers decide to prioritize blogs... or something. It's good to dream.

For whatever it's worth @wrighteous86, I'm still very much out there, trying to do my blogging thing (trying being the key word. It turns out amateur video game blogs aren't exactly the highest on one's list of priorities when things get busy), and there are a couple of other regular or sporadic folks still keeping that torch alive.

@mikachops: You say we're not fun to interact with and then take us to task for not responding to your criticism maturely? Do you want me to be sarcastic or not, guy?

I think it's fairly normal for anyone who's been tasked to moderate an internet forum to feel a little defensive sometimes. A very small amount of people feel entitled to post hateful shit on the internet, and when we moderate them they redirect that aggression towards us. We've had death threats in this very thread. We've had people scroll through our social media accounts and threaten our families and pets, share our personal information, and generally try to make our lives miserable just because we called them out for being racist on a videogame forum. So yeah, sometimes we get a little guarded. That might sound like a red flag to you but to anyone else that would be considered common sense; don't expose weaknesses if there are people out there looking to hurt you.

Despite that I think we're all pretty down to earth and engage with the community in a fairly lighthearted manner. If we're not always as jovial as you'd expect then, well... I don't know what you want to happen?

I think we're funny. Except ZombiePie, who is pretty much an android.

@arbitrarywater: I hear that man. Big boy jobs make blogging hard. Glad to hear from you though. Definitely remember you!

@sweep: Dude, I know what jovial is and you were being snippy and dismissive.

By your own admission you're approaching discussions here under the assumption we're all secretly arseholes, which should probably tell you you could be approaching this part of the site differently. It might not be the only problem but it seems like a fairly obvious one and was partially the reason why GAF used to be so terrible and the opposite of why Era is so nice to comment in.

@mikachops: No, you're putting words in my mouth. Being guarded is not unreasonable. I notice you're not using your real name or broadcasting your personal information either - that's not paranoid, that's pragmatic. Not exposing yourself to harassment isn't the same as "treating everyone like assholes". I don't think there's any examples of that happening, although if you feel otherwise then we recommend you forward those on to the staff for review.

To be honest though I feel like we're being patient and calm while discussing this and you're the one who is assuming we're assholes and being unnecessarily hostile. What's the beef?

Up until a couple years ago I was semi-frequent in the forums. Eventually, some of my posts got deleted despite saying nothing controversial and I felt the conversation I was having with someone(s) was civil, and it discouraged me enough from posting as much as I used to because I felt like I was wasting time. I had one foot out the door anyway because post-GG I got tired of engaging with people here who were speaking in bad faith.

Nothing against the mods, though. We have phases and I needed a break. I posted elsewhere for a couple years and I eventually came back but nowadays I mostly hang out in the Wrestling Discussion thread if I'm bored. Don't do forum/comments discussion anywhere that much anymore.

@sweep said:@minipato said: @opusofthemagnum: Yeah I've seen chunks of discussion get deleted. Especially during Far Cry 5's release and all the political and artistic discussion around that. Sure, some of the discourse gets heated, but there should be some amount of trust in the community to be able to talk about subjects that are inherently intense. It's weird when a discussion happens on the podcasts and seems to get squashed on the forums because of a lack of trust in us to handle those same discussions. As other posters said, it seems like the forum is on preemptive strike mode because of the gamer gate era stuff.

The forum enters a bland medium of not being trusted enough to handle heavy topics and not being allowed to be too jokey and ends up with 10 threads about "terrible/bad/mediocre/good games you hated/loved." No shade to those threads, a gaming forum needs that type of thread every once in a while for people to vent about games people loved or praise games people hated, but a whole bunch of em cropped up at once recently.

The community spotlight features dozens of blogs and threads every week which demonstrates that's not the case. If people want to talk about social issues in america and the way they're represented in videogames then they should make a thread specifically for that purpose rather than trying to have that discussion beneath a quick look. We're not in preemptive strike mode, there are very few subjects we have a blanket ban on, unless you want to argue about ethics in games journalism or why feminism is actually a bad thing then you're able to discuss almost anything. The problem is many people aren't willing to make the effort to begin discussions in a way which will promote meaningful and thoughtful conversation, and if we feel that someone isn't treating an issue with the respect it deserves then yeah, we'll nip that shit in the bud. You can be cynical if you want, but some of us have been moderating this site for 10 years, we're getting pretty good at spotting when a thread is heading downhill.

Some joke threads get locked for lack of discussion value when the same subject would be the source of many jokes in an email section of the bombcast/beastcast. The criteria for what can exist as a goof and what can't seems vague.

This has always been a little weird, because there's plenty of things that get talked about on the podcasts that we wouldn't tolerate on the forums. For example there are numerous times where the staff tell one another to "fuck off" or jokingly insult one another in a way that we wouldn't tolerate here. That might seem like a double standard, but it's too easy to misinterpret the context or miss a reference. Playing it safe ultimately makes the forums a nicer place to be, and that's the decision of the staff, not the moderators.

The deleted posts I'm talking about weren't in a comment section of a video, but a blog post specifically pertaining to Far Cry 5 and how games can be more than toys and discussing why gamers are averse to games being a deeper medium. Of course discussion like that would get heated, but insults weren't being hurled about. It definitely feels preemptive because the posts got deleted before there was a chance to deescalate and find common ground. There was not even any notification or warning for why they were deleted. I get that mods don't know each and every single user personally and don't know their maturity levels, but ending a discussion before it has even turned into a fight feels preemptive and displays a lack of trust in the community. I don’t thInk I’m being cynical, I think operating on the assumption that all users are as bad as an immature minority is cynical.

Yep. And we (should) all know why. CBSi mods are not exactly my idea of "fun" or "open minded" and they assume/do the worst if there's any question on the extremely widely interpreted "Rule #1" - sarcasm/satire do not exist here anymore.

The forums were really fun back in the day (for example, you could actually do and say stuff just like the staff does! Now, it's kindergarten in the forums, and high school in the site content). This was, of course, before the site got sold to a giant corporation run by... well, I'll leave it at that. No joking or fun here, move along. But if you want to attack and pile on to the latest evil-doer who lived by social norms in the 70s and 80s and is being held to today's standards in retrospect, you've found it!

The problem is people are literally afraid to post how they feel, because it will be viewed and moderated as if it was in the most serious/evilly-intended fashion. That definitely includes criticism of the staff or mods. It's the same way it works at the office I've worked for before: "the CEO's door is always open!"... but if you actually go in there to make a critical, valid complaint, you'll get burned by it HARD. The same general feeling applies here, and I'm a bit happier for humanity today to see that this same perception of these forums is not just mine at all. I was literally quite concerned that the newer members really did think free speech, wherever it occurs, should be censored if it can possibly offend a single person out of 7 billion.

How do you know? You can't see what posts are being deleted and people who are banned. As was said, that info isn't shared (Sweep said he's already deleted serious death threats in this thread... really?? They must be quick on the trigger if those are occurring, because I haven't seen it happen even once and yet apparently it's constant?).

I can tell you from the experiences of all my old GB buddies who got into the site when Gerstmann left Gamespot and create the site, it was TOTALLY different. Not toxic, or not to a level that should concern anyone that often, and fun. People were treated like adults, as this site is FOR adults given the content's "R-rated" nature mostly... and more importantly, people were treated with respect, as people should be, especially paying members of the site - people who literally support the site on a grassroots level. But they all agree, as do I, that since things changed around the time the site went back to the old ownership, the forums and general feeling of the community changed BIG time. And I saw, and even experienced, quite a few really ridiculous scenarios with moderation. I'd rather ignore idiots on YouTube comments than feel like I'm stepping on eggshells discussing or disagreeing with anything for "breaking rule #1", which covers literally everything, depending on how broadly interpreted it is. And the interpretation, it seems, is very broad.

Alright, when people who have been warned about joking about the physical appearance of staff members and for using and defending the use of this delightful term in the past start saying they should be treated with more respect, I think this conversation has about run its course. And yes, there was a death threat directed at a mod as a result of this thread. If you don't believe that, feel free not to. If you didn't see it or the hundreds of other unpleasantries that pop up on the site or chat on a daily basis, then hey: the mods are doing their jobs.

I'll be reaching out to some of you who have expressed concerns via PM when I have a chance; otherwise if you wish to bring up anything with the mods, you can use the PM all mods link on the right side of any forum page, or you can PM me, or you can PM Jeff if you like.