I Miss Boem...

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Exile009 wrote:

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GusTheCrocodile wrote:

Not a distraction, just an invalid comparison. Being a dick is not an identity, it's a set of actions.

Heh, so you admit you don't really believe in private privilege then.

See, now this is a deflection. Make a bad point, have that calmly pointed out, immediately discard it and attack your opponent's beliefs. Anything to avoid keeping the domain of discussion on the reality of the case in question. This 90s forum debatebro culture of "attack, attack, always attack" is inane.

My statement was never "I believe in private privilege", as some term you get to define on my behalf. It's not inconsistent that I don't hold to an absolutist, unstated "anyone can do anything they like" position that you've imagined for me.

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Exile009 wrote:

I'm fairly confident the vast majority of probations here did not even follow a Report from anyone.

Given that only the moderators would have access to that information, it's not clear what you're basing that confidence on. But either way, how is it even relevant whether or not a user reported something? The moderators are the ones making moderation decisions, that's what they're there for.

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GusTheCrocodile wrote:

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Exile009 wrote:

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GusTheCrocodile wrote:

Not a distraction, just an invalid comparison. Being a dick is not an identity, it's a set of actions.

Heh, so you admit you don't really believe in private privilege then.

See, now this is a deflection. Make a bad point, have that calmly pointed out, immediately discard it and attack your opponent's beliefs. Anything to avoid keeping the domain of discussion on the reality of the case in question. This 90s forum debatebro culture of "attack, attack, always attack" is inane.

My statement was never "I believe in private privilege", as some term you get to define on my behalf. It's not inconsistent that I don't hold to an absolutist, unstated "anyone can do anything they like" position that you've imagined for me.

I didn't discard anything, nor did you point out anything. What I called private privilege is simply the argument you'd made earlier - that "there's nothing 'dictatorial' about people asserting control of their own spaces." And I pointed out two - among many - examples of how that kind of prerogative is hardly respected. You didn't come up with any counterargument to that, you simply carved out an exception for things you don't like - specific identity-based limitations - and then insisted it did still apply to this case cos these weren't based on those protected identities. In other words, you undercut your own argument but then insisted it wasn't undercutting cos you consider it an exception. By that logic, every position can be anything one wants since anything inconsistent with the position can be seen as exceptions.

It's sort of like the 1001 Commandments method - just make a "rule" (more like a whim in this case) for every situation one encounters and insist that you are indeed morally consistent cos every choice you make is its own rule. No fundamental philosophy, no logical extrapolation from a set of axioms - everything is a rule and/or an exception to pre-existing rules.

Besides, one can find examples of private privilege being curtailed for 'asserting control' based on behavior as well. Unionisation is common example - although not wholly established everywhere yet, it's already hard for a company to fire someone with the open reason being that they were trying to unionize (they typically just concoct some fake other reason to do it - for now - which itself shows how troublesome it is already). Hell what about firing someone for being honest aka whistleblowers? Or how about when identity and actions collide, such as wrt culturally imbued clothing or even body art? How much private privilege will companies be allowed to exercise over objections to stuff like that? I can go on, albeit this is already rubbing against the very CoC rule that likely got Boem canned in the first place.

Btw, you can find examples that curtail "asserting control of their own spaces" for homes as well, typically religious ones so I'll leave it for now.

Point being that 1) you arbitrarily carved out an exception for private privilege regarding identities while insisting it still applied to the things you don't like, and 2) even in that domain it isn't consistently respected.

In other words, the 1001 Commandments - just indulge whatever preferences you have and insist that's still a principled position by calling every one of them a 'rule'. Yeah of course you'll never be found hypocritical then...

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GusTheCrocodile wrote:

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Exile009 wrote:

I'm fairly confident the vast majority of probations here did not even follow a Report from anyone.

Given that only the moderators would have access to that information, it's not clear what you're basing that confidence on. But either way, how is it even relevant whether or not a user reported something? The moderators are the ones making moderation decisions, that's what they're there for.

Now you're deflecting. You based your position on people being dicks, for which if people are being probated without having antagonized anyone here means they were probated for, as I called it above, a victimless crime. And it's pretty easy to be confident of that hypothesis, since a lot of the probations here are for a 'crime' that few people would ever bother to report, namely bringing up politics or religion. If you insist on believing that people who have no reason to be upset themselves (as they weren't attacked in such cases so they have little reason to harbor any desire to punish said 'criminal') would diligently call on the mods to enforce that rule, that is just you being willfully difficult in order to avoid giving in. The moderators are indeed the ones making the moderating decisions, as suits their fancy - that's pretty much what I said already. You don't have a problem with that only cos you're quite happy to selectively apply private privilege as and when it suits you.

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Exile009 wrote:

I didn't discard anything, nor did you point out anything.

Uh, yes, I did. You "challenged" me to make a case for identity-based exclusion, as if I had advocated for such. I pointed out that that is an irrelevant argument because people on this forum are not banned for their identity. I get that you don't agree, but outright declaring that things weren't said is very silly.

Look, when I said there's nothing dictatorial about people controlling their own spaces, what I meant was "organisations having sets of rules and excluding people for their behaviour is not in itself a problem". I was talking about the basic situation of having and exercising that control, not all specific instances. Like if someone says "driving cars isn't a violent act", they may not mean to suggest that's true even if there happens to be a toddler in front of the car in a specific case.

So what I did not mean was "every decision made by an organisation is morally justified by their legal right to make it". I understand that that meaning may have come across anyway and so I apologise for a lack of clarity in my words.

But I was, and am, really just calling for a little bit of perspective. This talk about dictators and justice systems and companies firing unionising workers and the like is really giving this whole thing an air of significance it absolutely does not deserve.

A user got banned from a videogame forum for repeatedly breaking the rules in likely a whole bunch of different ways (not just being a dick to others, sure, but not just 'bringing up politics and religion' either). This is not an injustice, let alone some grand tragedy of the modern age. If a videogame company doesn't want particular topics broached on their community forum, well, that's not hurting anyone, it's not an attack on anyone's rights. As much as anyone might prefer that they be allowed to discuss those things here (I'd be among them!), it is nonetheless really not an unreasonably invasive or strenuous request, and the rules here are not remotely difficult to abide by. So I've little sympathy for anyone who knows the expectations of this one free website, chooses to regularly disregard them, and finds there are consequences for that. They haven't been harmed.

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Exile009 wrote:

Now you're deflecting. You based your position on people being dicks, for which if people are being probated without having antagonized anyone here means they were probated for, as I called it above, a victimless crime.

This "if" is doing a lot of work. Not being reported for antagonising people is not the same as not antagonising people; you can't conclude the latter from the former (even if you could prove the former in the first place). And following on from that, not antagonising people is not the same as not breaking the rules, or not making the community a worse/less welcoming place, etc etc.

I mean, it's certainly not the case that everything that doesn't get reported therefore represents a respectful and constructive contribution to the community. A forum can simultaneously be a complete cesspit and also not have any of its posts reported by members, just because those are the kinds of people who stayed. GGG probably doesn't want that though, since they want to attract new players.

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Exile009 wrote:

If you insist on believing that people who have no reason to be upset themselves (as they weren't attacked in such cases so they have little reason to harbor any desire to punish said 'criminal') would diligently call on the mods to enforce that rule, that is just you being willfully difficult in order to avoid giving in.

I do not believe that. I don't take a position on how many reports are coming in about particular things.

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Exile009 wrote:

The moderators are indeed the ones making the moderating decisions, as suits their fancy - that's pretty much what I said already. You don't have a problem with that only cos you're quite happy to selectively apply private privilege as and when it suits you.

Please practice your mindreading skills before deigning to tell me what I think. I don't have a problem with the moderators banning people who regularly break the rules because I don't think the community will be worse off for their absence.

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GusTheCrocodile wrote:

But I was, and am, really just calling for a little bit of perspective. This talk about dictators and justice systems and companies firing unionising workers and the like is really giving this whole thing an air of significance it absolutely does not deserve.

Perhaps as an isolated instance, but this is hardly an isolated instance. On this forum, Boem isn't the only one to have felt the sting of this regime. But more broadly, this isn't just a GGG thing - it's already the norm across online fora on the internet as a whole. So it really represents yet another cut that forms part of the death through a thousand cuts (to borrow a military phrase) of the open internet. Yes, Boem may seem a small thing, but he's very much part of a worrisome larger trend. One that such quiet acceptance allows to spread. And that isn't paranoia about a distant future - it's already here. And to clarify, I don't mean the specific code of conduct GGG uses, but the clamping down across the web with increasingly restrictive mods in general.

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GusTheCrocodile wrote:

I don't have a problem with the moderators banning people who regularly break the rules because I don't think the community will be worse off for their absence.

Well that's an opinion. One, for what it's worth, that I disagree with. I do think this community has been impoverished by Boems' absence. He was easily one of the more erudite provocateurs on this forum. And more generally it has been impoverished by the self-censorship fates like his have engendered in everyone else as well. I mean, we couldn't even discuss a global pandemic last year, despite literally half a dozen threads started for that (including by GGG themselves) because it proved to be nigh impossible to converse about it without eventually falling foul of said rules (or some creative interpretation of them, such as banning 'economics' as well). And no, such talk isn't out of the scope of this forum just cos it's a gaming site. That's why Off-Topic exists, and why the longest running thread here isn't about games at all, but anime (and there's plenty of other threads on non-gaming subjects as well).

And the result for this forum is plain to see, I even made a post about it some time ago - https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2823247

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So I decided to have a look through several pages of this place to see how well this forum is faring these days. Off-Topic is especially good at generating discussions over things people are passionate about, and it literally has the entire world as its potential subject matter (pretty much everything not connected to the game). So, wanna guess how many actually active threads there are on this forum nowadays i.e. threads that are ongoing (haven't been shuttered by GGG / still talking) and have 10+ pages of content?
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6. Six!

Mind you two of those six were pandemic threads that were later shut down. And the Wolcen thread has also been forgotten now. Since then we've added the D2R, Last Epoch and Other Games threads, so that leaves us at an even six. If you add this thread, I suppose that makes it seven, albeit the irony of doing so runs thick. And half of those threads are on other games, hinting at how much narrower the conversation has become that Off-Topic now is mostly used to talk about even more gaming. This place used to be a lot more lively, and varied.

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Exile009 wrote:

And no, such talk isn't out of the scope of this forum just cos it's a gaming site.

You're right, it's outside the scope of this forum because GGG says so.

It's not like there's a shortage of public discourse on, uh, the pandemic, or economics. It just isn't happening on this New Zealand videogame studio's website. That's okay.

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Exile009 wrote:

Perhaps as an isolated instance, but this is hardly an isolated instance. On this forum, Boem isn't the only one to have felt the sting of this regime. But more broadly, this isn't just a GGG thing - it's already the norm across online fora on the internet as a whole. So it really represents yet another cut that forms part of the death through a thousand cuts (to borrow a military phrase) of the open internet. Yes, Boem may seem a small thing, but he's very much part of a worrisome larger trend. One that such quiet acceptance allows to spread. And that isn't paranoia about a distant future - it's already here. And to clarify, I don't mean the specific code of conduct GGG uses, but the clamping down across the web with increasingly restrictive mods in general.

Mind you two of those six were pandemic threads that were later shut down. And the Wolcen thread has also been forgotten now. Since then we've added the D2R, Last Epoch and Other Games threads, so that leaves us at an even six. If you add this thread, I suppose that makes it seven, albeit the irony of doing so runs thick. And half of those threads are on other games, hinting at how much narrower the conversation has become that Off-Topic now is mostly used to talk about even more gaming. This place used to be a lot more lively, and varied.

We don't live in a one-size-fits-all world. Maybe it is time people learn to abide by a different set of rules and the world is a complicated place. You are not always protected by the laws of your country of residence. [Removed by Support] Have fun with your comfort zone shrinking. You will get used to it.

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awesome999 wrote:

We don't live in a one-size-fits-all world. Maybe it is time people learn to abide by a different set of rules and the world is a complicated place. You are not always protected by the laws of your country of residence. [Removed by Support] Have fun with your comfort zone shrinking. You will get used to it.

Bruh, at this point I'm wondering if you come from...a certain country that's very controversial off late. You certainly give off that air. And no, that norm spreading is controversial with many, which is why (among other things) said places arouse such antagonism. Ppl aren't quietly going into the night.

And US media companies don't argue for the restrictions this place operates under. They sometimes argue for restrictions on hurtful speech, which I already dealt with in my earlier replies to you. So that is yet another pointless point.

In any case, this place isn't being handled by the laws of any country, not even its country of origin NZ. Cos NZ law doesn't specify GGG's Code of Conduct, that's entirely on GGG themselves. So your argument is moot. Indeed your entire series of govt. comparisons is moot, as that isn't what's happening here. If GGG wanted to change their CoC, they're at liberty to do so. Indeed they already have before, to the form we see at present. Whatever instructions their mods operate under is also at their discretion. So bringing in courts and govts. and all that was irrelevant. That was never the reason this place is as it is. As I said before, we don't govern online fora as we do real life. Almost all of their governance isn't even done by govts. at all.

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GusTheCrocodile wrote:

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Exile009 wrote:

And no, such talk isn't out of the scope of this forum just cos it's a gaming site.

You're right, it's outside the scope of this forum because GGG says so.

It's not like there's a shortage of public discourse on, uh, the pandemic, or economics. It just isn't happening on this New Zealand videogame studio's website. That's okay.

"because GGG says so" - indeed, which circles right back to my dictatorial point above. And great job minimizing things once again. But all that shows is that there isn't a fundamental counterargument here - you're just content to go along with it. So be it. Others are not however, and you haven't provided a convincing argument for why they should be, because your claim is fundamentally subjective i.e. you just don't feel it's a big deal. Others feel differently.

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Turtledove wrote:

Okay pour the vitriol on me as well then.

If you consider this vitriol, I don't know what to tell you. I'm just countering the arguments as they're made. And no, it's never been my claim that Boem was some kind of paragon of humanity, so your opinion of him will find no objection from me (whether I agree with it or not). As for Boem being better off this way, maybe. I don't know. But that doesn't really have any bearing here. The issue is the mod regime he's been punished by. Boem may indeed be better off this way, but that doesn't change that this shouldn't have happened. Much like some others have asked GGG to remove their ability to buy mystery boxes, if Boem needed to 'detox', he could've similarly asked the mods to do that. His perspective would still be missed ofc, but at least we'd know it was on their terms rather than (imo) unjustly forced upon them.

It's worth noting that there are already examples of other forum denizens who've removed their accounts. Indeed I made another past thread asking about one of them when I noticed them gone - https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2829746

You'll find I didn't dismiss their decision. Altna seemingly chose to leave us behind and I've no objections to that. But that isn't like Boems' case at all. And Boem isn't the only one - everyone here is affected by the system that Boem has been banished by. He isn't even the only one who's been perma-banned either.