Could we please get some more gay-friendly Volunteer Mods?
It's been bothering me for a while that, whenever LGBT+ folks are besmirched for just being gay/trans/whatever, there's little-to-no mod reaction for upholding the "please respect marginalized groups" rule. I get that nobody's perfect and that maybe a lot of the mods who would enforce it for that as well are coincidentally really busy with other things at the time, but when it comes to, like, hate speech, if you use the R word, you get put in place, or the N word, same thing. Disrespecting folks of other religions? Also kept in line. And that's all great, I encourage safety for unnecessarily-attacked groups, but why is this not also the case for queer folk yet?
Without naming names (or linking to posts, because if you're not gonna name names, then that's just rude), there was a post not long ago where a mod responded to gay-bashing with "eh, that's not really seen as acceptable, so try not to do that again" as opposed to immediate "no, that's not okay"-ing for the same when it comes to speech against other groups (women, Muslim folks, other people I can't remember at the moment). It's not universal, because when I flagged a post for being anti-gay, it got taken care of, although it might have been more because the user in question was rude to just other posters as well, but as it stands, I don't feel like we can rely on mods to deal with discrimination against non-heteronormative users.
I'm not saying that I should be a moderator, because I'm definitely not cut out to be one, despite being on the forums a lot and speaking out against these things, and I'm not saying we should remove any mods either, especially since they've been doing a great-and-huge job lately stopping (I can't think of a better term, but) trolls from harassing the forums, but we need mods who are as vigilant in dealing with gay-bashing as they are with other hate speech. And I know I'm not making this up, because we see people get banned and threads closed for other hate speech, but then we let users continue to derail threads for almost every Telltale game with "why does this (actually gay) character have to be gay" or "talking about gay characters/gay attraction to characters is weird" or "well, that's a tumblr thing."
Comments
I completely agree that discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation should be taken just as seriously as if it were based on race or religion, but when it comes to rules regarding how to deal with hate speech, there should be a clear distinction between hate speech and simply sharing a viewpoint that isn't popular. For instance, there have been users on this forum before who have posted some unpopular opinions about LGBT issues, and in the real world unpopular opinions can sometimes be painted as hate speech, and I feel that the line between having an unpopular opinion and being hateful has become very blurred.
That being said, I'm very in the dark about how moderators handle enforcing the forum guidelines as well as how many mods we currently have. Maybe it would help if there were more transparency regarding what the rules/norms are for moderators? I think whatever the moderators can share about their positions would be much appreciated.
While I agree that queer folks should be protected just as much as any other marginalized group, I think the mods are doing their job well. I think a "eh, that's not really seen as acceptable, so try not to do that again" is okay. Wheter they agree with gay rights or not is part of their personal life and, while that kind of opinions define important parts of their personality, that doesn't really matter here. They did their job. And I don't think threads about LGBT characters are not really abad thing. Remember there are a lot of queer folk (even here probably) obessed with queer stuff (just check Tumblr), so it's not exactly like making a big deal about someone's religion, gender or ethnicity.
I say this as a Bi girl, okay? No hate. I don't think this is really an issue.
I remember a post about wheter trans sport players should be in their gender category or in their birth sex category, and some people were like "No, you're either a girl or a dude and you can't change that" or "that's called Gender Dysphoria and it's a mental illness" but it didn't last long. I also remember a thread that I don't really remember if it was about LGBT themes, but it had some people ranting against LGBT groups and defending themselves with "free spech", and saying that "free spech" did not defend LGBT rights, so they had no obligation to be respectful. It didn't last long either. There was an user tlking about political issues and got a comment deleted, and then he tried to rant on the mods for not allowing him to have "free spech", and the mods were like "No, we don't allow totally free spech. This is a place to have fun, and political discussions are not allowed for now". I think this forum is just as fucked as every other forum, but the mods are doing their job pretty well.
If you see posts such as these, it strongly helps us if you guys flag them. It's not always safe to assume someone else has already tried doing so. Forum Guideline 1.1 protects users of different backgrounds against discriminatory comments, including users of different sexualities.
If you feel we weren't hard enough or have feedback, you can send specific comments via PM to me or other mods.
We generally try to use our personal intuition as mods to judge the extent as to whether to publicly warn or ban. Lately, we've tried to be more strict about enforcing Guideline 1.1, but again, we aren't perfect and can miss posts or make the wrong call, so I'm open to hear more feedback via PM if you guys have feedback, issues, or observations.
The same can be said of our modding practices in general - we are always open to hear out feedback via PM, as long as it is presented civilly and constructively.
I think you guys generally do a decent job. It's rare I see something that seriously break the rules.
I think you guys do a pretty good job, there are always going to be those that are not friendly to LGBT folks....it is sad but it is real. All we can do is just hope for the best and flag things we feel that unfairly hit at us.
As always communication is the best weapon to combat hate. Not everyone is going to like you or me or whomever, but that is ok...a person's thoughts are their own.
What the fuck? "gay-friendly Volunteer Mods", what is that supposed to mean?
I don't understand what you mean exactly? Hate speech should be protected cause it's the first amendment here in the Good Ole United States and Supreme Court saw to that a few decades ago and just this year too. I do think there people who bash people for being Gay,but there's there opinion and yes,it is wrong,but you shouldn't ban somebody because of that. I just think people should just accept that speech being hate or not should never become a excuse to ban somebody based on there opinions.
BTW I was watching 60 minutes the other night and one person said that people need to have a discussion about certain things that are happening. We shouldn't let people ban somebody from what there opinions about certain people who they think they have opinions on.
Also I have no problem with gay moderators being on here in Telltale,but I do believe Hate speech should be protect cause it's Free Speech.
Correct, the state shouldn't persecute you for hate speech, but this isn't the state, this is an online forum where one of the rules prohibits hate speech.
Yup,which sucks I mean come on having opinions makes things more interesting and having better discussion on it is better to have on here,but I guess prohibited....DAMN
Oh, yeah, I remember as well. That troll is banned though.
How in the world is any of that, "ban worthy" or "hate speech?"
I honestly haven't noticed homophobia or transphobia on the forum since February.
Yup, I haven't see it lately
Actually, no.
We are not in the Good Ole United States; we are on a private forum.
The company who owns the forum—and the moderators whom the company trusts to make decisions for them—technically have the right to filter or censor what is said anywhere within this website. We are not protected by free speech legal regulations.
As papai and BetterToSleep said - this is not the Government but a private establishment, so the standards are different. Not to mention, freedom of speech does not mean you are entitled to be protected from criticism or consequences of free speech when it comes to people or organizations outside of the government.
This thread is not about the politics of free speech/"entitlement to hate speech from the Supreme Court", so I am going to ask that we stay on topic and avoid making this political any further.
This online comic sums it up pretty well: https://xkcd.com/1357/
Well,that sucks
I think I know which conversation you are speaking of. A person used "gay" as an insult when speaking about a character, I called them out on it, a mod asked them to not use gay as an insult, the person justified themselves saying he was just talking about a character (as if it was ok because the character wasn't real and if the issue was not the meaning they attached to the word) and the mod responded by saying it is still frowned upon anyway and by asking them to not do it again.
I think the issue here is that the poster didn't get an explanation on why what he said was awful. He thought he was being called out for insulting a fictional character, he didn't understand it was because he was using gay as an insult even though the mod said that was the reason.
Just putting this out here for context. If this isn't the situation you are speaking of, I'm sorry.
Anyways, the mods can fail. It doesn't mean they are not being as vigilant when it comes to LGBT-phobia as when it comes to other kinds of hate speech. I already saw many people being banned and posts being deleted due to LGBT-phobia. I know because I'm usually in the middle of these discussions, because I'm flag-happy and because I'm super petty and go back to old discussions to see if they got banned or had their comments deleted.
We try to do the best we can with everything. Sometimes, actually, more often then people realize, we just don't see stuff that no one flags. We try to be gentle with warnings and stuff as opposed to being all like "Halt you moron." We're humans, we don't like to be mean. I don't know what specific thing you are talking about, but I can assure that we do our best (in our human, imperfect judgement) to ensure that no one is harassed for stuff like that (or in general). In fact, this was part of the reason we got rid of political speech that it was leading people to being too hostile to each other even though we acknowledged that some good stuff did exist.
Please, please feel free to share this specific incident with me or any of the mods and we will gladly look it over and stuff and maybe clarify some things. Another thing, flag comments that are bad if you see them. Unfortunately (or well, fortunately), we don't get a lot of flags nowadays, and the ones we do are often self-flagged. Help us help you!
Nope, that's pretty good. Your freedom ends where someone else's freedom begins.
Imagine if we were co-workers and I kept following you around the workplace insulting you. Never touching you, just telling you my "honest opinion" about you, your family, your friends, your heritage, your country, etc. Imagine if you went to our boss to complain about my behavior towards you and they said "That's free speech, suck it up".
Be nice to people. It isn't that hard.
(We usually don't allow people to discuss moderation openly, but this discussion is constructive so we're allowing some exceptions right now)
We did have some problems for a while with people misinterpreting mods; if we aren't clear about something, please feel free to ask for clarification via PMs.
Felt like mentioning it because the situation described was familiar to me but it wasn't exactly what happened, and I feel like the way that the OP said made it seem like the mod's answer was worse than it actually was.
Also I meant to say "the poster didn't get THE explanation", not "AN explanation", because it was explained to them but I think they didn't understand it, my bad.
^
This post sums it up pretty excellently.
No, I understood what you meant by that - I was clarifying that, if something like that happens again in general, people are allowed to ask via PM for clarification.
Blind Sniper should get a oscar for Best Passive Agressive image
It's not my own comic; I'd have used a less passive aggressive example if I could have found one, honest!
[Removed a few off topic comments]
nono, i like this one! i really do!
Forgot to mention fired from your job...
Bit of a complex issue IMO honestly. That's all I'll say.
First of all, I'm sorry that this particular situation got bad enough to warrant this thread. It makes my heart heavy.
I just want to reiterate this for anyone who may be clicking into this thread: hate speech and discrimination based on gender, race, sexuality, culture, religion, disability, etc. is explicitly forbidden in the first bullet point of the forum guidelines.
Please use the flag system - even if you're not sure if it particularly warrants a flag. It's better that the mods see something than potentially miss it - even if there is no action needed.
Additionally, if you do feel like mods are overlooking a flag or have missed something that you feel breaks this rule - don't hesitate to PM me.
Is there any chance you could tell us how many moderators we have on the forums, or at least whether or not you think there are enough mods to effectively enforce the rules?
Besides myself, other volunteer moderators include:
I'd say that the most active mods include Ozzy, InGen, Deltino, Dojo, and myself.
Of course, we also have the community manager mostlypoptarts, who is a staff member that we mods answer to. As she said in another post of hers - feel free to PM her if you have concerns about moderators.
Aside from staff, I'd say that comes out to 5 active mods and other mods to help on the side. We're also looking at other people for consideration as well.
Although the number of boards can seem like a lot here, most activity seems to take place on the boards for whichever Telltale Series are currently live, The Walking Dead section, and Telltale Talk (off topic). We are a little on the smaller side, but even so, I feel that we are able to mostly allocate our time across those boards well.
That being said, I really want to emphasize that flagging posts helps us out so that we don't potentially miss anything!
I'm sorry you feel that way, but completely understand why/how you'd feel that way.
In my own opinion, I think that the mods have been doing a really good job around here lately, and have closed up or stopped any possible toxic conversation. Porn trolls have been dealt with rather swiftly, any off-topic, hateful, or risky political topics have been closed pretty fast as well, and I haven't seen any LGBTQ+ hate around here recently either.
Maybe the mods weren't as direct about the problem as you would have liked, but I think they usually start off that way. It goes from a "Careful with where you're going with that, stop this subject here." to "This shouldn't be happening. Bye, bye." and either the thread gets closed, comments get deleted, users get banned or any combination of that. Though, that all depends on the severity of comment. Sometimes it's all right away, but other times it builds up before getting the hammer thrown down.
Again, I'm sorry you feel that the mods weren't doing a great job with all that. Fortunately, I haven't used the flag feature enough in my time here (but unfortunately, I've only used it to close my own threads), so maybe I should use it if I see an issue like that appear. I'd be glad to help with all this.
Also, I'm sorry if I'm not making much sense or if I seem kind of harsh about all this... I'm just trying to look at it from an objective point of view -- noting all the facts I have seen so far. I do believe this is something that should be enforced as harshly as all other forms of discrimination, because it does demean people's beliefs and thoughts.
Personally I think the mods are doing a good job with it and have made improvements over the years. But I do remember when the US made same-sex marriage legal across all states and one user who shall not be named (who was very vocal about being a bigot) couldn't cope with the ruling started ranting on here about how being gay was akin to bestiality and pedophilia. Said person didn't even get a ban or a warning and if I could find the thread I'd probably still be able to find their comment.
But if they were to do it now they'd probably get their comment removed and insta-banned for being toxic.
I agree. Our gay mods have been very friendly.
(The one I've known anyways)
More would be welcome though.
I know this a very serious thread and all but the idea of a mod going "Halt, you moron." really amuses me.
Meh.
A lot of people shy away for contacting moderators since private discussions are really hard when it turns out that moderator is secretly corrupt or something.
I know it's not something you would expect in Telltale forums but it wouldn't be a first time moderators abuse their powers.
It becomes further problem since a lot of forums actually help bad moderators to stay protected while various users end up not being able to prove they're innocent.
I don't think the issue is about if moderator is gay but that moderator is friendly towards such people.
I understand what you’re saying and I would normally agree, however, if what someone says is truly bothersome and they can’t go to the mods personally, then there’s the option to flag a post.
It was just a joke. I was implying that I read the post as "gay, friendly".