There IS clearly a right and a wrong, but since we have differing views on which side is right, then it should always continue to be discussion.

If one's views support bigotry, then forgive me for not feeling that we should continue to provide a platform from which they may expound their views.

I've clashed very publicly with a number of our other moderators in the recent topics on race and gender. I'm increasingly placed in the position of being one of the only people in these threads to be expressing progressive views on race and gender (many props to Oluseyi, Hodgman, and a small number of regular members for their own willingness to express such views).

The simple truth is that if we continue to be inclusive of racist and misogynist viewpoints, at the expense of minorities within our community, then we are not fulfilling our stated aim of "doing our best to make the environment friendly to all walks of life in the game development world".

Whether any of that bothers you, is between you and your conscience. I personally won't be a part of a community that wishes to model its attitudes on gender and race after Reddit or 4chan - if the current trend continues, I will be stepping down from my role as moderator, and finding a more progressive community to which to dedicate my time.

I don't really like such a rule either.

I think one of the main issues here is really the conflict of interest for moderators. These topics provoke many people, in particular our most active moderators, to respond. If the thread starts to derail, such moderators are caught in an awkward situation - act and potentially be seen to be biased in their actions or stay silent, hoping a less engaged moderator will see and weigh in.

I've seen cases where a moderator reported a thread they were active in to let a neutral party make the tough calls. Of course, there is also the question of moderating the behaviour of other moderators - a touchy subject, I don't really remember it coming up before.

Basically, there has been a spate of this and it would seem this has drained the energy from our pool of our most prolific moderators. Lacking sufficient moderation, some topics were allowed continue long after their worth was exhausted (always a difficult call).

I think a fairer rule would be to close the lounge for the duration of this "intermission" - a more general policy of cutting off topic discussion - as unpalatable as that would be.

While I personally sympathise with those against this, I think that ultimately the fate of these causes won't be decided in the next short while here, so a temporary suspension is far from the end of the world.

I believe in freedom of speech and thought, and would like there be open and robust debate about such topics, but petty bickering lacks the same value - as a community we're all responsible for the character of our conversations, our willingness to listen to and tolerate contrary opinions and to respond with respect.

Even now I see this topic drift towards the merits of the "problematic" debates in question.

In one of those Win10 threads, I asked a question about what was so inappropriate about making note of certain events in history that are similar to modern day laws, policies and other legal matters which resulted in the closing of the thread.

I will copy roughly the same explanation I PM'd to the first person who complained about that policy:

If you want to discuss moderation policies, please do so in the Comments and Suggestions forum, or take it up directly with a moderator by PM. It's not appropriate to take a thread off-topic to discuss moderation policies in thread.

I'm not opposed to history, and if you want to debate the nazis in a historical context, please create a new thread to do so.

It's incredibly lazy to appeal to Nazis to justify an arbitrary argument - if your best argument is "X is not as bad/worse than the Nazis", then you have already lost the argument.

again i've been accused of trying to start fights


one thing i really resent about this site, which really needs to be addressed, is that this is a game development site.

it is a site for game development.

not commercial game development, game development.

when it comes to comments about the function and distribution of games, many people seem to assume that the only reason people make games is to sell them for money, and therefore the only reason to produce games is to make money.

some people want to make games out of joy.

my aspiration is not to join a team and make money by coding. to me, this is the worst reason in life to do anything.

okay? is that okay with you?


i'm not trying to make my reasons your reasons,

okay?


but i want you to tolerate my reasons.



if i make a game, but i do not do things using the methods employed by the practice in commerce, my methods are still valid.



and that's all i want out of this site really, is to be able to say how i do things if i feel they are helpful to someone,

i don't want to argue or defend them,

i just want to be able to say the way i do things, without being nuked.

because i'm a person, and i do things, and they work.

when they are not professional standardised methods, i am quite happy to volunteer that i use idiosyncratic, autonomous methods.

if you cannot tolerate persons such as me existant wihtin the field,

you have got serious problems, not i.

and seriously, i was looking forward to participating tomorrow,


but instead, i think it would be better if your moderators phantom and jbadams both apologised. you do not need to issue me an infraction if i take the time to explain my perspective.

i am not a professional game developer, i still develop games.


if that makes me unwelcome on this site, you need to indicate that, not moderate me whenever i do something expressing nonstandardised method. it's very important that you understand, there's more than one way to do things, and i make every iota of effort to indicate that i am idiosyncratic when divesting methods that aren't conventional. there's nothing there to moderate. go home already. after you apologise.

What does all of that have to do with this discussion?

Absolutely nothing. xoxos is complaining about this moderator action.