I can't say i'm a fan of such a new policy as well. While some debates can get heated, i've always felt like things were still discussed in a relatively civil manner. only a few times have i seen such conversations degrade into making personal attacks on others on this forum. The mods for the most part do a good job of deceiding when a topic needs to be closed, and i also understand that requires more moderation support. But instead of forcing topics to be disallowed, it might be more prudent to bring on a few more mods that can lighten the overall workload of ensuring such topics don't fall into the problem territory.

The topics listed have been consistent problems for us. The new rules are basically a pretext to end it right out of the gate, rather than having to wait until you all get into nasty little fights about it. Or think about things like, "well how racist is it to complain about XYZ" or "is that offensive enough to warrant individual action?" In general we prefer to take a light handed approach to individual moderation here and a heavy handed approach to topics and this makes it easier to do that.

While I completely understand the need for moderation, and the reasons for the current rules, it does feel a little like sweeping issues like racism and sexism under the rug, which I'd say is detrimental to a healthy community. Refusing to allow discussion on the issues facing women, people of color, transgender individuals, and others in the game industry seems unfair to those groups and feels a little like pretending those issues don't exist. Which, while moderation becomes easier, you could see how from the perspective of someone within those minority communities, calling out any unfair behavior to yourself in the game development world would suddenly be against the rules. If the issue is hateful speech from members, I'd say a better approach would be to apply rules on hateful speech, and not gag the people you're trying to protect in the process.

Anyhow, my two cents. But, as I see it, blanket-banning discussion of discrimination really, in the end, protects the people doing the discrimination.

I understand the issues with these topics, and the difficulties moderating them, and while other solutions are imperfect and this solution seems cleanest from a moderation standpoint, I'd urge you to consider the wider impact of such a policy, and perhaps try to find a better answer that doesn't silence the people being affected by such topics.

fwiw,
i'm a musician/tech. issue arisen many times. you'd think:
musicians are socially relevant, so social issues are relevant to music.

it you look at the mileu, you realise:
there are many interests present. not all of them are genuinely human - some "social interests" with public representation are the result of agendas.

whether the agenda is overt or covert or anything else, designing the rules based on "people just being people" won't work, because people are often representing agendas, not people.

my advice "for young lions" is forget about it. it just sh*ts (oops) things up and makes moderators petulant. if you wish to champion social causes, egalitarianism, tolerance, do it with your content. reserve the boards for technical discussion only.

basically, because you're wasting your energy. there's more to what is apparent than "a bunch of people who just feel differently than you do on a forum", there are agendas.

society isn't great, there are wrong things that don't get fixed, no matter how many champions, and there are things that are occluded. better to listen and learn from what isn't said than waste all your time and energy confronting something you have a very incomplete understanding of. there's a reason why predominant opinions are often insensate, and a reason why addressing them with reason and rhetoric is a total waste of your energy. it's not a reason i like, but if you can learn from what i've spent my last twenty years doing, forget about authority. let it be its own undoing, and hope it doesn't make life any more intolerable itm.

I for one welcome the rules.

This is not a government, it's a privately-run facility for the discussion of game development topics. One could argue that that could include both the political and religious issues surrounding game development (and there is some evidence those are indistinguisable for some), but the proprietors of this facility have decided that all in all such discussions were affecting the quality of conversations and made it clear this is not the place for them.

When I go to a library, I am expected to keep my voice down. That doesn't mean the librarians want me to think only quiet gentle thoughts, but it does mean they want me to consider the other patrons before I stand naked on the card catalogue yelling "I'm a helicopter!" at the top of my lungs. I have no problem with there being a time and place for various things, and I'm fine with gd.net making it clear which various things it is the place for at this time.

Thank you gd.net for making your policy explicit.

The discussion of game development absolutely includes discussions of gender and race (they might not concern you, though). And, to outright ban discussion of these topics is to say to individuals in those groups that their issues within the game development community are unwelcome.

For example, if one were to start a topic on finding a job in the industry, then great, no rules broken. But, if one were to try to discuss the issues facing women or trans women or a person of color finding a job in the game industry, suddenly you may be breaking the rules for discussing one of the banned topics. This would absolutely be a game-dev concern for many people, and is only a "fringe" issue if it doesn't affect you. But the policy is basically telling people that there's no place for those concerns here.

Because certain elements of this community are unwilling to have a civil discussion regarding these issues, to outright ban the topic, rather than the person, is really ceding victory to the unruly elements. And this site really becomes only welcoming to anyone who isn't considered part of the "problem" minority groups.

There is plenty of discussion on this site that is not "technical" in nature, so pretending that the discussion is limited to that is misleading, they're only banning the topics that have loud, hateful elements, and instead of dealing with those elements, they're just banning those topics, to the detriment of anyone who may be concerned with them.

It's easier sure, and many people who aren't affected by these discussions will be perfectly content. But, it's a large disservice to many other people.

You can ban racism and sexism without banning discussions of gender and race. The latter approach only helps ensure that the industry largely stays its current predominantly-male, predominantly-white demographic.