Post by bebop on Apr 1, 2023 12:01:41 GMT -5
My thoughts on this forum and censorship are this -
Censorship doesn't work. Never has, never will. I hate arbitrary puritanical shit like bleeping out curse words on everything from the TV to social media, and references to drug use on the radio. I'm about as leftist as you can go and I don't need anyone trying to spare my feelings because I'm confident in my own self and belief.
What does work is communication. The exception to that is outright hate speech and bigotry. That starts to teeter from the realm of communication to verbal assault. The general rule of the social contract is that you can do what you want until your intent is to harm, denigrate or destroy. Yes, I get there's more to it than that but we aren't exactly going to "solve ethics" and we're definitely not doing it here or on the discussion boards of a retro, niche text-based game from the 90's.
The point is, authoritarianism does not work. Secrecy and passive-aggressive communication does not work. False positivity and optimism culture in the face of things like sexual assault is a joke that, you guessed it, doesn't work. In the shadow of these things you can hope people will be respectful but you can't expect niceties. A community is a collection of relationships and one would think that engaging in healthy, fair relationships would be an obvious or even easy thing to achieve. However, if you've ever been alive for a few years you'll know it's probably not as easy as it should be and there are lots of fucked up people that do fucked up things.
If you don't censor people are some fairly noxious and cringe-worthy things going to slip through the cracks? For sure. Does that mean a lack of censorship is a failure compared to censorship or overt censorship? Absolutely not. The chokehold staff has maintained on open communication and the sharing of information on basics like how the game works or what skills your character has is exactly what led them to this path. People were not able to hold an abuser and cheater accountable for almost a decade without facing retaliation. They had no recourse. Censorship is exactly what got us here. Censorship has always been a propaganda tool and enabled a lack of knowledge, and opportunity and enabled systemic abuse. Burning books, keeping kids from "secular music," and treating an open mouth with a heavy hand have been proven by science, again and again, to be ineffectual for healthy relationships. Keyword HEALTHY relationships. This kind of behavior is great for creating and maintaining abusive relationships. A lack of censorship is what finally harkened accountability.
So yeah, are you occasionally going to get someone saying something bigoted, outrageous, or at the very least cringeworthy here? Yeah. Does that mean it's a failure or "less than" the Arm's GDB? Absolutely not. I don't know about ya'll but I'm an adult and can handle glossing over some idiot being an asshole, rolling my eyes, and moving on. And guess what? I did it all of the time on the Arm's communication servers. The staff did nothing about constant sexist, incel, and transphobic boomer memes. (I'm lookin' at you DesertT.) I'd still rather deal with that typical bullshit any day than see people alleging assault and harassment for ten fucking years and being silenced by censorship and the creepy backroom-controlled convos that are the request tool.
When I was banned because I came out publicly to say I'd been harassed, stalked, and cheated in the game and out of it by one of Armageddon's staff members for almost a decade they banned me without any notice. To this day when I go to the GDB my ban says, banned for posting about a staff member without their consent (nice appropriation of that word) and posting on the "derpboards." This kind of othering of the player base you alienated is childish, petty, and downright awful. Not to mention, that in lieu of hearing the details of how I was harassed you "light-heartedly" opted for language to shame and further harass me as you retaliated against me for standing up for myself.
I am really tired of people insinuating that because this board isn't being censored like a daycare it's somehow invalid while the staff has been completely abusive and up until recently we had a staffer who referred to non-binary people as "it." Give me a break. Did I even know it was her for a few years? No, which didn't allow me to be able to be informed on how I may react or protect myself around her as a non-binary person. How did that happen? Censorship. Censorship failed this community hard and it will continue to do so as long as all of this secrecy and othering culture persists.
As Mehtahstic said, this board is monitored by Armageddon staff and good changes have been derived by myself and others being able to tell their story here. A lot of the people on these boards talk about this game because it meant a lot to them and represented many hours of their life in a shared story with people that may have become friends. It belongs to all of us (even if staff doesn't believe that we're all volunteers.) The othering of this board and the people on it is what kept me from exploring it for so long. I did everything I could to be a good player and an in-game leader and it got me nowhere.
The experience for what was supposed to be a fun and recreational game wasn't just unrewarding but damaging on some levels. The constant push for a gaming addiction, the feelings of failure, the frustration when communication failed, and the constant sexism. People cared about this game and this community, and it failed them so they're here to talk about it and staff can keep retaliating if they like. I know me personally, if my game was on the verge of death I'd stop being condescending and incendiary with a huge portion of the player base I'd isolated. I'd stop the constant censorship and bans and welcome them back.
The players didn't give up on the staff, the staff gave up on them and treated them like they were expendable pieces in an endless supply of resources. Hopefully, they're beginning to realize that players, clients, and customers (however you want to look at us) aren't as expendable as you think we are. Especially not many of the leader-capable ones you've dismissed. Are there some exceptions where bans were absolutely warranted? Sure. But generally, we're seeing a lot of retaliation such as in my case, while it takes a month and copious moral debates to decide whether or not to ban an abuser and cheater staff member from the community. What even is that?
As for my ban, I will absolutely not be reaching out to staff on principal. If their apology is genuine they should have no problem reaching out and offering up ways to make things right after making the mistake of retaliating against a whistleblower and person that was harassed by their staff and infrastructure. I am not going to come crawling back and have a private conversation in the metaphorical backrooms of the request tool any longer. Acting like they cannot recall who was banned or how to do right by players is a cop-out. I was a trusted player for almost two decades. I didn't deserve this, and I still don't deserve the treatment I've received in lieu of this.
Forcing the players you banned and isolated to initiate conversation is another control tactic and I won't be playing that game. I do miss the game, but I won't be engaging in it on a toxic level ever again, and forcing the players that you hurt to try to initiate change with you is a toxic first step in the wrong direction that I won't be taking. Not to mention, despite all of their talk of lifting bans I still have yet to hear of a single player they actually did right by or welcomed back. From where I'm sitting, it just looks like more mind games where they say one thing, lure people back into the backrooms and then do another.
Staff, you know who you banned. You know who you retaliated against. You know who you force stored and hurt. If you really wanted to do the right thing you'd talk to them about how you could make it right and come up with an action plan even if it means that they might not come back - because it's the right thing to do. If you don't care about that, you should at least consider how your player base is looking to you to do right by the people you've hurt and every day you continue to keep them banned or silence their voice (aka retaliate) the promises of change continue to ring just a bit hollow.
Censorship doesn't work. Never has, never will. I hate arbitrary puritanical shit like bleeping out curse words on everything from the TV to social media, and references to drug use on the radio. I'm about as leftist as you can go and I don't need anyone trying to spare my feelings because I'm confident in my own self and belief.
What does work is communication. The exception to that is outright hate speech and bigotry. That starts to teeter from the realm of communication to verbal assault. The general rule of the social contract is that you can do what you want until your intent is to harm, denigrate or destroy. Yes, I get there's more to it than that but we aren't exactly going to "solve ethics" and we're definitely not doing it here or on the discussion boards of a retro, niche text-based game from the 90's.
The point is, authoritarianism does not work. Secrecy and passive-aggressive communication does not work. False positivity and optimism culture in the face of things like sexual assault is a joke that, you guessed it, doesn't work. In the shadow of these things you can hope people will be respectful but you can't expect niceties. A community is a collection of relationships and one would think that engaging in healthy, fair relationships would be an obvious or even easy thing to achieve. However, if you've ever been alive for a few years you'll know it's probably not as easy as it should be and there are lots of fucked up people that do fucked up things.
If you don't censor people are some fairly noxious and cringe-worthy things going to slip through the cracks? For sure. Does that mean a lack of censorship is a failure compared to censorship or overt censorship? Absolutely not. The chokehold staff has maintained on open communication and the sharing of information on basics like how the game works or what skills your character has is exactly what led them to this path. People were not able to hold an abuser and cheater accountable for almost a decade without facing retaliation. They had no recourse. Censorship is exactly what got us here. Censorship has always been a propaganda tool and enabled a lack of knowledge, and opportunity and enabled systemic abuse. Burning books, keeping kids from "secular music," and treating an open mouth with a heavy hand have been proven by science, again and again, to be ineffectual for healthy relationships. Keyword HEALTHY relationships. This kind of behavior is great for creating and maintaining abusive relationships. A lack of censorship is what finally harkened accountability.
So yeah, are you occasionally going to get someone saying something bigoted, outrageous, or at the very least cringeworthy here? Yeah. Does that mean it's a failure or "less than" the Arm's GDB? Absolutely not. I don't know about ya'll but I'm an adult and can handle glossing over some idiot being an asshole, rolling my eyes, and moving on. And guess what? I did it all of the time on the Arm's communication servers. The staff did nothing about constant sexist, incel, and transphobic boomer memes. (I'm lookin' at you DesertT.) I'd still rather deal with that typical bullshit any day than see people alleging assault and harassment for ten fucking years and being silenced by censorship and the creepy backroom-controlled convos that are the request tool.
When I was banned because I came out publicly to say I'd been harassed, stalked, and cheated in the game and out of it by one of Armageddon's staff members for almost a decade they banned me without any notice. To this day when I go to the GDB my ban says, banned for posting about a staff member without their consent (nice appropriation of that word) and posting on the "derpboards." This kind of othering of the player base you alienated is childish, petty, and downright awful. Not to mention, that in lieu of hearing the details of how I was harassed you "light-heartedly" opted for language to shame and further harass me as you retaliated against me for standing up for myself.
I am really tired of people insinuating that because this board isn't being censored like a daycare it's somehow invalid while the staff has been completely abusive and up until recently we had a staffer who referred to non-binary people as "it." Give me a break. Did I even know it was her for a few years? No, which didn't allow me to be able to be informed on how I may react or protect myself around her as a non-binary person. How did that happen? Censorship. Censorship failed this community hard and it will continue to do so as long as all of this secrecy and othering culture persists.
As Mehtahstic said, this board is monitored by Armageddon staff and good changes have been derived by myself and others being able to tell their story here. A lot of the people on these boards talk about this game because it meant a lot to them and represented many hours of their life in a shared story with people that may have become friends. It belongs to all of us (even if staff doesn't believe that we're all volunteers.) The othering of this board and the people on it is what kept me from exploring it for so long. I did everything I could to be a good player and an in-game leader and it got me nowhere.
The experience for what was supposed to be a fun and recreational game wasn't just unrewarding but damaging on some levels. The constant push for a gaming addiction, the feelings of failure, the frustration when communication failed, and the constant sexism. People cared about this game and this community, and it failed them so they're here to talk about it and staff can keep retaliating if they like. I know me personally, if my game was on the verge of death I'd stop being condescending and incendiary with a huge portion of the player base I'd isolated. I'd stop the constant censorship and bans and welcome them back.
The players didn't give up on the staff, the staff gave up on them and treated them like they were expendable pieces in an endless supply of resources. Hopefully, they're beginning to realize that players, clients, and customers (however you want to look at us) aren't as expendable as you think we are. Especially not many of the leader-capable ones you've dismissed. Are there some exceptions where bans were absolutely warranted? Sure. But generally, we're seeing a lot of retaliation such as in my case, while it takes a month and copious moral debates to decide whether or not to ban an abuser and cheater staff member from the community. What even is that?
As for my ban, I will absolutely not be reaching out to staff on principal. If their apology is genuine they should have no problem reaching out and offering up ways to make things right after making the mistake of retaliating against a whistleblower and person that was harassed by their staff and infrastructure. I am not going to come crawling back and have a private conversation in the metaphorical backrooms of the request tool any longer. Acting like they cannot recall who was banned or how to do right by players is a cop-out. I was a trusted player for almost two decades. I didn't deserve this, and I still don't deserve the treatment I've received in lieu of this.
Forcing the players you banned and isolated to initiate conversation is another control tactic and I won't be playing that game. I do miss the game, but I won't be engaging in it on a toxic level ever again, and forcing the players that you hurt to try to initiate change with you is a toxic first step in the wrong direction that I won't be taking. Not to mention, despite all of their talk of lifting bans I still have yet to hear of a single player they actually did right by or welcomed back. From where I'm sitting, it just looks like more mind games where they say one thing, lure people back into the backrooms and then do another.
Staff, you know who you banned. You know who you retaliated against. You know who you force stored and hurt. If you really wanted to do the right thing you'd talk to them about how you could make it right and come up with an action plan even if it means that they might not come back - because it's the right thing to do. If you don't care about that, you should at least consider how your player base is looking to you to do right by the people you've hurt and every day you continue to keep them banned or silence their voice (aka retaliate) the promises of change continue to ring just a bit hollow.