Journal of Other Forum Analysis (Volume II, Issue 2)

[Gamegirl Nostalgia]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/upenn-sacrifices-lia-thomas-and-all-trans-people-to-kneel-to-trump.1233339/

2 pages

https://www.resetera.com/threads/a-verdict-has-been-reached-in-the-sean-diddy-combs-trial.1233930/

5 pages

says a lot about Era.

[Propagandhim]

ran across a transition story, not posting the pics, not trying to be mean or anything because I don't know this person, if they're regularly insufferable online or not, but, just

This was me in 2020. I was miserable in every aspect of my life except my kids. I knew everything felt wrong about my life and had for a long time, since I was a kid and dressed up and thought I belonged with the girls..
This was a little over a year ago. I had been out for 3 months and things were looking up. I had been slowly revealing my truth over the last 2 years to the world and had a lot of support. I had suffered a major head injury that altered the course of things and I decided that there was no reason to hide anymore. Free to be me things were starting to look up for me and I was on the verge of the job of my dreams I had fought to get for four years.
Today, despite the horrors of the recent events in my country, I'm happy. Almost a year on HRT I feel like myself. While I may not pass fully at least the person in the mirror is starting to look like who I feel like it should. I experienced gender euphoria just by existing as I do in this current day.
I am me. I am Ellie. I am happy.
If you made it this far thanks for listening

I experienced gender euphoria just by existing as I do in this current day.

Is this the equivalent of when someone takes adderall for the first time and says, "Wow, i finally feel like what everyone else feels like.  This is amazing."

No, no one wants to conduct a panel-data analysis of national energy programs - or do any other fucking homework they have to get through. They just trudge through it.  No normal person experiences "gender euphoria".

[Tektonic]

when i was 3 my parents put me in a dress and took a photo, and then when people would come to our house to visit, they would say "want to see a funny photo"

now that i'm an adult and think about that picture, i dont want to be a girl. i just despise my parents like a normal human being

[books]

I had suffered a major head injury that altered the course of things and I decided that there was no reason to hide anymore. Free to be me things were starting to look up for me and I was on the verge of the job of my dreams I had fought to get for four years.

And name of this transbian? John Fetterman.

[benji]

I don't quite get the logic here. Xbox is closing studios because they're failing at the market so now out of protest I will stop supporting them?

Sure MS is a juggernaut who technically could eat the costs but that's not really how businesses work and probably not even something up to Spencer.

It makes more sense to me to stop supporting them because well, they're clearly not offering much anymore

I honestly think a lot of people on that forum can't just like something, it has to be imparted to some greater cosmic purpose that gives the person meaning. He can't quit Xbox because it's not supplying what he wants because he sees himself as an Xbox supporter or whatever, but he can cease being a supporter by attacking their commitment to the brand. Notice how he's not just killing the subscription but determined to sell off everything and break entirely with them. He didn't leave Xbox, they failed in being devoted enough to justify his support.

That forum has an incredible obsession with offloading their agency onto others. When you ascribe what would normally be personal choices to some greater cause you're arguing that you have no choice. I point to the religious a lot because the religious do a lot of this, I don't mean like the serious religious who actually contemplate the scripture, but the more casual religious who don't question that God wants them to stone women or whatever because somebody else said God wanted that.

Speaking of finances, let's look in on... 


yeah better to put your trust in the RE guy. Maybe entremet can introduce Topaz to "credit card hacking"
p.s. worm got better, no need for ko-fi. thanks

If you can't afford your cat why would you think you could afford an assassin?

Spoiler:  (click to show)(click to hide)

Count down to "I need $200K in 36 hours to pay this internationally renown assassin #MutualAid"?

[Snoopy]

Back in the olden days of May 2025 if you thought the 2nd season of TLOU was bullshit then you were a chud and a Nazi. How times change -


https://www.resetera.com/threads/neil-druckmann-halley-gross-stepping-away-from-hbos-the-last-of-us-druckmann-focusing-on-naughty-dog-intergalactic.1234278/

[Tektonic]

Benji, transassins are out there erasing people every day - they'll do it for free.

[benji]

I am Ellie.

Back in the olden days of May 2025 if you thought the 2nd season of TLOU was bullshit then you were a chud and a Nazi. How times change -


https://www.resetera.com/threads/neil-druckmann-halley-gross-stepping-away-from-hbos-the-last-of-us-druckmann-focusing-on-naughty-dog-intergalactic.1234278/

Great, two excuses to post this:

[Snoopy]

[Tucker's Law]

The only posts I delete are spam bots.

So this is why I keep missing all the best online deals for rakija!

[Tucker's Law]

THICK ROPES OF APPALACHIAN SIPPIN' CREAM

[Gamegirl Nostalgia]

and of course the whites are upset about diddy

[books]

Fat4fat could learn a learn a thing or two from Diddy's lubrication methods to keep his girlnub from chafing.

[Tucker's Law]

Ohhhh I a so glad a you ask.  Cooking Mama cuza ohhh reminda me of me mama cookin da pasta ohhhh ohhh issa so good makin a da gnocchi ohhhh she roll a da dough so soft, like a da little clouds floata no don't a you rush a da pasta! ohhhhh she drop-a da fluffy pillows in a da boilin’ water...plop-a plop-a plop, an dey rise a up like a tiny balloons sayin Ciao, we ready ohhhhhhh we a ready ohhh it make a my heart go tarantella boom boom we a sooo ready


You fucking piece of shit.

Is that what you wanted to hear you racist italophobic cunt?  You want me to be your little vowel pasta monkey and tell you about my favorite game?  As if I even had the capacity to play videogames burping up all this tomato sauce and thinking of crime?

Gnocchi is pretty great, I gotta say.  The romans knew what they were doing with their pasta game.

[Uncle]

could you do like a pasta corndog like instead of cornbread you wrap the hotdog with a big pasta noodle and then maybe you deep fry it lightly to keep it held together

could you make lasagna on a stick

[Boredfrom]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/aftermath-has-xbox-considered-laying-one-person-off-instead-of-thousands.1234683/

[benji]

The C Suite almost never faces the consequences for this stuff, that's just the way it works under capitalism.

Oh yeah, the Politburo always takes the hits for their bad decisions.

[SpicyCannoli]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/how-often-do-you-manage-your-finances-and-what-is-your-personal-financial-stack.1234323

Couldn't help to notice the total lack of TransEra posting there 

[benji]

It's been a quarter of a century and I can't believe I'm still reading self-proclaimed experts who don't realize Microsoft is a software company.

Xbox exists because Microsoft was afraid Sony would box them out of the home. Xbox has been listless for the last decade because it doesn't compete with the actual threats to Microsoft: the smartphone and streaming.

Phil told everybody this like a decade ago, Xbox was to become a platform agnostic platform like Netflix. The games fail for the same reason the streaming services haven't figured out their content.

[benji]

and of course the whites are upset about diddy

Jeff didn't read the image quoted:

[Tektonic]

as a true ally, I refuse to call him Diddy, I will only call him PUFF DADDY

[benji]

He'll always be Dr. Jinx to me.

[Boredfrom]

The brain drain this industry is facing is fucking crazy. It's this sort of thing that tells me we're headed towards a collapse. I really don't know how you come back from it.

The only major publisher that isn't suffering from it is Nintendo. Look at Super Mario Bros. Wonder, you had people that worked on the original SMB on NES help develop it.

No offense to this dudes… but it is Rare, post Nintendo Rare. I feel is more depressing that outside Sea of Thieves, the best received Rare games are Viva Piñata.

And, presumably, they should have been training new employees.

https://www.resetera.com/threads/vgc-sources-banjo-kazooie-sea-of-thieves-director-leaves-rare-after-35-years-following-everwild-cancellation.1234365/

[Boredfrom]

Is also ironic that they are bitching about Microsoft interfering with Rare and other studios while it sounds that the biggest problem from Microsoft is being too hands off during the Phil Spencer era. 

Unless you were under Bethesda or Activision, Microsoft didn’t seem to care until too late. Both Everwild and Perfect Dark were vaporwere.

[Boredfrom]

There were signs. The studio took to long to make a game, they needed external help after years, the IP was MIA last showcase, the vertical slice was too vertical. Doesn't really make things easier, I just keep thinking of the people working so much time and releasing nothing because the numbers on the spreadsheet weren't high enough.

“Man, is too bad those dudes that accomplished nothing during 5 years of development got finally fired because the company could justify supporting them anymore.”

https://www.resetera.com/threads/wc-microsoft-is-closing-down-xbox-studio-the-initiative-perfect-dark-canceled.1234206/page-14#post-142246173

[BIONIC]

Never bet against WORST AND DUMBEST DECISION POSSIBLE

After review we are rescinding a few of the bans issued last night, but not all of them.

A number of users outright accused the journalist of fabricating quotes despite the fact that the quote was literally in the first paragraph.

Beyond that, a number of users engaged in toxic behavior across the thread and made it truly embarrassing to read through.

The truth is, this was not a difficult article to parse if you read the first two sentences. Nintendo confirmed that it was the same team that made Odyssey, but declined to name the team specifically but made it known they were based in Tokyo like the Odyssey team, implying it was not a spinoff group. They then declined to name members of the team specifically. That's literally all the information the article gave us and somehow people misread it so amazingly that they literally accused the writer of making quotes up wholecloth.

This was a team decision that multiple mods agreed with, and wanted harsher bans for, and that we have been talking about coming down on more for months. Same with this post.

I feel like just once, it would be nice when a mistake is made that the people behind it would just admit they misread the situation and apologize rather than double down, but I suppose that is asking for a lot.

That seems like a pattern at this point. Double down, circle the wagons, see that the vast majority of users disagree and won't drop it and then, days later, do a minor mea culpa and pledge to reflect, listen to the community, etc... 3-6 months later, rinse and repeat.

Lately it feels like its happening on a monthly basis.

Well, they didn't do this now. Instead they're doubling down and insisting the bans, over a rule that does not exist, should stay, and maybe should have been longer.

Also, that it's now bannable to find an article poorly written and confusing.

What are we even doing here

A lot of the bans do not accurately reflect the banner that was given off, and you can go through on a case by case basis and reason out who read the article and who didn't. As was already demonstrated in this thread.

Additionally, even if there are concerns over users accusing the writer of the article over fabricating quotes, that's technically a different banner than "didn't read the article." Because someone who saw the quote would uh... have read the article.

I would implore the staff to strongly consider the implications of banning people for being wrong or misunderstanding something. Especially over something like "misunderstanding the wording of an article", which is going to be seen through the fallible lens of one human looking at another human's look at another human's words.

Now, to be as good faith as I can be here, I understand what you all are trying to prevent. It's made clear especially when you mention people suggesting that VGC fabricated quotes. There are definitely people who will have a knee-jerk reaction to other people's reactions without investigating themselves and if they then use that as justification to engage in toxic or anti-journalist behaviors, I get why staff here would want to moderate it.

But there's a big difference between that and issuing out dozens upon dozens of bans because YOU think an article is easy to understand but others are getting it wrong. And I think this issue is just going back to one I've brought up before and many others have also brought up. A lot of members of staff really tend to assume the worst of all the users here. It really feels like just having the worst possible interpretation of posters intent when most of them were just expressing confusion. People who were just directly saying they didn't understand were being banned for "not reading the article". If some of those have been rescinded, that's great. But that this rescinding is paired with "but we're gonna do this again and some of us wanted the bans to be even harsher" kind of renders the meager half-apology a bit moot, ya know?

To be blunt, this isn't the first time I've seen people get banned for "not reading the article" and the thing they said was in the article itself. Again, we're all human, so if the mod in question missed something, that's fair. But when they missed something and issued out a ban over it, that's pretty bad. To keep the conversation focused, I'll point to this post here:
[URL unfurl="true"]https://www.resetera.com/threads/vgc-nintendo-confirms-donkey-kong-bananza%E2%80%99s-developer-is-%E2%80%98the-same-team-as-super-mario-odyssey%E2%80%99.1232658/#post-142160802[/URL]

As far as I can tell, this ban was not one that was rescinded (it is hard to tell because the bans are over now anyway, so if I'm mistaken, ignore this point), but they clearly not only read this article, but the one they were actually talking about too. They very directly said they were talking about the preview of the game by the author of the article, which would be this:
[URL unfurl="true"]https://www.videogameschronicle.com/features/3-hours-with-donkey-kong-bananza/[/URL]

... and the quote they mention IS directly there.

This is, as the poster said, a direct quote from the same journalist who was told that it was "the same team as Odyssey". The point being that this journalist is still speculating that it might not be the same people directly (and also that they think it might not be as good, but that's not quite as relevant to me personally right now). This is absolutely something worth bringing up in the context of people being confused about this and it's hard not to feel like they were banned because the moderation team didn't understand their post and didn't dive as deep into the issue as they did.

And that's why I think it's a pretty worrying idea for there to be more moderation of this style moving forward. If you want to come down on people not reading the articles and making knee-jerk reactions with toxic comments, fine. But this clearly isn't the way to do it and it's going to require a lot more consideration and good faith on the staff's end to avoid there being this type of drama every time.

And all of that is without even getting into the inherent toxicity of vilifying a misunderstanding in the first place. Or the self-importance of mods assuming their reading of an article must inherently be the correct one. If all the staff who thought people were wrong just posted their reads and engaged with the posts in good faith, it probably would have been fine. Honestly your posts about the answer being in the first two sentences would have conveyed everything you wanted to say without requiring the bans. And then we could have had an actual conversation about the thing rather than it turning into... this. You say users engaged in embarrassing and toxic behavior in that thread but so did the staff. Rather than attempt to steer the thread towards dialogue and discussion, the bans only sunk it further down.

As always, I say all of this out of love for this forum and a desire to see it be the best version of itself it can be. It's nothing against you personally or any other member of staff as individuals, and of course at this point I do not expect a response. But I had to speak my mind on this and I hope it's something that is considered.

certainly seems like bans that were made as some sort of 'statement' instead of being reviewed carefully as i would (hope) they would in any other thread, especially considering it was 20+ bans

im not sure what that statement is at all, unless it was just some sort of strange ‘power move’ 🤷‍♂️

Yeah. And everyone who found the statements contradictory would have had to have read it, too, since that's literally where the confusion came from


Perfect example and no, that ban wasn't rescinded since the banner is still there

Just another astonishing level of stubbornness I cannot comprehend

[Gamegirl Nostalgia]

and of course the whites are upset about diddy

Jeff didn't read the image quoted:

they hate diddy cus he's black, simple as. 

[Gamegirl Nostalgia]

come cum appalachian spinnin cream with me

[Taco Bell Tower]

and of course the whites are upset about diddy

Jeff didn't read the image quoted:

Uh oh, Ree loves Aaron Rupar and are likely going to cancel him for dismissing.  

[Tektonic]

i thought everyone dunks on that Aaron guy... makes sense REE would love him until they don't