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

[DavidCroquet]

Thread locked again the moment Nepenthe got heated

Good grief. Unnecessary condescension.

Was that not what your spiel about "black and white thinking" was? I was pretty cordial to you up front and you're the one who decided to be an ass, and you're still being an ass. So let me be one in return- I truly don't like you as a person and I find talking to you extremely annoying. I had a reply set out for your post but decided to delete it because what is the point? So for the sake of both of us, please don't talk to me anymore.

For those wondering, this exchange is notable because she is talking to Yogurt, the ONLY consistent “lib” on the forum who goes toe to toe with Nep and never gets banned

I’m not reading all that shit, but I am guessing she’s pissed because he is once again rhetorically humiliating without even giving her the slightest handhold to justify a ban.

[benji]

Just curious, is there a way to articulate the non-voting position?  I get the feeling you believe there is.

You can not vote and also not accuse everyone of genocide for voting wrong, I suppose

Essentially it's this, recognizing that it's an individual position not one worth advocating to others with a minor exception.

I would say something like "I cannot vote for the Democrats, voting for the third parties won't matter so there's no reason to vote" is defensible in as much as you're conceding your vote doesn't matter. At best the minor exception is you saying something like "if people agree with me on X, Y, Z, I think they should also not vote." This very rarely would trigger for platform differences but hypothetically genocide could be enough of a greater philosophical issue. (Of course, they refused to even allow the conversation about whether or not what is happening in Gaza is a genocide, similar to how they refused to allow the conversation that what Joanne is doing is a genocide. Let alone whether or not the US President was truly solely responsible.)

Neither Nepenthe nor the other non-voters on there took this position, instead they insisted that others had a moral duty to also not vote. But they inherently don't unless they share your value positions! You can only speak for those who agree with you, they insisted upon a presumption that all Good People did agree with them which just leaves the libs as the people who will be voting rather than people who may have simply added up everything else as counting more than the genocide. When looking at different platforms or even different candidates, adding up everything is arguably the most defensible position of all.

Let's invert the example, think of a NeverTrumper. They don't agree with the Democrats on almost anything but that Trump sucks, assume they can't vote Libertarian because they like bombing foreign countries. I don't think it's wrong for them to say "well, I don't like the options, I just won't vote." It's again centered purely on themselves, not what everyone should do. Some of the non-grifter NeverTrumpers have publicly struggled with this. Some thought Biden was acceptable but Harris (or Bernie or whoever) would not be. That's someone taking the position seriously.

Far too many people think their vote not just matters in some sense as being part of a larger group but as being decisive in the outcome. The Nepenthe argument is completely in line with this thinking, it was essentially a hostage taking in expectation that the Democrats would rush to try to win their vote. Except the Democrats accurately knew the value of the hostage, which was nothing. If Nepenthe voted down ballot for Democrats, they knew it was negative.

You could say this isn't a non-voting position as I'm saying you don't advocate that others don't vote but I'd prefer to steelman the idea that you could argue that others shouldn't care. That wasn't the Nepenthe position, if anything it was that you should care so much that it renders paralysis. I think it's especially a bad argument because they didn't reject any of the counterarguments against why people needed to vote against Trump/fascism/trans genocide/etc. Instead they simply demanded that everyone else value the genocide above everything else combined, but then not act as if this was the case. (Since that would have meant something like noodlesoup got banned for, making him one of the few honest people over there a second time.) There were a few people who drifted in the not caring direction regarding the genocide in that they believed Trump would be just as bad or worse, but this again would have then favored everything else. They couldn't ever truly say they didn't care about the outcome because that would be dismissing concerns so they were forced into arguing for a contradictory outcome as ideal.

In general, as I mentioned the other day about their "leftism" this kind of stuff is also just purely posturing to try and be more radical than everyone else because that conveys social power in their local groups. They weren't coming to non-voting through examining their principles against the situation, they were deciding on the outcome first and then trying to justify it ad hoc. Which is how they do most everything.

[Taco Bell Tower]

The issue is that the community itself asked for more and heavier bans. Resetera started out as much more chill than Neogaf but several communities campaigned for harsher moderation and the mod team obliged, in what I feel was a mistake as eventually it led to a culture of mistrust and ban baiting. Today, users reach for the report button at the slightest hint that someone kinda sorta maybe said something that could be interpreted in a negative way.

I have expressed my position a couple of times on this issue, in my opinion the optimal long-term solution would be to go back to how things started and restore agency and responsibility to the users for the state of the forum. Bans should be a last resort and the mods should only intervene for serious transgressions. It may be unpleasant at first but it is the only way to retrain users to at the very least tolerate and at best talk to each other and maybe reach an understanding.

I 100% agree with you.

The ideas of "I want to ban more people" and "I want to ignore more people, mods included" break my brain.

It's trivial to just… not engage with stuff or scroll past it. I frankly believe that people who CANNOT do that, for whatever reason, also contribute (in some ways) to this site's tragic culture.

Someone has a take you don't like about Topic A? Well, accept it, engage with it, or ignore it. Also, maybe you can interact in Topic B. It really is OK to do that.

I'm against "ban more people" but strongly in favor of being able to ignore staff members. I don't even have anyone on my ignore list, but there's a couple of people I want to ignore but don't have the ability to. This stems from a previous very negative experience, where I was banned in retaliation for correcting them in a political thread (about something that only took a couple of seconds to google...). I've also seen a lot of toxicity and bad faith behavior from that person; there's no need for me to have to just scroll by or try to ignore what they are writing, when I could actually put them on ignore if finally implemented.

I genuinely feel that this person often contributes to turning up the heat in threads for no reason. This affects all users and everyone involved. That's not something you just ignore. Being able to put them on ignore would solve a ton of issues for "both sides".

There's nothing noble about not using the ignore function. It doesn't say anything about the character of the member. It is incredibly weird judging others on if they use a function of a forum, just because you have no interest in it.

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

———

Couldn't agree more.

Maybe one solution could be that bans should be unanimous, so if a mod is against a ban it could be resolved with a warning instead, or a shorter ban (1-3days, instead of escalating bans)

I don't think it's quite so simple. Let's say a user said something transphobic. 3 trans mods say yes, month long ban. But 1 non trans mod doesn't see the transphobia. In this hypothetical situation you'd want a warning or a shorter ban?

Just keep in mind we look at a user's history, the pattern if there are any infractions. If it's something like a console wars post, we start light and escalate. We check to see if there was a follow up post. If it's something bigoted, we don't go light. And the relevant people take point on what would be the correct actioning.

But really with everything it's a case by case basis. Not everything is quite so simple.

The solution to this problem as always is having more trans members of staff

Wait, shouldn't they ban the non trans mod then for transphobic?

[Cauliflower Of Love]

  It's just a protest vote.  Own that you did a protest vote - which is just to signal dissatisfaction with all available options.

 She doesn't know how to articulate the actual non-voting position  

Just curious, is there a way to articulate the non-voting position?  I get the feeling you believe there is.

If you don't participate you aren't responsible.

It's daft.

[benji]

Notably, the bolded text in Nepethe’s post is—without exaggeration—the argument that modern era Lost Cause-ers and Confederate apologists use to describe the conditions prior to the Civil War. Basically they use this argument to undercut the Union’s role in ending slavery, and whitewash southern accountability (i.e. “everyone knew slavery was a dying institution anyway, it was never about that” )

Not just modern era, that was an argument from the Confederate veterans and first generation of Southern historians. Nepenthe joins the latter group in a lot of their opinions about how race works, namely that whites and Blacks simply cannot exist in the same society and culture.

The slavery dying part is accurate but it overlooks how wedded the South was to not changing anything. They definitely would have banned AI so as to not take any jobs away from slaves.

The real problem for the South, and the entire reason the Civil War happens when it does, is because they were becoming a permanent minority. Lincoln winning without winning any slave state or the border states made that starkly clear. Her analysis of "material conditions" and systemic forces seems to completely overlook that and how it changed everything that an anti-slavery third party could win both the Presidency and Congress. Like I said above she's working backwards from her conclusion that Lincoln winning didn't matter because she needs elections to never matter.

[benji]

Like I said above she's working backwards from her conclusion that Lincoln winning didn't matter because she needs elections to never matter.

And since Embiid is banned nobody on there could possibly have the balls to ask her why her position has changed from four years earlier:

[simiansmarts]

Like I said above she's working backwards from her conclusion that Lincoln winning didn't matter because she needs elections to never matter.

And since Embiid is banned nobody on there could possibly have the balls to ask her why her position has changed from four years earlier:

Guys, I think we found something more cringe than Ruthkanda forever.

[DavidCroquet]

I like how in two separate threads, two different mods are deploying “but what if a transphobe…!” to attempt to shut down two different discussions, almost simultaneously.

[Cauliflower Of Love]

You know what's wrong with trans



you're never here nor there!

[Cauliflower Of Love]

I may have said this before, but the sentiment that nep expresses is valid.

How they come about it is performative. 

But the weekend is over.

[Switters]

I had my first bout of the Hemorrhoids in the summer of 2011. I called my mother. I said, mother what will ease my pain? She recommended an old family recipe of mixing a spoonful of cayenne pepper with a shot of apple cider vinegar. 

She assumed that her son was smart enough to know that was for drinking and not applying directly to the asshole. She assumed wrong.

[Cauliflower Of Love]

Your mom is a cunt.

[Cauliflower Of Love]

Also the fallacy of neps complaint about the dem party owing black people something is that the dem party doesn't consist of black people. 


And yes, money interests conflate that, but fuck you.

It's always been class vs class.  Just you idiots not knowing that.

[Cauliflower Of Love]

why the fuck am I back in this thread

[Taco Bell Tower]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/hideki-kamiya-discusses-his-feelings-on-the-hellena-taylor-dispute.1238052/
First post

I mean she was also a blue lives matter supporter and a TERF so maybe people should have paid attention to those not so subtle hints that she is a bad faith actor

Goddamn TERF BITCH JOANNE 

[benji]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/hideki-kamiya-discusses-his-feelings-on-the-hellena-taylor-dispute.1238052/

I don't use social media much outside of this forum to start with so I doubt I'd be the one sending hate speech to Kamiya, and reviewing my posts on the subject I'm still satisfied with how I approached it even though I was wrong. I think it's fine to start off siding with the worker even if you might have to change your position due to new information.

But I do think it reflected very poorly on us as a community, however. Beyond just the fact that the thread had to be locked, it raised the question of how easily this forum could have been led into a harassment campaign.

Very easily. Not just this forum either, I think this is a problem facing a lot of leftist internet spaces. It's hard to put my feelings into exact words but I feel like there have been a few moments in the past 6 to 7 years or so where bad faith actors manipulated larger groups of people to harass someone because they knew how to rile us up. It's difficult because I do also believe that holding people accountable has merit and this perspective often comes from people who then go on to give some form of "so don't hold [person who actually did something bad] accountable" argument.

But I think we also shouldn't ignore the issue out of fear of being perceived incorrectly.

I think back to this, regularly.

People here actively bragging about taking part in the brigading against him.

It's coloured my thoughts about many, many things I see of interest on here, annoyingly so.

I admittedly was quick to side with the lone voice actor seemingly being victimised by the corporations involved. A reminder that it pays to wait until that initial dust settles.

Disgraceful time for this place and gaming social media as a whole. As Kamiya said, a lot of people insulted him and the studio, and then when it turned out that it was a lie nobody apologized. They just stopped talking about it or deleted the posts.

Seeing a lot of yt lib shit already in the first few posts.

[Switters]

Your mom is a cunt.

Your mom doesn't have any likes, bitch.

[Gamegirl Nostalgia]

holy fucking based switters

[Boredfrom]

There is no bias against DC in Resetera:

So looks like Thunderbolts has the better Superman looking at the RT score

https://www.resetera.com/threads/superman-review-thread.1238643/page-8#post-142451853

[kaleidoscopium]

I'd like to think Mamdani's win in NYC is a sign that maybe the Democratic base as a whole is moving toward a style of politics that is both more progressive and more substantive than what we've seen from most Democrats in our lifetime. I don't think candidates in '28 will be able to show up to debates and say some meaningless fluff about an "opportunity economy" or whatever, which I have a hard time seeing Newsom stray away from, and get massive applause for it.

https://www.resetera.com/threads/gavin-newsom-swings-through-south-carolina.1238640/#post-142450938



These people are fucking retarded

[benji]

I'd like to think Mamdani's win in NYC is a sign that maybe the Democratic base as a whole is moving toward a style of politics that is both more progressive and more substantive than what we've seen from most Democrats in our lifetime. I don't think candidates in '28 will be able to show up to debates and say some meaningless fluff about an "opportunity economy" or whatever, which I have a hard time seeing Newsom stray away from, and get massive applause for it.

He's describing the 2020 primary.

[benji]

How have they already forgotten these?




These are health care examples but they did it on everything, the first one has some stuff about gun control like Beto declaring "Hell yes, we're going to take your guns" to cheers.

[DavidCroquet]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/more-than-200-students-in-china-being-treated-for-lead-poisoning-after-cafeteria-dyed-food-with-paint.1238775/#post-142452111

It's wild that they could even get their hands on lead paint

[kaleidoscopium]

The funny thing to me is they hate Newsom for "caving" to Trump on trans sports, something the vast majority of Americans agree with Trump/Newsom on. Why would this be disqualifying in a national election   

2023:
https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-news/americans-oppose-inclusion-trans-athletes-sports-poll-finds-rcna88940

The survey — conducted from May 1 to May 24 via telephone interviews with roughly 1,000 adults living in the U.S. — found that 69% of people say that transgender athletes should only be allowed to compete on sports teams that correspond with the sex they were assigned at birth, compared with 62% in 2021. It also shows that a slightly higher share of Americans, 55%, consider “changing one’s gender” to be more “morally wrong” than in 2021, when it was 51%.

2025:

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/02/26/americans-have-grown-more-supportive-of-restrictions-for-trans-people-in-recent-years/

A new Pew Research Center survey finds that majorities of U.S. adults favor or strongly favor laws and policies that:

    Require trans athletes to compete on teams that match their sex assigned at birth (66%)
    Ban health care professionals from providing care related to gender transitions for minors (56%)

[simiansmarts]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/hideki-kamiya-discusses-his-feelings-on-the-hellena-taylor-dispute.1238052/
First post

I mean she was also a blue lives matter supporter and a TERF so maybe people should have paid attention to those not so subtle hints that she is a bad faith actor

Goddamn TERF BITCH JOANNE 

  
Bayonetta is a literal British witch, of course she's a TERF. What did you expect? 
 

[Hap Shaughnessy]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/superman-review-thread.1238643/page-9#post-142453464

First thing I saw when opening up social media just now was two critics defending themselves against accusations (by the usual suspects) of being paid off because they liked the movie.

That fandom is so tiring. It's borderline creepy at this point.

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

[HeavenIsAPlaceOnEarth]

Community:

And at the risk of engaging in meta-commentary, there's a thread right now that's heated, about a charged topic, and has a mod posting. It's almost certainly going to end up featuring a ban graveyard. Anyone in this thread can spot it coming a mile away. I wouldn't post in that thread if you paid me.

What can we do about THAT?

Because if I'm not alone, then that feeling — rational or irrational — is the root problem here.

[benji]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/hideki-kamiya-discusses-his-feelings-on-the-hellena-taylor-dispute.1238052/

Seeing a lot of yt lib shit already in the first few posts.

Yeah, it just continues:

Taking accountability is a global problem. Hell, I've been guilty of groupthink at times. People would rather dig in their heels than own up to being wrong. I've learned to just keep quiet with internet drama. People have become vicious with their attacks, I suppose in part because of anonymity.

The truth tends to be a bit more nuanced than most would like to believe.

Most people online are playing for points. If a guy they don't like can be viewed as bad, they'll lay into them. If it turns out they're wrong, they'll simply delete or mute the post and move on. Its not easy for most people to admit they're wrong, especially when the impetus of them giving someone like Kamiya shit is because they think he's annoying so stuff like the Helena Taylor bit was just an opportunity to attack him and it be "morally right".

Quelling people's irrational hatred is perhaps the greatest challenge facing society right now. I think all you can do is try earnestly and hope to change a few minds, and accept that there are many that will never see reason because they have no interest in doing so. It's even more difficult when so many well meaning people are so easily manipulated via social media. Thankfully most of those people will eventually see reason, but often times only after they face blow back.

Crazy how history is repeating itself in this very thread.

People literally cannot help themselves lol.

A lot of people did notice and either got shut down when bringing it up, or wisely decided to avoid the internet discourse.

All I can contribute to this topic is that people online are too quick to grab the pitchfork without having complete information, and very unwilling to admit later when they were wrong.

When the visceral feeling of rage comes, rationality often gets out of the window. Most of us have been there at some point.

I don't think there's a way to solve this or prevent it from happening, other than try to cultivate a certain degree of self-reflection and emotional temperance so our first reaction when something upsetting happens online isn't to immediately want someone to get burned at the stake.

But it's an ongoing process that requires continuous effort. I certainly have let my anger get the better of me at times, and I'm not proud of how some of that turned out.

I feel like this site and lot of the internet is pretty infamous imo at points for really going full scotched earth on people based on their pre-established beef with the person which then colors their judgment. I think Kamiya's public statements can come off aggressive and mean at points but people saying such horrible things about him and platinum while Helena used the ongoing issues with how the industry treats voice actors to cause such large amounts of harm was so sneaky and disgusting. Also I understand he's become more and more hostile at points due to years of people being on his ass and saying bullshit to him every day so that's gonna wear on a person, especially nowadays where even though this situation is over the effects of it of people shitting on him are still lingering to a extent.

I understand the idea of siding with the smaller individual in a issue like this but I also think slinging such awful statements at people and then pretending it never happened to make yourself feel better or make yourself look good is really disingenuous. Just fess up you fucked up and be better, pretending it never happened just comes across you didn't learn anything.

I think we need to have a reckoning on the way people react to "acceptable" targets,
as soon as an "acceptable" target comes along then somehow everything is AOK to throw their way and anyone going against it is a shill or something.
makes for horrible discussion so on that basis alone I'll pop champaign if we ever get rid of this.

I remember when Lindsey Ellis got harassed off youtube for saying (not even on youtube but twitter) that movie Raya the Last Dragon was like Avatar:TLA. Something Lindsey said really stuck with me and its that people on the left are not immune from harassing. A lot of people on the left want to engage in this activity as much as people on the right do but because they try and pride themselves on being morally correct they are constantly looking for ways to justify being hateful. They want excuses.

Pay attention to whenever someone is outed for bad behaviour and suddenly ALL the misgivings people have with a person come flooded out and weirdly they are justified by the actual bad behaviour.

You can criticise somebody for being an asshole but that doesn't make fatphobic remarks about them ok. But time and time I see this happen and cases like Kamiya's where they didn't do anything wrong makes it all the worst.

I'm almost certain the Lindsey Ellis situation was a fucking hit job. Because their is no way a lukewarm take about a Disney film was enough to warrant that kind of reaction when I've seen people get credibly accused of abuse that were given more grace than Lindsey was.

Yeah the Lindsay Ellis thing was upsetting too, especially because I also remember a few people on this site defending the attacks against her.

I'm so tired of this internet brigading shit. People just want a fucking excuse to harass and bully someone else.

A real dark week for the forum and did any of them return to the thread and recant when it came out she lied? No they did not.

They're making me tap the sign:

[HaughtyFrank]

Red watching 12 Angry Men:

"Oof, that can be a pretty dangerous ideology"

[HeavenIsAPlaceOnEarth]

Community Thread:

I imagine people are doing that so as not to paint a target on their backs. Something I would note wouldn't be as much an issue if there wasn't fear of reprisal.

not an entirely irrational fear

ive seen ppl rebuke a mod and get banned a bit later, not for that post rebuking the mod, but instead for unrelated posts upwards of 2+ weeks old

maybe it was just a coincidence that action happened against them right after rebuking a mod. to multiple users back to back. in the same thread.