Journal of Other Forum Analysis

[Taco Bell Tower]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/silent-hill-2-remake-state-of-play-trailer.811530/?post=118445559#post-118445559

The combat looks really bad. And not in a "oh god that looks hard" way, but in a "those animations and hit reactions look like garbage" kind of way.

I'm just not sure why Bloober was chosen for this project. It's so puzzling.

BS, you're gonna play it and cry it's too hard.

[HaughtyFrank]

So that excuses them to make freely misogynistic designs?

https://www.resetera.com/threads/stellar-blade-pre-order-trailer-ps5-release-date-april-26th-2024.811521/post-118454751

What does freely misogynistic mean?  

Also just hilarious to me how this is now misogynistic while Niki Minaj filling a music video with CGI asses isn't. Pick one you clowns

[HaughtyFrank]

Also hats off to whoever at Sony boxed that game through. Must have been like a lions dens

[HaughtyFrank]

It's bad enough that devs are still making games like this. It's also bad in a whole other way that a major platform holder would make it the first game of their presentation to put so much focus on.

I think the absurd thigh gap bothered me the most.

https://www.resetera.com/threads/why-women-criticise-sexualised-character-designs-ot3-her-ass-is-part-of-her-character.275780/post-118457301

"No one wants to ban these games! That's just a straw man!"

Weird, it's almost like they were lying.

Also they scanned an actual person you dumbass, she has a thigh gap (which btw is a perfectly normal thing some people have and some don't)

[Taco Bell Tower]

If they made males like that they wouldn't complain and make a ogling thread about it.

[Echelon]

If they made males like that they wouldn't complain and make a ogling thread about it.

The male version would be pages full of "NGL THAT FUCKING ZADDY COULD SHOVE HIS DICK THROUGH MY ORBITAL SOCKETS WHILE STROKING MY FURSONA TAIL"

[Boredfrom]

Also hats off to whoever at Sony boxed that game through. Must have been like a lions dens

I imagine there is a lot of internal friction we are not aware in this companies. Even Valve has been pretty schizophrenic about some of the stuff on the lewd games side of things to not have some sort of infighting involved. 

Maybe someone in Sony realizes that they need to branch out from how people perceive their games (even if they critically acclaimed), given that even Death Stranding ended being a sad dad simulator. They also seem willing to give a chance to East Asian developers that are not AA Japanese studios, for better or for worse.

[Hap Shaughnessy]

[Boredfrom]

[benji]

And replace us with who? Applications have stalled in part because a lot of people we do pick out and want to interview have told us there's absolutely no way they'd do this job because they've seen how the member base can act towards the staff.

lmao, they actually have applications and interviews???     

https://www.resetera.com/threads/oscar-nominations-jan-23-at-8-30-a-m-et-5-30-a-m-pt.808395/page-15?post=118076520#post-118076520

I mean there's different opinions and then there's unqualified statements like "Oppenheimer is among the most important movies ever made"

I'm not sure I've seen a more pretentious comment than telling someone their opinion on a movie is "unqualified."

Add ZeoVGM to the people who can't read list I guess.

[benji]

Maybe applications (lol) have stalled because the anti-capitalists don't want to work for free for the Swedish technobros and all the staff keep talking about how they've given up their lives and cry themselves to sleep.

[Potato]

Benji, when does the jelqing tips subforum open?

[benji]

constantly having discussions and roundtables with people, and constantly working with staff in the wee hours of the morning or actually on the clock at my real job(s) to get these agenda items off the ground.

Look, multi-hours long meetings is just how running a forum happens. The real problem is when people like bork don't show up and didn't prepare their presentations. THE AGENDA STALLS WHEN THERE'S NOBODY TO SECOND THINGS!

[JoeBoy101]

Uh-oh. Now Hecht is throwing his hat in the ring:

I want to touch on a few things that have been brought up. I'm gonna be a jackass, but that's just kind of my default state. If you actually know me, I'm a teddy bear and this is all just me finally having enough of everything. Apologies to those affected. Sort of.

1) Thread Activity

Replies is probably one of the worst ways to gather "activity." Views are a better metric. You all have to remember that this is a gaming enthusiast forum, and therefore gaming news, leaks, surprises, etc., are going to have much, much higher metrics than any other thread. That said, there are two threads I want to point out:

Our gaming hardware is linked to slave labour, concentration camps and genocide. Here's what to do about it.
This thread has 386k+ views. That's #412 (out of over 182.800!) in the most-viewed Gaming threads on this site. Most of the threads that have more views are OTs, Review threads, Conference threads, and threads that have been around for years longer than that one. As far as one-off topic threads, it's up there.

Yes, it is trans genocide (a FAQ and what you can do about it today)
This thread has 75k+ views. That's #1639 (out of 181,350!) in the most-viewed EtcEtera threads on this site.

And people just have to get it. We have countless threads, on a weekly basis, where bad news comes up. Layoffs, transphobia, homophobia, you name it. It's fucking exhausting. It's not that people are ignoring the issue, it's that there is so much fucking going on that it's hard to focus on every little thing that happens. We all still love gaming, and we want to talk about games, but there's so much bad shit going on that ultimately, each of us has to determine where to focus our energy. We can certainly post in all of these threads, in the sense that we can all post "fucking hell, fuck these guys," but eventually we're going to be picking and choosing where we post, based on when we see the threads, our mood upon seeing the threads, and our wherewithal to post upon clicking on threads.

The tl;dr of this section is this - people are seeing the issues. But they may not be contributing because they are distracted by all of the other billions of stupid, terrible issues happening elsewhere.

2) Banning "prominent" users and Discord

Let me start by saying that the two largest, by far, reasons we ban people are for the following reasons:

a) being dicks to other users
b) console/platform wars

If people could fucking grow up and stop doing those two things, I guarantee this forum would be the most enjoyable place on the internet for discussing gaming. I sure as hell know that our jobs would be easier. I could actually stop stressing about upcoming announcements for once.

This forum is definitely a product of the "lifeboats" from NeoGAF, where hundreds of users escaped to Discord and ultimately, ResetEra was born. In theory, there is nothing wrong with Discord. Hell, we use it for staff. But because of the nature of a lot of the Discord communities, they tend to become very insular - you aren't gonna find many Xbox fanboys in the Sony Discord, and vice-versa. They are communities focused on a specific topic/platform - and that's fine. The problem is that they become very, very protective of their own. A "prominent" member in those Discords could suddenly be banned on ResetEra, for a very legitimate reason, and then the rest of the Discord server becomes incensed because "hey, we love that guy, why did they get banned? I DEMAND ANSWERS AND RECOMPENSE!"

To put it bluntly, we do not give a shit, nor two shits, about who your favorite users are. If someone crosses a line, they will receive the same punishment as any other user. If you feel like your buddy is inching close to that line, it's on you to tell them "hey, dude, maybe tone it down a bit," if they aren't learning from their previous infractions on the site. We do not care if they are the person in your Discord that leaks the most information, provides the most insight, or helps the most people out - if they cannot control their behavior on ResetEra, then they will receive the same punishments as the users before them. If they cannot stop their disruptive behavior, then they won't be part of the site much longer. We. Do. Not. Care. Act like fucking adults.

We also are not oblivious to brigading. When a user from a Discord gets banned, we definitely see an influx of users that we know are a part of that Discord suddenly flood reports and tickets with appeals or not-subtle messages on what we can do with our mothers. For those of you submitting those, you certainly aren't helping your/their case. It just shows us that you're stuck in some sort of cult of personality and, let's be frank, we don't care about your cult.

3) Us acknowledging our mistakes

lol

we've done this tons of times. If you haven't seen it, congrats - you aren't part of some weird-ass Discord constantly demanding our heads.

4) Ban Histories

I can see the rationale regarding opening up ban histories. However, we also have an issue with people looking up users' histories and essentially going "this u?" If you find something suspect, report it. We'll handle it. You don't need to waste precious time in your short lives playing internet detective. That's my job, and I enjoy it.

What I don't understand is this - I don't understand what has gotten into your heads that makes you think that we're out to get you. Users are what makes this site actually, you know, work. There is literally no incentive for us to make shit up. If we put a banner on someone's post where they are banned, stating "prior infractions for X," then that's because we are acknowledging a pattern. If you have to sit back and wonder whether we are making shit up or not, please ask yourself, "why am I doing this? And what has gone so wrong in my life where I'm worried about whether or not the people running a fucking video gaming forum are being truthful or not?" You don't need to know. There has to be a level of trust where you assume we are actually acting in a way that benefits us all. We don't "win" if the site shuts down. We don't "win" if the site is overrun with Nazis. You think I want to spend weeks each year making sure the GOTY, or any other event we end up running during the years, is up to snuff because I hate you all? I mean, sure, there are a few users I hate, but they know who they are, and I appreciate them being normal members of society for the past year or so. But what the fuck? We have nothing to gain by alienating the majority of the uers! Why the fuck would we do anything that makes you go "oh, wow, staff is suddenly supporting bigotry."

Seriously. We have no reason to make up shit. Yes, there may be escalations of bans where you are not privy to the entire history, but I promise you we aren't just making shit up. We don't have the time, nor the mental wherewithal to fucking do that. It takes all of our energy to just respond to people questioning whether or not we made a decision because someone liked someone's Pinterest post in the past.

(Side note: I have way more MS stock than anyone else on staff, likely combined - I have no idea who else has any - I used to work for them, and fuck me if I ever defend those assholes at any point)

=========

I'm sure I'll think of other things as time goes on.

The gist of all this is this: Act like fucking adults. I own several different platforms, and while I can understand that I am privileged in the fact that I can afford those separate platforms, there is no goddamn reason to disparage anyone for liking some game or disliking some game. As I said, I have several platforms, but I don't have an Xbox. If the next Final Fantasy were to suddenly be exclusive to Xbox, I would be disappointed, but I wouldn't feel the need to be pissed off at a fucking user for being excited about it. Likewise, if it were exclusive to a platform I own, I also do not feel the need to shove that information in someone else's face. Because then I would be a fucking toddler, and not a relatively well-adjusted individual (emphasis on relatively).

I'll also say that, hey, I'm an alcoholic. Yes, that doesn't seem relevant, but let me explain: If someone is going to host an intervention for an alcoholic, you don't get a bunch of that person's enemies and lock them in a room. You get their friends and loved ones who will explain why their behavior is a problem. In the sense in how this scenario relates to this site - if your friend is acting like a shithead, it's firstly up to their friends and acquaintances to take them aside and say "hey. dude. you're being a giant jackass. It's fine. Either you get to play the game, or you don't. You'll still be you."

Lastly, again. We have no fucking reason to lie to you all. Sure, we're gonna make mistakes. And yeah, you're gonna have to make the enormous leap in trusting us when it comes to ban escalation (speaking of which, where's Twitter's ban history? Facebook's? etc.). We aren't "against you." Sure, there is a sense of "us v them" because we're management and we're the closest form of "authority" on this site.

It's fine. I get it. But we are not going to be able to solve your problems. And we certainly aren't going to be able to suddenly fix people's behavior. A user above (sorry, can't be arsed to scroll up) asked why we don't just perm everyone - it's because if it's something not completely horrible - e.g., hostility - maybe that person is just having a bad day and they just need a break. It is our honest hope that people learn from their mistakes. It doesn't happen often, but it does happen. We all benefit when we can just have an actual conversation rather than shouting at each other into the void.

The post had an amusing followup.

.... And with that, I can rest.

Seriously, Hecht 's post addresses everything I could have further said about the matter. And I won't spend time on this in the future next time a ban backlash happens. It is what it is.

Please message Nep if you have any questions, I am closing mine for the forseeable future

Modding is a closed circle.

[Potato]

It's bad enough that devs are still making games like this. It's also bad in a whole other way that a major platform holder would make it the first game of their presentation to put so much focus on.

I think the absurd thigh gap bothered me the most.

https://www.resetera.com/threads/why-women-criticise-sexualised-character-designs-ot3-her-ass-is-part-of-her-character.275780/post-118457301

"No one wants to ban these games! That's just a straw man!"

Weird, it's almost like they were lying.

Also they scanned an actual person you dumbass, she has a thigh gap (which btw is a perfectly normal thing some people have and some don't)

Can't wait for this shit to release.

I'm expecting at least one stroke and two heart attacks from the burka brigade.

[Taco Bell Tower]

[benji]

Uh-oh. Now Hecht is throwing his hat in the ring:

To put it bluntly, we do not give a shit, nor two shits, about who your favorite users are. If someone crosses a line, they will receive the same punishment as any other user. If you feel like your buddy is inching close to that line, it's on you to tell them "hey, dude, maybe tone it down a bit," if they aren't learning from their previous infractions on the site. We do not care if they are the person in your Discord that leaks the most information, provides the most insight, or helps the most people out - if they cannot control their behavior on ResetEra, then they will receive the same punishments as the users before them. If they cannot stop their disruptive behavior, then they won't be part of the site much longer. We. Do. Not. Care. Act like fucking adults.

We also are not oblivious to brigading. When a user from a Discord gets banned, we definitely see an influx of users that we know are a part of that Discord suddenly flood reports and tickets with appeals or not-subtle messages on what we can do with our mothers. For those of you submitting those, you certainly aren't helping your/their case. It just shows us that you're stuck in some sort of cult of personality and, let's be frank, we don't care about your cult.

There is literally no incentive for us to make shit up. If we put a banner on someone's post where they are banned, stating "prior infractions for X," then that's because we are acknowledging a pattern. If you have to sit back and wonder whether we are making shit up or not, please ask yourself, "why am I doing this? And what has gone so wrong in my life where I'm worried about whether or not the people running a fucking video gaming forum are being truthful or not?" You don't need to know. There has to be a level of trust where you assume we are actually acting in a way that benefits us all. We don't "win" if the site shuts down. We don't "win" if the site is overrun with Nazis. You think I want to spend weeks each year making sure the GOTY, or any other event we end up running during the years, is up to snuff because I hate you all? I mean, sure, there are a few users I hate, but they know who they are, and I appreciate them being normal members of society for the past year or so. But what the fuck? We have nothing to gain by alienating the majority of the uers! Why the fuck would we do anything that makes you go "oh, wow, staff is suddenly supporting bigotry."

Seriously. We have no reason to make up shit. Yes, there may be escalations of bans where you are not privy to the entire history, but I promise you we aren't just making shit up. We don't have the time, nor the mental wherewithal to fucking do that.

[Taco Bell Tower]

He's drinking again, isn't he?

[Taco Bell Tower]

It's bad enough that devs are still making games like this. It's also bad in a whole other way that a major platform holder would make it the first game of their presentation to put so much focus on.

I think the absurd thigh gap bothered me the most.

https://www.resetera.com/threads/why-women-criticise-sexualised-character-designs-ot3-her-ass-is-part-of-her-character.275780/post-118457301

"No one wants to ban these games! That's just a straw man!"

Weird, it's almost like they were lying.

Also they scanned an actual person you dumbass, she has a thigh gap (which btw is a perfectly normal thing some people have and some don't)

Can't wait for this shit to release.

I'm expecting at least one stroke and two heart attacks from the burka brigade.

https://www.resetera.com/threads/why-women-criticise-sexualised-character-designs-ot3-her-ass-is-part-of-her-character.275780/page-316?post=118447755#post-118447755

oh my god, the sideboob

[benji]

This was Hecht's job at Microsoft btw, he quit to get his lame video games "degree" from the community college:

[Snoopy]

You know better than most some of the insanity I'm forced to carry around, some of the dark things and choices I'm forced to relive in the quiet moments of the night when there's nothing but me and the knowledge that he's out there dining on my millions.

[Gameboy Nostalgia]

The same people who hate the game constantly coming back into the thread to tut-tut others. 

[Hap Shaughnessy]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/taylor-swift-travis-kelce-and-a-maga-meltdown.810921/page-8?post=118460907#post-118460907

The ones that are getting their panties in a bunch about it are the ones giving her all the press, ironically.

 

[Lonewulfeus]

To put it bluntly, we do not give a shit, nor two shits, about who your favorite users are. If someone crosses a line, they will receive the same punishment as any other user. If you feel like your buddy is inching close to that line, it's on you to tell them "hey, dude, maybe tone it down a bit," if they aren't learning from their previous infractions on the site. We do not care if they are the person in your Discord that leaks the most information, provides the most insight, or helps the most people out - if they cannot control their behavior on ResetEra, then they will receive the same punishments as the users before them. If they cannot stop their disruptive behavior, then they won't be part of the site much longer. We. Do. Not. Care. Act like fucking adults.

Right, you only care about your favorite users.  Acting like they never give wrist slaps for their favs and harsher bans for others is laughable.

[HaughtyFrank]

Uh-oh. Now Hecht is throwing his hat in the ring:

3) Us acknowledging our mistakes

lol

we've done this tons of times. If you haven't seen it, congrats - you aren't part of some weird-ass Discord constantly demanding our heads.

Wait, why do I have to be on some weird ass discord to hear you acknowledging mistakes? Why don't you apologize to the people on the forum?

[Hap Shaughnessy]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/state-of-play-ot-extended-looks-at-stellar-blade-rise-of-the-ronin-and-more-titles-coming-to-ps5-psvr2.811449/page-5?post=118434969#post-118434969

User Banned (1 week): Boys club rhetoric

Nice bum (for those who are interested in such things)

[kaleidoscopium]

Weird how often boys club rhetoric comes up yet the mods won’t acknowledge what it actually means and why ogling men is okay but not women.

[BIONIC]

More constructive bullshit for neppy and bdumbs:

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

This stuck out to me and I might have an answer that could work. I know that opening up ban history is possible, but if an action is undone it removes it from there, but it's in deeper sections that would make it a huge problem.

What if there was a separate "ban" on the account for the action being undone? It stays there for posterity, doesn't require additional access, and allows users to see ban history?

(Sorry about the nothing message earlier with a notification, I've been eyes deep in google sheets and ctrl+enter is new line there, and post here...)

I'm going to be real, you all also need to stop treating us like we're Congress or something. I don't have the nuclear codes. There is no army. We're not elected officials, this isn't government, it's an Internet forum and some of you need to start acting like you understand that because, for some reason, when people are mad at real stuff that anger gets taken out on us and that gets old really fast.

If I'm following you correctly, you basically want a separate, public ban log for members that essentially cannot be retroactively edited in the case that we reverse a decision?

Gonna be honest, this will 1000% be used against us. We already get heat when we undo bans that certain members think should have remained. This'll just make it easier to weaponize those moments.

You guys need to understand, there are people who's entire personality is literally hating on specific mods and finding any reason to shit on all of us collectively. Like, I already got a guy following me around and sniping whenever he gets a chance. Nep has a few of them and so do other mods. There's users who will sit in their discords and literally make crap up about us based on nothing but their own head cannon and random delusions until they spill over onto the main forum.

There's another issue, sometimes bans get undone because a private piece of information gets shared with us that totally changes how a post gets read. So we'll undo the ban but keep the secret because it's not ours to tell. As a result, us undoing a ban but keeping a public record of it could put not only us but the user in question in a bad situation.

There's also times a mistake gets made, a finger slips, and a ban get applied to the wrong account or post.

Oh sorry, no, like the "ban" would stay on the account/post but show the reversed decision and a no ban time added. Or if the ban is changed not removed, strike through the previous message and append the changed ban to the current ban reason.

then allow the regular ban log of a user to be accessed by anyone looking at the account. I know some boards I used to browse did this and I didn't see much issue with it, but I could see that maybe being an issue here

Yeah, as I was typing out my clarification it was a bit "ohhhh" moment.

I can vouch for the fact that there are people who do just kinda hate on specific mods, and find reasons to hate on staff collectively too. It happened during my time on staff as well. Unfortunately, a lot of these places like the Discords, and other websites like those that Nepenthe mentioned end up being echo chambers that reinforce the hatred towards individuals and such. And as she also noted, it's a very nuanced situation with a lot of aspects to it, most of which I can't even go into detail in the short time that I have right now. Sadly, I wouldn't be surprised if, even though it's such a small portion of Era's userbase, it makes it difficult for many members of staff to simply express themselves. Which is a shame because I love seeing presence of other staff members and hearing their feelings and opinions on topics. (Good example: Snormy's post above on the trans issues. That was great to see.)

Hell, I know for a fact that some people still stalk me for my time as an admin, and I haven't been on staff for three years now, lol.

Okay I think I'm understanding. We do actually have the ability to edit public facing ban banners without actually leaving the ban on the account, because the banner is applied via the warning system, not the ban system.

My concerns however would be similar to Dubs':

What do we do on cases where bans are handled on the basis of private or sensitive information? What do we do in cases of technical errors or mistakes? What do we do about this information being weaponized by bad actors off site for cases of harassment?

In general, how does an accessible ban log fully prevent these outbursts? For example, if someone gets their very first ban, or does something that warrants a ban that isn't based upon escalation of prior offenses, and members still fly off the handle, how does the ban log come in to actually mediate the conflict?

It's really hard to force people to engage. A lot of topics that one would think would get a lot of engagement based on the seriousness of something just don't. Meanwhile how often do you poop or whatever has pages and pages of replies.

Some people may care but don’t know what to say. Some people may care but don’t really come here to post in something they view as political or whatever. Some people (sadly) might not care much since it isn’t effecting them. Some people may be so tired that they don’t even want to think about engsging with that thread because it’s depressing.

I’m just throwing out things that might keep people from engaging that aren’t necessarily all just people not giving a shit.

It's really annoying and disheartening but I'm not 100% sure how to address it. Would be interested in what you think would help?

I should also note that there are situations where something really really bad is brought to our attention and we need to act on it in a specific way. In these situations we won't always be able to tell everyone what is really going down because doing so could potentially put someone who has done nothing wrong at risk. It isn't an overly common thing, but there are absolutely moments where we literally cannot tell you guys the truth about a ban or a choice that was made or whatever. This is generally the case when full disclosure would put someone who didn't actually do anything bad in the cross-hairs.

You guys gotta understand, sometimes when we're not saying anything we're just waiting for people to chill out so we actually get heard and there can be a constructive discussion. However, there are times when we're standing between an angry mob who wants a head, any head, on a pike and someone who didn't actually do anything wrong.


So, here is the thing about threads and engagement: if it's controversial in some way it's more likely to get people posting in it. This is learned behavior from the rest of social media. If it's a topic that everyone is in agreement about then it'll fall off the front page pretty quick, but if it's something that's super controversial, or that can be used to war in some way, then it's guaranteed to run for ages.

[kaleidoscopium]

This... isn't rocket science. They can today go look at what their competitor/progenitor NeoGAF does: 
https://neogaf.com/bans/

Or the former KF bans list which was even better

[Gameboy Nostalgia]

Has any of the mods answered Clicky's request to FORCE posting in trans threads.