Journal of Other Forum Analysis

[Boredfrom]

It's frustrating that they're going after a small group of writing consultants who never had any power anyway and were just hired to make sure there was nothing disrespectful in the games.

Unfortunately, this is how mob mentality works, and it's really hard to reach out to them and make them think a bit harder about what they're doing.

Just like with Zoe Quinn a decade ago, they want a target to focus all their anger and insecurities into. Some of them are probably aware of how irrational it is, but they want to punish somebody for how they feel anyways.

https://www.resetera.com/threads/gamergate-2-0-chuds-furious-about-a-consulting-company-named-“sweet-baby-inc”-which-overviews-scripts-to-make-sure-nothing-offensive-was-written.823731/page-14?post=120409977#post-120409977

How is Zoe Quinn doing this days? 

Feels like she disappeared from the gamer scene after the Night in the Woods incident. 

[TylenolJones]

I just want to play Zoe Quinn’s Chuck Tingle game. That’s still coming out, right?

[NekoFever]

Plurality is particularly crazy because the lore they have for it being 'real' is basically stuff they've learned from JRPGs, anime and manga

They all suddenly had tulpas after Twin Peaks: The Return aired.

[kaleidoscopium]

Twin Peaks participated in the trans genocide by having David Duchovny play Dennis/Denise! David Lynch should be in the dungeon. 

[Uncle]

How is Zoe Quinn doing this days? 

Feels like she disappeared from the gamer scene after the Night in the Woods incident. 

fun fact!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zo%C3%AB_Quinn

the only reference on Zoe's page that she drove Alec Holowka to suicide is because the article is used to confirm that she uses they/them pronouns





you know the story would definitely be there if he hadn't killed himself

[Boredfrom]

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I'm not sure how TwoHearts can be a troll since staff read this thread. They must have some iron-clad verification that TwoHearts is as batshit crazy troubled as they claim to be.

Dude… they are idiots. Their proof probably is “Android Sophia is vouching for her”.

Even so, if she is just batshit crazy, more reason to ban her because there is no way they can accommodate her without enabling her.

Speaking of the devil: 

We'll need some time to fully read this (I have to start work soon so I won't have a chance to reply until much later) but safe to say this topic is extremely relevant to us. I've talked before about our system and the depiction in Moon Knight. And if it wasn't obvious from my name (and the name of a headmate), Xenogears has a special meaning to our system.

 

Man, I used to feel sorry for her.

[kaleidoscopium]

It’s hard to decide which is weirder, android sophia thinks they are actually a computer system of some sort, but two hearts thinks they are a little kid in a persons body. If two hearts isn’t a troll I think they might just edge out the creep win.

[kaleidoscopium]

Pizza Tower the new banned game? 

FYI, the creator of the game McPig is a shithead

They sound like an edgy maga head. You see them using slurs, trans racism, racism, ableism, allowing nazi jokes, misogyny, sexism, conservative jokes, etc.

Long thread of edgy discord jokes

May just have to get this game after all…

10 seconds in the Pizza Tower discord would've shown you everything you wanted to know. Place is an absolutely unhinged snapshot of 2010s 4chan. You're as good as the people you allow around yourself.

https://www.resetera.com/threads/pizza-tower-the-noise-update-new-game-released.826719/?post=120411339#post-120411339

This might pass some threshold into meta-whining or whatever but it's a really unhealthy, unsustainable mentality that pervades internet culture now.

Like not only is the shitty person themselves judged, but all the people who didn't realize the shitty person was shitty. I don't have fucking ESP. It's mentally exhausting to have the burden of moral judgement on me every time I lay eyes upon a given piece of media.

[TylenolJones]

Politics thread going well. 

User threadbanned: drive-by posting

This OP was certainly a choice. No links to any resources or the years of previous threads. Shame.

Ignore the polls and keep the focus on November.

https://www.resetera.com/threads/us-politics-ot-1-smoked-filled-mar-a-lago-rooms.826662/?post=120410979#post-120410979

[Boredfrom]

Anton Blast is coming this year if you want a Wariolike without the baggage. Also some folks here are involved with it.

Anton Blast, from users of an anti semitic community. What an endorsement!

[malfoyking]

[tweet]https://twitter.com/FwPs5/status/1767842429523185819

[/tweet]

Clearly pertinent to PS5 somehow.

[Uncle]

How is Zoe Quinn doing this days? 

Feels like she disappeared from the gamer scene after the Night in the Woods incident. 

fun fact!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zo%C3%AB_Quinn

the only reference on Zoe's page that she drove Alec Holowka to suicide is because the article is used to confirm that she uses they/them pronouns

[i mg]https://i.imgur.com/IE94acT.png[/img]

[i mg]https://i.imgur.com/VXtd1hF.png[/img]

you know the story would definitely be there if he hadn't killed himself

addendum:

patrick klepek is not a reliable source 

[JoeBoy101]

Politics thread going well. 

User threadbanned: drive-by posting

This OP was certainly a choice. No links to any resources or the years of previous threads. Shame.

Ignore the polls and keep the focus on November.

https://www.resetera.com/threads/us-politics-ot-1-smoked-filled-mar-a-lago-rooms.826662/?post=120410979#post-120410979

Love all the mods showing up in the thread now, trying to sell it. Plus they give the OP to Krazen?

[JoeBoy101]

Politics thread going well. 

User threadbanned: drive-by posting

This OP was certainly a choice. No links to any resources or the years of previous threads. Shame.

Ignore the polls and keep the focus on November.

https://www.resetera.com/threads/us-politics-ot-1-smoked-filled-mar-a-lago-rooms.826662/?post=120410979#post-120410979

Love all the mods showing up in the thread now, trying to sell it. Couldn’t be fucked to show up in the thread when Plagiarize was shitting the bed, but now they are all policy wonks.



Plus they give the OP to Krazen?

Screwed that edit hard. I’m ready Mod Captain, I’ve assume the position.

[Boredfrom]

Politics thread going well. 

User threadbanned: drive-by posting

This OP was certainly a choice. No links to any resources or the years of previous threads. Shame.

Ignore the polls and keep the focus on November.

https://www.resetera.com/threads/us-politics-ot-1-smoked-filled-mar-a-lago-rooms.826662/?post=120410979#post-120410979

Love all the mods showing up in the thread now, trying to sell it. Plus they give the OP to Krazen?

He is the most Nepenthe esque user that still has some little perceived goodwill. In the end, is going to be the usual idiots that shit every single Offtopic thread.

[Snoopy]

I think it’s a good thing they banned all the politics wonks. Replacing them with smarmy vapid bullies like this one will definitely improve the election coverage

Glad to have a US Politics thread back in some form to passively follow as the anxiety of the upcoming election steadily rises. Still wild one of the two options to lead the country is an out and out unapologetic fascist openly vocal about his intent to instate an authoritarian dictatorship. Type of thing you expect to be some clandestine plan that's uncovered by journalists but nope, literally has a website.

Passively following. Lol. Get fucked. You never went in there because you knew they would have ignored you. The only reason you’ve shown up now is because they’ve all gone

[HaughtyFrank]

Pizza Tower the new banned game? 

FYI, the creator of the game McPig is a shithead

They sound like an edgy maga head. You see them using slurs, trans racism, racism, ableism, allowing nazi jokes, misogyny, sexism, conservative jokes, etc.

Long thread of edgy discord jokes

Whoa, whoa, whoa... Hol up a minute

trans racism

 the what now?

[kaleidoscopium]

I bought the game last year and this is the first I'm hearing of this, bloody hell. Guess this one ain't coming off the backlog.

I don't think it's widely known either; I saw the game ran on GDQ a while ago and no-one on there seemed to know…

https://www.resetera.com/threads/pizza-tower-the-noise-update-new-game-released.826719/?post=120414894#post-120414894

You… already bought the game… 

Fuck, I had no idea. I feel bad I enjoyed the game now.

[Snoopy]

If Kyuuji was following the US politics thread then why didn’t he support them over the weekend? He obviously knew what was going on. Didn’t say a word. If Kyuui’s mob had come out and supported the politicos things would’ve gone very differently. They’re the most powerful community on ree. They could have stood with the politics community and given them solidarity. Instead the little weasel stayed silent. I hope he remembers that when the mods come for him

[MMM]

Came here because I just saw the Pizza Tower thread lol. A thread on a game update will now turn into a circle jerk about how they are all boycotting a game they bought last year because of some discord posts from 6 years ago. 

Why can his apology not be accepted? Presumably there is no evidence he was saying these things recently? If he is not saying these things right now, and gave an apology for them, what is the issue?

Now every mention of Pizza Tower being a good game will involve that post about the creator. Like when Embracer posted in 8chan and every thread on them featured that one post about sex trafficking.

[kaleidoscopium]

Came here because I just saw the Pizza Tower thread lol. A thread on a game update will now turn into a circle jerk about how they are all boycotting a game they bought last year because of some discord posts from 6 years ago. 

Why can his apology not be accepted? Presumably there is no evidence he was saying these things recently? If he is not saying these things right now, and gave an apology for them, what is the issue?

Contrasted with Nepenthes apology tour it’s extra extra hilarious to me.

[kaleidoscopium]

Given how thoroughly ignorant they are about basic shit that any person even tangently participating in society would know about, they all gotta be jobless.

https://www.resetera.com/threads/gamergate-2-0-chuds-furious-about-a-consulting-company-named-“sweet-baby-inc”-which-overviews-scripts-to-make-sure-nothing-offensive-was-written.823731/page-14?post=120415203#post-120415203

[TylenolJones]

If Kyuuji was following the US politics thread then why didn’t he support them over the weekend? He obviously knew what was going on. Didn’t say a word. If Kyuui’s mob had come out and supported the politicos things would’ve gone very differently. They’re the most powerful community on ree. They could have stood with the politics community and given them solidarity. Instead the little weasel stayed silent. I hope he remembers that when the mods come for him

Why would you support a community that denies multiple genocides?

[Lonewulfeus]

I like how no one is bringing up the double standards in regards to nepenthes genocide encouragement.  I wonder if all users, in lieu of a ban, will be given the option of making a non-apology, voluntarily abstain from posting in the offending topics, and take the emotional labor of mods from the offended clique to correct their ill conceived hot take.

[BIONIC]

The creation of a new Political OT represented an opportunity for an olive branch and the start of a dialogue. But rather than use that opportunity for outreach to the community a decision was made to have someone so entirely outside the community they didn't even contribute to the last OT make an irony pilled joke filled OT post without any acknowledgment of mistakes or apologies from staff not to mention the very notable absence of any credit or links to past OTs where that community has invested time and energy fostering valuable political discussion on this site. I don't see how anyone involved here could view this as anything but an expression of pettiness and spite and a continuation of casting an entire community of site contributors as bad actors.

This is not the way. After everything that has transpired here saying I am disappointed is such an understatement I can't even put it into words.

That someone was immediately threadbanned for sharing this sentiment in the OT speaks volumes.

Jesus Christ. The definition of "drive-by posting" has really dropped recently, huh? That user was most definitely engaging with the topic, so this basically means that any criticism of the OP (and all OPs going forward) is a (thread)bannable offense. Maybe that should be added to the OP?

I've got to say, B-Dubs and some of the mod-team could learn something from Nep's apology and growth.

Yes. Management has learned absolutely nothing. Please proceed.

Yeah, I don't want to downplay Nep's post, it's very much appreciated, but - also beyond the fact that I hope it's not lost that she's getting a chance that no normal member would ever get - the silence from staff apart from her the last two days here is deafening.

The threadban on the new PoliEra "US Politics" thread is ridiculous.

Also that the thread is made from an OP from outside the community. It's deliberately calling itself something else and starting from OP1. It's an obvious attempt to quietly strip away more of the old community under the guise of business as usual, which tells me that asking if any of the recent pretty much unjustified bans for numerous longtime members might be reviewed is pointless.

Quick, give out some tags!

[BIONIC]

Benji summarize plz

I am no longer comfortable on the internet and have my guard up at all times. As I've shrunk and contracted my presence across the broader internet, there are a few locations I continued to haunt devotedly. I continued to observe PoliERA with a dutiful vigilance for many years. There were many election years, election months, and election nights where the level-headed activity in that thread was singularly responsible for my mental stability. I owe a lot to those members. It is neither romance nor embellishment to say so.

Despite no longer being the active participant I once was, I think I still have a multi-dimensional perspective on the community and the website as a whole. I was a known quantity in the GAF thread that preceded this website. I was very active in the migration and the establishment of new territory here on Era. I was a member of the moderation team under the original administration, eventually a member of the administration myself during some of this forum's most stressful periods, and I remained a devoted member in the years that followed. I have a broad perspective on how community problems develop, worsen, and the volatile ways they resolve themselves. I have a working perspective on why moderation is often ineffective at addressing conflicts prioritized by sub-communities. I will never have a complete picture of every situation, and there are many situations where I've come to lack a personal stake, but I still believe I have an effective perspective for perceiving and processing these kinds of problems.

One thing I strongly believe is that balancing the priorities of different sub-communities against the priorities of the greater site is extremely difficult. The original conception of this website, fueled by the migration of members from identity and interest based Discords, produced a myriad of established sub-communities with sometimes conflicting visions of what "ResetEra" was supposed to look like. On the surface, most people's common goals were aligned. But in practice, it was not possible to accommodate the image of the forum that all these disparate communities wanted.


Something I experienced as far back as 2017 is the frustration that the website as a whole does not match the environment different sub-communities foster within their own community threads and Discords. On Gaming side, we witnessed the total collapse and exodus of the Steam Community, the Nintendo Community, the Xbox community, and the PlayStation community. You might recognize that most of these communities spun off onto their own walled garden community forums where they could maintain their preferred culture and moderation standard. This is not to say that these communities did not have legitimate grievances, but the grievances of these communities were all identical:

• They believed their communities were being targeted unfairly while other communities were given preferential treatment.
  
• They believed ResetEra as a whole was openly hostile to their preferred interests and desired conversation topics and only their own controlled OTs were safe spaces.
  
• They believed the staff did not have their best interests in heart and turned on their own members-turned-mods.
  
• They believed ResetEra was not living up to its promises to them or, at worst, actively working against them.
  

In the context of Gaming, we can recognize that there is some ironic to the consistency of these grievances. There is something telling about the fact that the four major platform communities all equally believed they were among the forum's most marginalized. Each of these communities were convinced, irreversibly, that the forum was out to get them specifically - that the forum and site staff had an innate bias against their communities and the only solution was to splinter off into a protected space of their own where they could call the shots. If it was limited to just video games, I think I would be able to laugh this off as console wars. But we know that this is not just a thing that happened in the Gaming side of the forum. This is something that happened sitewide, repeatedly, with far more important and sensitive topics.

We also witnessed community collapses in REgals, AsianEra, BCCT, plus crucial focus topics like SalesERA and US PoliEra, and these are disasters that cannot be handwaved. These were the pillars of the community that ResetEra was supposed to be built on. These were the passionate participants who were coming here to really make something, who were here to cultivate a space, who wanted to actually achieve something more than just a website for video games. These communities did not collapse overnight, many endured multiple watershed tipping points before they ceased to exist in the form they initially did. Even as they limped along and reformed with new members or new standards, they were verifiably not what they once were. And these communities all had the same complaints:

• They believed their communities were being targeted unfairly while other communities were given preferential treatment.
  
• They believed ResetEra as a whole was openly hostile to their preferred interests and desired conversation topics and only their own controlled OTs were safe spaces.
  
• They believed the staff did not have their best interests in heart and turned on their own members-turned-mods.
  
• They believed ResetEra was not living up to its promises to them or, at worst, actively working against them.
  

But this isn't Xbox or Nintendo. This is people's lives, livelihoods, and sense of worth and safety. These aren't just opinions and interests, these are traits core to the very people of the website. I could roll my eyes when it seemed like "gamers always play the victim" - but seeing these same patterns for subjects and participants of much greater importance was chilling to me. I have thought about this a lot in the years since my self-selected privacy. What is the psychology at play here? What can be attributed to reason and what can be attributed to emotion? How much responsibility is on site staff to solve certain problems and how much is on the community to overcome them?


It seems like every sub-community on this website is a ticking time bomb. The examples listed above are not even all of the high-profile meltdowns that have plagued this site. This just keeps happening over and over and over and we are all collectively - members and staff alike - inflicting this pain on ourselves. We have only ourselves to blame.

I do not mean to elevate PoliERA as more important than communities that collapsed in the past. That is not the case. This is just an opportunity to maybe save one from what is historically been an inescapable outcome for so many people here. I do not want to lose this last bastion of content I can consume with confidence and comfort.


I think the specific moderation rules applying to threads about politics is welcome and important. It's a direction I want these threads to move in. The consistent tag system also allows for meaningful contributors to be identified within these topics more easily so that members who understand and uphold the values of these topics can be elevated to moderation. I have always believed that all of these threads should be subject to a far stricter standard of conduct from the outset. I would still like to see World News relocated to its own subforum away from unrelated topics. As I recently shared privately:

It just does not make sense to have threads about invasion, genocide, and rape alongside topics about anime, comics, and celebrity gossip. Beyond the absurdity, it levels the quality of conversation around the juvenile and invites participation from people who are not in the frame of mind to engage with a serious topic in an intelligent way. This website is suffering madly because of an adherence to a structure inherited by another forum. Nobody would logically structure discussion this way. I think the need to separate these topics and give them the privacy and moderation they deserve is required at this stage if these conversations can be expected to exist here in 2024.

I have held this belief for many years and I have heard all the arguments against this. But my resolve has only hardened on this subject with time and I am immovable in my belief someday this will be a mandatory restructuring of the website. I hope that if the tag system with its own rules proves successful that it results in this eventual transition.

I think this is crucial because the way politics are discussed on the open forum are needlessly reactionary. Members are not trained to intelligently and respectfully engage in these topics. We have concrete examples of how setting and upholding strict expectations can be extremely beneficial for these conversations and they should be applied universally to topics for this genre. Instead of waiting for a news thread to spiral into chaos and rebooting it as a new thread with special terms, these terms should be universal and applied to every topic of this nature.

One of the only places members are trained to engage with these threads constructively was the PoliERA OT. This created a great thread to follow news, find sources, and consume perspective. It also produced a bitter and tribal enclave of members who hated the rest of the website. It created a standard of conversation that could not even be approximated anywhere else on the forum. It also created a vulnerable target for bad actors who knew where all these sorts of members congregated. For all the good it produced, the consequences of this kind of exclusive zone are terrible. A community that views in-group and out-group members as enemies is a disaster that must be addressed.

The effort here is not to make every political thread have the culture of PoliERA. PoliERA has its own clear culture issues that do not need be used as a template elsewhere on the forum. But what this does is make it so anybody who wants to participate in a political topic on this website would be subject to the same consistent and transparent guidelines, unique to these topics, and enforced evenly for every user. There should not be whiplash and culture shock going from topic to topic on this forum.

It is a known fact, a fact we've known for years, that political threads on this forum require unique policies. Sometimes situations are so specific and context-laden that there will need to be special enforcements determined organically. But there could and should still be a basic understanding of what engaging with political threads on this forum should look like and we should be asking more from our members if they wish to participate in them.

I know some people would call this gatekeeping. They would say it is elitist to insist on a certain level of decorum to participate in topics like these. They would say they do not trust in other people's definitions of what appropriate discourse looks like. People are entitled to feel this way. They are entitled to be distrustful. But it needs to happen anyway, because fundamentally these conversations require structure and regulation to be successful. We've seen it on our own forum time and time again that this is the only way these threads work. Even if it lowers engagement in these topics, the quality of conversation will be higher and the benefit of information will be greater. These threads need to be held to a higher standard than news about "Zack Snyder's comments on Batman."


I urge both members and staff with a vested interest in seeing this site-wide problem rectified continue the necessary dialog to further these goals. If people do not want this to be another pivotal point of no return for yet another important part of this website, then every actor needs to recognize this reckoning as a call to action. Even if you do not trust each other, even if you do not like each other, even if you think it's bull shit that this is happening and it shouldn't be your responsibility to fix it, do it anyway. It is possible to still reach a better outcome even as you hold grudges and mourn circumstances. Not everyone is going to make it. But we don't have to keep going down the drain. We can, if we care enough, actually climb back out. Recognize that rebuilding is a process.


I'd also like to say that I am extremely ashamed of any member who felt this conflict justified visits to the hate sites to dig up dirt on other users or staff. If you did this, and if you do not condemn this, your brain rot has reached critical levels. I cannot believe that with everything that this forum has gone through, both members and users alike, that anybody would be desensitized enough to do that.

[BIONIC]

B-Chuds the Merciful:

Yea, that's still really unfair. He resigned from the server's management and left it before all of the Discord staff were banned and yet still caught the heat from it despite not participating in the drama, not defending anything and then resigning

He literally could not even do what the admins of Era wanted the server to do because he was not active staff at the time or even in the server anymore, and yet he was still banned

is there a reason the minimum word count can't be a thing applied forum wide?

Honestly, if he wants to send in a ticket we can undo the ban.

We're always willing to listen to people willing to talk. The usual problem with tickets is that when we get one it's just a double or even triple down on what got someone banned in the first place. When we get a good ticket we're all pretty quick to listen. It's a bit like spotting a unicorn, you get all excited and are willing to do whatever to keep it around.


Would take a couple clicks if I'm completely honest, not hard at all. It's just something we're testing out right now. If it goes well then we'll make the subforum permanent and adjust the escalation accordingly.

If this whole subforum thing does go well, it opens a few doors to us in terms of dealing with other parts of the forum. So we've all got our fingers crossed and are hoping nobody abuses it.

[BIONIC]

Once a cop always a cop:

Here’s a great question:

If you feel a member of staff is saying something that you feel is breaking TOS, what is the proper protocol?

Who do you actually report it to? I feel like my own concerns were ignored.

Is PM the correct way? To who?

Clearly I’m either losing it or wrong?

I feel the same way and would like to know this too.

I don't know the preferred way to make a report like this at the moment, but I do want to assure you from experience that staff are removed or resign regularly due to conduct violations or failure to uphold their responsibilities, perceived or otherwise. I know that forum mods have a reputation across the internet as being self-aggrandizing power trippers who never face consequences, but the ice cold truth is that this is not the case here and has never been the case on ResetEra. Staff turnover is constant here. The founding administration has all turned over. The primary team during the early years of the site has all turned over. The four most active contributors to moderation during my own tenure, myself included, are gone. Some staff have resigned after controversies and resumed activity as members, which people quickly move on from and forget. Some staff has deleted their accounts and disappeared without a trace.

But the staff here has always taken conduct and responsibilities extremely seriously. Staff members have a tendency to hold themselves accountable and resign if they feel they have failed to live up to their ideals. But in the case where a staff member doesn't do it on their own, the decision is made for them.

All mods used to just be members. Many eventually become members again. They are not god kings with unlimited power. The influence of a single moderated is small and it is easy to discuss them with administration or other members of the team. I faced consequences for my actions and conduct as a team member when I made mistakes. I participated in pseudo-tribunals against other team members whose actions required addressing. The amount of mods and admins who have come and gone both willingly and otherwise probably exceeds the active staff list by an enormous margin.

If you have a legitimate and rational concern you will be heard.

[BIONIC]

B-Chuds discussing the pressing issues of the hour:

is there a reason the minimum word count can't be a thing applied forum wide?

I can understand making a couple of exceptions like in sports OT's on gameday, but overall I would not be against a word count minimum for the website. Ideally, it would lead to more constructive conversations, less drive by posts, and require more efforts from everyone.

I have been following the recent events through this thread but won't comment as I am not involved nor informed enough of the events and the complex issues within said threads. I would just like to thank those taking the time and effort to try and work through the current difficulties, pass my messages of support to all parties who have experienced strife, and applaud efforts to try and mend rifts and improve the site.

I would like to add my support of the use of minimum word counts in threads that would most benefit from them. Perhaps it could be an option to thread makers if the pilots of this feature work well in fostering a better quality of posting and discussion.

Edit: I would add to the discussion of how serious topics are approached (which is extremely important, thanks to posters giving their insight). The only issue with the attempt at separation of serious and trivial is the issue of posters more than happy to clear away proper serious discussion concerning their trivial things/toys - like feminist critique of sexualised characters in video games for example - in order to stick their fingers in their ears or have their favourite entertainment things sidestepping legitimate criticism.

Like I said, it's something we're actively testing out. The word count might be adjusted down a bit from 25, but the bigger thing I'm hoping to see work is how the subforum bans thing goes.

There's certain users who can't be trusted in certain parts of the forum but are otherwise great contributors in other parts. For example, someone might be really good at steering conversations in threads about world affairs but might also be an absolutely gigantic platform warrior who can't help themselves. If this goes well then it gives us new options to deal with users like that. We can clean up gaming discourse without losing that contribution elsewhere.

This, of course, is contingent on people not abusing this in some way and fucking it up for everyone else.


Giving various communities a bit more control over their OTs, like you mention with the word count thing, is something else we've been discussing and are currently testing as we speak. It's a bit contingent on OPs being the sort of posters we can trust with a bit of power though.

[BIONIC]

I want to thank Nep for their thoughtful and insightful reply. I believe it strikes the proper tone and honestly conveys an attempt to heal the wounds in this community.

But it does not address the moderation issues that ERA has. It's ok that it doesn't since it was a personal statement, but ERA has problems and there still isn't any word on addressing them. Dubs basically saying that banned users should submit a ticket and admit to their crimes is just gross. Pretty much a plead guilty and we will forgive you because us mods are never wrong vibe.

That is in no way what I said, like goddamn dude.

If we're wrong we'll cop to it and undo the ban. We got no problem doing that. If you actually did something bad a really good ticket can potentially get you off despite that. I'm just saying, usually when we get tickets it's "that user deserved to be called an asshole because they disagrees with me on videogames!"

Look, I understand that's what you meant. And it must be really frustrating to put up with all the whining and bargaining that I'm sure happens. But from our perspective, it's still chilling. Because it only works well for us if you think you're wrong. And sometimes you don't realize it. But you hold all the power, which is just inherent in being a moderator. So really, I guess, that's that. If you think you're right, like you do in the case with Brady's ban and all your actions regarding Poli-ERA then you will stick by your decision. Which is completely understandable from your point of view.

But really, many of us feel that you aren't right. Many of us feel that the decision-making hasn't been right in a long time. And I don't think it's malicious or incompetence or anything like that. I don't have any answers. I know it's hard doing what you do. But ERA is dying and I wish it wasn't.