Venom vs. Error, Part 2: The Safe Way to Call Someone Gay

There's plenty more to talk about when it comes to this story, namely: how can I avoid a moderation if I really, really want to make fun of someone's orientation? We'll get to that soon enough, but let's talk about the latest developments.

Last night's entry got the attention on Hellhole and explains what happened with Venom's most recent warning. OrangeCrush980 brought it up noting "Apparently you can get warned for nothing at all." But come on, what kind of mods do you take them for? Do you think they would really just mod someone for anything they wanted? No! (*whispers* yes, I'm aware mod discretion exists). Of course not! Any good moderator would find a pretext valid reason.

Cataclysms (Moderator) Posted...
It is clear from the screenshot that the warning was due to abusing the marking system.

What's that, you ask. Well that's the thing that happens if you mark a mod too much. Now, I would get it if Venom took it too far and started marking everyone in the topic he didn't like, as a sarcastic way to turn the tables and say "I offend you? Well this 'offends' me too!" That would be a silly thing to do and we at GUAC don't approve of it (why be a hypocrite and try to get the mods to mod more users?) Marking mods, however, is fair game. They enforce the byzantine and heavy-handed rules, they have to live up to them. That's kindof what Venom wanted to do with Error, as he pointed me to the Terms and board etiquette. The rules that say "If you participate in any kind of organized invasion of any other service, you will likely be suspended for it."

Venom emailed me four instances of the CE topic where Error was linking to Twitter. He did it more than four times overall. Error wanted the flame war to continue, so he called in some of his friends and for the next few days they simply gave Venom a hard time on his Twitter and Youtube accounts. No big deal, right? Except that Venom didn't see it that way. He told them to stop the messages telling him to put his balls in a blender and so on, and since they weren't he decided he was going to report them. That's what Venom did to Error when he returned to Gamefaqs and found out Error was encouraging the messages. For a board that mods someone for "harassment" if they include someone's name in  passing in a 180-person popularity contest, they sure are lenient when a mod directs people to someone's Twitter account and they go to town on it for several days.

Honestly, who wouldn't mark mods when they blatantly do what they just modded you for? It's a fun little hobby, although up to now largely an exercise in futility. I did it myself a few months back and it draws a great parallel. Remember this? When I was warned for trolling over a political opinion, "Democrats refuse to pass budgets. The Senate willfully obstructs and then Obama claims this is proof he needs to act unilaterally." Well, I went out and found a few examples of mods "trolling" and marked them. (WALLY ALERT). Coincidentally, I made a joke at the time about how the mods might freak out and suspend me for abuse of the form. But if my political opinion was a warnable offense for "trolling," well certainly chain-quoting someone, for example, and adding nothing to the conversation besides *points and laughs* would be a message designed to incite flames, blah blah blah, you know, the literal definition of trolling under the Terms. You silly person. As if the mods follow what the Terms actually say?

Which brings us to the first safe way to call someone gay on gamefaqs: become a mod. It will make you largely immune from all those crazy rules you'll be enforcing on some other sap. After all, good old wally has brought up sexual orientation against me when we were having an argument. TaiIs, don't follow me around like that. What are you, gay for me?

http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/261-politics/66598496?page=1
 
Taiis, I don't swing that way, bro. Sorry.

Mods on Hellhole called it a potential violation - not when I marked the message itself of course, but when they were taking my own message down since I quoted it in a topic after it archived, and they had taken no action against it.

Hey Venom, if you're reading this and Error's still giving you guff, try questioning his orientation and telling him you don't "swing that way." What could possibly happen to your account?

Hey Error, if you're reading this, you aren't off the hook either mister. I saw what you did. Very homophobic.

https://twitter.com/error1355/status/482713163285012480

Speaking as a guy who is gay for wally, this deeply offends me! Is this what you do on your leisure time, belittle a loving romance between two dudes and make a mockery of their union? Does this amuse you? A poor little gay kid might see this picture, feel bad about himself, and commit suicide. That's on you. I demand an apology, a special edition gamefaqs T-shirt with rainbow tie-dye, and will absolve you of your sin if you commit to be a social justice warrior and do 10 moderations against people who aren't 100 percent down with the gay rights agenda.

But really, don't joke around and do something like this on gamefaqs if you're a regular old user. Or you might face the wrath of mods who do it offsite in their spare time.

The second safe way to call someone gay on gamefaqs: make sure your target is conservative.  wally hit a two-fer with the above comment. You could fill whole topics on the politics board talking about whether all  those homophobe conservatives are really secret closet gay guys who just have bad self-esteem. The thinking is, hey, gay guys are gay. Non-gay guys must be secret jealous gay too. If everyone's gay, everyone wins! Straight people who say they're straight and actually are? That's so 20th century.

Here's a comment from KingBabyCub in the CE topic, also questioning my sexuality:

Oh hey, haven't I seen you around in the LGBT topics? It's been a while, did you ever come to terms with your feelings about men? I know you were having a great deal of trouble accepting how men made you feel, and I do hope our kind words of comfort were able to ease your weary soul. Remember, all things aside the most important thing to remember is that it is totally okay for you to like men.

Another safe way to say someone's gay and smear them over it. Did Venom mark this message too? All I know is that this poster wasn't warned, but Venom was. "Don't mod us, we'll mod you."

So there you have it, the safe way to get away with "Hate speech, such as using sexual orientation...as a means of insult." That's what's in the Terms. Saying someone chooses to be gay is not meant to insult, calling someone gay is. But silly you. You're still assuming the mods follow what the Terms actually say.