The Things That Will (And Will Not) Get You Punished on GameFAQs
FINALLY - After ten days of delay, the full details behind the temporary suspension of Yours Truly are now known. The process itself took a full seventeen days to work out - compared to the site's own internal target of 24 hours, or 1 business day. Excellent job! You would think that a system that seems to be so overburdened would not waste additional time targeting personal opinions. Reports of long-delayed mod responses to disputes appear more common than ever. We suppose that when it comes to moderations, the staff has been biting off more than it can chew.
Apologies in advance to our moderator friends who rely on the pictures to follow along - after the extremely long wait, we barely had enough time to see the other moderations on record before they disappeared entirely. If you're unfamiliar with this process, it's due to a bad way that the system is set up - it whites other board functionality entirely, meaning users cannot even see any of their additional moderated messages or accusations against them until the admin finally shows up ten days later. But we eventually got the text! So here's the rundown:
Message 1!
"Do LGBT groups endorse candidates? "Second-class citizens" should have the same rights. This is a free speech issue."
This message is in response to a topic about rescinding the Johnson Amendment, which has not really ever been enforced in practice. Is this not a message in support of equality? Is it not the definition of equality to let any group endorse whoever they want? We thought so too. But this is the kind of message that will get you suspended on Gamefaqs!
The "second-class citizens" reference - follow me on this - is clearly in quotes so as to mock the concept, not literally call anyone a second-class citizen. This is obvious to anyone with simple reading comprehension, but these are Gamefaqs mods we're talking about.
As usual, you can see the entire message within the topic because our stalker quoted the "dangerous," suspension-worthy message without any consequences. (See what I did there, mods? "Dangerous" in this context is not to be taken literally...nevermind, you'll catch on). Yes, even though quoting a violation is against the terms of use, you will never see this actually enforced. This approach only confirms the notion that messages are taken down solely to punish the original user for their views, because it's not treated like a violation at all when anyone else quotes it. That's because it's usually not a violation in the first place.
Message 2!
We all know why they're there. It's not talent. Europe is in decline.
This one was declared offensive - and it's a twofer! Not only did I say that Europe was in decline, I said that their leaders were not elected for talent and were instead chosen to be identity politics placeholders. We think the current failures of the continent speak for themselves, don't you? Well, we guess that'll have to do on Gamefaqs, because they'll punish you if you try to speak for it.
As someone who has privilege though, owning an entire small blog on the internet, maybe it is appropriate to feel sorry for these European leaders. The poor, marginalized, persecuted, discriminated politicians who only get to run entire countries (into the ground). Meanwhile here I am, not even allowed to make a negative statement against them on an internet message board lest it offend the precious feelings of LGBT activists. They sure have a tough life. Man do I have it easy.
And again, you can see the message in full because it was quoted once more, and mods are nothing if not inconsistent. We mentioned last time about the message from a month prior to all this, where Yours Truly got in trouble not for quoting someone, but just for posting in a topic where the topic title was something the mod disagreed with...as the topic itself remained up. So really, nobody can say this is just because the mods try their best and it's simply a massive coincidence that only our messages get taken down every time. They can sure seem to find and remove quotes when it's their least favorite users, including for BS reasons like "you posted in the wrong topic."
By the way, before we ramble further, it's worth another reminder that it won't hurt our feelings if moderators disagree with any of these opinions, and want to debate them on the Politics board like normal people. But to say that these messages are a high priority for censorship that need to be removed from the boards within half an hour? Wow. Would any moderators like some money? I will pay you to get a life.
All said and done, that's 15 karma lost. Here's where the stream dried up for a few days, as we took a little break from the site and planned to restart this wonderful blog. But we aren't done just yet!
Upon lurking and hearing that suspensions dropped left and right over the July 4 weekend, we began to wonder who was covering for the usual mods that holiday weekend and why they were doing such a terrible job. The best thing to do would be to ask Twitter's favorite lead mod, Error1355!
...It went about as well as we thought it would. Error responded with random beeping noises. Shortly afterwards - wouldn't you know - another three messages were moderated from many days earlier. A totally unknown moderator with perfect timing, who will remain nameless, decided to go through active message history and remove additional opinions he disliked! All three ended up being no karma loss, which is an odd thing to do when someone's in an active suspension. Indications that the "violations" within were so flimsy, they would normally not be taken down - but why not add to the violation count just to make the number appear bigger and suggest harsher treatment?
Message 3!
"Charter schools are better with turnover and constant reform, constant improvement and innovation, much like democracy. Meanwhile the public schools get more money and stagnate, because corrupt unions retain corrupt workers and make them unfireable. The 19th century top-down public union model has failed."
Hot damn! The eyes of impressionable 13 year olds everywhere were spared. What would we have done without swift moderator action?
We are to believe that these are messages the userbase marks, and not mods combing through one's history for violations. But either way, honestly I don't know which way is sadder.
Message 4!
"Sandra Bland would still be around today if she valued her own life. Everybody here did."
This is probably the nicest way I could've put it, hence the nkl.
Message 5!
The whole thing's here - all you need to know is that no-go zones are not a PC term.
Long story short, don't ever suggest that Europe is in decline on Gamefaqs. This part has gone on long enough. As for what you CAN say, more after the page break!
