GUAC News 12/24/14: Trigger Alert! - Is Gamefaqs Dying? - Don't Offend Terrorists

Trigger Words Now A Thing

As Gamefaqs is but a part of the broader politically-correct culture, where its increasingly aging userbase must be sheltered like children more and more the older they get, an increasing amount of self-defined mean and offensive and bigoted and insensitive words are not allowed. They could hurt someone's feelings. Sometimes seemingly-harmless words can act as magical enchantments which curse your enemies. These dangerous incantations could trigger a social justice warrior and send them into a diabetic coma of negative vibes and harshed mellows. Speaking of which, Gamefaqs tried to autoflag the term "social justice warrior" itself, so that when anyone referred to an SJW this would be auto-reviewed by mods to protect uptight users from the insult that they are uptight.

The account [name redacted]* brought this new addition to the attention of CE:

The autoflag system itself hasn't changed, but for whatever reason someone decided a few months ago that "trigger words" are a thing now. If you wanna know what admins talk about on their Monday meetings, it's things like this. Something that clearly needs to be shoehorned into the system so that we're all put on notice that this trigger culture needs to stop, and SJWs know someone has their back.

UnbiasedFAQs.

Is Gamefaqs Dying?

This isn't the first time we've heard this narrative but CE recently got to talking about the subject again, and some made their dissatisfaction with the mods known.

"Gamefaqs and CE are dying for 2 reasons. Firstly the mods are terrible and Draconian. Secondly the site has been infested by a large wave of leftist SJW garbage posters"-ColdOne666

" I use to post on CE all the time and shared my conservative opinion on things and would get modded while those with opposing beliefs to mine would blast me and not get modded. I knew there was nothing I could do to change it so I just started posting on the sports boards." -Numba1linesmen

"@Bover_87: It's because terrible moderation policies/new staff is driving away users in droves and also because anyone who has been here for a really long time can notice how unique IP traffic is down significantly in a short amount of time. I personally feel like trolls are tolerated because they are an easy way to generate site traffic/hits instead of actually working hard to cultivate new users to come here. We don't really need numbers to see the ship is starting to sink.

"@Smoliske: Maybe instead of parroting "don't break the rules", you should consider that maybe the rules are broken. If you have a wide variety of the user base saying the same thing (including people who are not trolling or otherwise getting into stuff), then maybe there is actually a real problem. Having insanely liberal slanting for moderation is *not* ok. Having a really strict offensive posting policy enforcement while not having any form of trolling policy *is a problem*. That's really not the moderator's fault either -- that is a systemic failure that needs to be addressed. Trolling honestly wasn't an actual problem of note up until the whole sjw thing this year where you have people actively antagonizing people on a large scale." -CreekCo

"this site is dying because of the terrible mods and getting modded for pretty much nothing. People are leaving to better forums with better interfaces and mods who aren't on a powertrip." -WalkingLobsters 

Krystal, who I feel the need to remind you is a paid admin on the site (lest you couldn't tell from how she acts) responded that the people who complained were "mad"

But eventually Krystal made a substantive argument that the site was not in decline (in general), the numbers in fact showed improvement, but she couldn't legally give specifics. Users continued to suggest possible improvements until Krystal returned to say "still mad I see" and close the topic.

It's probably true that the site in general is doing fine, but the boards have seen a significant decline which many users have pointed out. Look at declining participation in polls, the lower number of active visitors, the fact that 25 of the accounts with the most messages make up 13% of all active messages as of November...and you get the idea that the boards, the domain of the mods, aren't doing as well as the rest of the site. It's likely they know about this - relaxing the terms of use a few years ago, hiring a community manager who said she would be open and look into moderator abuse - but for the above users and others, the site has a way to go.

Don't Offend Terrorists

From Halpert123 comes another one of those "generalizations are bad" moderations. This happened to me a little while ago for generalizing liberal policies as failures...on the politics board, and when I posted a message against pedophiles. Basically, if you say ANYTHING bad about ANY group, it runs the risk of a moderation. Why even call these groups by name and recognize they exist? I mean, if you're already talking about a group you've already lumped a bunch of people under one general label. Awful.

Sarcasm aside, the user got in trouble for being too critical of ISIS. You know those guys who go around beheading people? Yeah, they could get offended by this. The problem was that in the heat of the moment he added that the terrorist group had goats for girlfriends (which he insisted in dispute was a real thing happening among some of the group's members). Apparently this is a thing where members of ISIS have been caught on drone footage with a goat or donkey...anyway, Krystal entered to give her take.

So you guys got that? Just because someone belongs to a "bad group" of "f***ing terrorists" doesn't mean you get to make any generalizations about these bad terrorists...uh, isn't that what you did? Oh and sorry dude, but if we accepted that ISIS was a bad group then it's one slippery slope away from becoming a world where no mod knows who we can and can't generalize as a bad group, therefore we can't let you do it for clearly bad groups. These contradictory statements goat too far imo.

Only 0.3% of Moderations are Overturned

Here's a fun stat: 99.7% of all moderations are either never going to be contested or will be upheld. That's about 90 percent of disputed messages. You could see this two ways: either mods don't like to overturn messages, or they're usually really really accurate at taking down violations and that's a great track record. Yeah, I'm gonna go with the former. As for poor overtaxed mods who can't keep up with all the violations, and all the contest abuse from users, do note that only 2.5% of the messages are in dispute and a whopping 0.7% abuse the form. Hardly the widespread abuse from users we've heard about.

Reason 101 Why wally Shouldn't Be Lead

via the Politics board:

Yeah it was a satire (aka fake) story people fell for, but man wouldn't it be a blast to abuse my powers and put that right up top to help spread my fake social justice message? I'm getting flashbacks to when Krystal said it'd be cool to shut down boards for a day and make everyone a mod for 24 hours to see what craziness would happen. You know, wally, maybe your sights are too low. You can run for admin.

*account involved did not want to be named on the idea that gamefaqs mods could target him based on this blog.

No, wally Should Not Be A Lead Mod

Recent demoddings must be replaced with new moddings, and Krystal said decisions would be made this week on new mods or promotions. Speaking of which, a couple people said wally should be lead because he's "cool" and "level headed." Certainly not. My experience with him has been shown to be anything but. I have no idea how these decisions are being made or if wally's even being looked at for anything, but if he is let's take a look at some of the stuff he's done over at the Politics board.

Board 261 is hardly known for being level headed, but people who wish their opponents would be arrested for treason, publicly flogged or decapitated by terrorists still stick out like extremist sore thumbs. He has a signature ability of flying off the handle over even minor things. If wally doesn't have the time to vent at others the way he wants to, he'll usually settle for just a "derp" or "XD" sometimes more than once in the same topic, which as you know adds so much to the conversation. Sometimes he'll go off-topic and derail the thing by talking about cheeseburgers and lasagna if it's a topic he dislikes - and of course once the topic's been derailed we need a mod to close it to keep us safe. Note that wally will also tell some users he dislikes to stop making topics, and some (including me) that he would be looking for reasons to suspend, which has more than once been called a chilling effect on the board. He may not in fact moderate the politics board (personally, I'll believe that when he's gone), but it isn't beneath him to tell his least favorite users he might do something to them if they don't stop posting. But let's not spend any more time just talking about it and get to the good stuff:

Mods Removed, Retired from Service...Burgess Unwillingly

Another shakeup at Gamefaqs following bovergate. What's it mean moving forward?

Full list here courtesy of Flintlock_Staff. Keep in mind that not every mod on that list was removed today, but it's been confirmed that over 10 mods were removed mostly for inactivity. The story broke when former mod Burgess called attention to how he has fallen from Mt. Olympus and now walks among us. Krystal confirmed that other mods were kicked for "Activity, behavior, modding habits, etc." while surviving mod Mike1494 said "We can't discuss details of individual mods. But I've seen quite a few mods who are really popular on boards but never actually modded any posts or entered the queue in my time." But many users wanted to know why Burgess was demodded, and when Krystal explained the loss of Math Murderer and others to inactivity but remained silent over Burgess, some assumed that he was one of the mods kicked for bad behavior. Burgess responded that the demodding was not his choice:

Since he didn't go further into details than that, users who asked what specifically got him demodded were met with this answer.

Some asked whether Krystal deserved credit (or blame) for removing users' favorite and/or least favorite mods, but others noted that this was a fairly routine housecleaning and Burgess didn't think it was Krystal's effort to remove him. Users also asked whether mods like Error, Raptor, or The Admiral would be demodded too. However, the demodding is now over and Krystal has said new mods and promotions would be decided over the course of this week. Maybe the new batch will be better.

To those who complained and said the mod they liked was a good poster: that's great. They haven't vanished off the face of the earth and can continue to be a good regular poster that you like. What concerns the staff is whether or not they were good mods.

Impressions: quite a few people were glad to see Burgess demodded and he had few defenders who made comments, although a poll about it was split. Math Murderer was widely seen as a good mod who was demodded for inactivity and will be missed.

User quotes after the jump.

Bover87 Demodded for Account Hijacking

After weeks of pressure and inquiry, SBAllen has weighed in on a recent case of a stolen account. Simplest explanation: bover got his hands on an account that wasn't his, used it as an aid when applying to be a mod, and has now been demodded once these actions came to light.

This issue spilled across multiple boards as longtime users provided evidence, kept up the pressure, and eventually brought about the change. Here at GUAC we decided to take a neutral monitoring of the events, since the charges were pretty serious and...iffy at the start...but after enough effort, bover's misdeeds were established and there is now one less mod at gamefaqs. This was all brought about through the actions of folks like hotdogturtle and Mecha Sonic, who worked to help prove that bover was not the original owner of the account he said was his. Through an uphill battle (as we'll see below), users in action brought about a change in the system. That's something worth noting.

Long explanation after the page break:

Tales from CE: Krystal in Decline

From time to time CE will swell with a sort of anti-mod, or anti-specific-mod, sentiment. The topics will go on and the people who complain will have their topics closed, then people complain about the closed topics until those topics get closed, then that's usually it because people who try to restart closed topic discussions get modded. Fresh off a screenshot competition, I caught up with one of these cycles this past week and it doesn't look good for Krystal109. Some have already argued that there is an abuse of power going on, among other things below.

As for this writer, we were originally optimistic about Krystal but decided to head more toward neutral, since we can see the reason behind some of the complaints, but not for some others. We'll let readers decide. The criticism came in the following forms:

Unprofessionalism: Users pointed out how Krystal's posting style is...how do we say...not always up to a typical adult's level. Spelling and grammar errors? Not so bad when they're rare and mistakes are corrected. But with Krystal it seemed to some users that, while she was being paid for this position, she made multiple mistakes in her messages and even in official site announcements. People are perfectly willing to give out some mulligans, but the grace period has to end at some point. Hopefully Krystal's FAQs are written better than her posts.

Krystal was also criticized for using the official gamefaqs twitter account to give her personal opinon about a game, and it seemed strange that this happened when she could've brought it up the normal way on the site like anyone else.

Some complained when Krystal said she wouldn't date black people due to cultural differences, a point which they argued was racist. Others thought that she was bringing up inappropriate subjects, in a manner not fitting for an admin. In one topic she talked about "vag smells" and when someone said this was unprofessional, she asked why it isn't refreshing to have an admin who doesn't act like a robot. But no one has complained so far that she acts like a robot. If anything, they have complained that she's too far in the other direction. Better to be a robot than a punchline.

Krystal's race comment came up mere months after a moderator was removed after posting a similar message, and this point was not lost at CE.

Krystal herself didn't handle the complaints as well as some would've liked, with critics saying she was dismissive or insulting toward the community that she was supposed to be drawing to the site. In one topic she asked her critics: if they think they can do better, why didn't they apply to the position? The problem with that is that regardless of how they act, the typical user expects a paid administrator to act more professionally. When one of Krystal's selling points was that she knew the community, as a regular user just like us, her new argument - that no one else could hope to perform the job as well as her - was another dismissive claim that downplayed others, even as she was acting more unprofessionally on the boards than quite a few other users and even some of the trolls.

Abuse of power: critics stated that Krystal had revealed someone's usermap over the board's chat, which she denies, but also made clear that she could do it whenever she liked if she wanted. Users also complained that when they brought this up on CE, Krystal would delete their messages and it added to the impression that she was covering something up.

Not only was Krystal closing down topics that complained about her actions, topics that simply asked about what was going on were closed. Even after the swell of complaints, Krystal continues to close down topics that she deems "complaint forums" on the board. We here at GUAC have long suspected that moderators have closed topics simply because they were getting criticized in them. Did Krystal need to lock these topics, when they would've purged on their own in a day or two? Her actions only added to the idea that she was covering up something and was unable to accept criticism.

Finally, Krystal joked about shutting the board down for a little just to see how annoyed people would get.

Taken together, many posters said that Krystal was having a "meltdown."

Quote compilations below...

The Lighter Side: New Mod Faps for Almost Ten Years

The things you see board hunting...

What hunter out there can forget the day they first came across the proud proclamation, "I claim this board in the name of Strokers EVERYWHERE! Fap fap fap." The topic has been a familiar presence to those who regularly hunt the boards to one of the site's largest game systems without topicality. A curious attraction and a little TMI if I say so myself. But this time through I couldn't help but notice the TC, FAHtastic, recently became a moderator. Aside from his now-moderating and involvement in a CYOA, I'm not quite sure what else he does, as the fapping topic is where the majority of his active messages are located.

Mod duties haven't slowed down this fapping enthusiast, as he continues to keep us informed with semi-monthly updates. Between his late May fapping and June stroking earlier this year, however, he did make one concession:

Moderator...stroking.

Probably shouldn't keep using an auto-flag word. Hrm...

Keep that modding arm strong, bro! And remember:

GUAC News: 9/13/14

Well it's been awhile and I just feel like the stories are piling up. So before this turns into the Olds, let's begin.

Trolling 101: A Lesson for Clueless Moderators

It's another Tale from CE we'll be telling tonight, because we just couldn't turn down covering a recent double standard that has reared its ugly head. -Gavirulax- has once again taken the mods for a ride, played them like a fiddle, and took the time to openly gloat about it.

Who is Gavirulax? WikiFAQs notes:

Gavirulax is a former class 1 KoS user who has accumulated more than 900 confirmed banned accounts since joining GameFAQs...Gavirulax recieved a Cease and Desist order from CNET and was told that if he ever acted out again, they would sue...Gavirulax has since stated that the entire Gavirulax persona was an act, and he's really nothing like his online alias...He also offers money to people and asks them to do things.

So it should be pretty obvious that if anyone's a troll at gamefaqs, it's this guy, right? Sorry.

The recent drama began in a topic by another account, "To the people here considering joining Gavi's clubs, reconsider" in which the person urges unnamed individuals not to take part in some arrangement Gavirulax was planning. As the topic progressed we learned about a scheme to pay people for filming pornographic or embarrassing actions. Smoking-Man, one of Gavi's alts, said that the deal would be off anyway because the TC was gay.

I acknowledge the following:

- You sent in a PM a while back claiming that you "wanted" to know more information about this;
- We then spoke on Facebook about it, I explained it entirely to you with claiming you were straight;
- I flat out said the following: "while they're AGREED on, you don't need to do it, you can back out obviously."
- You agreed to all the terms outright with the lie in which you claim to be straight, which is being mendacious
- You flat out acknowledged a private message 676607 that "You were gay"; which I had previously asked (more than once) and you denied for the sole fact that if you were it would invalidate the entire thing anyway, and before anyone even THINKS of marking/moderating me for revealing the content of a Private Message, I then I suggest you read post 4 in this not that long ago archived topic which is posted by a Lead Moderator:

http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/573081-hellhole/69581880 - POST 4

From: #4 | Error1355 (Moderator) | Posted 7/6/2014 1:24:32 AM
It's not against the rules itself to post PMs that you received as long as the PM itself doesn't break the rules.

Note to any moderator that may think of moderating this message (yes, that means you if you're seeing this message either in the queue or thinking of marking it):

I will AGAIN state this because I already have moderation on record on another account because a moderator chose not to read (or didn't know any better), you simply cannot moderate (and if anyone marks this message they should be forewarned in case they are suspended for marking abuse) a post for something a moderator, let alone a LEAD moderator has said is allowed which I will quote TWICE (once above and once at the bottom of the post) for record so it cannot possibly be a mistake if this "is" deleted.

POST 4 IN THE FOLLOWING TOPIC CLEARLY SAYS I CAN REVEAL THE CONTENTS OF A PRIVATE MESSAGE BY A LEAD MODERATOR AS LONG AS NOTHING IN IT VIOLATES THE TOU WHICH THIS DOES NOT IN ANYWAY

Cheers. <3

From this message, we can conclude Gavi wanted a homosexual act performed from a straight guy, but was disappointed that the TC then privately claimed to be gay and backed out. We also know that Gavi is a vet at this and was worried about previous moderations he got for divulging private details. It's perfectly understandable why he put this much effort into defending himself, because he's pretty much outing a gay guy or calling the person gay for having backed out. Is it taunting or baiting to say mods can't touch it? Not on this inconsistent site.

As the topic progressed, users familiar with past Gavirulax tricks and rumors asked questions like "Isnt Gavi that weird guy who sexually assaults people?" and talked about things Gavi allegedly paid people to do in the past. Gavi denied the sexual assault rumors but claimed that was two of his relatives. As for his personal life...

There's also such a thing as surrogacy (which is what actually happened), which my sister was in that case (which a lot of people know about) plus it also meant the kids were related (since my bf artificially inseminated one of my sisters) thus the kids are related to both me and my bf.
Science is awesome ain't it? <3

Reference from just after it happened: http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/573081-hellhole/67132424 (see, just like magic).

Me and my hubs were very lucky she was willing to do it, now I (with all my money and brilliant ability to not practice any religion) are free to raise 3 healthy kids with fantastic genes that are connected to both of us, marvelous aye? <3

That Hellhole topic links to a story about how he and his boyfriend had two kids on Father's Day through his sister, and then a third one unexpectedly appeared. He tells us he has named them Jessica, Milagro and Jubair.

Remember that little thing we talked about up above? "Gavirulax has since stated that the entire Gavirulax persona was an act, and he's really nothing like his online alias." Did we not get this?

Why am I going through all this, you ask? This is where my frustration with the mods come in. I'm a conservative on board 261. For this mods call me a gimmick and say no way there's someone like you out there, no way someone can make political arguments like that, you must be a troll. Maybe if I claim to have 3 kids with my tranny husband and name them Larry, Curly and Moe the mods will start to take me more seriously.

By the way, it wasn't too long ago that Gavi quite openly trolled 261 (as Molamelerieth) and admitted to it over on Hellhole, but like the mods did let's ignore that shall we. Moving on.

As for that CE topic, we'll just note that Burgess showed up so a mod did see the thing, didn't matter.  He wrote "This is one of the worst topics that I have seen in a long time." And the mods left it at that. Well, they left Gavi alone. Other people, not so much.

By the time the CE topic was locked, Gavi made another topic titled "This topic is closed. - Took you long enough mods...." knowing as many of us do how slow and ineffective the moderators are, Gavi laid out exactly how he trolled the last topic and provoked others into getting moderated:

No, seriously, it did.

RIP all the suspended (or warned, which is ironic coming from me atm) people that devoted their low karma accounts to my cause.

Tyvm. <3

Tempest-Rage - Suspended
MOTTIN - Warned
EnigmasQueue - Suspended

Which again, just goes to show how moderators always seem to miss topics like these, but are quick to call other people "trolls" over the smallest things. We've noted before how the definition of trolling over at gamefaqs is getting someone else offended enough to flame you. So while this rule has been strictly applied to people who didn't mean to provoke anyone, here's a topic that openly does what the Terms were written to prevent and the mods are MIA. When a troll flames, the user is blamed for trolling. When a troll trolls, the users are blamed for "flaming" (in this case, calling BS and noting how terrible a poster Gavi is). We say mods are inconsistent, but the only time they seem to be consistent is when they routinely get it wrong.

the moonlight knight made an excellent observation not too long ago, and it applies here:

GameFAQs' mods and rules end up becoming an arm of troublemakers and trolls, just another instrument to use. Couple this with how little overhead/accountability there seems to be for mods and the apparent 0 incentive for mods to not troll and antagonise users, and how some mods are actually very...supportive of trolls...well, it's a bad time. The system isn't just inept at punishing trolls, but is actually actively supportive of them.

In the end, it's Gavi who marks other people, running to the mods to do his bidding. Gavirulax has been doing this for a long time and he knows how the game is played. All you have to do is "come out" and claim people who don't believe or agree with the wacky narratives you tell are homophobes for calling out your nonsense. Gavi's also been on the Hellhole circuit recently, being sure to tell visitors why they're wrong and the mods were right to take down their violations. So despite Gavirulax's past, apparently it goes a long way if you claim special group status and start sucking up to the mods over at Hellhole. Trolls take note, maybe you can ride this formula out as long as Gavi has.

GameFAQs Community Manager: Change or No Change?

Now that SBAllen has announced the position of Community Manager, some users have begun to ask just what this position will involve. The hopeful among us are more than a little optimistic that Krystal109 will do something about abuses from moderators. Topics and messages from CE arose such as "So now theres someone to mod the mods?" and "is this who we can complain about the mods to???" It's too early to say, but I do think there is a good chance at changing things if the community makes it clear that there are problems with the moderation system that hurt their experience on the boards.

Only time will tell what we have in store for us when it comes to board changes, but I was a little surprised to see that Krystal did not remove the possibility of action - and in fact responded to a user's complaint by saying this is an area she would be looking into.

Now, "looking into" could mean a lot of things, and might result in no action. But it was refreshing to see someone on gamefaqs who is at least open to hearing from users, and doesn't automatically assume the mods are always right, and assume you're always a troll if you criticize them.

Congratulations Krystal. Here at GUAC, we'll be keeping an eye on the developments.

---

P.S. the community manager announcement led to some users inevitably looking up Krystal's name and posting her twitter/facebook accounts. Error1355 responded by saying "Guys, this is honestly creepy" to put up the links and admin Devin Morgan asked "So since you guys are clearly busy stalking someone hired for this site, how about you share all of your personal details, pics included?" Is it stalking, creepy, harassment to link to someone's twitter? Why does this sound familiar?

wally Update: Decapitations, Child Sex Bots, and Bubba

From the Politics board: wally's been keeping busy with his brand of personal attack and hostility. Just how far can you go when you're a moderator and the rules don't apply to you? Let's have a look.

We'll start with the big one.

"Westboro Baptist Church Says It is Going to Iraq To Protest ISIS"

wally wasn't alone in hoping that the members of Westboro Baptist Church would end up dead at the hands of terrorists or hit by collateral damage. The difference here is that he claims to be a moderator, and yet his opinion was arguably the most extreme:

On a scale my 0-10 on the giving-a-****-o-meter, I'd be at about a negative seven billion about the thought of those scumbags being beheaded. If ISIS did that, I'd say our response should be to universally yawn, chuckle, and then forget their existence.

Keep in mind that in the past, politics boardgoers have been moderated for saying that they're happy a politician has died. There were even some messages nuked for being too happy that Osama bin Laden was killed.

Is that an offensive thing for a veteran mod to say? To laugh at the thought of a group you don't like being murdered and beheaded by a terrorist group which is just as repressive, but far more violent than this group? The WBC peacefully protests, after all, it's just that their message is found to be offensive. Worthy of being violently killed for their beliefs, because a gamefaqs mod would find the terrorist attack funny?

You tell me if this is a two-way street. If we would allow the WBC to show up and chuckle at people who are killed in terrorist attacks. Of course we wouldn't! How many other messages are out there which have been taken down for less?

Would mods do something to one of their own? Of course we wouldn't! Not trolling or offensive if you're a mod. But it is trolling if you repeat he said it as a regular old user. That was just an nkl, by the way. Gee, thanks?

I'm not up on my social justice warrior hypocrisy, but I'm pretty sure if wally got his wish and he's saying the WBC deserved to die during their funerals, he'd pretty much be filling in for them and doing what they do. If you do it as the WBC you're a vile, hateful scumbag; if you do it as wally, shrug.

But you know, maybe despite that moderation of mine and the lack thereof with wally, we lowly users just don't appreciate how hard the mods are working behind the scenes on our behalf. Maybe someone's pulled wally aside for a little bit and said, "hey bro, you're a veteran moderator here and what you do can reflect badly on us. Supporting any kind of terrorism against anyone is kind of f****ed up." While we're at it, maybe the moon's made of cheese.

My Lesser Quibbles

"Robotics expert claims child sex robots could be used to treat pedophiles."

By the 2nd message we're already telling someone who disagreed with him to stop posting if they know what's good for them. "Geoman, next time you go to post, can you maybe not post, instead?" Chilling effect?

The real offensive thing, in wally's eyes, was that pedophiles didn't have realistic-looking kids to screw and society was to blame for not providing them with this "outlet." Because encouraging people to sleep with robo-kids would mean they're less likely to go after real kids. Kind of like how we encourage kids who like to kill animals to do more of it, so they get their murderous urges out and maybe don't shoot up the school. Don't urges get bigger the more you feed them?

We may see the day when someone gets modded for opposing a pedophile's taxpayer-funded civil right to robo-kid sex toys. We'll know who's responsible for that decision.

"GOP Candidate For State Senate Ends Campaign After Admitting Affair"

wally defends Bill Clinton's serial adultery, arguing that it doesn't really matter and wasn't a trust issue. BUT if a Republican did it, it would be terrible, on the theory that what someone says is more important than how they act. wally essentially said it's okay if you're a Democrat, because Bubba never promised to be family values (he did, however, make vows to his wife and swore to testify the truth in court, but whatever). So because Bill didn't talk about family values on the campaign it's all right, but if Republicans did the same thing Bill did that would be the worst ever, since they said they were family values and lied. Just like Bill. But different. When users did their homework and brought up some of Bill Clinton's family values statements on the campaign, shrug. What mod bias?

"Artificial wombs are coming, and the controversy is already here"

In which wally says "Abortion isn't about killing a fetus. It's about removing a fetus from a woman's body. The fact that it kills the fetus is an unfortunate side effect, not the primary goal."

Has anyone ever walked out of an abortion, shocked that an abortion is an abortion? "My baby's DEAD!? How'd this happen? I'll sue you for everything you got!"

a·bor·tion

əˈbôrSHən/

noun

noun: abortion; plural noun: abortions

1.

the deliberate termination of a human pregnancy, most often performed during the first 28 weeks of pregnancy.

 

Kermit Gosnell's infamous abortion mill saw the children born alive, he would then snip their spinal cords or dump them in a toilet to die. As a state senator Barack Obama voted "present" to letting born-alive infants die on the floor. The intent is to kill the unwanted child.

wally's attempt to put a smiley face on abortion ignores the textbook definition of what a surgical abortion is. If he's this mixed up on the definition of abortion, what about his definition of a ToU violation?

 

goatthief writes: "tails has a history of harassing [wally]. To the point of making a blog about how much he hated him."

 

I didn't make this blog to hate wally. He just shows up a lot on it because he stands out as an exceptionally terrible case.

Stats Aren't Allowed on Gamefaqs. Stats Rustle Jimmies.

With a warning on my history, here comes the full cavity search again. As you read, see if you can guess what we got in trouble for this time.

Christians for samesex marriage also more likely to buck other Biblical teaching

http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/survey-christian-supporters-of-same-sex-unions-show-other-moral-divisions/

Churchgoing Christians who support “gay marriage” are more likely to approve of commitment-free sexual relations, pornography, adultery, polyamory and abortion than other churchgoers, says one researcher who calls the differences a “massive divide.”

“More than seven times as many...think pornography is okay. Three times as many back cohabiting as a good idea, six times as many are okay with no-strings-attached sex, five times as many think adultery could be permissible, thirteen times as many have no issue with polyamorous relationships, and six times as many support abortion rights.”

Only 5% of churchgoing Christians opposed to “gay marriage” said commitment-free sex is okay, compared to 33% of pro-“gay marriage” churchgoers, 49% of same-sex attracted Christians and 81% of homosexual non-Christians.

Regnerus’ analysis found great differences on the morality of pornography. About 5% of churchgoing Christians opposed to “gay marriage” said that viewing pornography is okay, compared to 33% of churchgoing “gay marriage” supporters, 57% of homosexual Christians and 78% of same-sex attracted non-Christians.

Churchgoers who support “gay marriage” were more likely to approve of marital infidelity, with 7% saying it is sometimes okay, compared to 1% of churchgoers who did not support “gay marriage.” About 14% of same-sex attracted Christians said marital infidelity is sometimes okay, as did 26% of non-Christian homosexual persons.

Churchgoing Christians who support “gay marriage” were also more likely to support polyamory than were Christians who do not support redefined marriage. Only 1% of Christians opposed to “gay marriage” supported polyamory, compared to 16% of those who support “gay marriage,” 32% of homosexual Christians and 58% of non-Christians who are same-sex attracted.

Entirely factual topic with all the statistics cited. An obvious political difference noted in the survey that was common-sense and expected by many. Nothing controversial here. But there's one problem: one person didn't like it (or, we can safely say, doesn't like me), so it must be taken down.

Here we have an nkl for "trolling." Nkls are those things mods give out when they themselves can't think of any legit reason to punish you, but want to take down the message anyway. One definition of trolling on gamefaqs is noted in the terms of use as "posting false information as fact." But here we have a case of posting true information as fact, and modding it because someone didn't like it. Another part of "trolling" on gamefaqs is defined as "someone posting a message designed to get others mad enough to violate one of the other rules." Here's the problem. As has been noted by others, anyone can get mad at pretty much whatever you say and, on gamefaqs, you're blamed for it. The other person isn't modded for flaming. The mods point the finger at you because you don't control the mind of the person who flamed you, and it's clearly your fault for not stopping them from insulting you. If you say the sky is blue and someone else calls you an ugly baby killer, well, you only brought this punishment on yourself.

Of course the terms also say "Trolling is not someone posting an opinion that differs from yours" and "Even if you disagree, you can either debate the user on their points or just ignore it," gamefaqs mods overlook these parts. It's their job to take messages down, and they will stretch what the terms say as much as they want, to take down as much as they want.

Don't let anyone tell you the trolling rule on gamefaqs has been loosened up from previous years, as long as they continue to make decisions like this.

Here's how "trolling" works on gamefaqs. In the half hour my topic was up before mods rushed to take down this clearly dangerous topic of mine, I was able to get a look at all 7 responses. A few below.

"In 2014 are religious people even taken seriously anymore? I mean come on..." -Red_Sm7

"I have pre-marital sex w/ my gf, I watch porn, I drink, I sometimes smoke weed. And despite all the "immoral acts" I commit, I'm still a more decent human being than some garbage tier troll." -DeathMagnetic80

"Good. The Bible is immoral." -Magus1947

If the typical gamefaqs mod scanned the topic (keep in mind "hate speech" against a religion is seen as "offensive"), if someone said "The Quran is immoral" or "why are Muslims taken seriously anymore?" this would be an awful, h8ful thing and you would lose much karma. But in this case we're talking about the Christian Bible, so do whatever you want. Under the gamefaqs terms of use, not only do you receive these slights, you are then punished for what they said to you on top of that under the "trolling" rule. Because you supposedly made them mad.

If you'd like to understand how gamefaqs works, picture the image of a cave during the stone age. If you do something a Neanderthal doesn't like, he grunts for another Neanderthal to come over with his club to whack you. No need to debate! Debate means forming thoughts. That can be hard for some people. The only difference between back then and now is that the Neanderthals didn't pretend to be the wise arbiters of serious political discussion. Today we have a Neanderthal with a necktie.

Let's see, are we done for tonight? Not just yet. I went to Hellhole and asked about the mod ID so I can avoid doing whatever I did in the future (though I daresay they should avoid making bad decisions in the future). Which resulted in a quick lock of my topic followed by a topic from RaptorLC, who says "Boring trolls are boring." Glad we got to the bottom of that.

Keep in mind that while I've been nothing but entirely open about my opinions and provide full disclosure about everything I said and did, they're the ones who make the decisions behind closed doors and avoid telling you as much as they can.

So remember kids, if someone else comes into your house, makes a mess and punches you, under gamefaqs logic it's your fault because you somehow made them mad enough to do that, even if you were standing there doing nothing. I mean, where do you get off just standing there like that? I oughtta slug you for it right now, ya little punk.

A Recent "Hate Speech" Mod - Here's Why It Isn't

Now, of course I expected this message to have problems within 24 hours of its posting. I wanted to make my point and dangle some bait here, since there's a teachable moment to be had. One needs to push for change and rattle the cage a bit to bring it about.

Today's subject involves criticism of a religion, a great taboo over at gamefaqs since it wasn't an anti-Christian message. From 261: "How Much Do Americans 'Disapprove' Of Arab-Americans & Muslim-Americans?" The implication in the topic being that all Americans are wrong and bad to not auto-approve of a religion many of them don't happen to believe in. This is an acceptable generalization. As usual, the criticism cannot go both ways. Let's have a look.

There's nothing wrong with being an Arab-American. One's skin color or country of origin is unimportant; what someone believes in means everything. Any bad system deserves criticism.

Why do I not agree with Islam? Christians understand that Jesus was the ultimate revelation of God on this earth and the power of his love. He warned of false prophets (e.g. Mohammed, Joseph Smith) who would divide and lead people astray. Mohammed was a particularly bloody warlord whose name is still uttered by plenty of bloody warlords today. A big division among the sects of Islam in the present day involves conflict over which human being was the heir of Mohammed's regime. They do not answer to God, but have diverted their attention from him to pick a man to follow instead.

The founder of Islam was a violent warlord and this is reflected in its ideology, as well as its history. The Crusades were not fought because Christian white people were mean. They started as a defense because Muslims wanted to place Europe (and the known world) in bondage to their ideology and demands. This desire, as well as the violence, continues to this day with efforts to re-establish a caliphate and forcibly convert or kill those who will not bow to Mohammed. They murder in Nigeria. They murder in the Middle East. They murder in Israel. They murder in Europe if someone draws a picture of their violent warlord. Recently there was murder in broad daylight on the streets of London. They are the violent aggressor in virtually every conflict across the world that they are involved in. They killed thousands of our men and women on September 11, an attack that originated from a desire to hit financial centers and kill as many Jews as possible. When news of the tragedy reached Palestine, there was dancing in the streets.

I am tired of hearing about "moderates." The current leader of Iran was said to be "moderate" when he continues to pursue nuclear weaponry and a coming war to wipe Israel off the map, just like his predecessors who were also said to be "moderate" but had the same goals. Fatah is said to be "moderate" and yet it teams up with Hamas and airs television spots that call for suicide bombings and jihad. When one's ideology is centered around a brutal tyrant and his edicts, it's difficult to be a moderate.

www.foxnews.com/us/2011/02/07/closing-arguments-begin-new-york-beheading-murder-trial/

The following event happened in my area while I was at college. Here is a "moderate" who was upset that people profiled Muslims after 9/11, so he started a TV station with his wife to counter stereotypes. He is now in jail because a few years later, he murdered his wife, stabbing her over 40 times, beheading her in cold blood.

Honor killings, Sharia law, suicide bombings, holy war, death to those who convert to other religions - just a selection of actions that Islam is known for. So instead of wagging our fingers at Americans in general for their intolerance and mean words and disapproval of Muslim-Americans, maybe we should be taking an honest look at why they disapprove of Islam and the violent practices/history behind it.

How about taking a guess at what followed?

a) 261 users continued discussion to address my points, agree, disagree, criticize, or whatever.

b) 261 users zeroed in on an account they hate and ran to mods, eager to censor as if they were running an Islamic theocracy themselves, where no debate is allowed, and didn't bother to respond to any of the points.

Social justice warriors of our day spend a lot of time talking about "hate speech" (e.g. anyone who disagrees with them), but I think we should instead be looking at a phenomenon known as hate censorship. The idea that no matter what facts you use, if those facts offend a single person that makes you an evil person who should be hated on and silenced. Gamefaqs mods have successfully enabled a cesspool of such behavior on the site.

Gamefaqs mods really hate it when you define a group by what what its definition is. It's as if Webster's dictionary is their worst enemy. Because if we categorize people into the categories they have placed themselves in, that's just really, really mean of you. If you criticize a political party, that's a stereotypical generalization. Same if you criticize pedophiles (because 'not all pedophiles are into children' - ponder that one). Say goodbye to your account if you oppose any group of people over anything, unless you're rich, straight, Christian, white or male. Those generalizations are OK because you're fighting da power.

Now, I could run down through what I said and we could agree on the facts - Jesus did say there would be false prophets, Mohammed engaged in violence and waged war, majorities or significant minorities of Muslims surveyed believe in enforcing Sharia law, honor killings, Islamist political parties, and the death of any Muslim who converts to another religion. This would be besides the point though, I'm not going to be on the receiving end of an Inquisition. I don't have to justify my worthiness to hold an opinion to them, mods don't have to agree with what I say, but that doesn't mean they must mod it. The problem here was that someone on their end was not an adult, decided not to allow debate, because regardless of whether or not these were facts, the facts offended someone. And so the Politics board becomes a "this is what you must think" board rather than a "what do you think?" forum. We are to agree with the topic creator that Americans are foolish and cannot have any serious criticism of Islam, ignorant cowboys that we are.

If I had to predict the responses: those who don't immediately say "Good! You mods dun censored that bigot fer havin' different views'n mine!" will instead say something like, "you can criticize Islam on gamefaqs" followed by a ton of unstated asterisks. You can do that, just not the way I did. I get that a lot on the gay marriage issue. You can say you oppose gay marriage in theory, it's just that you will never be allowed to explain why because then we'll mod you for it.

My comments were unflattering sure, but modworthy? I laid out the case of the other side, along with why I disagree with Muslims. Gamefaqs mods can't exactly make you be one, and logically anyone who is not a Muslim would have a reason or criticism as to why they aren't. But noting this could hurt someone's feelings. Not potentially any Muslim's, mind you, who might have actually tried to make their case in response to my criticism. I'm talking about the feelings of leftists on the board, who don't feel good about themselves unless they censor someone they don't like, then pat themselves on the back over how "tolerant" they are and how they made a big difference.

Worth noting: my recommendation at the end was to keep these concerns and criticisms of Islam in mind before rushing to declare all those Americans are too judgmental. I do not believe that Muslim-Americans should be hated on. I did not tell anyone to do anything against them. I simply gave personal and broader reasons as to why critics of an ideology think it's bad. But because my answer was more complicated than the liberal argument that "'Mericans-slash-'Publicans-slash-righties are eeeevil people," it gets punished.

If you aren't allowed to say an ideology is wrong, you aren't allowed to say much of anything.  How can you have a true political discussion?

As usual, there's a companion topic on the board that illustrates a double standard and shows what you can get away with if you're making an argument from the other side of the aisle:

"Should the US ban Mosques that preach radical Islam?"

http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/261-politics/69815035

My answer to that is no, we should accept all sorts of speech because one's political opinions are harmless and only "dangerous" to people of an authoritarian bend who want to keep their opponents from making their case. But what do I know, I'm just a dangerous account who shouldn't be allowed to make his case.

...

For those of you who actually know what real intolerance looks like, please do take a look at this topic and offer some support:

http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/584997-private-eye/52383991

Some Stuff from Error's Very Public Twitter Account

Here at Gamefaqs Users Against Censorship, we seek to not only inform but entertain. We've seen that everyone's favorite lead mod Error1355 can dish out some unflattering comments towards his critics, but what about the other side of the story? In the interest of balance, let's take a look at Error's twitter account and pick it apart, so that future recipients of his wrath will be on a more level playing field.

NOTE: by gamefaqs standards this is not harassment in any way - Error's messages are very public and depending on who you ask, bringing this up for belittlement purposes would truly be the adult, professional thing to do, just like when Error did it. Also I don't care because we aren't on gamefaqs.


What sort of picture can we paint here? The somewhat frequent tweet rate, combined with the job complaints, reveal a man who needs an outlet for his frustrations (don't we all) and who is willing to tell about strange or insignificant things in his life to anyone out in the wide wide web. Unfortunately, as the case often is on Twitter, there are so many messages, yet so few people who care.

Perhaps a little overcome by his twitter loneliness, one day Error decided to set up a challenge for himself:

Like many underappreciated individuals, Error found himself alone and in front of the TV for yet another night, possibly while making chocolate pudding.

A desperate plea for help? It was clear Error needed a companion. And he would leap into any bargain bin he could find to get one.

It's okay, we understand.

Since Error is one of those guys who tweets about pretty much anything, it wasn't a surprise that he'd inevitably bring up gamefaqs, where again, his talents are not appreciated enough.

For someone who doesn't seem to like his job on account of having to take complaints, was Error expecting to kick back and take it easy by volunteering to do more of it as a mod? Maybe it's all he knows. Maybe the control makes up for it. As Bill Watterson once wrote, "The secret to enjoying your job is to have a hobby that's even worse."

Politics, politics, politics, Error gets complaints about politics. Some of them from me. Here's what he has to say.

Fair enough. Or as he once put it to me in an email, his stance is not to be a jackass. Which is fine, no one says you have to pick sides personally. But I will say, when it comes to picking what others get to say, then it becomes our business. Here's where you have to define what an "extreme" view is, why it's "offensive" and if it's moddable (because anyone can get offended over anything). Error's retweets come into play here.

We now have a clash of opinion. Error believes a conservative is equal to an extremist (so would all their opinions be offensive?) I think it's extreme to lump the wife of an American soldier in with a terrorist who wants to kill them both. Error's a mod, while I am not. Guess who wins?

I'm not one to go for these types of arguments myself, for at the same time it tries to insult someone by comparing them to a terrorist it also attempts to downplay what the terrorist is doing. It just comes off as a sleazy oversimplification that ignores real differences. We here at GUAC can surely slap together something just as easily. Here's a little piece we like to call Obamahitler:

But I suppose it could be worse...

We could be getting modded by this guy.

Anyway I wouldn't recommend wading through the sad, sad life of a disgruntled guy working at a call center and occasionally taking his anger out on gamefaqs users. That's why I do it for you and get the big bucks...at least ten times the pay you'll get for not doing it.

Let's not delve too much into his trippy, (intentionally) dated website beyond the passing mention. An artifact from his 13 year old self's newfound web prowess, or a domain to mark his gradual descent into madness? These questions will have to be answered some other time.

Venom Rants About GameFAQs

Venomscarnage is back again to talk about his experience with the moderators. GUAC was the first to cover this story (see part 1 and part 2), and we'll give it one more mention just to update on what's happened since then, and because it's such an egregious example of mod power on the site. Venom's released a video about it so check it out!

Here's some points if you can't handle the 16 minutes of badassery.

"I'm just gonna be honest: the staff is a joke" Venom replies. While GameFAQs is useful for its FAQs, cheats, and what have you, the message boards are the "bastard stepchild" of the site. The terms of use are pretty straightforward spelled out, but not at the hands of mods who will bend and twist them any way they like. 

Once you're a moderator, all bets are off. You're allowed to break the rules. You're allowed to take the written terms of use...and kind of bend them at your will, basically, and you're allowed to pretty much warn people, ban people, suspend people's accounts at your discretion, and it even says in the gamefaqs terms of use that moderators at any time may moderate you at their will, delete their messages, et cetera. I'm okay with that, but...these moderators, instead of using the written terms of use that gamefaqs has, 9 times out of 10  what happens is you end up getting moderated for things and it's more like an interpreted form of the terms of use.

The problem? This opens you up to a bunch of moderations if you do something a mod thinks is unpopular or offensive to him personally. If you said "I think that the color green SUCKS on money, or I think that's a stupid color - boom, you get moderated for being 'offensive'...Being offended, it's all on what you feel." However, the terms are pretty simple when it comes to this, defining it as what would be considered NSFW, racial slurs, obvious things. But this is stretched and bent to whatever the mod wants it to be. You "should not have to go to any site, where you're supposed to have a fun and enjoyable experience, you shouldn't have to constantly watch your back..."

If you dispute it will nearly always be upheld, because moderators know each other and there's going to be a buddy of the original mod that will side with him. "The moderation staff at gamefaqs? They never do anything wrong. They're always right."

Venom considers Error's twitter linking to be unprofessional and a form of harassment. "instead of holding himself to a higher standard, which this individual fails to do on an everyday basis, he decided to post links to a conversation in a topic which i had posted in. I've confronted him about this...you'd have to be an idiot to not know what his intention was. It was clearly to get other people to come and harass me, and I actually did have people come and harass me." From time to time he even puts people down on his twitter page. Why humiliate other people like that?

As for the resulting back and forth: "Was  I childish? Yeah a little bit. But I needed to vent. I needed to express myself. Because that's another thing about gamefaqs: there is no expression there...you're not really free to express yourself. You really can't be yourself there."

Venom brings up one of Error's defenses, that what he does on his twitter account is just his personal opinion, separate from GameFAQs. For one, if it was a personal account then why put your lead moderator position right on your profile, and why bring up moderations you've made on the boards to belittle the other person? One thing Venom didn't get at was that the whole "personal opinion" thing is undone when you're linking right to your opinion on gamefaqs. If a regular user was insulting someone else and said something obviously offensive, like "you're a f***** n*****" that message isn't less moddable just because you decide to post the message on twitter first and then link the user right to it from the boards. So we can't really buy into the whole "twitter is separate" thing, when Error kept linking to twitter from GameFAQs and mixing the two together.

Venom believes that GameFAQs needs some moderator rotation and a neutral manager who isn't going to be biased. "Once you give one person power and authority for so long, it'll get to their head and that's probably not the best thing for gamefaqs."

Venom closed his account in protest, something which I wouldn't personally recommend (why do the mod's job for them?) But to each his own.

While Error's multi-post, nearly weeklong flame war with Venom was not considered harassment by the wise elders, mentioning someone's account's name on a neutral list of 180 boardgoers apparently is. Error says what he did was all right because it was a public place (at least, a place that can be viewed publicly). So is gamefaqs. But if someone quotes a public statement from another person in their signature without permission, that can get you suspended. If someone does exactly what Error did, but to another gamefaqs board, that can get you suspended for board invasion. When I quoted about a dozen bad public political arguments made by a moderator on GameFAQs, that single post was considered "harassment." So this rule can give you a really bad time, unless you're a mod.

Tales from CE: "The most unfair moderation you've ever had?"

Presented without commentary.

"I got modded for posting a latias set on a pokemon board once." -LightningAce11

"Posted what TM you got for beating the 8th Gym leader in Pokemon Black and White. Got overturned but still." -Octaivian_Rex
   
"'People could possibly live a happier, more fulfilling life once they convert to Christianity.' *warned*" -WoodBerry18

"I use to post in the politics section but after so many mods over nothing. No more. Unless you share the same exact ideology as the people over there then you're basically worse than Hitler. It should just be called the Bleeding Heart Socialist board." -EternalDivide

"I got modded for posting a spoiler even though it wasn't a spoiler and it was in spoiler tags just in case." -Mikablu

"'If it were me, I'd kill off *insert fictional game character name here*' *gets warned*" -Distant_Rainbow

"I once got a spoiler moderation for mentioning a certain character in a book series was a top swordsman. Original mod upheld with a super snarky response, but the lead thankfully overturned it." -MC_BatCommander

"warned for having a suggestive signature. 3 YEARS and tens of thousands of posts after I started using it. They went back and modded every active post in my history at the time, around 175 posts. When I disputed, a mod said it didn't matter how long it went unnoticed for, it mattered that someone was offended NOW." -TheJester2

"I also got modded for posting there should be a super smash bros anime. Did they not see the palutena reveal? It was animated. How is it not feasible?" -LightningAce11

"I was modded for off-topic on a pokemon board for posting about a gen 1 pokemon." -Tropicalwood

"Banned for a board invasion that never happened." -VulcanP90

"Back during prerelease Brawl boards, made a topic titled "Put Captain Falcon in a match and I'll tell you how he wins". The topic was successful and resulted in multiple copycat topics, got warned for fad topic. Disputed that my topic was first and wasn't part of the fad, moderator told me something along the lines of "Sure it was." Went all the way to the lead, they all refused to check timestamps." -CM_Ponch

"I was modded for spoilers for saying that a boss dies after you kill him." -InvincibleEagle

"I remarked that some overweight people that I know are constantly talking about losing weight and getting in shape, but never actually do anything about it. Apparently that's trolling." -thrilIhouse

"Modded few hours ago for being 'offensive' Said pedophiles and child molesters don't deserve sympathy or help." -Mr_Karate_II

"gave my unfavorable opinion on obama" -Skunkdog1

"I quoted someone and got modded because the post I was quoting was apparently trolling even though the original post was left intact." -Vita_Nuova

"90 day suspension for saying some hot sauce I bought was bland and boring. Apparently it was a racist comment against Mexicans because I said it had a Mexican woman on the bottle (couldn't remember the name)" -PurpleMouse

"My Nick_Clegg account got banned for Offensive Username on Gamespot" -Mobileoconkers

"purgatory for saying "i concur" on the brawl board when a guy was complaining about jigglypuff" -GibraItar

"I've had every single post I made modded and was warned/suspended (don't remember) once because I had a quote in my sig that said Sonic was garbage before Sonic 06...Mod claimed that I was trolling, even though I never went on sonic boards or sega boards or even posted in Sonic topics" -KillerSlaw

"I got modded for posting a spoiler I didn't even know was a spoiler. In fact it was actually a guess that turned out to be right. It got overturned though." -Miku_369

"3KL for saying that gay people aren't much different from straight people" -srgz

"Quoted my own post and insulted myself as a joke. It got overturned though." -ZephyrSSX

"I recently got modded for saying "I'd rather be a poor nice guy than a rich scumbag"
Also I got modded for calling a girl "he" on accident" -ICameIsawICorn

"Gotten an alt banned for posting "tl;dr". On a lesser note, had a 3KL for asking what was a Gunblade on the FFXIII board....despite that being the main weapon of Lightning. Had it overturned." -thompsontalker7

"spoiler warning with "no spoilers in post" according to the mod the name of the final dungeon isn't a spoiler and since I marked it as such it was disruptive" -Sxmfct

GUAC News and Reader Comments: 7/19/14

A few things that have sat in the backlog for a little bit, so let's mention them and record it for future reference.

From 261: cjsdowg wrote a topic asking why a lot of hate Obama gets isn't about race.

http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/261-politics/69588065

While I disagree with him on the politics, that he was modded for his opinion is problematic. This topic shows he's at least trying to defend his views, putting thought into it, which is something we should be encouraging. But it seems like on 261, the harder you try to make your argument the more you get punished for it (especially when users were once penalized for citing too much of a source to back up their points). cjsdowg graciously responded at a request for comment:

I have been on this site for a while and the one thing that I have noticed is that it is no use trying understand what gets modded or what doesn't . You would pull your hair out trying to understand it. I really have no idea why I was modded.

From CE: A little bit before Venomscarnage was modded, Vindris wrote to complain about a moderation: "Can your sex be changed from an operation?...post-op, pre-op, doesn't matter, they're still a male." Well shucks if that ain't offensive to someone because if I say I'm a girl everyone's supposed to agree, or I am being discriminated against. If I decide I am a mysteriously discovered alternate sex no one knows about, or a walrus, or a three-headed space alien, I have the freedom to say that these days, but you aren't allowed to say I'm full of it. Of course there are contradictions present. If someone's gay we are to assume there's a gay gene without evidence, and we'll mod you if you deviate from this supposed biological truth. But if someone's trans we are to assume that one day they can choose to alter their sex, and we'll mod you if you deviate from their choice and point out the biological truth. Why mods are in the business of taking down these views is strange, along with the logic, which seems to be based not on an actual rule but on whatever a social justice warrior somewhere got upset about.


Vindris wrote:

It was deemed "offensive" ... A truthful statement that wasn't meant to offend anyone was modded as offensive. I'm struck dumb at how ridiculous this is.

I'm beginning to recognize that conservative values are seen as offensive on these forums. Here on the internet, if you hold traditional values, you're considered offensive, and modded off the face of these forums.

I understand these forums are privately ran, and they can mod anyone at any time for any reason... but it's a reflection of what society is becoming. Honest people who have sincere traditional values are squelched. Their ways are no longer accepted. They are considered bigots and offensive, and they are erased.

This issue is honestly very frightening and sad to me...

Noting the double standard, Vindris asked why views that offended him weren't taken down. Suppose someone thought the intricate details of gay sex were gross. "Should they all be modded because they've offended me? Why not?" When it was suggested he could be banned for bringing this up, he responded, "I'd rather get banned than remain silent." Well, he wasn't exactly banned...but he was suspended and the topic was closed. Yes, this was all for saying a man was a man no matter how much he messed with what he had downstairs. Throw those old XY chromosomes out the window while we're at it, they were probably just made up by bigoted 20th century researchers.

Reader comments!

I got a request to talk about climate change, and while at some future point I might be in the mood to rant about it if I get modded over something, I'm not going to make this place all about my political feelings and whatnot. I will say that when I last talked about it on the politics board, the topic was locked. I'm guessing people marked it because someone didn't like that it was getting big and lasting pretty long, why, you can't just bump the same topic and keep the thing going (please ignore those other topics just like this one). No I never just say "bump" and all my entries were responding to people or updating with new articles, doesn't matter. So then when that topic was closed I made another one about some climate issue in the news, and people complained that I did not confine my climate arguments to one topic...which is what I was doing in the first place. Go figure.

Mr_Positivity over at NGS was pleased by my article on how his list of users in a board contest was "harassing" someone. Really man, next time just follow the Error model, find the guy's twitter and keep linking to it from gamefaqs, because that's not considered harassment.

"God I swear this site has the WORST mods...I know this is stating the obvious, but still." -jakisthe

"Tails is awesome." -BeiberBush69

"The mods here have quite a bad reputation." -MegaFlareon

Not everyone was as understanding though, claiming I have an "obsessive hatred" for the mods. Hmmmmmm....not really. I hate mods about as much as they hate my messages, is that fair to say?  I mean you can't have step 2 without step 1. No I don't hate anyone on a personal level, might really disagree with what they do but it's a message board. My account will survive the dreaded karma dings and the debate goes on. I'm just making my case and bringing up the other side of things.

Mr_Positivity himself:

One of the reasons mods get away with so much crap around here is because as a collective, we don't do anything to combat it and instead just let it slide. If more people sided against abuse of the moderation system, something could be accomplished. But instead, lol, that guy gave some commentary on moderator abuse.... loooooooooool get a life dood what a loser, look how cool i am.

Well the interesting thing about this is that some people will either say "TaiIs tries too hard for nothing" or "This is too big and TaiIs can't change it if he tries." It's either so small it's not worth my time, or way above me. I'd say that's a fair mix and it's medium-sized enough to put a little effort into it and make a medium-sized difference.

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.