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Stricter moderation? Yes, perhaps.

Deleting unneeded comments? Sorry, won't happen. Deleting comments is not our style. It sounds like the perfect excuse to say we are "censoring" people's opinions, plus the admins disagree with doing such thing.

Of course, you also have to play your part.

We apply a more stricter moderation on the comment section and you guys make sure to not repeat the same mistakes that led to this situation. It would be pointless otherwise, don't you think?

@Loli
Should we have reported Thedoh or others shitposters ? What constitutes shitpost a-propos something that is sometimes ideologically-driven ?
In my opinion, this could only bring more abuse, since this is somewhat subjective and pro-gg people could use this to say " See ? We don't like that person, and he was making fun of us ! SUSPEND HIM ! ", although in the end this decision is taken by mods.
I just hope this decision to suspend the comment section for a time will bring people (and myself) to ask themselves if their commenting always was on-point.

Commander Random Man why has the GamerGate Entry been locked?

I really see this going to hell whatever way its sliced, because the subjectivity of what is "on topic" is going to be immense. I've been posting on the comments since September of last year and I can tell you its become more of a "gamergate and misc gamergate quasi related news ticker" rather than a traditional comment section of a meme.

There were numerous attempts to move the day to day convo off of the comments section and on to forum threads, irc, etc, but for some reason the comments section is the only thing that stuck. I suppose this was bound to happen eventually.

from the comments:

A user has directed our attention to the ongoing drama in this entry. By consensus of present moderators, the comments section has been temporarily locked, courtesy of Peacock Roy.

As Twilitlord pointed out to me, the comments here have barely scrapped through the minimum level of acceptability for the past 10 months. On this very page, we have spam by TehDoh; users engaging in an off-topic meta discussion about another user instead of being productive and asking a moderator to delete TehDoh’s comments; bare-faced political advocacy with only arbitrary relevance to GamerGate; comments about the TPP (we have an entry for that, you know); and now borderline witchhunting. Generaal’s comment below was the straw that broke the camel’s back, and this is the consequence.

Please note that, once again, this lock is temporary. Only some of the mods, and currently none of the staff, have given their opinions. We will immediately begin discussing how to proceed from here--you will be kept updated.

Should we have reported Thedoh or others shitposters?

Yes. I suggest you to do it from now on. We're mods, we are here for that.

In my opinion, this could only bring more abuse, since this is somewhat subjective and pro-gg people could use this to say " See ? We don’t like that person, and he was making fun of us ! SUSPEND HIM ! ", although in the end this decision is taken by mods.

If we were on GG's side then that could happen but we aren't. Rules applies to everyone, no exceptions.

I just hope this decision to suspend the comment section for a time will bring people (and myself) to ask themselves if their commenting always was on-point.

I said on the mod forum and I'm gonna post it here again.

When a comment section reaches the point where it becomes a place for social gathering (for example the GG and TPP comments sections), we move the whole thing to the forums. That's why we have the forums, it's more easy to keep an eye on it and discussions can take place in a more organized manner.

Commander Random Man why has the GamerGate Entry been locked?

Here's the reason why it got locked.

@Loli
I didn't mean that you were on GG's side, but that people on the GG side could bombard you with requests for suspending someone disagreeing with them, since you suggest reporting shitposters, and that shitposting is subjective.

I leave for only a few days and I come back to find this. Can someone give me a summary of what happened and why it happened?

We can read the difference between a shitposter and a disagreement in opinions. Of course shitposting is subjective, so in cases of doubt the final vote lies with the mods.

Arguing =/= Shitposting

Also remember that shitposting in reply to a shitposter or argument will be judged just the same. Report and ignore shitposters, remain open and willing to discussion towards opposers of the movement.

Of course we're not dictators, and we know shitposting and jabs is within the nature of the internet. One or a few ironic shitposts is perfectly fine, but once they start overdoing it yeah send them to the mods and don't lower yourself to their level.

I leave for only a few days and I come back to find this. Can someone give me a summary of what happened and why it happened?

Several people already replied to that exact question. Please show a bit of effort.

When a comment section reaches the point where it becomes a place for social gathering (for example the GG and TPP comments sections), we move the whole thing to the forums. That’s why we have the forums, it’s more easy to keep an eye on it and discussions can take place in a more organized manner.

Although this isn't enforced yet or anything, yes this kinda is what we would prefer. Use the forum as a social hub, and leave comment sections for what they're there for.

I just returned and saw the comments section locked, now, I find it amusing that locking the comments was the only way to keep GG out of the trending bar. I just hope the lock ends soon and activity would resume as normal, without a loss of activity.

Agreed – I quit checking the GG comments for "happenings" several months ago because the comments don't reflect much of what is relevant to the topic. You really have to sift through the shit to get to the nuggets of gold, of which there are fewer and fewer everyday.

It is possible that this is due to GG's success – there just isn't a lot to really talk about and there isn't any "new" information. In lieu of that, people are kinda just posting anything and everything so long as they qualify it with "could be GG related" as a partial nod that this likely is not "GG related". Anyways, the comments have really dregged on the last few months, hopefully it can be fixed because GG is still a topic that interests people.

If you want to know, just ask.

We can give you anything you want.

Edit: Also this doesn't have everything, but it's got most of the highlights.

By "sift through the shit" you mean ctrl+f "superjumpman", right?

I actually do not even see a button to report a post nor report a user. Are we supposed to KnowYourMods and seek them out?

There's a stickied thread with almost every single mod to ever have powers right at the top of general. It even explains which powers apply where. Stuff like this isn't hard to find if you look for it.

Which is why we promote the use of a forum thread. Share the nuggets of gold in the comment sectoin, it is still what the comment section is for after all. But keep all the socializing, sharing a video of puppies, or just in general what you also describe as "shit", in a seperate forum thread. Makes for a generally more pleasant site experience.

Alongside that, images also offer comments. Perfect for replying in a related area. And the forum still has an entire sub-forum related to videogames, which is perfectly fine to use for topics related to vidya that have little to zero to do with GamerGate.

I generally speaking don't like the forums because in almost every thread I've been in here I've been told not to dispute things people are claiming about me. Like earlier the thread where a lot of people were telling me that I'm "threatening this site" and if I didn't "fix my attitude" I needed to "get out of the thread" (and several of them are mods).

Seriously, if I wanted to threaten this site I'd just sit back and not try to warn the mods here or fix problems.

You know it wasn't until the beginning of March that I became convinced AntiGamer wouldn't DDoS this site like they did to The Escapist?

After Bob decided to start making personal attacks and then threaten me with moderator action for disputing Captain Blubber's claims I've been trying to limit commenting on/uploading to rest of the site.

I'm assuming he was having a bad day (since then he's been very fair), but first impressions will last.

And I haven't been uploading images between January and a couple days ago because I was suspended twice back in November for uploading images "without context", but when I tried to re-upload it with context I was suspended (it would be nice if the e-mail notification could give a link to the place where I'm supposed to give context).

Thanks to RandomMan I can now upload without worrying about getting permanently banned like some other people were during November (they got unbanned later).

Plus the weekly brigades from the IRC/Riff-Raff that RandomMan fixed 2 weeks back.

TL;DR: I think the root problem here is that "the rules" are very ambiguous and the mods as a whole have been giving off a "question me & be suspended" vibe.

I know you're busy, and I try not to bother you too much, but not being able to know what the rules are until someone gets suspended for breaking them/the comment section gets locked/the article is only updated after a couple months just makes everything very hard.

Plus the constant "you want special treatment" ad hominem is just plainly not true. We spent 2 months proposing updates in the designated thread only to find out that no mod was checking it, we've gone out of our way to respond to anyone asking about/wanting to talk about the subject of the article, and overall we've tried to stick to the letter of the directions given by mods.

Thank you for your time.

@Libertarian
There are two buttons that can help you with this problem and they're right next to each other:

The rules and the chat aka the irc. Read the rules of the site before breaking them. If you are confused about some rules are an/or want to speak with a moderator go on the irc and we can help you. Its that simple.

@NON

1. I've been saying since November that the rules are too vague to be useful.

"Stay Relevant"? OK sure, but what does "relevant" mean? How is someone supposed to magically understand what "relevant" means to the mods? They can't, they can only understand what "relevant" means to themselves.

Unless they ask, which brings up…

2. I've often wondered if I should ask a mod something, but I haven't either due to wanting to avoid a suspension/ban or because the mods here have made it clear they're very busy.

@ARL

1. Relevant means not derailing a thread. Derailing can be stuff like shitposting (I'm not assuming you shitpost, but wanted to give an example), or other things such as debating about things different then the topic, and overall just shifting the focal point of the thread (if there's something needed talking about, feel free to make another thread!)

2. In the IRC, I'd say 85% of the time there's at least one active mod present. If you were to join the chat right now, you would be greeted by Loli, Lurk, RandomMan, Sir-Soundwave, Triple Zed, and Twilitlord among others. Also the mods won't suspend you for a different POV or asking a question, and even if they wanted to it takes 2 warnings to make a suspension (ignoring riff raff standards), so suspending you immediately wouldn't and shouldn't happen. Even if the mods you were hoping to talk to weren't available, you could always send them a PM, which they would respond to once they weren't busy.

I’ve often wondered if I should ask a mod something, but I haven’t either due to wanting to avoid a suspension/ban or because the mods here have made it clear they’re very busy

But that's why we are here for. You asked RM for this thread and here we are.

If you have any questions, feel free to contact any of the active mods in the list Twilit linked above.

@Rapscallion

OK, I meant like back in November when I uploaded an image it was removed with a message "If you’re going to upload something to the Gamergate gallery, please make sure it actually has something to do with Gamergate. Not everything Zoe Quinn et al do falls in that category"

So I re-uploaded it with an explanation (it shows game journalist Leigh Alexander, Zoe Quinn, and Brianna Wu all whom were big names in AntiGamer being friends months before they allegedly met while "being targeted for harassment by GamerGate").

Then I got suspended with a message "Alright, so after having an image deleted for irrelevance and then getting a direct warning about it, you immediately re-uploaded it. Very smart. How about a break".

So I used the ban appeal process or whatever it was that pops up when someone is suspended, I never got a response, it wasn't until I think months later that I found out mods don't see that.

I had no clue how I'm supposed to explain the relevance.

So I continue on, another image I uploaded got removed so I just left it, until I uploaded an image of one the biggest names in AntiGamer telling a prominent person in GamerGate that their SWATing was no big deal and I got suspended for that.

Around the same time I noticed a bunch of people being suspended or even outright banned for the same thing.

I said back then

It would be a lot easier if “irrelevant” was defined in an easy to see place.
Because right now it seems like it seems the definition is “a mod doesn’t like it”.
You can’t expect people to change their behavior if you don’t clearly explain what they did wrong.
Because right now it seems like the only options are “get suspended repeatedly, then banned” or “never upload anything”.
Just calling an image “vague” is too vague to be useful in identifying the problem.

After that Twenty-One (still like the guy for this) came out with the "OK, we kind of made some mistakes, let's work together and fix them" announcement and I thought everything would work out.

Instead here we are.

That's the problem I'm trying to solve by asking "but what does 'relevant' mean"?

@Loli

Thank you.

After reading your post, I have to agree with 21 in which we messed up. From my knowledge of what the gallery was at the time, it was quite messy, and the mods made a mistake when trying to clear up the gallery for people who were unfamiliar to GG.

That being said, if you or anyone is being suspended without reason, please PM a mod, or join the IRC and try to explain why you are suspended without cause.

As for gallery relevancy,
in my personal opinion, images in Gamergate should be twitter screenshots (and screenshots in general really) detaining to GamerGate, as well as GG OC. But likewise, I feel images like this that don't really make much reference to GamerGate, could be moved to a more relevant entry. In this case, probably the Fallout entry, and for other Social Justice images, the social justice entry. The situation you discussed seems like a mistake, and if that happens again to you or another definitely try to get a mod to reassess what happened.

@Rapscallion

Thank you.

I agree that should probably be added to those galleries and just stick a "GamerGate" tag on it with the other tags (Fallout Shelter, Gamasutra, Nicholas Lovell, etc.).

I generally speaking don’t like the forums because etc etc.

We're not asking from you to use the entire forum, we're asking you to use a Gamergate thread instead of the comment section. Different things. Various bronies on the site only ever post in the MLP general thread we have, and can't ever be found in other forum threads, avoiding pointless clutter in the entry comments. Think like that.

I took the initiative and created that thread you can use. If people feel the need to be dicks in there, send them to us. Threads are also a lot easier to moderate.

I think the root problem here is that “the rules” are very ambiguous and the mods as a whole have been giving off a “question me & be suspended” vibe.

You're seeing spooks here.

@RandomMan

We’re not asking from you to use the entire forum, we’re asking you to use a Gamergate thread instead of the comment section. Different things. Various bronies on the site only ever post in the MLP general thread we have, and can’t ever be found in other forum threads, avoiding pointless clutter in the entry comments. Think like that.

I took the initiative and created that thread you can use. If people feel the need to be dicks in there, send them to us. Threads are also a lot easier to moderate.

Thank you.

But I'm really more interested in uploading enough images to get tagging powers (thanks for the tips BTW) and going through all those images on this site that have never been tagged and fixing that.

You’re seeing spooks here.

Probably.

I'd make the recommendation to put a giant "If you have questions or concerns about the rules, ask a mod" subheading under the Rules and Guidelines page.

Actually I would like to take this chance to ask a question as of why people makes a big deal about Gamer-gate trending as well as when it stop trending for a little while?

Personally I never saw why it bother people so much nor did I care that it was still trending at kym since it was only one entry (a entry that lasted nearly a year but still) .

EDIT: Also, I did used to post images involving Gamer-gate but I stopped months ago because I was confused by what the mods meant by what would be consider relevant to Gamer-gate as I did had a couple of images deleted off the gallery.

Think about it this way: with tons of users on every day waiting to see what new memes are trending and/or a quick link to some interesting entry it would get extremely annoying to only see GamerGate for nearly a year when a lot of them really don't care about it too much. Like, say if it was Anit-GG or something you really don't care about and seeing it everyday one your favorite site. Wouldn't that even slightly annoy you?

Well I just realized what happened, Tehdoh saw that coming and I in part saw it too

I just hope everything gets better, take your time before allowing comments again, good luck fixing what it needs to be fixed

At this point I STILL cannot even add images and videos. This is getting suspicious. At this point unlocking it shouldn't do harm.

By the way, was GamerGate entry intentionally sabotaged to induce a lock? If not then what happened?

Its was intentional, I've spoken to TehDoh and he legitimately did it to destroy the section.

Galleries are open again, kthxbai.

For real? Trust but verify.

I would not find it hard to believe though, the comments section in KYM kind of became an emergency hub for us, if someone wanted to harm the cause, locking the comments section even for a short time would be a problem to us. And I think everything should be unlocked already, we thrive in happenings and there has been none latelly.

Any word on the comments section or are we SOL. I checked that shit every day and now i'm so damn productive! lol

Has it been a week yet? How far is the mod and staff in terms of progress for formulating rules and regulations for the comment section? I'm not in a hurry or anything but it would be nice to have an update or two.

This thread was added on the day of the lock (6 days ago) so not quite yet.

I honestly wouldn't mind the comments staying locked a while longer. I stopped checking the comments for updates but once or twice a month these last few months. All the updates I got were through trending images, and a lot were just "aGG is so dumb amirite?" type images that didn't contribute much. Seeing how increasingly /pol/tarded comments were getting, and how mods and prominent users (users I have always felt to be the backbone of rationality and cool-headed discussion on this site) were increasingly annoyed and dismissive of Gamergate, I was honestly afraid I was going to have to write Gamergate off as an overall failure that would slowly die as it became an increasingly smaller echo-chamber. When the comments and gallery were locked, at first I thought my worst fears had been realized, that the-powers-that-be deemed GG to be an enemy to KYM's interests, that an anti-GG moderation no longer cared to be accommodating of a view they increasingly disapproved of. That fear lasted all of about half a minute. When I saw what happened and why, I realized this could be the chance to cure GG on KYM of the things that ailed it.

For whatever reason, the forums repel the worst kind of posters and everyone else's posts seem to be dramatically improved. I don't mean in a "the forums have stronger moderation" kind of way. Apart from a couple posters throwing micro tantrums, it's as if no one who would have awful posting etiquette has even attempted to post. As if collectively, all the users see the forums as something deserving of better post quality, without needing to have it explained to them that their "comment-tier" posts won't cut it in the forums. Otherwise, the first several pages of the new Gamergate thread would be filled with posts by just as many users as the comments, just as mediocre, filled with downvotes, suspensions, arguments with mods, "why the downvotes?", etc. until users either left or adapted to the forums. But the worst posters didn't even try, the best adapted quickly, and the rest are all probably waiting for the comments to unlock before they return. But if that's the case, if most users are just waiting for the comments to unlock before doing anything, we may end up returning to the old status quo, albeit with stronger moderation.

Additionally, most of the forum goers refused to even touch GG (except to take occasional swipes at it in tangentially related topics) until it was forced onto the forums. The fact that proper discussion can take place on GG without the comments and forums acting as echo-chambers for opposing sides is the best part of this whole situation.

I think we should take more time with comments closed and convince as many people as possible to move to the forums as a more permanent home of discussion, so that GG doesn't return to its old state of constantly trending, flying off the rails, and furthering the divide between forum and comment posters.

I partially agree with you, I think we must prevent this cause from becoming an echo chamber, and discussion should improve, but keeping the comments section closed might not be that useful if you ask me, also, GamerGate being constantly trending was quite interesting.

Keeping the comment section closed increases radicalization and siege mentality. None of those are good for anyone.

It's been a week, so as promised the comments are unlocked again.

Let's aim to not have this situation repeat itself.

Thank you Based RandomMan!

Now that the comment section is open. Can we get a list of things people are not allowed to do so we can start reporting/ignoring it right away?

So far its this:
1. Stay on topic. Report off-topic material. Do not reply to off-topic material
2. Do not post music. It is not really important or relevant (back to rule 1)

Any others. I ask because I am very literal minded. I'd prefer to know all the rules in advance so I can minimize any mistakes made by me.

Working on it, it'll officially be out very soon

Thank you. I'll do my best to follow the rules.

I have a idea:

No posts just to yell at Anti-GG/Feminism.