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In response to these two articles:
https://www.gamingonlinux.com/articles/some-more-thoughts-on-ion-fury-the-fps-from-voidpoint-and-3d-realms.14865
https://www.gamingonlinux.com/articles/voidpoint-have-said-they-will-not-be-censoring-ion-fury-by-removing-stupid-gay-joke.14890
Ion Fury sure went wrong fast... Closing the comments on both of these articles doesn't really help anything, Streisand Effect and all.
People who are anti-censorship and believe that not every rude phrase, joke or criticism is an indictment on the entire group's humanity will not like it. People who are pro-censorship will never be satisfied, no matter what you do.
No matter what stance you take (and you can take whatever stance you like), you (and maybe the site) will look worse. In the long run, you can't avoid this kind of thing permanently and still have a gaming site with comments or a forum.
What's particularly disturbing about this incident is that you're censoring comments on an article that talks about a developer withdrawing their decision to censor. My half-English partner finds it hilarious that this irony is lost on an Englishman, and suggests that the reason for the word censoring being in disingenuous quotation marks on the title of the second article could be an attempt to shield yourself from this reality.
If you don't like controversy, don't have a comments section at all, for any article. Gaming is getting increasingly controversial all the time. Whether it's developers caving to what others find offensive, selling out to Epic Games Store, pulling Linux support at the 11th hour, or deciding to use Easy Anti-Cheat or Denuvo; any developer or publisher, at any time, could easily do some dumb move that sets your comments sections on fire.
At the same time, and this is the really big paradox you need to understand, removing the comments section, in an attempt to remove controversy, WILL create controversy! So you're screwed either way. People are already talking about this on social media. I hate to
sound like an asshole, but... welcome to journalism?
On the other hand, keeping your comments open shows people that you care. It doesn't show that you have a particular opinion one way or the other, but it shows that you respect people's passion and need to express themselves. Doing that would set you apart from nearly every other gaming website on the planet these days.
Our community is civil enough to handle themselves, and quite frankly, small enough to not make that big a dent in your server bills if things get mildly heated. If you're worried that this community will degenerate into a *chan, just because you let people speak their minds, then you have less faith in us than I thought.
I'd prefer you choose to keep the comments sections open in all articles, to defuse the tension that's going to inevitably result because of various controversies. If not, I'd prefer that you close all the article comment sections in the interest of journalistic neutrality and ethical fortitude.
Finally, if the real reason you need to shut this down is "because Europe", just say so and we'll understand. :)
It really isn't. The amount of times we've had to warn people, remove comments or edit comments because of personalized attacks I lost count on a long time ago. It's not about having faith, it's the fact that I've moderated the community for a very long time and I've seen how these things go. It was not an attempt to censor people, it was me wanting to get some thoughts out there and not have the discussion descend into what crap it usually does.
We let people mostly get their thoughts out on all this in the previous article before closing it. Could this have been handled better? Perhaps.
I get there's strong feelings on all sides on this. As always, I will be taking feedback on board on how we proceed in future. It is not my aim to prevent people giving their opinion on things.
Thanks for the calm post on it, I've taken some rather colourful messages about all this today.
As long as people remain respectful this forum topic can stay open to have a productive chat about it. Believe me, I want to have the best community possible.
Calling it censorship is taking a big leap. You're not prevented from discussing anything, just from discussing it in that location. So unless anything actually gets deleted for no other reason that opinion, nothing has been censored.
Suggesting that you should allow everything is a very easy thing to say. Everybody knows that certain topics invite people that, how shall I put it... fail to remain diplomatic. That means there will need for moderation. An unfortunately reality. Should Liam just be sitting there for two days just moderating the comments on a thread that ultimately has nothing to do with Linux gaming? Does not really sound like the most useful thing to do.
What you want is a fantasy. There is no black and white in this world. Only a huge sea of grey. Perfect solutions aren't available and you can only try to get as close as possible. And sometimes this means having to get rid of something that is not part of the main focus of this site. And sure, you could argue that he invited it by taking a stand on the topic. But that doesn't really change much in practice. And in parallel with Linux, if you don't agree, you can always try it yourself and see if it works out for you.
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Maybe the solution is to not cover e-drama. I'd wager people on this site have either already heard all about it from their favourite general gaming news outlet, or are deliberately not reading these anymore because they are full of opinion pieces, politics, controversies and whatnot.
There's a lot of angry people on Reddit though, some taking it waaaaay overboard considering my actual thoughts on the matter consisted of a single line at the end...
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I don't know the Uk's laws but it's probably like in France when some comments are prohibited by the law, the guys as Liam are responsible and therefore have to delete those comments, for instance.
That is a legal one, and we can't really argue about that as it can puts GOL in some danger.
But in this case, I don't think (at least until now) it's a legal one, it's just a moral one IMO.
Most people have limits to their morals, some might think "we can say that" or "we really can't say that" etc.
I understand Ehvis's post:
Tell me if I'm wrong of course, I think you're the kind of guy who has a moral but with certain limits, like I said above.
I don't saying that I don't have morals at all but I tend to be on the side where anybody can say anything about anything, anywhere, even if I don't agree with some statements.
I'm trying to think about the problem as a whole.
Edit: I already saw this kind of issue on another forum, between the staff and some members, for a certain period it was like a "war", people were banned etc... I don't want to see this on GOL either.
So please people stay courteous.
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Having an opinion in of itself is fine, but on your own time. You're not unattached by money or contacts from game developers/publishers in the first place and nobody has zero built-in bias. I'd have probably not bothered with saying a thing if you'd said [RANT] at the top of the second article, though. You obviously wanted to let off steam about recent events without anybody contradicting you.
As for controversial comments, maybe use an old-school TV-like notice at the top of the comments section to soften potential (unwarranted) GoL liability?
Example: The opinions expressed by the following comments are those of the participants, and do not reflect those of GamingOnLinux.com or its staff.
Not sure why you're enabling comments in the first place, then, by that logic. It isn't a black and white issue, elaborating on that was the whole point of what I typed earlier, but I outlined the two least controversial, *and* least work-intensive options.
If you continue like this, it's harder work for you and your staff, and it ends up making everybody upset no matter what side they're on. Nobody on the first article liked not being able to comment any longer, they were obviously invested in the debates they were trying to have (or pointless arguments if you'd prefer, but it's subjective).
Be honest, though. Were the opinions that you thought were particularly noxious (and deleted, but still see partially in replies) only ones that were attacking others on a personal basis? Or were the comments unworthy of discussion because you personally disagreed with them?
I agree with some debatably colourful things, but wouldn't use the same words while trying to get somebody to listen without prejudice.
That being said, you're welcome, and thank you for doing the same. You're a lot easier to get along with than some other people online, even when I disagree with you.
Still can't have a community without interested participants. If it's really a PR game about reducing toxicity (whatever it means), then I'd sooner be rid of the comments ASAP.
Or maybe do an upvote/downvote system with signed-in users? If it's good enough for Reddit, Slashdot, KnowYourMeme, The Register, and many other websites and platforms, why not here? All of those website have user moderation implemented slightly differently, and you could even come up with your own spin on how to innovate with this idea, but the point is that they seem to be working for those communities. Yes, all of these communities get nasty comments, all of which tend to get buried quickly.
If most GoL articles get no more than dozens of likes and dozens of comments, it'll save you guys time and money to let users open-source our own moderation. Then you can focus on only removing posts that are spam and illegal. Thoughts?
In my opinion Liam's done a damn good job thus far. No reason to take our toys away just because some of us can't play nice.
Honestly, I find that pretty ridiculous. So you want comments to either always be open so everyone can have their opinion (and I'm not allowed?!) or have them entirely off. I shouldn't and won't be scared to voice my opinion on my own website and no one is going to stop me, sorry.
Frankly, I think it's utter madness to say I shouldn't have an opinion in an article, yet everyone else should in the comments. It makes absolutely no sense.
Speaking for yourself there, let's not assume you're acting on behalf of anyone else or pretend you are. I've been thanked a large number of times for closing the comments on the first article.
Absolutely no plans for a down vote system. That was one of the worst things about Reddit. If you think that sort of system gets rid of nasty comments, I would honestly question your motives. I've been on the receiving end of abuse on Reddit where the upvote system was used to silence me and highlight people being complete massive arseholes. I see it to others all the time, no way I'm bringing that sort of system here.
We will also not be removing comments. It's extremely rare we lock comments, acting like it's a really big issue is either being disingenuous or you don't read our comments much and think this is somehow a common issue when it is not.
Comments on articles are auto-locked by the system when an article is a year old. Outside of that, in the space of an entire year I believe we've locked comments twice. Both Ion Fury.
There's a huge amount I don't agree with posted on here all the time, same with our telegram, discord and so on. Different opinions are not the issue, let's not claim it is. The issue should be pretty clear already.
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Also, this is Liam's site and moderating how he wants is his prerogative and nobody is censoring anybody. There are unlimited places for you to voice your opinion, regardless of how it affects others. If you want a full-on anti-censorship experience, give *4chan a try. That place is a cesspool of bigots, trolls, and the like. No one will stop you from anonymously saying whatever awful thing pops into your head.
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