Post by DaedalusMachina in Hello! Can it be easier to block someone from the forums? (without reporting?)

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DaedalusMachina5 years ago (2 edits) (+2)

This is the best response I can offer to those who are 'offended' by the opinions of others.

In order to be able to think, you have to risk being offensive.

The thing is that I do not take kindly to those who are conversational bullies demanding that I remain silent and exclusively allow them to speak while I am not permitted to think for myself. That isn't how any (decent) forum works.

Again, I was not flaming/trolling/harassing anyone, nor was I even speaking to the person in question. I don't feel that catering to 'tumblrinas' is productive for either itch.io or the greater gaming community at large. We should all be permitted to THINK for ourselves and if we think for ourselves we take the risk of being 'offensive' to someone somewhere somehow. That's the nature of a conversation/discussion.

Those who cannot handle a decent convo/discussion without being offended are not likely to improve themselves if they demand the silence of others instead.

I also would vehemently oppose any 'trigger warning' tagging system that invites drama and dissent rather than being useful in any way for those that actually matter (the gamers/players/consumers). Devs need to ultimately realize that the consumers are the ones with money and ignoring their needs in the marketplace is a one-way ticket to obscurity and low/zero profits. Too many want to just act as if the world revolves around them but it does not do so.

Trigger warnings do not belong in games, movies, or any other form of media. Those who rely on them lack the mental faculties to be considered adults. I stand fully by that statement and will gladly get into a more detailed discussion with citations, sources, and links from academic instutitions/papers. The infantalization of gaming into a homogenized 'agreeable' 'non offensive' sludge is not something I will sit by idly and remain silent upon.

I have several people on my FreshGaming Discord server with mental issues and other special needs, but none of them expect/demand that others cater to them. There are people who are trans or genderfluid or whatever but they never demand that anyone on the server calls them by specific pronouns.

It is as I have stated before. A child demands that the world bends to their whims. An adult understands the world is cold, cruel, and careless and does their best to adjust to what life throws at them.

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firecat5 years ago(+1)

yes but at the same time there are good reasons to keep things NSFW, it is a balance. If everything was allow like steam did than you would see scammers, AO rated games, more realistic gory games than Mortal Kombat, questionable things in NSFW, etc.

what you asking is having people not be ignored but that is impossable since that leads to fights. you can not change people minds unless you somehow did. And sometimes people push the question someone ask for into uncomfortable or unneeded infomation.

itch.io rules are fine it stops the fighting or gang-ups, block button to not see and reply back/get reply to user is also ok.

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DaedalusMachina5 years ago

Hello firecat, I appreciate the thoughtful response. When someone asks for NSFW content to be flagged, that is 'adult' content. It is already widely-established that adult content on the internet is suitable only for those 18+ by law and by the standards of society as it currently exists.

I do believe 'everything should be allowed' on itch.io as long as it is not: virus/malware/trojan, scam, misrepresentative content, it works and doesn't just break/crash constantly.

While I enjoy the curation of GoG, I don't believe that curation should be the 'only' standard of a games platform. So far itch.io has been heavily favored towards game developers and less towards the actual end-users. It will remain a very niche platform as long as this is the case. The itch.io platform has the potential to be something truely amazing on-par with and directly competing with others. That won't happen if we allow tumblrinas to control the system.

Trigger warnings are not 'standard' in the world (thankfully) nor are they required. A simple tagging system for 'potentially objectionable' content is sufficient. Allow both the community and the creators to use tags and have mods handle reported tags that may be inaccurate.

I have no issue with the itch.io rules other than how vague they are (by design) that allows for wide/open interpretation that permits for censorship of reasonable ideas and viewpoints that happen to contradict what some special snowflake happens to dislike. I don't care for them, to be honest.

I'll stand by my statements in how I feel about trigger warnings being added to the itch platform and that it would be to the severe detriment (and possible outright destruction/abandonment) of the entire platform. That would be a shame :(

I'm not really here to make friends or change minds. Just expressing my opinions without the threat of overly-aggressive moderation/censorship. I'm not screaming obscenities or using all caps or otherwise directly naming & shaming individuals. They cannot fit me or those like me into a simple 'troll' box. Their attempts to do so will ultimately fail miserably.

Firecat, you seem to have a good grasp of how things work and I would greatly enjoy if you were willing to join my FreshGaming Discord server to chat with myself and others. I already have some other fellow game designers and am hoping to bring on more as time goes on. Gamer perspective is nice but game designers have their own perspective and it is really useful to get a variety of viewpoints on things.

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