I know I haven’t been on the forum much lately, but I really need to get someone elses perspective on this matter. Recently I was banned on Polygon a gaming news site whom I think most of you are familiar with. So I’ve simply come to ask you were they justified?
Anyway Polygon released a news article where a Feminists Frequency editor called out games male status quo. Read the article yourself if you wish.
Anyway I took a slight dig at the article and the exact comment I made was
“Uh oh feminists are upset, better go get my violin” followed by this picture:
I was pretty shocked I got banned for a seemingly harmless comment, but I guess I am biased given the situation, so I just want to get some perspective on the situation.
Of course you got banned. Modern feminists won’t stop until they have created a fascist state and you offended them therefore your constitutional right to free speech was denied.
Well the article had nothing to do with feminism. It was about diversity in all aspects, not just gender. So if that’s what you posted it just looks like your going around attacking feminists in completely unrelated posts.
You did read the article right? “Feminist Frequency’s managing editor Carolyn Petit”
The problem I have with these feminist articles is no they do not discuss diversity as a whole. Yes they talk about breaking away from the norms, but as you read the article you get a clearer picture of what they mean by that.
“When Blizzard first introduced the cast of Overwatch, Petit found the female cast to sport typically slender, sexualized bodies, designed to appeal to men.”
“the idea of them being predominantly the realm of straight males to the exclusion of others just doesn’t have a leg to stand on anymore.”
The discussion turns into being less about diversity and more about games appealing to women, but we’re getting off topic I don’t really want this to turn into a feminism discussion.
Well for starters, Sarkeesian, et al, have to routinely deal with a barrage of abuse online, including death threats, probably some amount of it being dished out by violent middle-aged neo-n.azis (literally, as in not at all figuratively, neo-n.azis) (also ■■■■ is censored here?) who you would rightly be afraid of yourself. That kind of context would probably make you a bit trigger-happy with the bans were you to be subjected to it regularly, too.
But otherwise, what you posted wasn’t constructive, even towards your own position, so I doubt they felt like they were losing much by purging your presence from their comments sections.
Yeah, looking at the comments section there’s plenty of people (most) who disagrees with the article and made valid constructive points.
Yours was just a shatpost. It definitely seems like too harsh a penalty for a single shatpost, but from the perspective of their mods, there’s probably hundreds of people doing the same and they 're tired of it.
This.
You added nothing constructive other than taking a huge dump on a group of people you disagree with, including the journalist who wrote the article. So yeah, it’s your own fault.
I’ve got banned from polygon a long time ago, over a similar ‘girls in gaming’ article. The kid gloves they have on over there are crazy. Never underestimate a forum/comment mallcop. Just make a new account and keep it moving
I never claimed it was constructive. I would’ve been fine with the post being removed or even a warning, a straight up ban however seems like an abuse of power imo. I don’t see why the author should be offended, do they work for Feminist Frequency? I thought she worked for Polygon.
The thing is Polygon isn’t a feminists news site or at least they don’t advertise it. If I had posted the same thing on Feminists Frequencies website I could understand the reaction, however nonconstructive posts are far from an uncommon occurrence on Polygon’s news site, you’ll find many if you read through a few articles, but now because it’s a feminist article we’re throwing down the ban hammer. If Polygon is so strongly aligned with Feminist Frequencies beliefs they should make that stance clear and not by way of banning anyone without anything nice to say.
It’s upsetting to get thrown out of somewhere, and I’m sympathetic with you on that score. I don’t think your lost was worth writing, but it also doesn’t violate any reasonable forum rules that I might formulate - without looking up Polygon’s. I also find Femenist Frequency to be pretty horrible - in the same way that every one trick pony is horrible, so I’m not wholly unsympathetic even to your viewpoint.
But I think the idea that is misplaced is that the Internet is a democratic society. It’s not. Polygon can chuck you out of their forums for whatever reason they want and that’s life. There’s no need for due process. Some overzealous editor decided they had enough of your snark and clicked a button. You have no recourse - except to do what everyone else does and just make an alternate account.
I definitely wouldn’t have thrown you out for that, but I can see why they did. It’s not constructive and you obviously know that, so when you go for that low hanging fruit, regardless if it’s on a feminist article or something where, if you’re knocking some sort of group of people, you have to be aware of the fact that someone might not share your bright and shining sense of humor and might decide that they’ve seen enough.
I mean, I get it, it was a joke. Women, amirite? What are they going to want next? Credit cards in their name? The right to vote? Man, just awful. So yeah, you should definitely take that comedy act on the road. Some quality material right there.
That’s because they’re not speaking for diversity as a whole, they’re speaking for women.
Yes. This is the exact point. They are feminists. That’s they’re issue. They don’t hate men, they’re just speaking from what they are. They’re African American-Japanese-Hispanic-Korean-LGBTQ etc. But for women. Not at the expense of men, it’s not a zero sum game. They’re not advocating misandry from what I’ve seen.
So when they talk about women, they’re talking about all of those groups, even if they don’t go through and reference every ethnicity by name, but on the female side because that’s who they are, that’s their uniting feature above all else and that’s who they’re trying to find equality for specifically, just as the NAACP fights for that advancement of black people, it’s not at the expense of whites or Hispanics or Asians etc.
I don’t agree with everything they say, but from what I’ve seen, the not so old axiom that feminism tends to be one of those things where the comments on it tend to justify the need for it in the first place usually tends to ring true, more often then not, where it pertains to the gaming world, which really kinda sucks.
Whoa I think you need to hold up just a minute. If you mean to equate my comment as an attack on women then you are way out of line. All women are not feminists nor are all feminists women nor should the right to vote be equated to the right to representation in a hobby such as video-games which is a creative form of expression that goes for anyone; I don’t care what gender, religion, race, or sexual orientation you are. If developers want to make an all female game they can do that, but it’s not a human right.
I’m not discussing whether they have a right to do it(if that were the case I wouldn’t even be posting here), I’m discussing whether they were right to do it.
I was hesitant to make it at first but I figured isn’t off topic for discussing random topics. I’ll try to alert the mods to close it once I think no further clarification is needed as it seems some have misinterpreted the purpose.
So you’re not attacking all women, just the people (male and let’s face it, mostly female) that fight for gender equality? Is that what you’re saying? I’m not offended, I’m not calling you a bigot or whatever. Just curious what you think you’re snickering at when talking about “feminists.”
The right to vote was fought for by feminists i.e. the low hanging meme fruit. While modern feminism might seem to be about more trivial matters than voting these days (at least by comparison), they’re all smaller parts of the bigger picture in the same effort for equality.
I don’t think anyone is trying to FORCE people in to including women against the creative will of game designers or saying some quota for equality trumps expression. Maybe they’re just trying to raise awareness? Maybe they want to be objectified less?
I dunno. I’m not a woman, so I’m not going to speak for them, but I do think that feminism is necessary in our society and that hasn’t changed just because the rule of thumb no longer exists. It’s all a long pathway through history, which is why I cringe when I see gamers, usually guys, mocking feminism for either wanting a seat at the table or pointing out some stuff that, in all honesty, will probably look pretty bad in 20 years anyways, and not just to the hypersensitive “triggered” crowd.
Wants and demands are 2 different things. I want more black protagonists in games but that’s a far cry away from saying the lack of blacks in video games is a major issue troubling the video game industry and needs to be fixed. Modern feminism doesn’t seem to be about trivial matters, they are about trivial matters. No one’s way of life is threatened due to their lack of being represented in a game. The fact many fear being called a bigot in the same way you interpreted my comment is the reason why the movement continues to pick up steam. If in 20 years what I say looks bad then that’s just not a world I want to live in.
That has nothing to do with it. It would be the same if you wrote “lol, Jews suck, Hitler was right!” and then got banned. The point is, you took a huge dump on a group of people for no reason than you being a d-bag. And if Polygon don’t tolerate d-bags, it is in their full right to ban them.
It’s their site, they can do with it what they want. You running to another forum and whining about it though… that’s just pathetic. XD
