Why mods are actively censoring Arch being shunned by GW?

[Kastor Krieg]

 

Thank you, Lucerne.

 

I'm being confrontational because I'm one of the people scum like Arch and Arch himself are targetting. I'm one of the people GW stood up for and now I can't talk about it here?

 

I don't disagree completely, Lucerne. However discussing Arch by proxy of whether kind of discussion should be allowed is a sure way to get your posts deleted and the thread nuked, so I won't join you there. The mods made their decision and I can understand where they are coming from. There are enough places for such kind of talk. Just open a thread on reddit or Facebook or wherever if you think you have to. 

You "don't disagree" but then your stance is "mods decided, go elsewhere to talk about it" when Lucerne speaks about how dangerous to the community here it is not to talk about it and that the statement is clearly GW company policy by now?

 

Uh huh.

 

"Not completely" I said. So I do partially disagree. But you know what? I give up. You simply don't want to see where you are wrong and are only interested in making your voice heard no matter how, even if it is by playing the victim. You know what kind of people usually act like that? The ones you say you are so against.

Or maybe, just maybe, I simply do not think I'm wrong and the fact that I don't doesn't reflect on the merits of the case? 

 

Yes, I do want to be heard, that's why I've made the thread.

Yes, I am a victim of people like Arch and Arch himself.

Yes, I am discriminated against and censored when I cannot speak in this space about GW standing up to Arch and his ilk.

 

The last line of "so you're just like the fash!" is really a nasty piece of lowest possible manipulation.

[Kastor Krieg]

To the mod team:

Being "neutral" is a political stance. You may not like the chutzpah of what I'm doing and how I'm addressing the matter, but that's separate from the matter itself.

 

You cannot pretend to be "neutral". You need to stand up for the victims of racist and phobic abuse like Games Workshop themselves did. If not actively, though it would be most welcome, then just by allowing us to communicate important factual information that doesn't attack any users here and doesn't incite unrest against any group of users here.

And if there are fascists and racists like Arch in the B&C community, and they choose to come out of their nazi closets and defend scum like Arch, it would behoove you to get rid of them for the good of the community itself. Just like Games Workshop decided to.

[Panzer]

Or maybe you just need to learn to accept that you aren't the center of everything and should abide by the rules of this space. This is not a democracy. By creating an account and logging in you agree to follow the mods and the admins. Period. Nobody here said ignoring racism is the way to go forward in general nor that accepting them is right or whatever else you might think. However these things have a place and time to be addressed. This forum is not the right place. You seem to have huge troubles accepting such a simple fact and that's honestly quite sad.

[Lord Marshal]

To the mod team:

 

Being "neutral" is a political stance. You may not like the chutzpah of what I'm doing and how I'm addressing the matter, but that's separate from the matter itself.

 

You cannot pretend to be "neutral". You need to stand up for the victims of racist and phobic abuse like Games Workshop themselves did. If not actively, though it would be most welcome, then just by allowing us to communicate important factual information that doesn't attack any users here and doesn't incite unrest against any group of users here.

 

And if there are fascists and racists like Arch in the B&C community, and they choose to come out of their nazi closets and defend scum like Arch, it would behoove you to get rid of them for the good of the community itself. Just like Games Workshop decided to.

 

I didn't see one person defending Arch on that thread. Not one. The responses were overwhelmingly "Good" or else "Who's Arch?" Even on this thread I don't see one person who's piped up in defence of him.

 

Political discussion just straight up isn't allowed here. There isn't exactly anywhere FOR fascists and racists to rear their head, unless they opened spewed that vitriol... I don't even know where they could really do it in any kind of context? And if they did, I imagine the mod team would stamp down on it - and them - as they would any hateful post regardless of the context. Saying "I hate X" seems a pretty swift way to get a ban and I don't think anyone's really disputed that or that it should happen and that's been happening lloonngg before GW issued it's statement.

 

And if there are fascists and racists like Arch in the B&C community, and they choose to come out of their nazi closets and defend scum like Arch, it would behoove you to get rid of them for the good of the community itself. Just like Games Workshop decided to.

 

This is what I meant by "you knew exactly what you were doing" and politics baiting. You seem to be suggesting the the thread should have been kept up in the hope people would come to Arch's defence and you could then leap on them as having 'outed' themselves as racists/nazis? B&C has never been about politics in my experience, it shouldn't be about politics, it shouldn't be used as some sort of sting operation no matter how noble your intentions may be.

 

I come here to discuss and find out about Warhammer 40,000 with people of every ethnicity, sexuality, country and yes, as sickening as it is, even Eldar players. I don't come here because I want to see half of the News page turned into topics about in-hobby politics and infighting, no matter how well-intended. There's places for that, a lot of them actually, but B&C isn't and shouldn't be one of them.

Edited July 4, 2020 by Lord Marshal

[Kastor Krieg]

Or maybe you just need to learn to accept that you aren't the center of everything and should abide by the rules of this space. This is not a democracy. By creating an account and logging in you agree to follow the mods and the admins. Period. Nobody here said ignoring racism is the way to go forward in general nor that accepting them is right or whatever else you might think. However these things have a place and time to be addressed. This forum is not the right place. You seem to have huge troubles accepting such a simple fact and that's honestly quite sad.

My signature didn't break any "rules of this space". And kindly step the back with that patronizing tone.

 

This is what I meant by "you knew exactly what you were doing" and politics baiting. You seem to be suggesting the the read should have been kept up in the hope people would come to Arch's defence and you could then leap on them as having 'outed' themselves as racists/nazis? B&C has never been about politics in my experience, it shouldn't be about politics, it shouldn't be used as some sort of sting operation no matter how noble your intentions may be. 

No, I'm not suggesting the thread should have been kept if the mods did not want the discussion. It could've been locked to not allow discussion and kept as locked. 

Instead it was censored, removed.

I did not want to "out" people either. I said that if they decided to out themselves, they should be treated like all racists should. Good riddance.

The whole point is that the mods are showing a political stance. A truly neutral stance would be to allow the announcement of the fact "Arch got told to drop the trademark from his name and then GW told World of Warships that they don't want to hire him for the GW/WoW cooperation event". If the mods cut out all comments made and kept the first post of my thread, locking it from further discussion, it would have been pretty neutral. Instead they removed the thread.

I didn't complain immediately about it, others did in the Moderation thread. The thread got locked.

If I can't discuss it. If I can't discuss the inability to discuss it. Then I took it somewhere where no discussion is had, it's a simple statement of the fact.

It got removed.




If the mods actively remove the information mentioned above, it means they don't seem to want people to know about the actions GW took against Arch, specifically because his racist and phobic content. Had they not cared that people know, been neutral and non-political about it, the would have left the OP of the initial thread up or my sig alone.

They instead made a political choice to censor the information. So we can't get political, but they can inflict their politics on us?

I just had a line of rainbow text all June, because of the Pride Month. Nobody noticed, nobody removed it from my sig. Ergo, LGBT causes are not political on B&C.

My sig had the "you will not be missed" GW graphic for two months. Nobody told me to remove it and it's the same :cussing stance from Games Workshop as the news about Arch. Both my sig and the original thread about it were not removed. Ergo, GW stance against racism and LGBT-phobia are not political on B&C.

But when it comes to Arch specifically, all of a sudden threads are deleted, discussion about moderation on the topic gets locked and my sig gets censored? Arch specifically is "political" and "verboten" all of a sudden?

This is not right.

Edited July 4, 2020 by Reclusiarch Krieg

[Sandlemad]

Yeah, the faux-neutrality and "just keep politics out of the hobby" attitude, as well as the heavy-handed legalistic pettiness of pointing towards B&C's rules as though they are immutable, has caused me to lose a lot of respect for the B&C staff lately. When 40k communities on reddit, of all places, are more willing to say "we don't want fascists or hatemongers, thanks" than this forum, and when you're actively editing user's signature to remove criticism of Arch, it's not a good look.

 

EDIT: and the fact that the whole Arch thread was deleted rather than locked is frankly bizarre and doesn't seem in line with the stated reason of "it might be divisive".

Edited July 4, 2020 by Sandlemad

[Kastor Krieg]

the faux-neutrality and "just keep politics out of the hobby" 

Which stance loosely translates to "we do not care about your racial or LGBT issues, even within this community, either talk about plastic crack and lore or leave".

 

 

Edited July 4, 2020 by Reclusiarch Krieg

[Panzer]

 

 And kindly step the back with that patronizing tone.

 

Once you step back with the victim act.

[Brother Tyler]

We don't normally deal with disciplinary issues in public. We prefer to communicate via private message when someone violates the forum rules and we take official action. One thing this allows is for what we hope is open communication about an issue so that both sides can come to an understanding. This method has served us well in the past, occasionally resulting in disciplinary action being diminished/removed when we learn about extenuating/mitigating circumstances. More often, this helps members to understand where we are coming from on issues, and it additionally gives us better insight into members so that we can (hopefully) avoid future instances of disciplinary action. Actually, we prefer to communicate by PM before we reach the point where we feel compelled to take official action, preventing issues altogether. In this instance, Reclusiarch Krieg didn't bother asking me for an explanation by replying to my PM, instead posting a screenshot with an incorrect link and making a public spectacle out of a minor issue, demanding that it be addressed before everyone. That's certainly his prerogative.

 

The explanation for why his earlier signature was edited this morning was provided yesterday and can be seen here. By the way, that's where the link in my PM went.

 

One area in which Reclusiarch Krieg is mistaken in his various replies in this discussion is that the forum rules don't just apply to discussions. While there are a few areas where exceptions are allowed (I'll list some of those in a bit), the rules for the B&C are the rules for all content - that includes posts members make in discussions as well as gallery images, avatars, signatures, members' "About Me" pages, etc. We allow a wider degree of latitude in things like avatars, signatures, and "About Me" pages, but issues such as religion and politics are not allowed except insofar as they might be relevant to the game (e.g., where they influence the game), but then only to the extent that the discussion focuses on the game rather than the real world politics (this can be quite blurry, so we provide the intent rather than any "precise" legalistic delineations). Reclusiarch Krieg posted the announcement of Games Workshop's action against Arch yesterday, and that topic immediately shifted to non-constructive posts so it was closed. When someone asked a fair and relevant question about the action in another topic, Reclusiarch Krieg took the opportunity to once again post the information and the discussion again started heading south. That topic was closed with a brief explanation by WarriorFish and a more in-depth explanation by me (linked above).

 

Reclusiarch Krieg obviously dislikes Arch very much, and he may have fair reasons for his feelings. What we don't need here at the B&C, though, is for anyone to be pursuing real life vendettas via our site. We certainly don't want anyone to use the Bolter & Chainsword as a method for spreading the kind of message that Arch has been accused of - if/when we see it, we deal with it. Conversely, we don't want to turn the Bolter & Chainsword into a staging ground for torches and pitchforks either. Each of these types of activity is an example of extremism taken to negative ends - toxicity that we don't need poisoning our enjoyment of the hobby. We want the B&C to be a place where we can all congregate to share in the positive aspects of the hobby despite the variations in our views, serving as an example of the best that the community has to offer.

 

It's certainly fair for hobbyists to know about issues that affect the community as a whole, and GW's handling of Arch is definitely such an issue. However, we haven't quite cracked the code on how to provide this information (some might consider it a vital service) without creating the potential for the negative disruptive behaviors that we saw yesterday and today. That is something that the moderators and administrators are working on. In the meantime, we have the imperfect solution of closing the topics - allowing the information to be posted (in a professional, clinical, neutral manner) and then shutting down discussion so that we don't have non-constructive negativity (which would likely create the potential for discord and misbehavior by otherwise well-meaning members, which could result in disciplinary action). If you have ideas for how we might convey this information without undue negativity, we welcome your input (I'll probably create a Suggestion Box topic to facilitate discussion).

 

By now, most hobbyists have heard of or seen Games Workshop's Twitter post clarifying that "Warhammer is for Everyone." The Bolter & Chainsword's policy mirrors that of GW; and you can see where I make that point here. Our forum rules (see the "Obey!" link in my signature) have stated this for a very long time, but we are looking at more clearly articulating this. The most important thing that we can do as a community, however, isn't to turn into a hateful rabble that chases down and silences those whose actions or opinions we dislike. Rather, we should be striving to serve as an example for how members of the hobby should act.

 

Since Reclusiarch Krieg wanted to make this a public issue, I'll oblige.

 

Reclusiarch Krieg's signature and avatar included charged political content (after being told very clearly multiple times that such content wasn't allowed), so both have been removed. As a result of his continued violations of the forum rules in this matter, he has been issued with an official warning (not his first). Normally he would be banned at this point (you can read the forum rules and do the math). However, I firmly believe that this is a misunderstanding on his part and an excess of zeal in which he has allowed his passion to override his reason. I believe that he can remain a vital member of this community, so he has only been suspended for 14 days - a sort of cooling off period for him.The expectation, as always, is that he will abide by the forum rules upon his return.

 

I find describing the disciplinary action in public to be highly distasteful (and I imagine that many of you similarly find it distasteful). However, Reclusiarch Krieg has demanded that the issue be dealt with in public, so this is full transparency.