Regarding "The Controversy"

[LateWhiteRabbit]

12-hour rule: I don't think that's any sort of overall forum policy, but rather an attempt by PyTom to make people cool themselves between posts in certain explosive threads. Given its, uh, "popularity" I'm guessing it won't be in the mod policy. But I don't know; it's not up to me.

I appreciate the idea behind the 12-hour rule, but I'm not sure it is having the intended effect. It sidelines the major participants in a debate and allows time for other people to become involved and start taking sides. Not a good thing. Many debates get lively and heated, but they might be resolved much quicker by constant back and forth posts rather than letting the situation simmer. With the 12-hour rule people have to watch comments they desperately want to respond to or refute go by, and being "silenced" for the moment, I don't think that makes them more calm. Only more furious, because now, all they can do is sit and read and be frustrated with no recourse. That frustration is going to make them "come out of the starting gate" a lot harder and meaner, because now they not only want to respond to the initial person they were having the debate with, they have a lot of posts made in the 12 hours to respond to. The result is longer, more passionate, and angrier posts made.

In my opinion, for whatever it is worth, the solution is either to shut down such debates immediately, or referee them.

Now, I think these debates SHOULD be allowed to happen. But they should be moderated so they remain constructive.

I have been lurking for a VERY long time. Ever since Lemma put out his first little game demo. I was still using dial-up when I first visited these boards. And unfortunately, DaFool is right. These controversies that pop up every so often seem to drive away some of the most skilled and passionate in the community. It makes a lot of sense - passionate feelings are strong feelings. It just seems a shame that some of the most successful members of the community start dropping by, as DaFool said, "only when they have something to sell".

DaFool said it well. We need to find a way to make this community one that retains the talent and skills it fosters, instead of seeing them migrate away when they are no longer "amateurs". Part of this is fostering better discussions and constructive debates on more advanced topics, some of them controversial. When you get to the level where you are commercially selling your games to great success, when you and your team are good at art and coding and storytelling, the same old repeat discussions on beginner topics start to feel rather useless. And we have so many of those topics because we are losing those advanced game makers in the genre, and not always to controversy. Sometimes they just drift away.

[Tachyglossus]

Maybe make a 'controversial topic' headline with a disclaimer that things WILL get heated and messy, so the faint of heart or over sensitive should not wander in? And furthermore, have it refereed by an admin whose main duty is to keep things in line with occasional help from other admin? I remember a web comic site that had just an area in their forum, and it actually kept most of the controversy out of other threads, and for the most part, people weren't trying to claw each other's eyes out. When they set foot in there, they knew there would be a clash of opinions and core beliefs. If people were there obviously trolling, admin dealt with them. But on the other hand, that was a much smaller community, so maybe it just worked out because it was tightly knit.

It's a suggestion that worked in another circumstance, but I understand there are compounding variables here that might make it not as useful.

[sake-bento]

I've seen several forums that do have a separate section for "controversial" topics, and I've found that they've been useful. Having a section here might very well be a good idea. I'm also considering having a "Where the flying snet do I start!?" forum for beginners. We can include tutorials and field questions from newcomers. It'll save us from seeing the same threads over and over, and it'll save newcomers the embarrassment of having to ask a question everyone else already knows the answer to.

Heated arguments are bound to happen among passionate people. The modding policy has been largely loose, usually allowing arguments to go nuts and then everyone goes home unhappy. We could enforce a stricter modding policy, but then people will feel like they're being silenced, and we don't want that either. Having the proper balance starts with everyone learning to be more respectful, and learning not to pick sides. We really like to pick sides around here, and we shouldn't. No gang wars, okay?

As I've said before, rearranging the forums, changing the rules, or doing other surface tasks will only help a little bit. Making new laws doesn't change the hearts and feelings of the people who must follow them. The admins will do our absolute best to build this forum into a place where everyone can feel welcome, but we, the members, are what will really make it happen. I'm very grateful to everyone for sharing ideas and thoughts. This is the first step in the right direction, so let's keep going.

[lordcloudx]

Just gonna say, I approve of what the admin team are trying to do and also: What took you so long? I've been waiting for years, personally.

[sake-bento]

Sometimes you have the right ingredients, but you need a proper catalyst to bring about a change.

Also, I know a lot of you are reading this thread, but not posting. If there are any thoughts you'd like to share, I'd encourage you to do so. You may PM me if you're shy about it.

[Friendbot2000]

I agree that our attitudes have to change in order for major change like this to be successful. However I don't feel like adding more moderators would be silencing people who are passionate about their beliefs. You just have to get the right people for the job. Unfortunately the forums where I served as a moderator are long gone, but I always ruled with a firm, but kind hand. One mistake that a lot of moderators make is that they close the lines of communication with a absolute ruling.

I will give you an example of my time serving as an Assistant Scout Master(I am not an old geezer, I am actually twenty-one. I have always been more adult than many of my peers, comes with living in a strict Navy household ) at a Boy Scouts Summer Camp. Teenagers are not a trusting bunch. If you don't listen to them when they try to tell you stuff then they will shut their ears to you entirely. Communication is a two-way street, if you close one lane of communication then nothing gets through. Anyways, I observed one of my fellow Scout Masters scolding a young scout and the kid wasn't hearing anything the guy was trying to tell him. It was mainly because of the attitude of the leader, not the attitude of the kid. He didn't listen at all to what the kid had to say about his actions and that closed the lines of communication. So I went over there after he was finished and just listened to the kid and once he was finished I told him what I thought about the situation and then asked him what he thought about my conclusion. Long story short the situation got resolved with no hurt feelings on any side. Leading is about dialogue and the same applies to following. The users need to open calm lines of communication during a heated debate or controversy.

I used to belong to a forum that had a very large LGBT community and whenever a new or old user came along with a different view on homosexuality they got torn to pieces. The LGBT user became just like the "ignorant" people they claimed they opposed. As a young gay male I felt uncomfortable with this because I know people who have some different views on homosexuality that oppose main stream gay rights positions and they are not evil or ignorant people. I felt like the forum posters were the ones that were ignorant because they villainized someone that had a mild opposing view. Now I am not saying that people that have radical views should be accepted wholesale. I am just talking about regular janes and joes like you and me having different opinions. We all live on the same hunk of rock, let's show some understanding of where someone else is coming from. You can't change someone's opinion on something by making them into a monster, you have to have patience and compassion.

It is important that the community comes together when talking about different issues instead of splitting off into different camps. I think that if this kind of behavior is heavily encouraged the dynamics of controversial topics will change as well.

[Auro-Cyanide]

I am unsure how to approach this. People are just that, people. We are all different, have different experiences and opinions, we can be stubborn and fiery, offenders and offendees. It is all well and good to say everyone should play nice, it is quite another to get humans to do that. What makes us unique and creative are the exact same things that make us head butt over issues. I doubt that it will ever change. This is actually one of the nicer places I have been (by a far stretch) and even here it can ignite into a ball of fire. It probably has a lot to do with the nature of the internet, so many different people in one place, where culture and demographic means nothing.

I agree that everyone should try to understand others experiences, and consider if someone else may be hurt by certain actions and comments. On the other hand I don't think people should worry about saying something for fear someone may accidently get hurt. We can try our best to understand, but it is never going to be omni-potent. The internet is overall an anonymous environment. We do not truly know the backgrounds of the people around us, nor do we have visual and verbal cues to help us understand. Something said entirely in jest may be taken the wrong way because of the lack of inflection or cultural difference. In this I think people should try to assume that someone was not trying to offend them. If they have an issue with a comment, then they can politely bring up their opposing view, while still respecting the other person's position. In most cases I am sure people are not trying to harm others. And responding harshly can turn a simple situation into a dangerous one.

I have already mentioned I am a strong believer in areas such as freedom or speech and belief. I don't think anyone should go out to harm others, but they shouldn't have to change their beliefs or hold their tongue all the time. You don't know what circumstances have lead them to think a certain way after all. And if you enjoy your freedom to believe what you believe, please allow others to have the same pleasure. You may disagree bitterly with what they believe in, but who are you to say otherwise?

'I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it' Right?

I like the idea of a 'Controversial' forum, but like we have seen, these things can pop up anywhere. Like I said, my feelings on this are... confused. Sometimes I feel it would be nice if people didn't take things so personally, and at the end of the day put it aside, but I know everyone has issues they have close to their heart and they will fight for them. I'm not sure what you can do about that. Not like you can change human nature without losing something that makes us us.

[papillon]

On the other hand I don't think people should worry about saying something for fear someone may accidently get hurt.

It is impossible to completely prevent accidental offense. However, it is possible to gracefully handle accidental offense after it happens.

That is, there are all sorts of things that you could say to someone that would be hurtful and you had no idea. You can't be expected to know everything in the world that might hurt someone ahead of time. However, you can be expected to recognise that you've offended someone if they've just told you that you have!

You may not agree with their reasoning. You may think they're being silly. You may think they're simply wrong and your view is factually supported and there's absolutely nothing wrong with it. But if you know you've offended someone, because they've just told you so, the polite thing to do is not to go on huge rants about how absolutely right you were to say what you did and how wrong they are to be offended. Or worse, the happy troll response of "That's not offensive! THIS is offensive!" and to promptly turn up the heat further.

Even if you're absolutely sure the person claiming offense is a troll and is making it up solely to cause dissent, what would you possibly achieve by yelling at them? If they honestly are trolls spoiling for a fight, you've just given them one.

Free speech does not mean it's okay to go around insulting people all the time. (And if you want an insulting environment - and some people do enjoy having forums where they flame each other constantly, although I don't think this is the right place for it - then you have to recognise that the people you're yelling at ARE going to call you some unpleasant names in response to your being blatantly rude. If you don't have to be polite, why do they?)

And responding harshly can turn a simple situation into a dangerous one.

Unfortunately some people judge even as simple a statement as "Please don't say that, that offends me" to be a harsh response.

[Auro-Cyanide]

It is impossible to completely prevent accidental offense. However, it is possible to gracefully handle accidental offense after it happens.

This is true. And it is probably best to apologise for manners sake. However I do not expect someone to feel they have to hide their opinion because they offended someone nor should they have to bend over backwards to make amends. I don't want to feel like I am walking on eggshells all the time, and I will never apologise for what I believe in. That would be a compromise of myself. I will do my best not to offend and my best not to be offended. That is the best I can do. I will not change who I am or stop saying what I think because of another person. That would just cause dead end debates, one sided stories and tense people. Of course I will always try and think about what I say so I don't say something really offensive, but it is a two way street. How many people who get offended stop to think of the position of the person who made the comment? Everyone usually has a reason for their point of view after all. The offended is not the only one who matters.

Unfortunately some people judge even as simple a statement as "Please don't say that, that offends me" to be a harsh response.

Yeah, bad retorts are dangerous all round. I have snapped at people for various reasons and have generally regretted it. I try to think about what I write before I post, especially when I am angry, but sometimes it gets the best of me ^^'
However, I would like to say that I don't think someone should necessarily stop saying something because it offends someone. Like I said, I don't think you should have to apologise for what you believe in. Sometimes it is best to say sorry anyway, but one person shouldn't dictate what you can and can't say on a public forum. People who come here should take on a certain responsibility to accept the beliefs of others, despite their own. We are a mixed bunch after all.

[Taleweaver]

To add some hopefully constructive ideas here, as a person who both admires the people who left for being superb game-makers and loves the Lemmasoft community:

I am a straight white male, the type the people who left the LSF called "privileged" in a few of their comments. What they mean is "privileged in comparison to marginalized minorities like homosexuals, people with physical disabilites and racial and social minorities". They are probably right in what they're saying even though I don't feel privileged at all in my 9-5 job which earns me just enough to pay the bills. I don't particularly like depictions of men having sexual intercourse, in fact, I do my best to avoid being confronted with men having sexual intercourse, whether in real life or in media such as movies, games or pictures, which is probably one of the possible definitions of "homophobic". So in calling me homophobic, these people are probably right.

However, as some sort of defense, I also strongly believe that people should be allowed to do whatever they want in their own private bedrooms, as long as everybody together with them in said bedrooms is of legal age for what he or she is doing and cool with whatever is being done. In fact, I'm very vocal in defending everybody's right to do in their bedrooms whatever they like. I don't mind men kissing in public or showing affection in public, and I greatly enjoyed playing the one specific game that was the cause of the entire Controversy, even though it included teens finding out they are homosexual and very much in love with one another. In other words, my homophobia has its limits.

My problem is being lumped into one single group with people who publicly denounce homosexuality as unnatural and repulsive. My problem is being lumped into one single group with people who scout the streets for homosexuals and try to beat them up for being gay. My problem is being lumped into one single group with Nazis demanding to kill disabled people in order to "clear the gene pool", with racists yearning to put the chains back on black people and with hatemongers and trolls all around the internet. I AM NOT ONE OF THESE ASSHOLES, and I get pretty defensive and upset when someone insists I belong into that group because "I am homophobic too".

I can only guess quite a few people here in the LSF feel the same and became defensive. Even though that's what those who eventually left probably didn't really mean to make them defensive.

This is, in my view, how the entire situation got out of hand.

Could it have been handled differently? Certainly - but it would have taken a common effort to clear the misunderstandings, especially in naming the problems. I believe that the first rule of any discussion - think before you speak up - should serve as a guideline of discussion here in this forum as well, and I'd like to ask everybody here to take it to heart. There will be more things to discuss in the future. I don't believe it's necessary that more people feel the need to leave.

[papillon]

My problem is being lumped into one single group

Funny thing about that, people in general don't appreciate being lumped into one single group and having folks say "All X do Y!"

It's awkward trying to address issues of behavior if you have to say "This is zibble - but not as zibble as the Big Mean Zibblers Who Kill People." every time you want to address something that's a little bit zibble.

The concept of privilege is a really complicated and tricky one that I'm not even going to try to really get into here, it took me a long time to come to my personal grasp on the subject and my version of it still differs from many people I know. Anyone posting on this forum has a huge amount of advantages over a large portion of the world's population - you have a computer, you have electricity, you probably have running water, and that's just for starts! That doesn't mean your life is super-easy and it certainly doesn't mean you're evil. It just means that you have some advantages that you probably take for granted because you've always had them.

However, I would like to say that I don't think someone should necessarily stop saying something because it offends someone. Like I said, I don't think you should have to apologise for what you believe in.

Sorry, but if you believe in stealing and eating your friend's kittens and go around encouraging other people to do the same, I do think you should have to apologise for it. It's difficult working out proper boundaries for what sorts of actions and beliefs truly are inappropriate even in a tolerant society. There have to be some ground rules, and usually those rules have to do with the effects of your actions and beliefs on people other than yourself.

[SusanTheCat]

Here is my two cents (Canadian):

I am PRO controversy board.

I don't mind when people make statements about themselves: "I like eating 3 kittens for breakfast." (On a personal level I wouldn't let my cats near them, but I am ok with them saying it. )

I don't mind if someone else makes a comment that reflects on them: "I am not comfortable watching other people eating kittens for breakfast."

I DO mind when people make attacks on others: "People who eat kittens are all stupid jerk faces."

My grey area comes from mixes: "I think that people who eat kittens should be all be imprisoned." It is their personal opinion, but it usually comes off as an attack.

Other grey area is the question: "Are people who eat kittens for breakfast likely to watch ballet?" This could be an attack, but could also be a genuine question so that the asker can portray kitten eaters correctly.

The two grey areas have to be dealt with carefully.

Please note that these are my opinions, not an attack on people who eat kittens.


Susan

[Aetheria]

Could it have been handled differently? Certainly - but it would have taken a common effort to clear the misunderstandings, especially in naming the problems. I believe that the first rule of any discussion - think before you speak up - should serve as a guideline of discussion here in this forum as well, and I'd like to ask everybody here to take it to heart.

I think this is really the heart of the solution. Especially on discussion forums where a thread of discussion doesn't necessarily stop when one of the parties metaphorically "leaves", the only really good way to defuse controversial arguments and prevent bad feelings is for both parties to make an effort to see both sides and give others the benefit of the doubt. Otherwise, even if one side leaves the thread, the other may continue to post attacks and cause conflict even when the original discussion is over - I've seen this in nearly every forum I've been a member of.

In this case, given that people often get too overheated to calm down before an argument gets out of hand, I thought that it would have been best to just lock the thread very early on. But in the long run, of course, it works a lot better if forum members are able to be levelheaded and respectful.

It's always easy to feel like you're the one who's persecuted, simply because you feel all the pain of insults and attacks directed at you, but you can't feel others' pain when the same thing happens to them. I have various controversial views that have gotten me flamed many, many times, combined with personality issues that make it very hard for me to take even constructive criticism. (As in, even Internet flames from total strangers can keep me up at night.) So I know sometimes it's hard to see past the hurt you're feeling, but the only way out is to push yourself to think about what other people are feeling, too.

[papillon]

See, that's why I ended up adjusting it to 'stealing other people's kittens to eat and encouraging other people to do it'.

If you eat kittens, you are affecting yourself and kittens. If you steal other people's kittens to eat, you're affecting kitten-owners. If you encourage people in general to steal and eat kittens, you're potentially affecting kitten-owners on a large scale.

Whether or not eating kittens is an acceptable thing to do is a difference of opinion, but taking someone else's kittens to eat them is infringing on someone else. Therefore, basic ground rules for tolerant behavior would not necessarily have to protect that particular behavior... Enh, but this is getting a bit weird twisty thought-experimenty.

[LateWhiteRabbit]

I also think a "Controversy" board would be a good idea.

You could make a sticky explaining that all potentially controversial ideas or threads should go there, and explain that the reason for the board is to allow such discussions to take place and foster intelligent discourse and debate. You should also make clear that the nature of such a board tends to encourage heated debates, but that its entire purpose is to avoid flame wars, and people should think carefully before making each post.

Such a board would need to be heavily moderated, even if just in an observational sense.

And this will sound weird, but I believe it would also be good for the mods to introduce a new "controversial topic" themselves, just one a month, to keep a constant discourse going on about such topics. If such topics are presented without the normal passion or anger as their start, it would allow "controlled burns" like is done to remove undergrowth and prevent forest fires from raging out of control when they happen. This would allow the community to get "practice" having controversial debates without someone who started the debate feeling on the line or having a huge personal stake in the discussion. A little friendly arguing on a monthly basis would serve to prevent tempers from being bottled and suddenly flaring up when a hot button is pushed.

If fact, now that I think about it, the mods could even start threads for community members anonymously if the member so wanted by PMing them. I think this other controversy might have been blunted a bit if no one had known who made the complaint. Of course, members would still be free to start threads on their own if they wished, but it would give people who might be too embarrassed about personally presenting a topic a chance to get a discussion going and then jump in.

If we did it right, such a board could quickly become one of the most intellectually interesting places on the forum.

And the entire forum could benefit from a re-mixing - adding the mentioned "Advanced Game Making Topics" and "Beginner Game Making Topics".