Regarding "The Controversy"
Posted: Tue Apr 12, 2011 4:28 pm
As some of you may know, there was a controversial incident here on the forum recently. My purpose here is not to rehash the details and stir things up again, but rather to respond to some things I've been seeing online, via message/email, and to try to heal things up a bit:
1) First and foremost, I should have locked or deleted the posts in question before they blew up like a barrel of dynamite. Some issues are such powder kegs that they probably shouldn't be discussed by a hugely culturally diverse group online where misunderstandings are easy, feelings are raw, and people are inclined to expect worse from each other than they would in person (Yahoo comment boards come to mind as a prime example.) Unfortunately, I did not see the posts in time. In any case, we generally lean towards letting all parties express themselves and locking threads if it's clear there is no more room for constructive discussion, rather than handing down bans and deleting posts. This inclination will probably change.
2) That said, and in spirit of that change, I deleted the two threads in question because they were only serving to drastically polarize the community and its visitors. Not because we're trying to hide something. If someone wants a copy for their own information, feel free to contact me (I'll need to extract it from a database backup first.) Maybe someone else has a copy somewhere, too (but please for the sake of all parties involved, make sure you're getting the complete unaltered thread(s).) If you feel the need to delve back into it on your own, you should make up your mind based on the complete threads, as anything else would be unfair to the posters. However, I quite honestly suggest you don't review this mess because it's just a hotbed of polarization and bad feelings. I do understand human curiosity and the desire to learn from the past, though.
2) The LSF community is overall very accepting of all kinds of people and all kinds of characters in games. It has for many years positively received games with just about any race or orientation you could imagine. Don't listen to me or anyone else about that, though. Please browse the forums and decide for yourself. Don't let anyone make up your mind for you.
3) Yes, like any community (especially one with over 100,000 posts), there is the occasional troll or jerk. Mods can't keep track of every single post, and sometimes things will slip through the cracks.
4) The "twelve hour rule" on a thread in question: I cannot speak for PyTom, but knowing him, I am pretty sure this was an attempt to force people to take time to cool down a bit and not just have an explosive back-and-forth several-hundred post argument/flame war.
There is enough hate, polarization, and general crap out there in the world, and I and the other mods try to make this a place where people can express themselves but slanted in a positive manner. Sometimes we get caught in the middle of controversial issues, personal conflicts, misunderstandings... You name it. It's not always pretty. Sometimes we make mistakes, sometimes we don't, and sometimes people think we did. Sometimes one person is hurt because he/she wants one thing, sometimes another is because he/she wanted something else... Passions flare, accusations fly, etc. (Ah, joys of the internet
)
But we do this to promote VNs of all kinds, and it is at our own expense of money and/or time. Trying to stamp out spammers, paying for webhosting, and having to try to referee conflicts between people we often don't even really know isn't the most thankful job in the world, and it sure isn't a paying one. Even so, I dropped the ball on this one, and I apologize to the community and its visitors for that. I also apologize for the hurt feelings that arose from my failure as a moderator. I am personally given to seeing conflicts as misunderstandings, often expect the best from people, and support people dropping issues as such. But things aren't always that simple, the hurt on one side was more than I imagined, and that is a lesson I will carry with me.
As a plea for healing and compassion, I ask people to not harass the people involved with the threads. I don't want to name names (if you've been following the incident you will know who I'm talking about, and I don't want to encourage anyone else extra to get dragged in) but one is a great VN-author who just wants to express herself with intriguing stories, one just wants to make a business selling VNs that feature diverse characters, and one is a talented artist. To people on all ends, please drop the bad feelings. I'm sure we have more in common than we imagine
As a final note, I've been seeing PyTom taking some heat on certain parts of the internet. I don't know exactly what he said/did, and again, I'm not interested in rehashing things and opening up wounds. All I can say is that I have known him for years, and he is a good person. He helps everyone who asks for it, he tries to be fair, and he gives of himself for no financial gain. He's definitely libertarian-leaning (I'm more liberal, so we have, uh, "debates" all the time
) and is a staunch believer in free speech, whatever the views of the speaker. If he was in line with someone and they were being bullied for something, though, he would be among the first to stop it. (And he's an imposing dude, so it would stop 
) Like the forum, I would ask those unfamiliar with him to interact with and get to know him before making up their minds.
[edit - This needs to be said, as it's unfortunately buried on some other page of this thread: It seems someone was posing as PyTom on another blog and attacking people with slurs. This is the internet, people. Please don't automatically believe everything is coming from who they claim to be. Especially when the trolls have obviously gotten into gear. And that is why I stuck up for PyTom and continue to do so, even though some interpret that as not caring about racism. Loyalty and facts are important in life, and we shouldn't berate or demonize friends based on allegations without knowing the whole story.]
So I guess that's all... Go forth and make and play some cool games
1) First and foremost, I should have locked or deleted the posts in question before they blew up like a barrel of dynamite. Some issues are such powder kegs that they probably shouldn't be discussed by a hugely culturally diverse group online where misunderstandings are easy, feelings are raw, and people are inclined to expect worse from each other than they would in person (Yahoo comment boards come to mind as a prime example.) Unfortunately, I did not see the posts in time. In any case, we generally lean towards letting all parties express themselves and locking threads if it's clear there is no more room for constructive discussion, rather than handing down bans and deleting posts. This inclination will probably change.
2) That said, and in spirit of that change, I deleted the two threads in question because they were only serving to drastically polarize the community and its visitors. Not because we're trying to hide something. If someone wants a copy for their own information, feel free to contact me (I'll need to extract it from a database backup first.) Maybe someone else has a copy somewhere, too (but please for the sake of all parties involved, make sure you're getting the complete unaltered thread(s).) If you feel the need to delve back into it on your own, you should make up your mind based on the complete threads, as anything else would be unfair to the posters. However, I quite honestly suggest you don't review this mess because it's just a hotbed of polarization and bad feelings. I do understand human curiosity and the desire to learn from the past, though.
2) The LSF community is overall very accepting of all kinds of people and all kinds of characters in games. It has for many years positively received games with just about any race or orientation you could imagine. Don't listen to me or anyone else about that, though. Please browse the forums and decide for yourself. Don't let anyone make up your mind for you.
3) Yes, like any community (especially one with over 100,000 posts), there is the occasional troll or jerk. Mods can't keep track of every single post, and sometimes things will slip through the cracks.
4) The "twelve hour rule" on a thread in question: I cannot speak for PyTom, but knowing him, I am pretty sure this was an attempt to force people to take time to cool down a bit and not just have an explosive back-and-forth several-hundred post argument/flame war.
There is enough hate, polarization, and general crap out there in the world, and I and the other mods try to make this a place where people can express themselves but slanted in a positive manner. Sometimes we get caught in the middle of controversial issues, personal conflicts, misunderstandings... You name it. It's not always pretty. Sometimes we make mistakes, sometimes we don't, and sometimes people think we did. Sometimes one person is hurt because he/she wants one thing, sometimes another is because he/she wanted something else... Passions flare, accusations fly, etc. (Ah, joys of the internet
) But we do this to promote VNs of all kinds, and it is at our own expense of money and/or time. Trying to stamp out spammers, paying for webhosting, and having to try to referee conflicts between people we often don't even really know isn't the most thankful job in the world, and it sure isn't a paying one. Even so, I dropped the ball on this one, and I apologize to the community and its visitors for that. I also apologize for the hurt feelings that arose from my failure as a moderator. I am personally given to seeing conflicts as misunderstandings, often expect the best from people, and support people dropping issues as such. But things aren't always that simple, the hurt on one side was more than I imagined, and that is a lesson I will carry with me.
As a plea for healing and compassion, I ask people to not harass the people involved with the threads. I don't want to name names (if you've been following the incident you will know who I'm talking about, and I don't want to encourage anyone else extra to get dragged in) but one is a great VN-author who just wants to express herself with intriguing stories, one just wants to make a business selling VNs that feature diverse characters, and one is a talented artist. To people on all ends, please drop the bad feelings. I'm sure we have more in common than we imagine
As a final note, I've been seeing PyTom taking some heat on certain parts of the internet. I don't know exactly what he said/did, and again, I'm not interested in rehashing things and opening up wounds. All I can say is that I have known him for years, and he is a good person. He helps everyone who asks for it, he tries to be fair, and he gives of himself for no financial gain. He's definitely libertarian-leaning (I'm more liberal, so we have, uh, "debates" all the time
) and is a staunch believer in free speech, whatever the views of the speaker. If he was in line with someone and they were being bullied for something, though, he would be among the first to stop it. (And he's an imposing dude, so it would stop ) Like the forum, I would ask those unfamiliar with him to interact with and get to know him before making up their minds. [edit - This needs to be said, as it's unfortunately buried on some other page of this thread: It seems someone was posing as PyTom on another blog and attacking people with slurs. This is the internet, people. Please don't automatically believe everything is coming from who they claim to be. Especially when the trolls have obviously gotten into gear. And that is why I stuck up for PyTom and continue to do so, even though some interpret that as not caring about racism. Loyalty and facts are important in life, and we shouldn't berate or demonize friends based on allegations without knowing the whole story.]
So I guess that's all... Go forth and make and play some cool games
