Is no one else worried by the dangerous precedent being set by the moderation team?

[mrthejoshmon]

You know what the worst part is, my thirst for eldritch knowledge dictates I seek out and see what this ghoulish thing is despite having no passing interest in it what so ever due to the extreme reaction it got, it's like Root Pain all over again.

 

Because the original thread was purged I must now actually go out my way to locate and gawk at this for like 5 minutes before going "that's fucked up" and leaving it.

 

I don't like the whole purging thing, if people are to learn they require examples of what and what not to do, I'm also probably saying that because I like observing a good shitshow and if it's got something horrific to scar myself with that is a bonus.

 

Edit: I expected worse but instead got some cringe instead, I was expecting some messed up turbo gnarly gore but instead I got angsty fanfic text and a crucified 3d model of Lara Croft.

 

The most painful thing is probably the thought that he was jacking off when he wrote that.

Edited June 29, 2020 by mrthejoshmon

[Gez]

 

"What a worrying precedent, punching your GM is absolutely uncalled for"

[SuperCupcakeTactics]

 

1 hour ago, plums said:

"I don't have a problem with the content being discussed, so obviously everyone else that does is overly sensitive or just delusional."

 

Come on man. It's not some stupid bit with Lara Croft in a map that's the problem, it's that the guy who did it has done a similar thing several times, and will probably keep doing it, in a way that seems to advocate violence against women. Maybe he's just doing that to be "funny"/edgy, maybe he's just frustrated that he sucks at Tomb Raider, I don't know. But whatever his reasons, making repeated posts with that kind of content wouldn't and shouldn't be tolerated on these forums, and so posting about wads with that content shouldn't be either.

Yes I read about that but I still found the situation ridiculous enough to say such a cheeky thing. It's too bad I can't like my own post! To me a reminder that life exists outside of the digital world is always welcome. I understand and respect the right of this website to moderate the content hosted. Also please do not put words in my mouth I don't appreciate that. I do appreciate the rest of your reply though!

 

1 hour ago, Doomkid said:

Wait til these guys find out there's already been like a million fucking wads that were banned from various places for offensive content. Wads with racist shit, wads with gore that's "too far" even for a Doom mod (sometimes real photos of people who have been shot), wads created by murderers or school shooters, etc etc. This isn't some "new precedent", it's been known forever. Some Doom sites don't host certain content. You can almost certainly find places that will, and no one is going to raid your DropBox or MediaFire account, so host your stuff wherever and however you can, but don't get pissy when certain sites say "Nah, we're not gonna have that". The whole angle that this is some new phenomenon is hilarious.

 

Not saying you meant to include me with 'guys' but with this mod Ascension I just find it disappointing things had to be this way. Also reminder that Ghouls Forest III has those spooky shock images, heh (I don't mean anything by this I'm just saying).

 

1 hour ago, Doomkid said:

Also, I know vertigo and he's a top bloke. I spent years over at DoomerBoards - most of it spent arguing with idiotic takes, sure - but the point is that someone shouldn't be auto-blacklisted for merely visiting a site, it should be completely and wholly determined by their posting, their attitudes and the content of their character, and it's on those bases that I call vertigo a friend.

 

Thank you for saying this. Vertigo is indeed a cool dude.

[whirledtsar]

Well somebody had to take up the mantle of wanting to censor Doom from Christian fundamentalists.

[mrthejoshmon]

11 minutes ago, whirledtsar said:

Well somebody had to take up the mantle of wanting to censor Doom from Christian fundamentalists.

It's less about that and more about saying how they're sick of the literal torture porn being placed inside everything this fellow makes.

 

I imagine they'd do the same if someone kept hiding scat in their wads.

[Doomkid]

No one needed to “take up the mantle” tho. Gamers.org, doomworld, ZDoom, ZDaemon, Zandronum/Skulltag, The Sentinel’s Playground, GeoCities, NewDoom and probably like 100 other less popular places that either are or were massive hubs for Doom wads have been disallowing content they deemed unfit to host and this has been the way it’s gone since the mid 1990’s. A vague, basic knowledge of the community’s history makes this faux-outrage even more silly. I can think of at least 5 mods (that I won’t name for obvious reasons) that have been dealt with in this exact way since I became a community regular. In fact there’s multiple “genres” (for lack of a better word) that are flat out banned from the places I listed - well, the ones that still exist, anyway.

 

The idea that this is some Nu Wave of Doom wad censorship is simply dumb on the face of it. It has been operating like this literally for decades now. They aren’t banned from the entire internet or some shit, and if there was talk of some legislative move to prevent art like this from being distributed, aka what the 90's Christians wanted for Doom, I would absolutely be against it.. but that just isn't the case here. The comparison is laughable, really.

 

Even the banned mods I’m thinking of from the 90’s are backed up and available in droves on other sites. The complaints are, whether or not people acknowledge this, not about being "censored" - since, as we've established, no governing body is trying to "destroy" the art or prevent it from being distributed. This is more about not being permitted to inflict your work on others who have no interest in it (to paraphrase Zappa). Those are two very different things.

 

Now that this little history lesson is cleared up, we can all cool it with the pearl-clutching over the death of art in the community, because it’s a load of baloney. Everything is going to be okay.

Edited June 29, 2020 by Doomkid

[Lynn]

5 hours ago, Linguica said:

As the admin I guess I better respond. I gave Not Jabba permission to mod the thread at his discretion and I have left it alone. I can't offer my opinion on the content at issue directly, because I haven't played any of the WADs in question or seen the easter eggs, but I was convinced that the primary concern is with the pattern of behavior across multiple WADs and not with the specific, particular content in this latest WAD. It's a difficult question to ask what to do about a pattern of behavior that is not in forum posts directly but is exhibited in a series of WADs promoted in forum posts. Not Jabba made a convincing argument to me that it was worth addressing in this instance because to do otherwise would be to effectively vindicate an ongoing trend.

 

I assure you I have no desire to act as a censoring authority over Doom WADs. That said this is still an online social media community where I don't want to tolerate antisocial behavior, and it's not appropriate to ignore behavior just because it's being hidden inside WADs.

 

Thank you for your answer. This offers a much better perspective on what happened and I'm glad these actions were taken with your consent.

 

I would like to clarify once again for those whom did not read my initial post it had nothing to do with the problematic content in Ascension, but the odd moderation actions being carried out in the thread at the time.

 

As far as I'm concerned all has been answered by Linguica.

 

 

[Nine Inch Heels]

10 minutes ago, mrthejoshmon said:

I imagine they'd do the same if someone kept hiding scat in their wads

Does this count?

 

[loveless]

i often worry about the policing of creative works in the name of "morality" or whatever those purveyors of personal righteousness want to call it.

[Gez]

28 minutes ago, loveless said:

i often worry about the policing of creative works in the name of "morality" or whatever those purveyors of personal righteousness want to call it.

There's no room on Earth for rolleyes big enough.

 

[loveless]

@Gez  i can choose to consume or not consume any media out there as an autonomous being.  what right do i have to impose restrictions upon others?  can you stand on your own two or do you need more image macros to express yourself?

[Gez]

Can you be more of a drama queen about it?

[Graf Zahl]

Why is it that everybody considers the internet a place without rules where they can do as they see fit, screw the laws or just common Human decency?

While this may just be a minor and ultimately inconsequential issue it is a worrying trend that some people just utterly refuse to accept community rules.

 

 

[loveless]

@Gez
says the one who started by rolling their eyes, unable to respond and pisses non-content. engage in good faith or sit down.

[Gez]

There is zero good faith about calling what happened here a "policing of creative works in the name of "morality"" by "purveyors of personal righteousness".

 

Feel free to add some impassioned rant about first amendment and book burning while you're at it.

[Jello]

Freedom of speech and freedom from censorship doesn't apply when you're posting on a forum that's being paid for on someone else's dime. Ling pays for this forum, and he's appointed moderators to keep it civil. If they decide something doesn't belong here, they're well within their rights to lock the thread. I see no problem with locking a thread that involved torture porn. They didn't want it here, they got rid of it. There's plenty of places on the internet where that could be posted, but I understand why they didn't want it on Doomworld. And ultimately we're just wasting Linguica's money by posting on here, and I'm grateful that he's kept the site going for so long. However he wants it run, that's how it's going to run, and the mods have always done a pretty damn good job at keeping the forums civil.

[Phobus]

My bigger concern with how both that thread and this thread went is that, if anybody who is also registered on Doomer Boards chimes in on a thread here where there's some controversy, the moderators seem to immediately assume their being registered on DB has something to do with their post or opinion (and it's immediately mentioned). We're not some anti-doominati hive mind working like some sort of alt-right bot net or whatever! For the majority of us (he says, speaking for a collective, immediately undermining his own point), it's essentially a high-output mapping team, that happens to have roots on a forum that has some long-standing members with ridiculous views on politics and tends to draw people that are banned from here.

[seed]

7 hours ago, Edward850 said:

I'm not sure how you aren't able to see the massive problems with a user repeatedly making very absurd torture porn content of women and hiding it in maps over and over again. That's why the wad was moderated. No more, no less.

 

The one and only answer for the subject at hand honestly.

 

That topic went the way it did because of its controversial context, and also because it was nowhere near the first time one of the users have included something that can be interpreted as "torture porn", or fetishizing torture - according to old timers they actually have a history for doing this.

 

So the answer is quite simple really, the moderators decided to step in because of the nature of the content that was hidden within it, as they do not feel comfortable with allowing its distribution on DW in its current form. Unless changes are made, it will likely stay that way. Nothing more, and nothing less. Also nothing personal at hand either.

[loveless]

really? gonna stoop to book burning comments? I'm leaving my own personal feelings out of it, not my wad or my creation.  look, if you want to over simplify an argument, go for it. I just wanted to chime in without expressing my own personal disgust regarding the content. this isn't about me or about inserting a sense of moral superiority.

[xdarkmasterx]

I'd just like to ask something: If this were about a male character (say, Caleb from Blood, or Gordon Freeman) would we be having this discussion at all, even if he admitted he were a gay torture fetishist?

[seed]

8 minutes ago, xdarkmasterx said:

I'd just like to ask something: If this were about a male character (say, Caleb from Blood, or Gordon Freeman) would we be having this discussion at all, even if he admitted he were a gay torture fetishist?

 

Short answer would be "yes", I'm pretty sure.

[Gez]

Probably. Why would it be different? It's not about the presence of macabre elements, that's been a part of Doom's theming since the start and no one here objects to it. It's about the context of it. All the stuff that makes it clear that this tortured body is not just hell scenery like all the other random tortured bodies out there.

[xdarkmasterx]

Well, I hope you're right ;)

[dr_st]

I went through Google's cache to see the removed posts and what the fuss was about. It immediately became obvious that the easter egg in question which triggered the whole mess, in itself, is very benign. None of the eye-rollers would have cared, for instance, if Lara Croft had been replaced with, say, Indiana Jones. And probably, if it had been a single event, none (except, perhaps, the very indoctrinated ones, who are trained to see "targeted groups" in everything) would have cared about Lara Croft being there either.

 

It is clearly the fact that Shadowman doing this kind of thing over and over, that made people (who are aware of his work) see this as part of a pattern, with underlying "creepy causes", for lack of a better word. And I guess some, including Not Jabba, felt, that this is pushing it one step too far - i.e., the straw that broke the camel's back.

 

In some way - it reminds me of that discussion we had here some time ago - the inherent difficulty of separating the art from the artist. It may be difficult to appreciate art when you find some of the artist's beliefs/opinions immoral/disgraceful; it is doubly so when these beliefs are actually reflected in the art.

 

I can understand that what triggered some folks here is specifically Not Jabba's request to "change the mod / remove the content", as a condition for promoting the work here. That does come across as "policing creative works" (you may roll your eyes at me as you wish), and it once again shifted focus from the pattern to the specific easter egg, which as I said, is quite benign. Not Jabba explained the rationale behind it, although personally, I think that it would have been better to just say "Sorry, we've had enough of Shadowman's stuff here, and we don't want to have it anymore", and leave it at that. Exactly the same meaning, slightly different wording, but would get folks less ticked off. Maybe.

[Cruduxy Pegg]

Yeah I hate when sex meddles with my forum experience.

 

Spoiler

Proceeds to cover eyes whenever an impse-esque \ totally not hentai anime avatars pop up

Disclaimer : I have no idea what the fuck was in the wad

Edited June 29, 2020 by Pegg

[⇛Marnetmar⇛]

I don't think that thread was handled very well.

 

That said, people with established patterns of creepy behavior thrive on plausible deniability which makes actually addressing the issue at any point incredibly messy. I don't imagine Jabba has the time to sit and meditate for three hours on what the perfect no-collateral-damage moderator response would be in that situation.

Edited June 29, 2020 by Marn

[seed]

1 hour ago, dr_st said:

None of the eye-rollers would have cared, for instance, if Lara Croft had been replaced with, say, Indiana Jones. And probably, if it had been a single event, none (except, perhaps, the very indoctrinated ones, who are trained to see "targeted groups" in everything) would have cared about Lara Croft being there either.

 

Uh, no, sorry, if it was a different character I'm rather sure the reaction would've been the same, even if it was an unnamed one. Context is everything in this drama.

 

I know mine would anyway, particularly when there's already more than one instance of this happening. At that point it's a pattern and the person is question is consciously doing it on purpose for whatever reason they might have, rather than a bad taste, edgy joke that was made once.

 

BTW to clear off the air, I have no personal issue with Shadowman - I didn't even know him -, nor am I seeking to dogpile on him/antagonize him. Those are just my 2 cents on the matter at hand.

[dr_st]

@seed

There are two different statements of mine that you quoted, and I'm not sure which one you're replying to. Indiana Jones is a man. It would be hard to claim that a tortured Indiana Jones proves a pattern of a creator's sick fetish with torturing women. With the second statement "if it had been a single event" I suggest that the reaction would have been different if there was not a pre-established pattern.

[seed]

7 minutes ago, dr_st said:

@seed

There are two different statements of mine that you quoted, and I'm not sure which one you're replying to. Indiana Jones is a man. It would be hard to claim that a tortured Indiana Jones proves a pattern of a creator's sick fetish with torturing women.

 

Well in that case it would've been just indiscriminate torture porn I guess.

 

When I said that I was thinking along the lines of "what if the characters would be male instead? Or both male and female? Or none? Would it be different? And how?"

 

7 minutes ago, dr_st said:

With the second statement "if it had been a single event" I suggest that the reaction would have been different if there was not a pre-established pattern.

 

And it probably would, wouldn't it?

 

Doing it once is easier to overlook depending on context and intention, but doing it repeatedly and deliberately implies a commitment to it and a conscious decision, where eventually people would just get completely fed up with it and go "You know what, not on my watch. Not anymore."

[Jayextee]

I can't be bothered reading the many replies to this topic when IMO there's only one plausible answer to the question posed in the topic's title field: "Is no one else worried by the dangerous precedent being set by the moderation team?"

 

Well, by rights its their forum and they can do what they damn well want. (Technically Linguica's, but he sees fit to entrust moderation duties to whomever he chooses, so... point remains)

If you want to see the kind of thing being censored moderated from here, I'm sure there are other place. Internet's big. Not here though. Not in this house.