I love how you showed up within less than 1 minute of me posting that.

It is true, nothing has spread to the sub-forums, if anyone insulted another person there it would take months before the insulted person would notice :D

But as you say, these forums are not *un-moderated*, it's just not hands-on. It's reactive, instead of a moderator scanning every thread looking for something to ban, block, edit, etc. we moderate ourselves by using the "report spam" function and downvoting.

I don't know, I'm just not convinced. That's all. .. cheers!

Well, since I didn't know any of the details of that, it's a bit hard to comment, but isn't this thread supposed to be talking about improvement of GOG? And, anyway, if it's known that an account has been transferred, as you apparently do, it should be no problem for a database administrator to reset the rep to 0.

Otherwise, if we simply assume that everything is going to continue as before, then what's the point of this thread? :-)

EDIT: Was typing response as you were editing yours. :-)

Let's start over ;)

Your suggestion: post 93
One thing that did cross my mind, given possible rep abuse, is that maybe forum members shouldn't be able to down-vote posts until they've actually gained a fair standing in the community -- what level that is, I don't really know, but from what I can tell, it might well prevent newly-created users, or alts, from starting de-repping vendettas.

Zeogolds response:
That's...not a bad idea. I'd extend it to a limit on the ability to use rep at all, though. If positive rep were allowed for new accounts, in theory, someone could boost the rep of the alt accounts until they have the ability to downvote, then use those accounts to go right back to downvoting.

Bold what we see as a possible problem/abuse there.

And just on top of it (my point)
What about accounts acquired to abuse your idea?

Again not saying bad idea! Just doing some brain-storming ;)

Can we always prevent abuse? The three main problems for this are people already mentioned as well as scammers. The main reason for high rep would be scamming, right? And in your case downvoting others.

As Zeogold pointed out there can always be found ways for them to bypass, but WE (goggers) can try to work against. Playing devils advocate here ;)
Imagine they would succeed to push all of us below this level, we could not prevent anything anymore.
Also, me thinks, that would create a feeling of distrust/anger/how-ever you want to call it between newcomers and community. I mean, don't forget how many people are complaining about how we here at GOG are treated as second class citizens. ;) Now you want to do the same to new users?

Again, not saying that your idea is bad, but I think like this would cause bad blood ;)

S: I forgotten to include your last post ;)
PPS: I know editing and replying can be a hassle ;)

EDIT: finished, me thinks ;)

My idea, which I mentioned some time ago, is that normal users should not be able to decrease the rep of other users; that capability should be reserved for blues, and only be used when someone's post actually violates the rules. I think this is the only way to stop downrep abuse without throwing out rep entirely.

That's working off the assumption that the downvote button is reserved solely for annoying/abusive posts, which isn't necessarily true. It could be used as a means of "I disagree" depending on how you look at it.
Plus, it still doesn't solve the issue of accounts pumping their rep up in an attempt to look good or something. We had swatkat to show us how THAT could go wrong.

It is exactly what I oppose.

Because hate speech, racist propaganda, takes place on the perpetrators' side of the frontier (no matter its nature), in the absence of the designated victims. I don't know how to make you realise this. If I set up a large forum, and it gets flooded by creeps who rant all day about how the redhairs deserve to be eradicated (maybe not that explicitely, maybe just by politely hammering how all the redhairs are subhumans, how they are criminals, how "science" proves their flaws, etc), the issue is not whether there is a redhair in the forum. The issue is the attempt to convince people (through the ever powerful path-of-least-resistance chain of reasoning which defines demagogy) that redhairs should be loathed, feared, hated. The real outcome is outside the forum. In votes, policies, everyday attitudes.

What can I say. You're a self-proclaimed christian, then imagine a trend of anti-christian hate speech, blossoming on some website, populated only by people who don't identify themselves as christians. Imagine the forumers encouraging each others, emulating each others, "heating up" each others, against christians. In front of them, powerless decent people whose too boring and complicated arguments operate at the wrong level ("hey, christianity is diverse, hey, christianity evolves a lot, and had lots of different historical moments, hey, there are a lot of christians who disagree with the christians you bring up as terrible exemples" "- shut you PC SJW christian-lover, this yt video is totally badass"). And decent owners of the place. What would be the weight of "hey you are not a christian yourself, so stop complaining about our propaganda", in front of a decision to just forbid this propaganda ? Not to mention the basic issue of christians who'd just be there, shutting up, or who would like to use that place for various matters, and would be driven away by this assholery - instead of deciding to file a complain to the admins. These are not even the issue.

What about friends of christians, who have to stomach this bullshit. How about simply knowledgable people, fed up by the worldwide history of hate speech and hateful essentialist constructions ?

The GOG forum, for instance, has seen -and sees- absolutely insane fantasmatic rants against refugees. Pure hate speech. Pure xenophobic propaganda. Absolutely inane anti-asylum shit. That people believe, because reality is boring, cumbersome, and because this shit is exactly the legitimation they seek to feel okay with their own assholery, for their racist votes, for the destruction of the very notion of international protection. But is it just fine unless a refugee stumbles upon the GOG forums ? That is the criterion ?

There is a reason why most sites have rules against hate speech (or, again, to take more easy exemples, why islamist propaganda or pedophilia apology is taken down throughout the internet). And this reason is not solely the comfort of a potentially present target (upon which would rest the responsability to openly protest). The reason is a global responsability in front of hateful propaganda. Whatever its support. Because its target, its goals, its consequences reside away from that support.

So, you can go back to say "who are you to claim that racism is not good" if you want. But saying that this forum is currently self-moderated is false, and saying that hate speech only concerns a target reading about it is wrong. The problem is way more difficult than that.

__
Edit: Additional random contexts.
KKK meetings are bad even with no black people present. Greek/Turkish websites ranting about "hereditary enemies" and re-framing history for better victimization are bad, because they fuel the hatred that prevented any appeasement, not because a turk/greek could stmble there. Anti-jew or anti-tutsi propaganda in early stages of genocides were bad because they anchored in people's mind the "this group is evil" common sense, and not because they could offend a member of that group. Anti-native rhetorics in ethnocidary situations is bad even if the natives don't speak/read its language. You can find numerous exemples illustrating why "a witness from said group" is not required to denounce -and oppose- a discourse and its toxicity. And why it is usually not a criterion for regulations against it.

No problem, I just recapped to avoid misunderstanding ;)
Don't make me envy you!!! haven't got any beer around ;)

For sure we will not be able to solve all problems :( I am having problem myself to see which is the best way forward. getting rid off downvoting, which would as zeogold expressed remove the possibility to express a disagree function, only leave positive counting? leaves scamming problems (although if reported scammers would be banned, they would have to start over).
But even then, today a German user was scammed with a trade (he failed to check prior as he didn't know a few things/unaware off and try to trade with a newbee/scammer)
I do think that this transferred account was a one timer.

As I said, I am not all the way against the idea ;)

Perhaps we should clarify something here.
What are you defining as "racism" or "hate speech"? Is it just holding the belief that X has Y condition, or is the actual act of mockery/insult? If the former, whoever holds such a belief is perfectly entitled to it. If it's the latter, then yeah, it's a problem. There's a difference between "Doesn't Islam allow pedophilia?" to "lol look at dem child rapists nuke 'em prez Trump".
I do understand your point, though. What you're trying to do is prevent this place from becoming...well, pretty much the rest of the internet. I mean...
There's 4chan.
There's FunnyJunk.
There's 9gag.
And there's Tumblr.

I completely agree with you that we should avoid turning the forum into any of this. I get it. I really do. The only question I'm asking here is from where do you draw your criteria? Again, who determines what's fine and what isn't? Do we let dtgreene get somebody banned because they called her "dude"? Do I get tinyE banned because he mocks Christianity? Do we ban people because they express pro-Trump opinions?
I'm not asking this in a rhetorical way; I really am curious as to what you propose we set in place as the standard.



These types of people would be where I draw the line, since they promote violence against these particular groups (again, I do understand what you're getting at though, that stirring up these kind of thoughts is what breeds violence).

And how do you define hate speech? This is such a gray area that it sickens me to think people want thought police telling them what they can and can't say. It's a private forum, so forget about the right of free speech. I get that. If the higher ups want to moderate, we play by their rules or we go away. But given the option? I'd rather entertain the "hate speech" because people want to throw the baby out with the bath water these days; almost any though that disagrees with a snowflake's particular taste can be (and often is by at least one person or another) categorized as hate speech. For instance, I dislike a lot of the gay/trans/gender propaganda posts being pushed out. If I say I don't like that opinion, even civilly, I get labeled and bullied by others (particularly our resident LGBTQ self appointed representative) as hateful, or homophobic, transphobic or whatnot.

I don't dislike this person. In fact, when he (she? I've never actually asked because here it doesn't matter) isn't spouting off trying to police others' opinions s/he is exceptionally pleasant to talk to and has some really interesting ideas about RPGs. But his/her opinions about what constitutes hate speech (and believe me, this person will fill the inbox of a moderator based on these ideas alone to the point of being a nuisance) would basically be to silence everyone who doesn't wholeheartedly embrace his/her ideas.

I would prefer less moderation if it's an option simply because it gels with the idea of DRM free. Free games, Free Beer and Free Speech. They just go together.

If you think this post is about you and take exception to what I've said, please contact me and we can discuss it civilly and privately.
EDIT: Ninja'd by Zeogold

Those are pretty much the two biggest polar opposites we have in this forum:
On one side of the coin, there's dgreene, who's extremely liberal and for some reason can't help herself but shoehorn LGBT or gender issues into most topics (I believe I know why she does this now, but I'm not about to derail the thread into discussing it), and is so uber-sensitive to even the most innocuous of things that, if she ran the place, would turn this forum into a complete lockdown where very few people have the right to say what they want.
On the other side of the coin, we get Bradley, who's spouting some form of hate speech or other 90% of the time. He hates all sorts of groups and openly wishes them all to perish. And if he's not going on about that, he's talking about something illegal or at least universally recognized as immoral (piracy, going after underaged women, going after married women). If he had control, he'd let anything and anyone run free no matter how nasty and bigoted, and this place would quickly become the next 4chan.

The key is finding a balance between those two in some bizarre yin-yang sorta way.

If you don't mind, please do it in the open. As I found both proposition/ideas do have valid points in it. If you do it behind closed doors, others like me, will not see both sides of the medal.

Or just short: brainstorming ;)

If you insist.
*throws chair at Goodalt, overturns a table, and begins breaking bottles*

I was trying to keep names out of it. :P