Don't worry about it. I already know who I agree with and who I don't.
No reputation system is needed.
In fact I'd say it's a stupid system that needs to be done away with.

In my opinion (not only) it's happening because downvoted posts are hidden for new users by default (it's in settings).

Seems made on purpose. This ways many users will miss any critisims of political activists and of GOG itself completely.
You can't delete your own profile picture or data yourself.. but this setting exist. One of a few.. at all.
Some moderators itself here seems to be very political. People that have time for that tend to be that way - ideological activists (and very "far-left" leaning).
That is why they are often moderators through all internet. Normal people don't have time for that and use common sense and experiences instead.

But in this case GOG created tools that allowed complete control of their opposition and to hide it from new users, if it doesn't get removed directly. I saw disappearing posts that didn't break any rules (but talked about issues here - even in a way I didn't agree with) after I refreshed a site many times.

How much is made/done by GOG staff itself is a question. They got very political themselves (and not in general sense, but taking a stance).
Recently, they didn't even mention Christmas or Western New Year, but made a huge sale/celebration for a Chinese (Lunar) New Year and have "lots" of new anime users (and moderators) celebrating that by being active in threads or praising GOG and getting "high rated" in bulks (as in certain time frame), unless all thread is downvoted. They are closing bumped up threads unless they are about anime and similiar stuff, even if they are warned (and those allowed anime and such necro bumped threads are much older - like from 2012). This also allows certain political people having of more public discussions. For example, anime people tend to be very left and very political (most of them by my own experience). If there are more conservative people that love anime, they don't stick it/force it into faces of others anyway and don't want it here probably. I even had user here admitting he has an agenda to be active on forums to promote that, despite of the rules of forum like being active in necro threads. While GOG staff (blue) checked the thread (one specific one I know about) and left it open while closing everything else.

I am trying to find the setting again (to say where it is), but don't see now... Maybe they removed it now, because we talked about it in the boycott thread and made it known. Also I sent an e-mail few days ago to the GOG mentioning that.
But it was up the all time until few days ago...

Seems like a damage control to me and tools for moderators that trying to shift "audience" of GOG and silence majority of people that don't agree with non-organic biased changes.

Internet is used for artifical cultural shift (to make it seem that way so more people will "jump on the vagon") for a long time and moderators play a huge role in that, generally. Also companies supporting that tend to be funded by government (at least in EU). Especially through services aimed on young audiences. Like gaming. It's becoming known in a mainstream just now recently, because it got into an extreme and other people and majority is getting sick of that. That is why the moderation is also getting more political and active to hide it from the internet, because they are realizing they are not the only one or even a majority, just because they are the most active group online.

But they fight for public opinion that will create more users jumping on specific ideologies -> fake it until you make it.

GOG staff itself seems to be fine with it here, at minimum...

For the record left andright is different from country to country as America Far Left is the right term(learned this from chattering with people from other countrys) but in say Russia from what I am told and can find what Americans call far Left is what the Russians would call far-right do to the traditional mindsets of Russias dar-right apparently match the American far Left to a 'T' you know perfectly Atleast again what I can find on the matter

As for me I am a centralist and am a anime fan but I call out BS on all sides when I see it

BanditKeith2: That is why I used " ". Or said "most". I am just not going to use it everywhere :D. Lots of people mistake (facts of) left and right as well, especially the "left" people don't know much about what their group stands for and the group's actual history. There is also real left and left that just wants to look that way, but their values (and facts) are the completely oppostite ones (from those advertised ones). There is a lot of confusion about that, mostly coming from the (extreme) left on purpose. But they do call themselves left. But yeah, I used " " when I mentioned it the first time :D. I am not taking any stance myself, just pointing that out. It's all messed up. I just wanted to point out that social(istic) people and ideological activists leaning far-left tend to be moderators, because it's part of what they stand for.
And lots of people ends up defending/promoting nonsense (as -> they are not aware of that) by design. And want to be part of the active group that seems to be the bigger one (because of the activity). While it's all just one agenda... to get more people being the same and give power to the people running it.

I'm more of a class war kinda guy now anyway. This left right bullshit just pits people against people, all ultimately losing out to a ruling elite that takes hold to "keep order".
We all fall for it around here.

Plumb: That is true, but also it's one of the tactic when one group (that separated itself from the rest) is to define/create/call the other. Most people don't care, they are just people but they are called far-right (no matter of facts) if they don't agree with some weird extremes or point out that those very people are confused about what they want and actualy don't understand what they stand for and that it may do the opposite. That they are actually led by someone misleading them. Which yes, includes specific classes falling for that and specific classes creating that. But it's not working very well, fortunately.

You know, I believe that being overly progressive is being agressive to something natural. People do better in their lives, they are just in various stages, because if not they will become self-destructive. And recently it's only the left that believes that people (as part of society) are not "good" in nature. To the point of it being an attack on people to create these two groups. They need some "far-right" defined by them so people (often young) are scared to be called that.

Also it seems that lots of people still don't realize that the "elite" (including companies, Hollywood and stuff) is actually the one political side - the left. Like yeah, elites can be bad, but as of now they seem (as a mainstream or mostly) to be of one kind. It doesn't mean that the "system" is bad.

Just for a joke, I sometimes wonder if we ever left aristocracy at all. :D But I believe you can be a good person and be "elite". Maybe they do exist and that is why it's not all already F up, so I wouldn't go that far :D. But don't wanna get too off-topic. But it had connection about why I think GOG/moderation/downvoting is very political here.

Moderation is very political and coordinated almost everywhere these days... in a specific way. And it's connected to politics.
Well not these days, but for a very long time. Just some things take time to reflect and to get a mainstream of all people that will become part of that to become too sick/aware of that.

Entertainment is very important to politics. Very.

I mostly agree with you. Why has the forum rotted so? Downvoting en mass requires time when done manually and effort and skill (plus some kind of mild infraction) when done automatically on someone else's site. I must conclude there's at least a 10% of people if not more that a) finds more satisfaying to spend an hour to do this than to post something to talk about b) that they're quietly doing it while nobody does anything about it.
Now, *this* is political, and not in the very specific sense that is OT in a gaming forum (e.g. a post about "why you should vote X"). It's broadly and indirectly political like any community issue, including issues about inclusivity in a game (not necessary inclusivity in real-life references or in characters or in the plot, just the game being accessible to any kind of gamer) or gaming design, or discussion about a what-if in a plot development. If this is not allowed, what should we talk about? About when a game is released and what are its features and requirements? Only this? Any kind of discussion about creativity can border political, if you mean it a broader and broader sense.
I think pointing out a flaw in the forum framework and, more importantly, a remarkable worsening in user conduct is both political (i.e. community-related) and on topic.

I find you confrontational. If you agree to the most of the post and not to everyhing in it, just don't upvote and don' t downvote.

Also, using selected quotes from other threads is not so fair, and even the objections are a bit of splitting the hair.
Porn has been banned way more frequently, especially in games, than violence, generic lawlesness or scaring scenes.
They all had their own moral panic phase, especially in the earliest times, but if I think of something invoking censorship in the last ten or even twenty years in gaming is porn or nudity, plus, only recently, discrimnation issues or something that has to do with protecting vulnerable categories (or something that is perceived as such: these panics always start out of something relatively small): scenes with bullying, children, women, ecc. But porn is somewhat "officially" and sistematically filtered, to the point that is a whole different kind of censorship. It's sometimes justified as a reaction to generic "porn spam" to make a meh game look cooler without making a fully enjoyable adult game or a well filmed porn out of it, or to inclusion of porn scenes without a context, so that the user is taken by surprise.
These are shortcuts when making a good product, and the point is not refusing porn as itself. It's not accepting anything because is porn out of fear of refusing it *for other shortcomings* and being called a prude.

I thought about RPG-Maker XP or VX (was it called "VX"?) and I'm not familiar with them. I came to think they're refinement of a basic structure, not engines so new to change the whole gaming experience and making it something else. The games I referred to seem to confirm this, at least from screenshots. Classic world-map, side vs side turn-based battles on a separate screen (or even a front battle screen, which is older, as in earlier Might&Magic games)
and an equip and skill menu, maybe; sprites, ecc. If these limits weren't enough, they're not using very detailed or original artwork or a deep narrative, afaik, and the two factors combined make the whole feel outdated (after all, you can make a great RPG in spite of these, like in the past, it just will look quite stiff to modern standards, especially in graphics, resolution, models' animation and interface).

I ignore it. Its a form of censure.

If you let reputation dictate where you post and what you post, you give people who abuse it power.

Assuming you treat others respectfully (which does preclude certain opinions like racism for example), you should not be ashamed of your opinions, even when they are not popular.

It was clearly meant to exclude badly behaving users and it makes much sense if used like this (it's still censure, but it's the original and functional role of censure as it was intended, the other being a warped, one-side, "cheating" form of it). I just find it sad that it's used primarily in this distorted way, because still someone would come to wrong conclusions if he takes this system as a genuine form of community self-regulation. And, moreso, it could still be such self-regulation and improve the forum instead of creating attrition. If only it were widely used as it should be.

The problem is "us all", apparently. Do you think, say, ten years ago, the web was more well-behaving and rule-abiding (not necessarily law-abiding, since it's common knowledge that piracy was more rampant in the past)? It seems a recent issue, or something that has grown to alarming proportions only in the last X years. Of course some low-level "parties" or "activists" can take advantage of this (while degrading their legitimate cause, btw) as any other kind of troll propaganda can do with any system-wide issue. But the problem came earlier than these kind of one-sided users. They only use these loopholes as a tool

Both parties are propped up by the same corporate donor class.
You probably shouldn't fall for the left/right bullshit in the United States, it's twisted to fit narratives.

I mean, we have people calling Joe Biden a communist, ffs, or Trump a nazi. It's insanity all around, and I'd argue it's because people don't have a government that represents them. We go after each other because we feel powerless otherwise.

You know, I'm for all the economic ideas coming from the left, but those ideas don't come from elites. The elites want us to forget that we don't have to let people suffer in the streets, because they like their two tiered society - the haves and have nots - they ultimately benefit from it. but only as long as they keep us stupid

Plumb: Rather not to get too off topic. But I am not falling for much. :D

But yeah, I have been around EU and worked with homeless/etc.. people (directly). I know the practical systems and it's "separated" and made on purpose (in 'practically' useless way) and EU is for many years corrupted insanely but that would be a different topic. I have experiences from few countries on that topic, so it's EU-directed by some elites, probably. The problem is that they won't help to local homeless (and often block EU people going to work to another country so they end up homeless there, because they can't work - in spite of the law) but import "others" and give them flats/houses (per person) and pocket money even for cigarettes and they don't have to follow anything like to search for some work or follow something to get a help (like local homeless people have to), etc... (what is happening in US is happening here for ages). Main cities in EU became dangerous.
That is when I get annoyed when people are getting censored here on the forum while pointing out that GOG doesn't care about anything while we paying them for products to be just censored when they don't work and even GOG won't reply after we complain here and we end up getting censored by "weird users and moderators", while GOG/CDPR is also getting funded by EU to create stuff they are selling to us. While a bit of that money would save so much problems for (real and local) homeless people, for example.

cdprojekt.com/en/media/news/cd-projekt-group-secures-30-million-pln-gameinn-innovation-funds/ (includes GOG)
cdprojekt.com/en/capital-group/eu-projects/ (7-7.5 millions in euro for Cyberpunk by other sources for CDPR)

And then you get censored when you pointing out they are not even protecting your data or following the law.
GOG staff created tools so your downvoted posts are invisible to new users, etc...
I was waiting for months to even get a reply from support and they told me they will have to consult it with a lawyer and I waited another 2 weeks. No joke. A lawyer. That is how problematic they are. And that is why this forum is so censored, because lots of people feel the same way. That is why downvoting and the spinning of the public opinion on the forum.

This company is far gone to me.
And there is a "group of fanboys" that are still trying to portrait CD Projekt Red (and GOG) like some small indie pro-bono company, which annoys me the most. They are one of the biggest ones in the EU. If not the biggest one at times and very promoted and protected by EU/polish government. And those guys owning it became billionaries after selling broken taxmoney funded game while censoring annoyed people.

The censoring/downvoting is just a sign of a failing company to me that went itself all-out political.
The irony if is that if you point out them being political, they censor you for stating something "political". :D
Sometimes it's a reason why companies don't want people to talk politics at all, because they would point out what those companies do.

The fact that they ignored western culture and celebrate only chinese holidays now was quite the last straw for me... :D Very bold, I must admit.

Given the potency of your reasoning, that shouldn't make any difference to you. ;p


PS, it's a real short read.

Left/Right is getting more and more obsolete. It should be Auth/Lib today.