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Penny Arcade - Comic - Vox Something Or Other
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A little while back there was a side discussion about SJWs and whether they are a thing or not. I think it's a loaded and unhelpful term in most public discussions.
But among my peers, where we've pretty much defined and established what we mean when we use it? This is a pretty good example of where I would use it. People who use absolutely ridiculous language and ascribe nefarious motives to statements where none are evident. Absalon and his posts are a pretty juicy example.
At the very least, you have to admit that these people DO exist, whether you call them an SJW or not.
And I wouldn't have it any other way! The PA forum is one of the best gaming communities, and that is in large part due to the mods doing their thing right.
Hmm, irony probably wasn't the best way to put it, but I think that this thread is demonstrating the natural tendency of anonymous, online discussion to turn into, well, less of a discussion. People get stuck on individual phrases and anecdotes like an elaborate, angry game of telephone. As has been mentioned beforehand, the only way a comment section works is with vigilant moderating (again, it's being demonstrated in this topic). And there still is the risk that heavy-handed discussion moderating can backfire.
Removing comment sections seems like the easiest way to deal with the situation, and it doesn't surprise me that a news site would do it. It's a way of reducing costs and it can clean up the website a bit.
I forgot, what were we discussing? Uh, I think it's whether the comic in question has any merit in satirizing Motherboard's decision and announcement to remove comments. Sure, advocating open discussion is nice, but it's also pretty far removed from the reality of internet commentary. It's like advocating abstinence-only education: it sounds nice, but everyone is going to fuck each other, anyway.
Edit: I screwed up that last metaphor, but I'll leave it in there for whatever.
The term is a loaded one. Its like calling a black man an oreo at this point. Whatever none awful thing you mean by it is overridden by the way its commonly used.
pleasepaypreacher.net
"I see no reason to invent another word."
Jerry Holkins of Perrier Escapade *sees no reason to invent words*?
Falshoodlum.
No one said you had to accept those ideas. But the best way to respond to ideas you feel are foolish is to demonstrate them as such.
Outright refusing to engage with them at all does more to legitimize them than anything else you can do. But worse, it entrenches you in your own beliefs, and you become a dogmatic thinker, no different than the people you're railing against. You should always be open to the possibility that you're wrong. Otherwise you can never truly know that you are right.
No I'm quite happy in not engaging with every person certain Obama is actually a secret lizard person. And I'm still quite certain I'm right that he isn't.
Currently painting: Slowly [flickr]
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/censorious
/thread
I would further add that while the act of removing a comment section that was initially provided (which again is a different act from just never having provided one) is opening the owner up to a minefield of potentially brand-harming interpretation (e.g. this company doesn't care/listen, etc), it is not censorship.
I think G&T's suggestion that this constitutes some kind of censorship is being melodramatic. Comments sections are not the location of all discourse (and especially not the location of QUALITY discourse). They removed the comments section, but that does not in any way prevent people's ability to discuss its ideas. People can blog, people can tweet, people can post their own articles. It's the age of the fucking internet. You might say, "Well, blogging and tweeting doesn't give a person an equal voice to the article", but neither does a comment section. Only two people have read the comment where ganjalover420 expressed his opinion, and neither of those people cared.
The explanation that Vox gave was some silly political bullshit, but I think accusing them of censorship is a silly response to their silly explanation.
Look at it this way: while taking away a comment section is different from never providing one at all, never providing one at all isn't censorship, so taking one away isn't censorship either.
It would be like crying censorship if Wendy's took down its "ring if you had excellent customer service" bell. No one actually cares. You can still praise or disparage Wendy's as much as you like. That has not been taken away from you.
I see it commonly used, but it's never entirely consistent in its usage. To be fair, that just seems to be your perception of it and I have no idea what you read or where you frequent. I also think it's worth entertaining the idea it might not be how people use it, but how people who loathe the term WANT you to think it means and implies. No different from people who think "political correctness" is a whistle word for bigotry. I think that's crap, but I 'spect you have a disagreement there as well.
Tycho's mistake is forgetting that honestly productive, enlightening comment sections are damn near unicorns. Achieving them either requires lottery-winning luck or a shitton of moderation. I would absolutely LOVE to have an enlightened chat about whatever issue is brought up, but all too often the insights get drowned out by malice and rape jokes.
True story: I work in media, and once wrote an article about a pizza chain that started taking orders by text message. Within 10 comments, that comment section devolved into a hard-core flame war over Obama.
Honestly, it would be awesome if he was a secret lizard person.
Part of the reason is I am not afraid to read comments on places like youtube, and even engage the authors in communication.
There's shit, absolutely. There's shit in every communication medium. There's shit in real life talking to people. Assholes exist on and off the internet.
But I get value from it. I get information about games, that I then go and test. I ignore the assholes, personally.
I said earlier its not unlike the much more vanilla "liberal" or "conservative." As someone who routinely called one by people who identify as the other, I definitely get the problem with consistency.
I think it's maybe more comparable to how "fascist" gets used now. Some far-left-wingers will use it to refer to anyone even remotely right of center, or even just not left-wing enough. But more generally it's used by moderates on all sides of the political spectrum to more specifically describe right-wingers who are way out on the lunatic fringe. Just switch right and left in this description and you have "sjw".
Only time I see SJW being used on the boobs when its not being used ironically to make fun of people who use it for serious, is to imply someone with a progressive stance is some how destroying discourse by pointing out some ism or another. I do like how you make two radical assumptions about me, in a post where you are accusing people of making things up to fit their viewpoint.
pleasepaypreacher.net
I agree with Tycho. It is weird that they original had comments and now they are taking them away. Its not weird because comments are so sacred. They are often awful horrible places to be. But it is weird to see it being clawed back. As if they opened the door, got a wiff of the dragon's breath, and said no thank you.
I often go into the comments to see the other side. Because there will always be the other side. There will be someone there saying that the article is wrong for this reason and that, and there will be a fight. I like that, as it allows me to weigh the various sides. It allows me to dig deeper. It sure isn't pretty when you go looking, but sometimes the view is valuable.
Also as I went through this thread there is a damn lot of moralizing going on. There are clearly people on here that think there is a fight of good vs evil going on, and its kind of disturbing...
I am all for open discourse - but if you truly believe that a largely unmoderated comment section promotes that environment in any type of constructive capacity, you need to ignore a lot of context around that situation.
We have pristine examples of low accountability, barely moderated discussions all over the internet. Two of the largest are YouTube comments, and 4chan. Spaces like these clearly demonstrate that cramming a bunch of anonymous people into a common space and leaving them alone ultimately leads to complete insanity. It becomes a space for unchecked id to run rampant. Anything intellectually constructive coming out of those spaces might as well be accidental, given their frequency.
Yes, stand tall and proud for your belief in open and free discourse; but an internet comment section is the wrong hill to die on for it.
Uh-oh I accidentally deleted my signature. Uh-oh!!
Here's he thing. After explaining to people why racism is wrong for the 5000th time to people who refuse to read any sources you link or are otherwise acting in bad faith, performing intellectual labor for randos on the Internet becomes more trouble than it's worth.
Hell, I actually have evidence showing that providing evidence doesn't do jack shit. Here.
Steam: pazython
The act of taking them away would not necessarily be a problem, assuming that they gave a satisfying and honest explanation for why they had done so. But they gave what appears to be a packaged, smarmy, disingenuous kinda explanation, and THAT makes it seem much worse. That makes people smell bullshit in the air and increases the likelihood of people calling their true intentions into question.
If they had just said, "We don't want to pay for this anymore," then I wager the reaction would have been slightly different.
Weird as it seems, though: not censorship.
That's a good description of the problem, I reckon.
Despite self-identifying as liberal/left, I've grown very disenchanted from the rhetoric I see used on "my side". I've long since grown numb to people politically opposite of me calling me names and doubting my integrity. Then one day I realized that "the Right" doesn't have sole ownership of this kind of shit.
Thats pretty much how Oxford defines it.
Steam: pazython
First off, I don't have all the free time in the world. I can't respond with a thorough breakdown of why someone is wrong every time I see a wrong idea cross my desk.
Second, if you're actually talking about engaging with ideas, then a comments section is a terrible way to go about it. By their nature, comments sections and forums encourage engaging with people, not ideas. A feature in building community, a bug in building rigorous debate.
If you are honestly interested in a fight of ideas, then having a moderated debate is the only feasible way to make that happen. By only allowing ideas to fight it out, you remove the conflating issue of personal clashes.
Motherboard's decision (depending on how they moderate, obviously) means that you're actually going to be getting the debate of ideas that you want.
I think that's a fair question, given the lore. Actually seems like something ripe for a Family Guy cutaway where someone asks the Doctor why he's never black, and he says something like "I tried that once, I got thrown in jail 5 minutes in."
Anyway people getting pissy about that question aren't being very charitable... like I said, it's a perfectly fair question. Where I think more people jump off is asking why James Bond is always a white male. Where people really start to jump off is outright bemoaning the homogeneity of The Witcher.
The way even something as innocuous as this little comic now immediately drives certain people to hysterical paranoid defensiveness and political bombast is frankly delightful to me. It tells me that the backlash is most definitely being felt and that the people feeling it really were as unprepared to be disagreed with as they were reputed to be.
I'm sorry, I know you guys convinced yourselves that you were the vanguard of righteousness and only a few sweaty internet virgins and angry divorced guys listening to AM radio considered you a detriment to society, but that's just not the case and you're dealing with the revelation quite badly so far.
Yea, which is what the strip was pretty much 99% about, the way in which Motherboard presented the removal of Comments.
But I think its closer to censorship then you think. Its the denial of a speech platform for reason they find objectionable (How ugly and contentious comments can get). Its not good speech or pretty speech, the people have no obligation to provide the platform, and it isn't a government that is limiting the speech. But it doesn't have to be a government for censorship. People just often conflate the First Amendment and Free Speech to be one in the same.
What this thread is actually about: SJW
*sigh*
Let's just shut off the entire internet.
I don't see this? I swear its a common hyperbolic statement I've seen where someone percieves people who disagree with them are blowing a gasket or something, but at least in these comments I can't think of any post where someone is anywhere near the bolded. I honestly have to wonder if this isn't a bit of projection.
pleasepaypreacher.net
1. You might want to read the definition Oxford put up, it's not exactly a big middle finger as you might think.
2. South Park being "anti-PC" isn't exactly a shocker.
There was also a supposed push-back against "PC" in the 90's. All that's left of that are weathered Spawn comics no one reads. And given shit like Hatred, this will end the same way.
Steam: pazython
Widespread backlash against respecting others.
Where in the hell did I make any "radical assumptions" about you?
Is it where I brought up the possibility that your exposure to it is not a universal experience? If that's radical, then that helps explain why these discussions get fucked up.
Was it where I suspected you and I may not see eye to eye on a other contentious term? Then apologies, but... am I wrong?
No, a radical assumption would be accusing you of being a commie socialist misandrist that wants to help Obama impose Sharia law and censor the internet because you disagree with me. I think I'm being fairly reasonable.
Well, here's the funny thing. The black guy people want would be the first English person to play him. So my question is "Why isn't James Bond English?"
As for The Witcher, people point to modern-day Eastern Europe to prove its racial homogeneity, ignoring that it's that way by design.
Steam: pazython
Widespread backlash against advancing the idea of respecting others by disrespecting others.
Yep those were the assumption you made. I'm glad you put what you really think at the end though, that was a nice touch.
pleasepaypreacher.net
Ahh yes people who don't respect bigots are the real bigots.
pleasepaypreacher.net
Disagreeing with someone isn't disrespect.
Steam: pazython
I mean...