Overreach of power, and other authors has right to be worried as well as future writers. The Ork guy is right about this rule being a Deus exa machina to just spam if you don’t agree with the author. And this one seem to be personal because the hate started even before Anon made a discord. Other author with WIP should pack up their bags because the mods are fickle. POMA already did Shepherd of Haven already did.
Edit: My guess “Lost in Your eyes” is next for the gallows for having a character that doesn’t wanna romance gay people because their religious..And I’m surprised no one called the mod Bryce Baldwin for wishing Europe to be nuked.
This is a bit too much, if he never say anything problematic directly i don’t think he should be banned, at least he should be ablw to explain this himself
so much for being a family man, imagine potentially throwing away your money, that could be used for his “family”, on a frivolous lawsuit that would get thrown out in within seconds of reaching a judge’s or clerk’s desk, this dude is just really immature, and stuff like this makes me seriously doubt that he is a father of two, he’s just another whiny basement troll
oh and do take note of the users here defending him and his discord’s horrid and disgusting comments (especially about wang as seen here), they were most likely there spewing out racist and homophobic comments under different pseudonyms, and are most likely reporting back to their discord about the comments here, that’s why it’s better to keep the thread open and let these people dig themselves in a deeper hole for themselves
… You’re defending the author but who is this directed towards? You’re really calling the mods hateful compared to what the discord is posting?
For anyone accusing COG powertripping, do you guys think any other place would tolerate this? If Aura Clash was being published into a novel, and this was an issue becoming known that the author is failing to address and even encouraging, no publisher would want to associate themselves with you. If you want to get a story published, then you must uphold the company and community values and rules. If anything, they wouldn’t hesitate to drop you where as the mods stated, they did try to work with Anon here for a long while, but refused to do the bare minimum.
Same reason why a job place can fire you because you got outed at being at a nazi rally, even though it had nothing to do with your work.
Yeah, all the ToS breaking Authors that wanna spread hate can leave already, the door is open, no one is forcing you to suffer in this space.
The ban hasn’t been a wake up call, they’re laughing and giggling like highschoolers and they even think they can file a lawsuit and force CoG to work like they want it to work; it’d be 4chan but worse cause not even those wanna have anything to do with Anon, should be telling that the bottom of the barrel wants to separate from this cult of edgy teenagers.
If anyone still supports Anon after all of what’s been happening, go leave, don’t come back ever again or get banned and kicked out of our safe space, because we don’t need nor want you here.
Edit:
Have you even read the posts? You really think that’d be the problem? Not the massive amounts of close-enough-looking nazism as to call it nazism (neo-nazism if you really wanna be petty, but doesn’t change the point).
Since we’re on about reading things, have you read the FAQ?
“We do not allow homophobia, transphobia, racism, sexism, ableism, ageism, or any other kind of intolerance on the forum.”, Anon has a discord in which he’s still engaging and promoting the contents that aren’t allowed here, that isn’t the problem?
Please, if you’re going to try and construct an argument at least inform yourself before engaging in public discourse, you’re just making a fool of yourself in front of, I dare say, the whole forum.
you know, this is a forum for the genre of games that are also kind of books. so i’m surprised by just how bad at reading some people in this thread seem to be. lol.
anyway, i’m not surprised at all by the ban or the screenshots. i played aura clash once and didn’t finish the demo because i learned to pick up on weird stuff as a woman who’s also lgbt and of romani descent.
i’m not sure why people are crying tyranny and saying the ban is extremely disturbing and an abuse of power. this is a forum to discuss a company’s games. a ban is not really that deep, specially if the person banned in question is someone that goes against the company’s values and could ruin their image lol. i think banning people for off-site behavior is completely reasonable when said behavior is associating with nazis lmao.
i don’t want to assume, but it’s hard not to when people are here defending someone like that lol either you’re admitting something or making yourselves look really suspicious.
and lastly, i would like to compliment the mods’ patience here because good lord.
Very good job mods. I would’ve been content to simply like and support those who backed the mod decision here but around post 170 I ran out of likes so thought I would make a post to let anyone who backs this know that there is more support for this here. Frankly I’m nobody important, a long time reader/lurker that tried their hand at a WIP before running into personal issues where I dropped off the Earth, it is a rather common fate over here and nothing unique. I liked Aura Clash before, I never really engaged with the community and pretty much only liked posts and played the game. I missed pretty much all of the issues with the game itself given I never really mind my character’s skin colour/race and I personally am pretty heavily aro/ace so not engaging with the romance side wasn’t exactly an issue for me. The community on discord however was a lot more overt with it’s issues, I don’t need to join it or look further into it to know the opinion on that, it is evidently terrible. Suffice to say, any interest I had in following the community or game of Aura Clash is gone now. I only wrote so much because I could not convey all this through liking every post I agreed with due to running out of likes to give, but I will stop my waffling and end my message off with simply; good job mods, I am glad this place is being kept up as a safe space
PS. I respect your dedication and effort in dealing with it as long as you did before you had to make the big move, and also your patience and good handling of this thread itself
In my understanding, based on the multiple explanations provided by mods over the course of this thread:
The objective of this ban and the new rule wasn’t to make cultivator-anon close down or moderate his discord. They already tried to get him to moderate it, and it didn’t work.
The objective was to make a statement that, if you want to participate on the forum and have a WIP up with its own community, you can’t also be running a separate community full of racist sexist homophobic gremlins at the same time.
CoG does not have the power to dictate what other people do on other social media sites. But they do have the power to bar people from the community, if those people carry toxic and prejudiced values. And how you choose to express yourself on discord or other sites absolutely can be taken as a reflection of your values - you don’t magically transform into a different person when you step onto a different site.
They banned cultivator anon and locked his thread because those were the only actions left for them to take. They then made it clear that this was now a rule that will be consistently enforced going forward, in order to prevent a similar situation from happening again.
Also we don’t have access to the mod data, and it’s hard to find examples of bad behaviour because posts get deleted, but… if the mods say that there are people creating CoG accounts specifically to engage with the Aura Clash thread, and participants in the Aura Clash thread are consistently turning out to be rulebreakers… then it stands to reason that locking the Aura Clash thread and banning the writer would serve as a partial fix to the issue. Even if it doesn’t, I don’t really see how we’re worse off without the Aura Clash thread or cultivator-anon having a forum presence.
Obviously there will still be issues with chuds, fascists, bigots, and other awful people popping up in this forum from time to time. But the mods aren’t trying to act like they singlehandedly ended all racism here, they’ve just identitied what appears to be a rallying point for racists and removed it. While at the same time, they’ve signalled to other authors and other figures in the community that this isn’t okay, and will be enforced more strongly going forward.
So… I don’t get how this thread still continues if I’m being completely honest. This is an open and shut case. Cult anon had violated the company’s values and those violations had come to hurt the community. The ban was completely justified since the mods seems to have tried to resolve this issue quietly, to no effect. Cult anon had deserved what had come to them, the only regrettable thing about this is that Cult Anon seems to not have learnt from this experience.
I’m not a fan of trusting someone to not use rules maliciously. This is a much needed rule but it should be modified to state exactly when and why people are banned. This would bring peace of mind to those people that are worried and it would be a guideline for mods as to when a ban is justified. Leave too much ambiguity and people will misuse a rule unintentionally.
I am not going to lie, you made me very happy with this. I became a progressive because of the people that had qualities that you have shown with your post. I am mostly numb nowadays. I don’t expect a lot even from the people that are supposed to be on my side. I just wanted to express that I appreciate you and your effort. I hope that the qualities that you have shown will not be stamped down at some point in time.
I agree. The response has been what’s sticking in my head more than the ban itself. While I don’t love the ban, it’s not that big of a deal to me. I disagree on a more general, fundamental basis than I do with this specific situation.
But the discussion quickly devolved into something I don’t really like. People calling moderators fascists, others getting called Nazis… it’s all gotten pretty out of hand
Sure, those are very blatant indicators of that kind of harmful mindset. And you wouldn’t be wrong to point them out. But there have been comments making accusations of this nature with none of the above evidence.
I feel as though some people are ignoring some of the facts. I’ve seen a few people post that cult anon did nothing wrong and that he shouldn’t have to moderate his own discord but it isn’t just that, there was a whole controversy early in aura clashes development about things he had said! Then there’s the fact that he actively had the anti gay code in his game, it’s one thing to say hey I’m not comfortable with writing gay romance so it’s not in my game and an entirely different thing to literally put in code that stops modders from changing nothing but who they get to romance. It’s disgusting to do for one seeing as there’s no reason to do this other than homophobia and for two it’s literally putting a neon sign saying that you hate these people like come on! Also to those saying that they fear the possible repercussions of someone using this rule maliciously I hope to whatever gods are out there we can recognize that the mods have more than two brain cells collectively, sure they’re not perfect but they are functioning adults with the ability to read so comes to it, ban people trying to use this rule maliciously. All in all I loved the game but we as a community and as consumers have to stand against people like this and show that they’re not welcomed in this space! I loved the game and it sucks that it had to come to this but if it means the space is safer and people aren’t uncomfortable or afraid than the game can rot in a cesspit because the people in this community should come first!
EDIT: @Herdy that is an amazing point actually! The rule at the moment is pretty vague and should be specified so as to both ease worries and give people a greater understanding of what’s expected. This is some of the first pieces of constructive criticism so far and I wish more of the people complaining about the rule said stuff like this instead of just saying it’s an over reach of power
I think some people in this thread are overreacting.
MOST people disagreeing with the ban aren’t defending Cultivator-anon or his server, but instead are concerned on how this was handled, and it sets a precedent of being banned withoit violating any stated rules.
Some people are just by the book and focus first on the procedure rather than the result. It’s a personality trait and there’s nothing wrong with or without it.
I think the process behind the ban has already been clarified and it’s fair, but others don’t and its OK not everyone is going to agree on the same best way to handle things and there should be respectful discussion about it. Which is why its a shame there’s been name calling and accusations from both sides(not including anon and his group) just over disagreement of how this was handled and I’d urge people to try understanding each other before assuming the other is a bad actor. (Of course, unfortunately there are bad actors but there’s definitely been earnest people writing off each other in this thread).
Also goddamn that Naruto meme isn’t nazi just because Adolf is in it call him out for stuff that actually bad.
hey bro so he actually is in one of the screenshots posting a nazi meme himself and dan stated that these are only a few of MANY other screenshots. pretty sure he participated and cultivated a super repulsive environment, hope that helps x
edit bc slow mode;
there’s been a bunch of other screenshots posted in this thread alone but go ahead and believe it’s just guilt by association. also just because you “have literally seen jewish people posting that meme” doesn’t mean it’s not offensive to a lot of other jewish people lol. i won’t be responding to you again
I’m on the fence about this one. On the one hand I completely understand how this would upset people, and I understand how exhausting it is to have to ban what feels like the same person 1,000 times (I was a discord mod for a large server for a number of years and primarily handled disciplinary actions). On the other hand, they are in their own private space. If this were a question of legality (which I’m aware it isn’t), then they would be well within their rights to say whatever horrendous shit they wanted to say, and we would be equally free to call them bigots for doing so. Freedom of speech and all that.
I guess what I’m saying is that it isn’t really our place to police them in their own area, and acting as if it is sets a very bad precedent. If you believe they violated Discord ToS, then you should report them to Discord and let them handle it, but it’s not really our place to punish them for saying words we don’t like in a place we don’t even go. This is a very slippery slope, and I’m concerned about the direction it takes moderation and such when this forum has a history of silencing criticism. I won’t get into specifics because that has been (mostly) addressed, but given such history I worry that people won’t be able to have candid discussions in private places about the goings on on this forum for fear of disciplinary action.
I know that’s not what’s happening here, but that’s a very real danger.
Edit:
Actually, I’ve never even heard of this game until this post was made earlier today.
The lack of policing on the discord is absolutely a failure of the owner. You could easily moderate all of this on your own, but even if you can’t be bothered, there are plenty of bots that will do it for you. Furthermore, I believe CoG should 100% be allowed to police what happens on their own platform, I just worry about policing people for what happens elsewhere. Feels a bit 1984.
@Havenstone I think I missed some crucial details here. Are you saying this has been happening repeatedly in the specific thread for the game in question? And there is a direct connection between the people perpetrating that behavior and the people doing the same on the discord? Someone earlier said the author removed the discord link like a year ago in an effort to stop all this, but you and several others make it seem like it is a consistent problem.
If you’re leaving it open to let people vent why have the mods been deleting comments from people who disagree with decision and banning the people that made them?
You know, I used that analogy because it was the first one that came to mind, but seeing their reaction? Yeah, I’m definitely more than happy to continue comparing him to a sex offender - him, and the people who’re still going out of their way to associate with him.
(If CultAnon or any of his simps are still reading this, feel free to put this in your ‘evidence folder’. Since lawyers actually understand the concept of an analogy, I’m sure it’ll give them a good laugh).
If this thread is serving any constructive purpose, it’s letting all the poison within the forums come to the surface. CoG has tried to maintain a particular stance on certain social and political issues for the sake of maintaining a safe environment - especially for marginalised people. That’s why I’m active here, and that’s why I suspect the majority of people who are active here choose to be active here.
When someone who is not only so obviously antithetical to those values, but also seeks to corrode those values within this community by funneling human garbage into it, then that person should very obviously be removed from this community. Based on my understanding, the staff and mods gave this guy a lot of grace before reaching for the hammer - far more than I would have allowed in their place.
Nobody is saying he can’t do what he wants on his own cesspool of a server, where his loyal minions can continue assuring him that Steiner’s counterattack will save Berlin. What we are saying is that we, as a community, do not want him here - and the same goes for the kinds of people willing to use bad faith arguments to defend someone who’s response to being banned from a forum full of people he obviously sees as subhuman is to sling antisemitic slurs at strangers and accuse them of being paedophiles.
These are not people we want in this community, not if we want it to remain the kind of place which it’s been. Not if we want it to remain welcoming to the kinds of people who go through enough shit already offline - the kinds of people which are this publisher’s actual core audience. If they feel like it’s mod overreach to ban someone who is this categorically incapable of playing well with others, or that it’s tyranny to exclude those who lack the ability to at least pretend to maintain basic human decency, then they can kindly fuck off. I don’t want them here, and I don’t think many of the other regular members do either.
At this point, you can safely assume it’s a bad faith argument to serve as a smokescreen for reasoning that would not be considered socially acceptable in a civilised society.
In between the Holocaust denial, the thermonuclear levels of homophobia, and the virulent antisemitism, they’re not exactly beating the allegations here.
This is something I’d like to second, since this whole thing has basically created a perfect demonstration of what that’s like.
If an “intentionally uncivil online space” allows someone to accuse an author of approving of a bad thing simply because the author lets their MC do it, then that disincentivises authors from tackling controversial subjects. You can’t write about sexual assault or else someone who doesn’t like you accuses you of being a rapist. You can’t write about racism without someone accusing you of being a racist. You can’t write about war without someone accusing you of getting off on murder.
That’s the end-state of the kind of culture which the banned party has attempted to introduce into this forum, one which stifles those willing to take a creative risk in exploring taboo or controversial topics, one which exists under a code of censorship not imposed from above, but by the constant monitoring of a thousand little sociopaths, all waiting for an excuse to go for the throat.
That’s not the sort of thing any assembly of creatives wants.
They aren’t being policed in their own area. Their Discord continues to be an undisturbed mixing bowl of the worst people imaginable. They’re being policed in our area, because we don’t want to have our space contaminated with the kind of human pond scum which evidently seems to thrive over there.
To continue the analogy which has the banned party coping and seething so hard, a community has the right to not want a sex offender to live next to their school. They have the right to not invite him to their social events - and that’s basically what a forum is, a social event held on a private venue, where the owners reserve the right to expel you at any time, under any pretense, and it’s up to the other members to decide if that pretense is legitimate, or to leave of their own volition.
Which is what I highly suggest the people who’re continuing to defend this loser do, before they beclown themselves further.
This is not a slippery slope. It’s multiple warnings ignored, it’s cultivating an army of hate trolls that think it’s fun to hop over here and doing nothing about it. Tbh, I left the thread a year ago because I thought it was toxic. I thought the wip was fair to middling at best with a lot a coded hate language in a largely bland story, I’m not feeling a loss, it’s pretty basic. You support and/or ignore hate speech and toxic environments, or you don’t.
All i see and hear are sensitive people being sensitive trying to stick up for one another its a game my G not everything is made for everyone dont like it go and play something else very simple
I’ve said before that I believe in free speech as a culture, not just a limit on state power. A world where only the government allows broad expression of dissenting views while private forums shut down anyone who (even civilly) questions the local taboos is a crummy, unstable one, as we see in many of America’s contemporary dysfunctions. A healthy liberal society needs more than just basic constraints on the state – it needs us to cultivate the skills of civil engagement with people who disagree on us about important stuff, not settle ourselves into mutually anathematizing sects.
And I’m an ex-mod who during the SotS fracas a couple years ago wrote:
So I wanted to pop in here to say that I unreservedly support the mod team and staff on their decisions around Aura Clash – just in case anyone thought my silence might mean ambivalence on this one.
Intentionally uncivil online spaces with a culture centered on toxic banter, where every slur and conspiracy is regularly thrown around for the lols, don’t contribute to a healthy culture of free speech. They’re parasitic on it. They wreck civility as thoroughly as (sometimes more than) cancel culture. They deserve the minimum protection from government repression that we all get, but not broad social tolerance.
When one of those communities of enthusiastic toxicity develop a sustained point of contact with some other online space, like a fandom or subreddit, they usually bring their toxicity with them. It’s hard to develop any kind of healthy balance where people code-switch into civil discourse at the url line.
I’m glad that the banhammer wasn’t an early resort in this case, and that the mod team tried a bunch of alternative approaches even with a 4chan offshoot. I’m not surprised that stronger measures ended up being necessary.
If we ever find ourselves in the same place, mods, I’ll buy you a drink for this one. It must have been miserable.
