So, The Escapist is in the news again...

[CpT_x_Killsteal]

That one user complaining about those fucking unmutable ads that play in the corner of the screen was right though. Seriously, this site needs to cut that shit out.

Agreed. I use this site often without [REDACTED] but they're getting on my nerves to a shit-stormy level. If either [REDACTED] had a way to [REDACTED] certain ads, which are essentially videos on a 30 second loop with audio that won't pause or mute until I click on it and open a new tab, or Escapist took control over what type of ads they they put on the site, things would be squeaky clean. But until then, it's gonna continue to be a shitstorm.

 

[Elementary - Dear Watson]

The guy who wrote that article seemed to me just to be a shit-stirring ****, who I expect was a member of this site too, who just wanted to make his views known to a wider audience.

I don't mind opinion peices on something like a piece of media... that is all fair game. I fully expect if I release a product at work that people will have opinions on it, so I can see what was good or bad about it and learn from mistakes.
What I wouldn't expect in real life is that something I say in one office in one building is criticised in another office in another building, findings are published and I am not even offered a rebuttal, or a chance to justify myself to those slandering me. This is just rude, and encompasses a lot of what I don't like about the internet.

 

[shintakie10]

The guy who wrote that article seemed to me just to be a shit-stirring ****, who I expect was a member of this site too, who just wanted to make his views known to a wider audience.

I don't mind opinion peices on something like a piece of media... that is all fair game. I fully expect if I release a product at work that people will have opinions on it, so I can see what was good or bad about it and learn from mistakes.
What I wouldn't expect in real life is that something I say in one office in one building is criticised in another office in another building, findings are published and I am not even offered a rebuttal, or a chance to justify myself to those slandering me. This is just rude, and encompasses a lot of what I don't like about the internet.

Really? I thought it was well put together myself. The last paragraph was absolutely what I was thinkin all the way back when the Escapist went all ban happy the first time the whole adblock fiasco came about.

Aside from that its not like the escapist staff hasn't had a chance to defend themselves. They've done so many times, on many different occasions. At the end of the day it all rings really hollow.

This entire thing is exactly like the anti piracy kick that developers go on. The more obnoxious they make the end user experience for legitimate users, the more people will turn to other means to get their content, which then leads to makin the end user experience even more obnoxious, which leads to more people ditchin the paid experience.

Its gotten worse over time, not better. The ads are bigger, louder, more flashy, more obnoxious than they've ever been and they keep gettin worse. There's literally 0 evidence that this trend wont turn for the better either because they're still arguin about how important said big flashy loud ads are for the revenue stream.

 

[Vrach]

So... didn't really notice that whole shitstorm. To be honest, they're not that rare on Escapist and I tend to steer clear of them. It's not so much that the arguments are hotheaded, it's the fact that when any topic becomes actually popular, throwing your voice into it is usually pissing in the ocean - there might be someone right next to you who notices and/or engages you, but two minutes later, no one will ever see that particular stream of piss again.

On topic, I just watched Jim's video and considering it's Jim, it's actually as good as you could possibly expect. The guy simply tries to explain that "yeah, we know it sucks, but we have no other business model" and it came across to me as alright. To him I'd just say that having that same conversation with the Escapist itself might have a lot more actual effect, as well as being directed at a far better target, as pointed out by his own arguments as well as the ones in the mentioned article in this post.

I personally don't use the thing, though not for some actual reason. I'm not trying my best to support websites or something, I just never got around to thinking "yeah, alright, I'll install this". That said, as Jim himself mentioned, and I'm sure a lot of people on the site have too, the Escapist have some seriously awful ads. I mean honestly, there are porn sites that are less intrusive and obnoxious than Escapist ads can be sometimes and I say that with zero hyperbole.

I've actually moved away from Escapist for a time, visiting it a lot less often because of some of the shit that was there. The particular smiley face Jim mentioned nearly gave me a heart attack a few times as it blasted my ears from nowhere as I wondered what the fuck just happened. Now that's the kind of stuff that's downright on the level of spyware. I mean honestly, I was a kid who grew up with computers, my first PC was riddled with random viruses and spyware, it wasn't even funny - and still, most of them weren't half as intrusive as "random, high pitched, loud noise from nowhere". That shit has to stop, because if it becomes a standard, you better believe people will do anything to make it stop, especially if that anything involves a 10 second install of a completely legal extension offered even by an ad giant like Google.

I'll also say I agree with that article and leave it at that, there's not much more that needs to be added.

 

[-Dragmire-]

Not sure how to feel honestly... I sympathize with both the users and the mods.

That thread got more flaming then ANYTHING i've ever seen. I admit, I haven't been here as long as other members have, like the ones from 2008 ... but I think we can all agree that might of been the nastiest turn of events in years. My UN Group talked about it with concern and the best thing was to avoid talking about the topic afterwards.

I watched the vid and saw the storm on the horizon so I avoided the comment section. I figured it'd be bad but if you're saying that you haven't seen worse... is it actually worse than when Extra Credits left and the turmoil surrounding that whole situation(which spread to involve several content creators)? If so, my god that must have been catastrophic!

Wait a min...

...wiki...

Holy crap, that was 2011!? Man, time flies!

 

[Vrach]

You know what I'm really interested in though? How this whole ad thing works. I mean, how it really works.

Now, yes, as a kid growing up when the internet was just becoming a thing, I had no knowledge of ads. I was young and the internet was new, so while there were certainly others out there who knew better than me, I can forgive my then-self for clicking on a few ridiculous ads or emails telling me I've won a trip to Hawaii. I mean, I still think I was an absolute idiot, even at that age, but I can forgive myself.

What I'm interested though, is how is it still a thing? Sure, you have the too young and the tech-unsavvy still, but the internet has been around for a while now. If I asked my 11 year old niece (who doesn't even spend much time at the computer) if she should click a banner on the internet, I'm pretty sure she'd say no. So who clicks these things? The terribly young and the terribly unsavvy who don't have literally anyone to teach them better? What is the actual number of these people? Is it really so high as to actually achieve some effect? I mean, I see from the fact that it's still around that the answer is yes, but it's honestly hard to fathom it.

Another thing has just crossed my mind... a lot of these ads are quite literally scams. Ads pointing to dodgy sites, I mean, it's the reason no one who's actually spent any time at a computer never clicks these things, right? So how does anyone have any face to aggressively attack anyone who defends themselves from it? That's like saying "yeah, I don't like having these criminals hang out in my shop and terrorize the customers, but they pay me, you know?".

 

[IceForce]

I also wonder what will happen to this thread?
Are we allowed to discuss this by any means? Thread wise that is?

Then again, this thread is pretty risqué.

I'm hoping this thread'll stay open.

I haven't broken any rules here, and as long as no one else does, there's no reason for them to take this thread down, right?

 

[SonicWaffle]

I agree. However i would have expect that perticular thread to be exempt from that rule since one of the content creators for this website ( Jim) opened the can of worms ( more like pandoras box). It's not like random user number 7461845918 created the thread.

It's one of the more inconsistent ways that the Escapist separates between contributors and commentators; Yahtzee can call people all the names he likes and Grey can troll Evangelion fans to his hearts content, but as readers we're held to different standards. It has always bothered me a little that the Escapist promotes, through their choice of content and contributors, an angry and ranting and sometimes abusive image of gamers but then cracks down on posters who adopt similar attitudes.

We're supposed to play nice until they start paying us not to, I guess.

It was handled really poorly though.

I love this place, but the forum rules are one of the things that do get on my tits. A zero tolerance rule is only ever going to piss people off. Any instance of accusing another poster of trolling is grounds for a warning, even if the poster in question has just registered under the username I_troll_u_nubz and started a thread about why women secretly enjoy rape. I get the reasoning behind it - accusations of trolling are a quick and easy way to avoid refuting your opponents points in a discussion - but it kinda runs counter to the idea that we as gamers should be policing our own community. We're not idiots, mostly, and we can tell the difference between a blatant troll and someone like Therumancer, who is absolutely not a troll but just a guy with some unpopular opinions.

As to the whole adblock thing, I don't use it. Have never even considered using it. However, I have once or twice considered ripping off my speakers and throwing them all the wall when I'm on this site. Escapist, if you don't want people to block your ads, could you not find some less annoying ones that don't keep repeating themselves or randomly begin jabbering when I'm trying to watch your video content?

 

[Thaluikhain]

Hey? Wasn't the vid about Sterling not blaming people if they use adblock, but he gets annoyed if they do and still tell him how to do his content?

The article seems to be misrepresenting him rather.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

I'm going to be honest. I read every single post in that thread, and what an adventure it was. Wombat of war was banned. LacktheKnack got very aggressive, almost to a quite scary level, and an aardvark along with scrumpmonkey were locked in a brutal multi-page argument with the mods. I noticed two users stand quite strongly in opposition of the A-word, lasting multiple pages at war with for the A-word.

It is a perfect example of the so ugly you can't look away saying. I can't believe it hit news worthy ugly though.

Edit: Silly me, I forgot I also saw Kross rise up from the abyss to fight for the reason of ads. That may have been the best part.

I'm thinking I should go and read that thread properly.

 

[88chaz88]

The article seems to be written by a butthurt forum member and misrepresents Jim's views quite a bit. That's not to say that it doesn't have a point though. The management here is pretty draconic and the moderation reflects that. Not only that, the moderation is robotic. You can get away with a lot but just say the wrong buzzword and you get a warning. I doubt it's the fault of the moderators, but the upper management.

 

[OneCatch]

Not sure how to feel honestly... I sympathize with both the users and the mods.
That thread got more flaming then ANYTHING i've ever seen. I admit, I haven't been here as long as other members have, like the ones from 2008 ... but I think we can all agree that might of been the nastiest turn of events in years. My UN Group talked about it with concern and the best thing was to avoid talking about the topic afterwards.

The White Guy Defence Force thread and the Extra Credits thing are the only ones I can think of that come close. It's just ridiculous. The mods should either have closed comments down (convention be damned), or temporarily lifted the ban on admitting to adblock.
It would probably have been good for the site staff to get an accurate idea of how many people use the damn things in order to appraise their business model, because atm people just aren't going to admit to it.

Equally, you'd have thought that users would have just stayed the hell away after the first page or two. I posted in there with an extremely cautiously worded query (unfortunately yet to be answered), but pages and pages of people repeating "Yeah I use adblock, FUUU!!![footnote]To be clear to any patrolling mods, this is a hypothetical quote intended to be descriptive of warned users in the aforementioned thread and I'm not personally endorsing adblockers or admitting to their use. I normally wouldn't bother with such a disclaimer but it seemed warranted atm[/footnote]" at the mods and then getting warnings isn't helping anything.

This whole thing just makes the Escapist look very bad.

 

[chris89300]

Things like this is why I hate posting on this website, it feels like a dictatorship.
Say anything off and it's the firing squad for you. This place is way to damn strict.
(Also if I get a warning for this post it just goes to show)

Its easy to not get a warning to be honest, you aren't breaking any rules, continue to do that and you will be fine, if you think you were warned for something wrong, appeal it, there is a chance (high if it really wasn't anything on the Code of Conduct) it will be overturned. You can get your point across without breaking the rules. Hardly a dictatorship.

In my time here, I deserved my warnings, I can admit that, but I am not going to attack the moderation because I was breaking the rules. I noticed many in the adblock thread who discussed it and didn't get warned, proving it possible to discuss adblock without being moderated (there were plenty of people in the thread being arrogant about it)

I'm pretty sure I'll get banned for this post, but meh, someone has to speak up.
It actually does feel like a dictatorship.

I've checked out the adblock thread, and damn, everyone who admitted to using it got a warning.

I dunno if anyone's noticed yet, but all over the internet, people tend to completely forget about a lil thing called "Freedom of Speech", even on the "Molyneux hates F2P", some poor guy got banned (dunno who he is, his post got removed shortly after) for POLITELY not agreeing with Molyneux.

Mods on every single site I know of recently have gone fanboy on their users. They don't like it, poof. And sometimes they even change the rules ON-THE-FLY when someone dares call "bullshit" on it.
It's the same thing with the army's "Don't ask, don't tell" bullshit.

And it's the only reason nowadays I almost completely avoid forums. People aren't secure enough in their beliefs so they absolutely have to "destroy" anyone or anything that might challenge their beliefs.

That leaves no room for debate whatsoever.

What's worse, it's that you can get banned for "offending" someone, BUT, and that's a big "but", no one has a definition of what is or not offensive. Don't like Superman? Great, now you just offended someone somewhere, so banned you get.

You think Batman is cooler that Superman? Banned you get.

The more time passes, the more people start adhering to this "not on my watch" attitude of covering their ears and yelling "la la la la" really loud while at the same time trying to get the other guy banned.


That ABSOLUTELY IS DICTATORSHIP, pretty much by definition.

But on the internet, everyone thinks they're the dictator.


I think we can either say ANYTHING or NOTHING AT ALL, because that's what "Freedom of Speech" actually means.

 

[Knight Captain Kerr]

That thread felt like being murdered when you are part of a peace delegation. People came in under the pretence that they could openly discuss the topic but no, ban, ban, ban. I already disagree with a number of rules here, they're the rules but they're also incredibly stupid rules. This forum is too ban happy in general. There is a reason people get upset when pretty decent users get banned over a number of minor offences, it's ridiculous. Many times I haven't made a post because I wouldn't have enough words so I'd have to pointlessly pad it out or get a low content warning. Also I hate how the moderators say that content creators would be treated the same as regular users in the forums. Just admit that they're treated better. They are, we all know they are.

 

[Iwata]

I've been on The Escapist for years, and I love it to bits. It's my main company when I'm working (I'm a media analyst, so I work from home)... but I'll be frank, I've seen some very questionable bans on this, our beloved site, over the past few years...

Yes, the article makes The Escapist look bad. But it's certainly nothing I haven't thought of before. Sometimes I see people get banned with little to no logical reason for it, and all I can think of is 'huh... could've happened to me, because I feel the same way, I just happened not to post it'. And I'm not even talking about blatantly offensive posts or anything, seemingly innocuous posts that just get banned... because reasons, I suppose. And it makes me be very, very careful about what I post.

This post being the exception...

...

... please don't ban me...

 

[Snotnarok]

I really agree with the page, it's really a dumb way to go about policing a site, banning for things that (at the time) were not on the rules, then when people got angry for it, the higher ups go blame the people for the websites issues and make everyone else to be the asshole when it's their fault for A- not having rules in place at the start. B- banning users instead of talking it out. C- trying to shift blame like a child.

Listen, I get it, ads are important it's what keeps the site going and the users able to view 'for free'. It lets the site explore new things to make, grow into new areas and you know, pays the employees. Think of it this way though; when ads put your PC at risk, leave your computer at a standstill, or worse like I've seen, trying to install a VIRUS on your damned computer what are you supposed to do? Stick with it? Go buy antivirus software? Upgrade your PC when you may not need it? Just because the site can't moderate their ads but they have the funds and means to have mods patrol the 'rowdy community' making sure they don't mention software that they dislike and the reasons the community may have for using it?

It's a very aggressive means to deal with a problem, and it's not going to get the community doing any favors...like you know, help support the site, more likely the community will do the opposite.

The best means would have been to make a article with a video, front page it and leave it there for a while. The article and video containing instructions on how to white list and why it's a great idea if you like the site! Talk to people, get the community informed and involved, working with the community is an important way of getting support, you just have to let people know what's up as most don't understand how these things work. If you want a site to be able to support itself and it's workers, the best idea is to work with them and keep everyone together instead of going around swinging a ban hammer like a drunk fool, leaving the apologies for the next day after they realized what had happened.

It wasn't handled well and I'm sure many remember the reaction from the escapist and honestly don't do anything to support them after such a aggressive move, and they're RIGHT to do so. I really like the escapist, may be hard to tell with how this was written but at 7am and not sleeping? Eh. Look, I'm just saying- be kind and work with the community and don't throw a hissy fit when something happens that wasn't planned for. Fix it, make it work but don't start swinging. :|

 

[Darks63]

One thing that came out of that thread that was not answer( at least i didn't see it answered) was that different standards that the facebook comments and forum comments seem to operate under

Not sure how to feel honestly... I sympathize with both the users and the mods.
That thread got more flaming then ANYTHING i've ever seen. I admit, I haven't been here as long as other members have, like the ones from 2008 ... but I think we can all agree that might of been the nastiest turn of events in years. My UN Group talked about it with concern and the best thing was to avoid talking about the topic afterwards.

The White Guy Defence Force thread and the Extra Credits thing are the only ones I can think of that come close. It's just ridiculous. The mods should either have closed comments down (convention be damned), or temporarily lifted the ban on admitting to adblock.
It would probably have been good for the site staff to get an accurate idea of how many people use the damn things in order to appraise their business model, because atm people just aren't going to admit to it.

Equally, you'd have thought that users would have just stayed the hell away after the first page or two. I posted in there with an extremely cautiously worded query (unfortunately yet to be answered), but pages and pages of people repeating "Yeah I use adblock, FUUU!!![footnote]To be clear to any patrolling mods, this is a hypothetical quote intended to be descriptive of warned users in the aforementioned thread and I'm not personally endorsing adblockers or admitting to their use. I normally wouldn't bother with such a disclaimer but it seemed warranted atm[/footnote]" at the mods and then getting warnings isn't helping anything.

This whole thing just makes the Escapist look very bad.

I thought that moviebob fluff piece about Anita Sarkeesian got pretty ugly too and was the first time I discovered that mods cant pull the plug on content threads.

 

[SonicWaffle]

I dunno if anyone's noticed yet, but all over the internet, people tend to completely forget about a lil thing called "Freedom of Speech", even on the "Molyneux hates F2P", some poor guy got banned (dunno who he is, his post got removed shortly after) for POLITELY not agreeing with Molyneux.

What does freedom of speech have to do with anything? For one thing, we're on a privately owned website, which means the people who own it get to set their own rules for what is and isn't allowed. If you don't like that, you have the freedom to go somewhere else - you're not being oppressed, your right to free speech isn't being eroded, you just agreed to abide by certain rules when you created your account. It's not like you're being forced to only post on a single forum for the rest of your life.

That ABSOLUTELY IS DICTATORSHIP, pretty much by definition.

Seriously?

As stated earlier in this thread, I have my issues with the moderation and the rules around here, but on the whole we have plenty of freedom as compared to other forums: we can cuss our black little hearts out, for one thing, without anyone telling us to think of the poor wee children. Throwing around terms like dictatorship or referencing freedom of speech (unless your entire post was intended to be satire, in which case I mis-read it) aren't helping. I'd like to see changes too, but getting hysterical and yelling about how the mods are tyrannical dictators is unlikely to lead to any willingness on their part to reform the current status quo.

 

[Mr_Spanky]

Bottom line - the opportunity was completely wasted to actually use the situation to the Escapists advantage. And an awful lot of the points that Jim was trying to make has been lost in the "thread vs moderation" controversy.

I read most of the posts there but I didn't even consider getting involved since I'm pretty sure the things I would have said would have gotten me handed the ban-hammer.

Imo being able to have an open and honest (if heated) discussion about something like that is way WAY better than not talking about it at all. It's controversial yes but in the end everyone feels better if they at least have a voice.

Being made to feel that if you stick your head above the parapet it'll instantly be shot off just makes you resentful and prevents what would have been a lot of valuable contributions to the discussion - as well as somewhat derailing it into the bargain.