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

[IceForce]

it's also extremely likely that jim's video (knowingly or not) was only made to trick people into saying if they use it or not so they could purge the site

Why would they want to purge this site? You're going to have to explain this one.

You can see the negative press that this has garnered, if the Escapist "purged this site" it would do nothing positive for their reputation.
What reason would they have to purge anything, other than ruining their reputation and deliberately shooting themselves in the foot?

 

[V da Mighty Taco]

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)

Looking at the thread again for the first time in days, I actually see quite a few people who weren't being rude or arrogant in any way who got warnings for posts that admitted to and explained thoroughly why they adblock the Escapist (which clearly added to the discussion). When a major content creator such as Jim Sterling can't even get a proper discussion going on the subject without mod wrath befalling even those who civilly add to the discussion, then it's easy to see why people like Tizzy and I can feel this way at times.

To be perfectly honest, this whole thing makes me glad that I didn't post in that thread as I originally intended, which is something a long-time community member with a squeaky-clean record and a penchant for essay-length explanations should never feel when wanting to discuss a popular content creator's video. However, events like these do unfortunately create an atmosphere of fear and mistrust for the moderation staff, which discourages even rule-abiding members from posting while simultaneously making the mods' jobs even more painstakingly difficult and thankless than they already are. All around, everybody loses in scenarios like these.

Off topic, but maybe it's time for some more silly threads to lighten the mood a bit, with at least a little mod participation being mandatory to help remind us that they're silly humans (or bug-people in a certain mod's case ) and not robotic Nazis from Mars - even if they might seem so sometimes. Not saying this topic doesn't need to be discussed btw (it certainly does), just that we'd get a lot farther imho if we took a minute to laugh and clear our heads a bit first. Speaking of which, I wonder what the next ZP will be on...

EDIT:

*Snip*

Sucks to hear about that. Hopefully things turn out better if you do decide to go through with that episode. Regardless, you at least have the ***** Fist to "keep you company" if your spirits get down! XD

 

[IceForce]

the underlying reason is because advertisement agencies check forums like these regularly and can and will cut funding if they see that using ad-block is either encouraged or that these conversations aren't quashed.

This implies that there are advertising agencies looking over that Jimquisition thread as we speak, and marvelling at all the warnings in it.

Are advertising agencies really this petty?

 

[Casual Shinji]

You can't just hand us a get-out-of-jail-free card and expect us not to use it.

The thing is, we weren't given a "get out of jail free" card. It's not even news that the content creators can say and do things in their videos that would get us (or theoretically, even them) warned for posting. People really should have exercised more caution.

Especially after the third or fourth page with warnings and the like.

That's not to say it couldn't be handled better. It could.

The thing is, this was not a Zero Punctuation sort of thing, where it's shock humor or kicking the shins of the fans for yucks. It was a serious topic obviously meant to stir somekind of discussion. I would think that's kinda the purpose of the Jimquisition. If you then adress something which is a definate powder keg around here, you can't expect people to not vent about a few issues they have regarding it. It's like allowing the prisoners to walk around the courtyard, but have the guards treat it like they're breaking cerfew.

It gives off a very mixed signal.

 

[Lord Krunk]

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.

In the past few years I started noticing that as well. It's one of the reasons I don't post much here anymore.

OT: The volunteer mods are just following the rules and I can't fault them for that. But someone in charge should have at least made an exemption in the case of that thread, or at least questioned the ethics of opening a discussion about a subject that they really didn't want to hear anyone else's opinion on. I wonder if they did have a good long chat with Jim after this episode, because given their iron fist on such a subject Jim was a little bit too understanding. Hell, that episode's one of the few things Jim has said that I can actually agree with.

People have good reasons to use the plugin, after all. This site from 2009 onwards is good evidence of why.

 

[IceForce]

-Make a real exception; it isn't inconsistency it is a single special case. Its like having a sticky thread, many forums do this; they have a single place where an issue can be discussed to avoid it being all over the other forums. If you are a mod or community policy manager CAN make exceptions YOU set the policy. It isn't robotic. Have some common sense. The thread will eventually end and normal moderation can take place everywhere else with zero effect. Everybody wins. This is the most simple solution and it baffles me this wasn't done in the first place.

It should probably be pointed out that exceptions to the rules, have been made before.
Most notably, the low content rule: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/658.835140-Game-of-the-Year-2013-Forum-Rules#20450299

So, despite what anyone might say, it *is* possible for them to make exceptions to certain rules, in certain cases, in one or more threads.

 

[DirgeNovak]

Apart from the bit where they completely missed the point of Jim's video, I sadly have to say I agree with them. As much as I love the site and its contributors, it's getting increasingly difficult to tolerate the frankly digusting ads we get here.
It shouldn't be my job as a user to have to mute my computer while reading articles because some video ads may randomly start playing sound out of fucking nowhere. A respectable website shouldn't allow those despicable "You have one message" or "There are errors on your computer CLICK HERE" scam ads. And suppressing any discussion about THE A-WORD is nothing short of shameful, particularly when you allow one of your most popular contributors to make a video discussing the very subject.

Here's an idea, Escapist: Stop doing business with those despicable advertisers who make annoying/scamming ads, publicly state through a news post that those objectionable ads are no longer on the site, and I guaran-fucking-tee you that a lot of people are going to stop using THE A-WORD on The Escapist to show support, and your ad revenues are going to grow. A little respect for your userbase will go a long way.

 

[DirgeNovak]

My post

I have another good idea. If someone mentions they are getting an advert that ruins their experience, don't slap people down for mentioning THE A WORD, simply show them there is a great alternative that supports the site. Here have this fro free, here is a template for what a mod could post in those threads;

"Here at the Escapist we are supported by advertisements. Unfortunately those Adds have to be served by a third party and we have little control over what is shown. We don't like our users being inconvenienced by these adds but ultimately the site needs revenue to survive. Using an adblocker is a very widespread solution and we can't stop you from doing that but unfortunately that removes a lot of revenue from the site and makes the forum kittens cry :' (

But if you love the Escapist but find the adds needed to support the site unmanageable there is a solution at hand. You can support the escapist by buying a publisher's club subscription [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/subscription/] and get many other benefits including HD videos, special forum access, custom titles and much more.

The Escapist needs support to survive. If you want to see more content from us whilst not seeing a single ad then the Pub Club would love to welcome you"

It's called being cooperative and helpful rather then being combative and driving masses of users from the site. The biggest loser from The Escapists asinine policy towards THE A WORD is themselves. Turn a negative into a positive. Warning and suspending people for talking about a common piece of software is 100% counterproductive. It is woeful community engagement.

That still leaves the issue of horrible ads still being on the site. Just saying "Sorry you don't like hearing an unmutable Huggies ad on top of the ZP video you're watching and had to reload the page for it to STFU" doesn't fix the issue. And neither does trying to sell me Pub Club.

Let me tell you a story. I subscribed to Destructoid's Huge program, which is basically their version of Pub Club, last fall. I did it to help support the site first because I love them and it had the added benefit of removing ads. One reason that helped me make that decision was a little thing that happened a month before they launched Huge:

Spoiler: While navigating the site, I saw this ad that bugged me for kind of obvious reasons:

You'll probably agree it's a disgusting ad, but not nearly as egregious as scams and unmutable audio. Still, it annoyed me enough to shoot a quick tweet about it to the site's founder Niero Gonzalez, mentioning that, and I quote, "this is the kind of shit that makes me want to turn Adblock back on". Within minutes, he tweeted back asking where I lived so he could pinpoint which server the ad came from so he could have it taken down, and a few hours later, the ad disappeared from the site. Now that's what I call caring about your userbase.

Compare that to what The Escapist does, i.e. suspending/banning people who admit to adblocking the site and never even acknowledging that the ads on the site are problematic; I'm definitely not the first to complain about the unmutable audio ads and they never once responded to the complaints, and they've been on the site for months. It'svery hard for me to justify giving $20 to a company that clearly doesn't give a crap about my experience on their site.

 

[NewClassic_v1legacy]

I guess we're still on this, huh?

Forgive me if I sound a little bit dismissive, but I'm kinda tired of threads like these. The fact of the matter is, no one ever seems to be 100% happy with how things are run. Frankly, I don't think anyone ever will be. There are just too many moving parts in any business or community for there to not be something that someone takes issue with somewhere. Like all things, everyone's going to have different beliefs about what should or shouldn't be the case.

It's been that way since 2009 [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.111336-The-Escapist-Ban-hammer], it was the same way this time last year [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.404416-Poll-Injustice-of-the-Permaban?view_results=1], and every time new rules come out, there's always a lot of discussion about how much better and worse it is [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.839376-Poll-New-Forum-Rules-Yay-or-Nay?view_results=1]. The unfortunate truth that seems terminal is that no matter what, there's always going to be something that someone wants to change.

If the tone of this thread teaches us anything, it's that people are generally unhappy. Advertisements aren't ideal, but they're the currently functional business model [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/18.844474.20801262]. It doesn't mean anyone has to like it, or even laud it as the second coming of Jesus, but it does mean it's the one we live with. Personally, I'll take advertisements over some of the alternatives, even if it makes having to put up with occasional security issues. It's the reason I don't personally use blocking software of any sort. If you do, cool, just don't talk about it. If for no other reason, consider for a little bit the venue on which you're commenting.

This is a forum whose traffic is largely consumed by your peers. Probably more than 90% of the posters you'll run into are going to be just other posters or lurkers. Folks who read the forums, have opinions, and casually visit the site. Beyond that, you'll occasionally get a moderator in the thread, reading over and maybe commenting on a thing or two, but for the most part, we're the same as every other user you'll get on a thread. Then you have the occasional contributor or staff member poking their heads in. However, the likelihood that you'll catch the person or persons willing and able to make site-wide sweeping changes on a large scale are pretty slim. Further, the likelihood that a single individual has the power to enact such a change, and is able to do so without sinking the business itself, becomes even more slim.

To answer the question "If not ads, then what?" is the major factor. Not just pitching potential ideas, but pitching working ideas. Ideas that the business could implement tomorrow and have enough success to not fold. That involves studies, research, an intimacy with the traffic numbers of a site, and proof that a comparable model worked well enough so that it could effectively be implemented. That's a big, ridiculously complicated equation of variables and hazards that most businesses couldn't survive trying. Going a layer deeper, even if something worked somewhere else (like the Reddit comparison that's occasionally brought up), the same may not work at a place like the Escapist for a number of reasons. (Traffic differences, population fluctuations, different patterns of traffic unique to just videos, or just forums, etc.)

Guess I got a little tangential. Whoops.

Getting back on point, the likelihood that a moderator or single staff member can see a post and effect a sweeping change of policy is relatively minor. Even if there's enough to merit a change, it's the sort of result weeks or months later, certainly not overnight or within a week. For things like discussion of ad blocking, with total site lifetime ramifications, there isn't going to be a simple, easy, direct solution for how things might result. In the case of a video like the one we're discussing, to rewrite the rule for it without a woeful amount of hubris is impossible. There is no way anyone could guess what all the user complaints would be. We could get close, and we could continue to refine and litigate until we had a rule that's so iron-clad in it's language it becomes completely opaque to everyone reading it short of those with law degrees. It's just not a workable solution.

In fact, for threads and discussions like these, moderators have no workable solutions. Completely regardless of how we feel about a rule or thread on the forums (or anywhere for that matter), we're beholden to the laws and rules we agree to. I can no more, for example, talk about advocating software piracy myself (despite being the party that enforces such regulations) than a female police officer could patrol the beach topless in protest of unequal clothing laws. These are our limits, as individuals within an organized society. I regret that this is the case, as this does happen from time to time, but it's the world we've been born into.

Discussions like these might be better served, ultimately, in emails or contact forms or direct messages to staff members. On the forums, however, they're just things the moderators have to watch over. It becomes a place for people, whose sole intentions are to cause problems, to have an outlet to air grievances. It means that every post potentially could be looking to start a fight, start some fires, or start a war. Many posters in this thread believe that the comment thread for that video should have been locked, and perhaps that in itself opened the door to more flames, fights, and fury. No matter how anyone could have possibly reacted, everyone has the potential to walk away unhappy. As was the case, it happened anyway. It's a tough thing, altogether.

Then again, if the right answer were easy, we wouldn't still be on this, would we?

 

[Eamar]

If the tone of this thread teaches us anything, it's that people are generally unhappy. Advertisements aren't ideal, but they're the currently functional business model [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/18.844474.20801262]. It doesn't mean anyone has to like it, or even laud it as the second coming of Jesus, but it does mean it's the one we live with. Personally, I'll take advertisements over some of the alternatives, even if it makes having to put up with occasional security issues.

People keep saying this, but it doesn't explain why the Escapist's ads are so much worse than other comparable sites'. Other people have already said it, but most of the sentiment isn't "all ads are evil, I never want to see them", it's "the Escapist's ads are really bad, to the point of ruining my browsing experience."

This is something the site really needs to address. Very few people are disputing the need for ads, but something's clearly going wrong with how this site in particular uses them. It's simply not a black and white argument about ads vs no ads.

 

[NewClassic_v1legacy]

This is something the site really needs to address. Very few people are disputing the need for ads, but something's clearly going wrong with how this site in particular uses them. It's simply not a black and white argument about ads vs no ads.

Kross has had a lot to say on the subject in the recent past. Check out these [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/6.843934.20781551] three [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/6.843934.20782038] posts [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/6.843934.20783775] in particular.

In brief, to my understanding of it, the short of it is that advertising is somewhat scattershot, and the ads that pay well are either targeted or obnoxious. Without the sustained traffic numbers to have consistently targeted ads, the likelihood of mouse-over or autoplaying ads runs higher. If you do find ads that can't close after being opened, or that autoplay sound without permission, report them to the Tech Team group [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/groups/chat/Tech-Team] with screenshots and URLs/domains where possible.

 

[Atomic Spy Crab]

EDIT: I am an american and an extreme believer of free speech, and I don't believe you should be allowed to get banned for talking about a certain aspect of your life style.

Free Speech in America has absolutely nothing to do with what private organisations do within their confines.

The Escapist is starting to more and more resemble the extreme conservatives and churches it so extremely despises.

How so? Nothing about this thread is anything new or different for The Escapist, so how are they "starting" to resemble anything? And since when has the site despised any of that?

Well I just stated my beliefs and didn't say every site I visit needs to believe it too
Also you are right I may have been wrong with my comparison

 

[DoPo]

Compare that to what The Escapist does, i.e. suspending/banning people who admit to adblocking the site and never even acknowledging that the ads on the site are problematic; I'm definitely not the first to complain about the unmutable audio ads and they never once responded to the complaints, and they've been on the site for months.

Did you mention it to the tech team or just off hand in the forums? Because as far as I've seen, the tech team do their best to fix any ads that bother the users, however, they do not tend to go through the forums looking for complaints, for they have a whole usergroup set up for that purpose.

EDIT: I am an american and an extreme believer of free speech, and I don't believe you should be allowed to get banned for talking about a certain aspect of your life style.

Free Speech in America has absolutely nothing to do with what private organisations do within their confines.

The Escapist is starting to more and more resemble the extreme conservatives and churches it so extremely despises.

How so? Nothing about this thread is anything new or different for The Escapist, so how are they "starting" to resemble anything? And since when has the site despised any of that?

Well I just stated my beliefs and didn't say every site I visit needs to believe it too
Also you are right I may have been wrong with my comparison

Yet, your belief is quite literally wrong - freedom of speech is really about the government not messing with you. It does not apply to non-government establishments, such as the Escapist and other websites. They have the full rights to have, and enforce, rules for communication. Now if you wish they didn't, that's different - it is not about freedom of speech.

 

[Atmos Duality]

If it's your obnoxious ad choices that are driving users to Adblock in the first place, then fix your obnoxious ad choices. That's not on users, it's on you. Don't beat your users about the head and face with censorship and public shaming because you can't adapt to a new market reality you just happen to dislike.

That actually came up in the thread Mr. Bode is quoting, but he obviously didn't bother to read any of it beyond that which would make his argument look smarter or grant him some illusory moral high ground. You aren't fooling me, Mr. Bode, but I'll get to that in a minute.

The problem with the topic lies in the fact that the subject of the ad-revenue model and its circumvention is difficult to discuss in the first place.

Because:

1) To users, ads are just another cost (and what's really scary is how few users actually recognize that fact).
Nobody likes paying for things that they can get for free, so right out of the gate any attempts a content provider makes at reasoning can be interpreted strictly as preachy/begging/shaming. (and to be fair, there is an element of that at work, but that alone doesn't make them wrong either)

2a) Ad Revenue pays for the Internet. So for a company that relies on ad-revenue to keep the system running (or profit; either or), it's antithetical to even bring up the subject of software that blocks advertisements.

Thus we have a Forbidden Fruit scenario:
Content providers have a good reason to discuss the matter, but users have their own, opposite reason to discuss it.
By exposing users to the idea of ad-blockers, providers may in fact be encouraging its usage and digging their own graves.
Hence, the Escapist's moratorium on the subject.

3) Advertising is such an effective model that's it's seemingly everywhere. And wherever it isn't, there is some company trying to put it there. Worse, due to the nature of ads, it's becoming more and more obnoxious as all of these ads fight for consumer attention.

Result: A large amount of resentment against advertisements exists, and it's only getting worse. Combine this with the aforementioned factors and it's easy to see how this subject was a powder keg waiting to go off.

I've moderated a significantly larger Internet forum (DSLReports.com) driven almost solely by ads for almost fifteen years now. I can't even imagine the epic shitstorm we would face if I started blaming our users for failures in our business model, then started banning everyone who talked about a common technology I just happened to dislike.

And for most of the past 15 years, plugins and software that circumvented advertisements were nowhere near as common or prevalent as they are today (or even existed, like in the early 2000s).

While Mr. Bode is free to present a "Devil may care" attitude on the matter so he can appeal to his audience and slam the Escapist, the fact remains that he would be out of a job if not for ad-revenue. He can slam The Escapist for how they approached the subject, but it was a no-win scenario. There was NO way this wasn't going to get ugly.

But even if he doesn't believe in blaming users for the usage of ad-blockers, I, in part, do.
Because as obnoxious and overdone as advertisements are (and this post would be a short novel if I were to rant about the number and quality of ads that piss me off today), it's still unfair to pin the blame solely on them.

Even in the absence of obnoxious ads, free content devoid of any real costs sounds like a strong motivation for users to use ad-blockers. Because who doesn't like free stuff?

In the end, users have to decide whether they value the short term or long term benefits of content more.
If they enjoy and care about the content they receive, they should at least recognize the need to support it, and ad-revenue, obnoxious as it is, is a way to do so.

That's what I took from Jim Sterling's video, and why I'm not exactly on board with Karl Bode's article.
To be blunt, to me it looks like Mr. Bode is dressing down The Escapist to play himself up by leveraging the bias of his audience.

 

[Something Amyss]

It was a serious topic obviously meant to stir somekind of discussion.

And, as Marter and others have noted, those who seriously discussed it weren't the ones warned. Those who were flaming or merely adding "I use That Which Must Not Be Named" were. I engaged in that discussion--even with a mod once--and came out unscathed. A lot of people did. I'm not sure how that's mixed signals. It seems like one signal.

Well I just stated my beliefs and didn't say every site I visit needs to believe it too
Also you are right I may have been wrong with my comparison

You should be able to argue and/or justify your beliefs. Saying "free speech" doesn't mean much here: free speech doesn't guarantee you a venue. I get that it's your belief, but keep in mind you agree to terms of service when you post here. You have chosen to agree to those terms.

EDIT: And you don't have to agree with the terms. I disagree with some of the rules. You just have to agree to abide by them.