A few days ago, some of our readers decided to share some political and irrelevant stuff in a story covering the latest trailer for Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus. And in case you did not know, we are not fans of these comments. As such, John decided to engage with the community and delete numerous comments. However, and instead of forcing our own ideas and beliefs to you, we’ve decided to think outside the box and let you, our readers, determine the policy for our Comment section.
Normally, this Editorial would be huge with us detailing why we don’t want political stuff in our Comment section. However, and as we were about to publish the Editorial, it hit us; this is your damn section so it’s only fair to let you decide its policy.
As such, this poll will run until next Sunday (October 1st) and will end at 21:00 GMT. Do note that in order to minimize any possible spam or attempt to alter the results, we accept only accounts that have commented on five other stories in DSOGaming. Accounts that have been created today or last week are not acceptable. Accounts that have commented on five stories from today are also not acceptable. Duplicate comments are not acceptable. We’ll be also deleting irrelevant comments in this particular story (so that it’s easier to determine which option has won).
So, with this out of the way, you can decide our Comment section policy by choosing one of the following. You can take part by simply writing the number of your choice (you can then add anything you want to say in that comment. However if you don’t choose a number, your comment will be deleted).
We’ll be contacting similar polls each and every year. This basically means that our Comment section policy will be dynamic, and will be determined – each and every year – by you. Moreover, the censorship of specific words will remain in order to protect the website.
Here are the current available choices:
- Unrestrained Policy: Our readers can comment about anything they want. They can leave political or racist comments, and they can insult other members (who can defend themselves via the Comment section. Moderators are not required to protect them and they can leave all users to fight each other).
- Users can talk about anything apart from racist or personal attacks: Our readers can talk about anything as long as it’s not racist or personal attacks. Moderators are free to delete comments THEY feel are racist or personal attacks. In case such a comment passes under the radar, readers can report the comment in order to bring it to our attention. Moderators can also ban users that keep talking about all those topics.
- Users can talk about anything apart from racist, personal attacks, political stuff: Our readers can talk about anything as long as it’s not racist, political or personal attacks. Moderators are free to delete comments THEY feel are under those categories. In case such a comment passes under the radar, readers can report the comment in order to bring it to our attention. Moderators can also ban users that keep talking about all those topics.
- Only PC gaming related stuff: Our readers can talk only about PC gaming stuff. As such, they can’t share off-topic videos (such as music videos), talk about the weather, earthquakes or other disasters (like tsunamis for example), talk about history, or talk about all the other aforementioned categories. In case such a comment passes under the radar, readers can report the comment in order to bring it to our attention. Moderators can also ban users that keep talking about all those topics.
So there you have it. YOU can determine our Comment section policy so go ahead and decide for yourselves how you want to engage with each other!
UPDATE: Results announced
You’ve spoken, we are listening. The majority of you, our readers, decided that our Comment Policy should be unrestricted. As such, for an entire year, our policy will be exactly that. As such, moderators will only censor specific words. Why are we censoring them? Because we were flagged three times by Google in the past for such a thing. Now I know that some of you don’t like this but unless you fund us via our Patreon page, there is nothing we can really do about it. We have to protect our website in order to keep it alive (unless of course you want DSOGaming to close and if that’s your wish then… well… no comment really).
Here are the results:
1 = 46
4 = 39
3 = 14
2 = 18
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
Contact: Email
1. Unrestrained Policy.
The internet greatly appreciates freedom of speech, especially lately since the left has been trying to suppress dissent. SJWs are a cancer in the videogame industry. If they get triggered and F off that’s a win-win for this site. But if they want to stick around and battle that’s fine too. Makes it more interesting. Nothing is more boring than a sanitized forum.
The only thing that should be prohibited is making direct threats of physical harm to another person.
Option 2 allows addressing politics. Unless you want to protect racist and personal attacks, it’s a good choice.
Conversely, though, if you leave things unrestricted you’d be leaving the door to politics wide open
1.
Free speech is simply unparalleled. And you know, anyone on Disqus can block users they don’t like.
2. Users can talk about anything apart from racist and personal attacks
We live in the polite society and we all should communicate like human beings, that means to be polite, respectful and calm. Every attempt trying to destroy this society should immediately be banned.
That sounded like a sjw if you ask me.They are “polite” as long as you dont tell them that you are not as far to the left as them. or politically correct.
3. If you want to talk about news or politics, go to one of the many very popular websites where people want to argue back and forth. The fact of the matter is that Person A is going to share their political and possibly offensive opinion with others and Person A is in no way going to change anyone’s mind, so we see a comment section full of people that cannot keep themselves from a civil discussion and it turns into imbecilic behavior. This is your decision to make DSOG. You want your site to be FULL of people wishing they could play as the “good side” in Wolfenstein, instead of the people killing nazis, I’ll just head somewhere else, no big deal.
Now that I think about it, the voting is basically #1 versus a variation of #2-4. You might end up with more votes spread between 2, 3 and 4 than all of #1. I would consider that the people picking 2, 3, and 4 are all for some sort of regulation and that they may be in the majority. In that case, this should basically be the primaries before the election. If 2+3+4 equals more than #1, then we should figure out democratically which one of those will more people choose.
Do we have a Jurassic Park with no fences or do we have fences and then decide what else might be safe for the visitors?
“The fact of the matter is that Person A is going to share their political and possibly offensive opinion with others”
As if there is any politicla opinion that is not considered offensive from those who dissagree.
“so we see a comment section full of people that cannot keep themselves
from a civil discussion and it turns into imbecilic behavior. ”
Mate thats what discussion on gaming sites have turned, which is why people are pissed.
Why cant people accept the fact that other people have their own views and move on? But noooo the gaming media have to preach down on us and to developers. As if we all universally agreed that we are on the same side of the political spectrum, we are not. But the industry definetly is.
This is what it has all turned into.
” You want your site to be FULL of people wishing they could play as the
“good side” in Wolfenstein, instead of the people killing nazis, I’ll
just head somewhere else, no big deal.”
Those are 4chan trolls. I for one would wish i could play wollfenstein without having “progressive” propaganda shoved into my face, the old wolfenstein games, heck the last 2 even made by the same devs did not have any of that nonsense.
Just thought id clear those things up.
Free speech, are you guys kidding me? Wow, what has DSOG seriously turned into, you guys really are ok with people being insulted, racially or otherwise and then call it free speech. No this site shouldn’t run rampant with horrible comments and the like, I would totally say 3.
This site should only be about PC gaming, and people shouldn’t try to pick fights over political reasons. Also this is your site, you shouldn’t be asking the audience if they’d like to be as much racist as they want. That is not right at all.
Even if not directly aimed at them, no one should have to read anything against their race or culture and feel like they don’t belong. Sorry but free speech doesn’t mean right to racism, and neither does it mean you are exempt from consequences if you say something demeaning and unrelated to videogames.
Well then you shouldn’t take comments so personally and if they do hurt your feelings then you use the block feature and yes free speech is unlimited, it’s the internet, you can always close you browser.
to be fair mate, now disquss has a block button. In the past it didnt. Surpised you didnt pick 4. I did.
What you just expressed there are your political opinions (nobody being insulted > freedom of speech, for example). What’s funny is, at the same time you are asking to be prevented from expressing any of your political opinions again in the future.
My point still stands, so many people here like to be toxic for unrelated reasons to videogame news, and now some of those people are hiding behind free speech.
This is Dsog not BBC, or Tribune or something, feel free to talk politics if they are related to a game, but don’t take that as an excuse to go on racist rants here.
Dsog should be first and foremost a PC gaming oriented site, not known for having some of the most trolls.
And I will still back my saying that free speech shouldn’t mean you are exempt from consequences, as John and the others should have the right to delete the comments that are unnecessary and even ban the people who continue to do that.
People love talking about the block button, other people who come to Dsog for the first time can still see those comments. What kind of image do you think that sets up about the site?
I didn’t say no one should give their political opinions at all, all I have talked about are the racist and hateful comments that are half the time unrelated to games.
#1. but if there’s an obvious troll that’s being incredibly derailing and people aren’t ignoring, a mod should be able to step in and ban/suspend them.
Number 4 to me at least sounds like the best option. Other content doesn’t truly belong on this site, because we come here for gaming news. Not for political garbage
2.
Since games are increasingly dabbling into (heavily left leaning) social commentary, and 99% of gaming media is blatantly left wing and mercilessly pushing it left and right, so to speak, I can’t really see options 3 or 4 working… You would literally not be allowed to discuss some topics which games itself touch upon. Allowing completely free speech with option 1 will draw out imbeciles from all sides, but then- who decides which views are “stupid”? Should anybody, really? Though I would say we all know sites which have pretty much 96% pseudo funny gif spammed non-readable comments sections.
You know what’s GREAT in all of this though? That YOU, DSO, are willing to actually ASK your readers on what should allowed on the site, and make them decide! NOW THAT’S not something you typically see in the media!
I think it’s called democracy?
1.i want to see more trolls and laugh at both trolls and sensitive ones getting triggered by them
I personally want #4 and would have #3 as my second choice.
The reason I like this site so much is generally people only do #4 and that is a beautiful thing. With a world filled with hate and trolling it is pretty cool to be able to visit DSO and only talk about video game stuff.
If the site does #1 or #2 it will become like every other site and that would suck 🙁 , or maybe it would just go on as it is?
So having said the above so far no post has ever bothered me personally since I have been here. The odd trolling was really the only beef I have had since I have been here. So that is pretty cool, In short I think the community is really good/cool as it is.
Unrestrained.
Let people say what they want. The block button allows us to silence people we don’t like anyways. Allow people to censor who they want without restraining the free speech of others. Don’t blanket censor everyone.
As it is now, people are offended about everything. You can’t pick and choose who to censor without being biased and partial.
Then again, it’s your site. Do what you want.
3.
I want to say 4, but 3 seems like a nice middle ground to what can and cannot go on.
Personal attacks need to be done away with, as well as spammers who come onto this site to troll the hell out of people into making what can be considered personal attacks, so do away with the spammers and trolls, you also cut down on the personal attacks.
This site is primarily about PC gaming, so Xbox players spamming Xbox or Sony need to be done away with.
Number 3 is the best choice here i don’t want this site to become like IGN
I leave read comment of this site when I see users talk about anything accept gaming…Here is a gaming site..
I love read gaming comments not platform conflict, political and religious discussion,racist and personal attacks….Site is all about GAME! (mod edit: option #4, unless the user edits the comment)
I’d go with #2, as I believe there’s place for civilized political debate.
#1 easily, is a comment too “toxic”/triggering for you? block the user and be done with it instead of whining.
I would have to say #2 because I feel that politics part in 3 includes how developers act what they say and what they do to the general consumer if you could possibly define what the politics include that would be great like were not allowed to talk in terms of developers political affliation like sjwism or right wing you know That and i believe their is room for some political debates that happen in the commet section.That and 1 just leaves the comment section open for sh*t talking and trolls.
4
Political stuff should stay out of my games.
What if a game makes a political statement? You couldn’t discuss the content of that game here, at least not in any meaningful way.
If you start to impose rules in these matters the rules only get worst. I understand that some vile things will be written. Things that need to be addressed, but they can without “throwing the book” at people. If you feel like something should be deleted, delete it. Don’t justify it, just delete it.
It is a much better community when we are free to express whatever the hell we want. And we’ll definitely know each other better. It is nice to know what Zatana’s views are in the Brexit. Should we censor ourselves with “fear” that we might be censored?
I understand the desires and simplicity of the rules, but we can be better, we can be The Dark Side of Gaming and be better and free for it. Obviously I choose 1
Hey it’s ZataRa not ZataNa 🙂
I assume comments would end up with XBox specs posted ad nauseum mixed with nauseating but yet mainstream group thinking 🙂
Zatara for president of DSOG!
Not happy with any of those to be honest. :/
1,2,3, are almost the same considering the “culture” around here, 4 would be ideal in a perfect world, but it will probably become a massive circlejerk, and considering the amount of accounts that come here just to get a reaction out of people, that isn’t much of a stretch.
My choice would be #5 “CAN YOU BE POLITE? YOU KNOW, RESPECT OTHER PEOPLE?”
f*cking dammitI vote number 3. Respect should not be optional.
edited: I say #4
Big internet problem: People who say 4 shouldn’t be moderators and people who say 1 don’t want to be moderators.
I can tell you i’d be more neutral possible, since i’m covering an important position, i’m a serious person.
Option one or at a pitch option two, many games with narratives (satirical or not) are designed for a response, it’s inevitable and the whole point.
Locking it down and saying it’s irrelevant might be valid in the Pac-Man days but not now.
BTW Option four sounds like a Stasi inspired dystopia
#1
2 I like the rants and raves about anything but making personal or racist comments is just childish… let the kiddies play elsewhere
“Moreover, the censorship of specific words will remain in order to protect the website.”
so we’re turning this into “PC”gamer? censorship and left-wing bias?
grow some balls John, the comment section should remain unaffected by moderation, considering console peasant agents like Sp4ctr0 are still unbanned even though they contribute f**k all to the discussion enforcing banning should be reserved only to bots and adspammers, if someone doesn’t like someone else’s comment, the block button is there.
two: if you want to avoid “politics” in video games, then avoid posting articles about political correct games (such as wolfenstien, mass effect Andromeda etc…)
because those games use virtue signalling, and that is POLITICS
three:if you decide to align yourself with SJW’s and chase after comments who accuse studios for virtue signalling and purposefully ruining characters, then you will only lose visitors to this site
i joined DSO when “PC”gamer started to making political articles about trump (which had no relation to gaming)
forth and final: “anything apart from racist” who are you to determine what is racist?
seriously if this the direction you want this site to go then i’ll gladly abandon it
the reason DSO thrives become they’re not a shill site
they don’t appease SJW’s (until now…)
and they don’t care about the comment section (enforcing fascistic rules is only gonna make this site less appealing, and DSO’s community is pretty small as it is)
and i’m totally with the poll option, but do remember to respect the deciding vote
because i’m very skeptic if you’re gonna be respectful when people decide that
you should be quiet and let us enjoy discussion our opinions (unfiltered)
I vote #2. There are two ways to ruin a site for the members. Being to restrictive and being to lenient.
Voting #1 is too lenient and it’s just asking for chaos in the comments section and wading through racist remarks/ comebacks and attacking members/ comebacks is silly. I have seen sites like that and they are a mess to try to comment and communicate on.
Voting #4 is too restrictive as there are definitely some connections at times to Political Correctness in games that get pointed out which is fair but also I don’t come here to read about Trump and North Korea or what the PM of Britain has to say about Brexit so I guess I’m saying some political comments are relevant but others aren’t. It’s a gray area which should be left to moderators to make the call on and give warnings when comments stray to far away from gaming but banning for a first offense is too restrictive as well.
I’ve learned from some of the “off-topic” conversations.
2. Users can talk about anything apart from racist or personal attacks
Bravo for letting your readers decide; I would exclude profanity also.
#3
If number I and II means this sh*t right here—>
“Moreover, the censorship of specific words will remain in order to protect the website.”
then I dont want none of that sh*t
All four options come with that word filter, there’s no option to get rid of the word filter.
This website has one of the most toxic communities in gaming so might as well allow racist comments too so that it can finally blossom into the cesspool it was always meant to be.
#4 if applied to a movie site’s comments – the film ran for 90 minutes and starred Johnny Generic and Jennifer Whatsherface, I can’t say if it was any good because that involves articulating the context, history and narrative, but I can tell you it definitely ran at 24fps
No 4.
This isn’t an issue of freedoms as it’s a privately run site ABOUT PC GAMES. So if you aren’t hear to read/talk about PC GAMES then why are you even here with that troll mentality?
It seems like every site these days wants to talk AROUND games (i.e. politics), but not ABOUT them.
I guess we can also extend talk of games to hardware in hardware related topics.
4. NO BULL$HIT
I LOVE the razor-sharp focus of the site on Games+Mods, and seriously don’t want trolls nor any more spread of the worst of the internet near my interests, nor do i want the task of fighting it manually by blocking users. There’s enough of going down to low standards everywhere else in the name of revenue, less work and freedom of speech.
I know flame-wars mean more views, ads and revenue, but please, keep yourselves to high quality content and a game-loving community.
Totally agree, there are plenty of spaces you can speak politics and many other stuff. Nobody is censoring nothing here, this is just not the right space to speak about certain stuff!!
Here’s another idea: Why not have an open forum each week (like Gematsu does) with different (more lax) rules to the other articles?
That would encourage open communication, whilst keeping article comments from being derailed.
Gamespot funnelled off political debate into a subforum, and it worked great in detoxifying the rest of the site without actually restricting communication.
i remember gamespot had feedbackulka, hell i featured once
damn i miss the old gamespot… they fired everyone who was decent and now they all work at shill networks (either peasants are other “gamespots”)
i’ed say each year voting is enough, SJW crybabies could just leave if they find the discussion “too triggering”
I think unrestrained is the best one as long as it doesn’t include spamming and maybe off topic content. It would be nice to take out the language moderation too…
Without a doubt, #4. I usually use a script blocker to block the comment section here or just stop visiting the site all together. #4 would be one of the ways to get me back to the site a little more often
What are you afraid of?
#4. Only PC gaming related stuff.
I’m here to read and comment about PC games and news not about ISIS or Trump.
Number 3 is probably the smartest. We just should focus on things related to games
2. As things unrelated to pcgaming still has relevance on pcgaming.
Nice move dsog. I would say number 1 but with the ammount of peasants visiting our site lately its clear that we need a mod around. You guys remember that walisomething dude … the comment section was a huge amount of responses to that peasant on every article. Was difficult to chat about gaming or at least found a good comment to reply something on topic. I dont know really? Why not a 0. Free of speach and a mod to delete peasants trolls accounts? They are the only ones destroying the comment section here. I had read a lot of crap here between user but never something crazy as faq. So my point is on 2
3.
Please make this a nicer place!
4.only pc gaming
4, PC games only (or MAYBE 3).
There’s a trillion sites where you can discuss whatever you want; very few that just focus on PC gaming.
1.Unrestrained policy
Filtering the internet is simply asinine, nowadays you have tools to counter whatever you don’t like, use them instead of letting people tell you what you should and should not be seeing/watching/reading.
Option 1.
Unfortunately, we can’t really run away from politics. Yes, not even when it comes to gaming. Just look at all the games that have an agenda to push, sh*t to force down peoples throats and the amount of effort that’s employed to censor/silence those who call them out on it. Since gamers are being pushed into a corner and forced to think a particular way, it’s only fair that we get a chance to stand our ground and to push back.
We should always be able to call them out on it and lay bare the sheer amount of hypocrisy behind it all. I feel option 1 is fair as it allows for both free-speech + the ability of individual users to block/mute whoever they want.
I’m glad we all get to have a say in this, though. Much appreciated.
4.
John, i have been on this site since 2011. So allow me say a few things because the answer is not as easy as a number. I got into this site for one main reason, games, it focused on news about games without long editorial like articles dressed up with nice words and potentially sucking off the developers like mainstream sites do. None of that clickbait nonsense like “resident evil 5 is racist cuz you can kill black people…in africa”
I never understood that nonsenes back then. Now i understand it. The problem is the gaming and tech media are filled with crazy postmodernist socialists, they call themselves progressives but lets not mess around they are sjws and they are unbereable.
I believe that most people in this site just want to play games and talk about games. We dont need any of the nonsense that kotaku and polygon put up. For many of us what happened the last few years with Gamergate has been a political awakening.
Like i said 2 years ago i would have agreed with you completly, but these people are unbereable and they are affecting games by bullying devs to put the political propaganda in their games. What happened to the days that games were about gameplay? The things they do affect the games even to a gameplay level. After all what you can and cant get away with with gameplay and level design is related to how “politicaly correct” you are. I feel we are seeing less and less “fun” games and more and more “serious” games from a western political correctness perspective. We just not going to get as many games with 80-90s over the top stuff like the old games and that pisses me off alot. said
In the end i think you are right, we should just talk about games, which is why i am inclined to pick 4, but the problem is that the amount of censorship that is going on in most sites. like Articuno76 said it seems every site wants to talk about politics this day rather games. I think it will be good if we went back to that. If people want to talk about sjws, just go to one angry gamer or kottakuinaction reddit.
Also 1 and 2 doesnt really matter anymore because disquss added a block button.
Sorry for long post, but since i have seen this site and the userbase moving forward since 2011, i thought id share some thoughts. Also i dont agree with not covering dlc,some of it is good.
2. Users can talk about anything apart from racist or personal attacks.
But I would also add to that personal threats/attacks and any kind of illegal activity.
#2
I don’t really understand what’s the purpose of attacking each other when we’re all gamers. Political comments are fine as long as they stay in the friendly sphere
I never understood the reason why people feel the need to insult others in an argument of games, technology or simple preference. Why should i be insulted for having an AMD CPU instead of an Intel or, idk, a Cyrix. 😛
Will this make our world a better place? Probably not. BUT it will keep the site from turning into a “war zone” like WCCFtech is. Trolling can be done without insulting others and personally i think that refraining from insults shows the quality of a person.
Cheers !!!
Loser….. 😉
glorious day for democracy for our community
with 64% in favor for “unfiltered” “unmoderated” policy our freedom to express ourselves is at hand
you know John it was quite surprising you actually went the path of democracy and decided to vote this out rather than go full PCgamer on us
if we had any previous misunderstanding see them as null and void, for this is a new beginning to DSO!
a beginning of fresh politically incorrect memes and fruitful discussion
ahhh democracy!
2. racial / personal attacks are useless..
I do agree… I am always affraid at what constitutes an insult though… some people are so easily offended nowadays that just expressing an opposing viewpoint triggers them…
Normalizing racism as free speech is ignorant and a misuse of the 1st amendment to say the least, not to forget that privately owned websites are not bound by “free speech”.
Going with unrestrained policy means me blocking this site or putting it
on adblock at best. I cannot stand another youtube like site with
toxicity running amok.
no one forcing you to stay
you’re not participating in the voting
1. Unrestrained
I block those I can’t stand. Freedom over all else.
1. always and forever unrestrained. cowards hide behind safety. freedom is always better. people start acting like fools? then block them, make light of them, whatever. but to get butthurt and censor would be a big fat nope.
#3 is a good middle ground, I’d go with that
#4
#4
#4
F** this Left/Right fight. DSO comment section became absolutely cancerous. Even worse than YT..
4
This should be about a gaming and a refuge from the political BS that plagues everything else online.
1, but people should learn how to behave, if you have freedom you should learn how to protect it, and most of the time the best way to do it is just not abuse if it
Definitely #4. I’ve stumbled upon this site and continue to frequent it because of helpful PC gaming articles and news. P.S. As far as I’m concerned the talk about developers and publishers policy’s also falls under “PC gaming related stuff”.
Its a gaming site . Ppl who bring up politic and rase topics shoud not be here . We are here to talk s* about EA /Microsoft / Konami / Intel / Nvidia / Ubisoft / destiny 2 .
you have to say which #number you agree with more
#4
The site name is: The Dark Side of Gaming.
Could be like: No politics,no racism,no bad language,no personal attacks,no more SJW players.
After all could talking about anything is Gaming & PC stuff (e.g. graphics&cpus,hardware stuff),except all above.
I say #3.
#4, other topics are irrelevant in this website, this is a gaming website not a general news website.
1
But please hear me out. This site should not be a safe heaven for people that attack you and your readers intentionally,or,not my favorite term-no place for hate speech.
On the other hand,this site should not be a safe-space either. A land mine of restrictions and regulations that can further complicate things.
So,I propose a 1.1 version. As in. As long as the discussion is kept civil and respectful on both sides,it is fine to engage in any kind of type discussion.
Moderators do indeed need to make a stand if the comment is clearly hateful and basically the sole purpose of it is just to insult.
This is your site after all! You need to protect it. As well your regular readers. IMHO.
Also. It is hard not to be political,when behind some games stands a whole agenda with a particular bias of sociopolitical and philosophical view.
But at the same time there are games that challenge our own ideas and makes us think.
Many games include themes like politics,racism,morality,religion and other. Think of the Witcher games,and Bioshock series for example.
We are all different and value different things. We all think different.
And yes this is a gaming site! And games should be discussed.
In my few comments over the years my comments are game related. I think.
There is a right place and a right time and occasion to discuss all other troubles in the world,but every now and then,sometimes, we all burst out a bit and talk about irrelevant things.
And it is like that,here,on our favorite PC news oriented site DSOG.
Cheers people! Hope you resolve this problem with care.
And also we as readers should act civil and help you grow and to stay around for many years.
1. ( or 2. but with serious concerns ). I’m all for limiting insulting stuff ( as in “insult”, directed at someone, not as something that someone will find insulting ) though. When you can block someone you judge offending, you’d have to be some heavy fascist to ask to limit others’ ability to read such content.
I stopped reading mainstream gaming websites for a reason: it was obvious they were dealing more with politics than gaming. BUT you can’t expect comments to be limited to gaming only.
Ten years ago I might have said differently but things don’t happen in a vacuum.
No matter your stance on GamerGate, we can’t pretend gaming journalists/activists haven’t been more or less secretly colluding to push politics into gaming. If anything I’d like to keep DSOG as it is, and I would like even more stuff with in-depth articles on hardware, software, game creation…
But comments? Is it 1984 already?
#2 Gaming it’s an industry and like every other it is tied on politics (government ones like when a game is censored, or company ones like when the publishers/devs make certain artistic or commercial decisions)
If the comments are related with industry political behavior/decision it’s ok with me, if not I can always ignore/block
1. Unrestrained Policy
Let people say what they want if they do not like just ignore or block.
#1
1. Unrestrained Policy
While politics is not something I particularly enjoy in the gaming industry…after gamergate, it has become quite clear that there’s a certain group of influential people out there within the business who will stop at nothing in pushing their political agenda in this medium and who are more than happy to censor/ban those who disagree rather than openly discussing the views and what motivates pushing them unto others.
Free speech is the only shield we the consumers have to express our concerns and to vocally defend ourselves from any sort of biased propaganda or hidden political agenda.
We didn’t ask for it, it was forced upon us.
Do the right thing, don’t side with the censors.
Thank you.
1: Unrestrained Policy
BS like the “racism” card gets abused to much everywhere right now and since just about anything is racist these days and around the web everywhere this is a no go. The word has been rendered meaningless and can encompass anything inlcuding a white cis male’s comments or questions being deemed racist. You dont want to go down that road.
Most other so called racist comments are just jokes anyway and i think a mexican can make jokes about americans etc etc etc. it actually relieves social racial tensions as has been proven in studies anyway. Other then that closing down discussions like these in the current social and online social and CORPORATE media and game media gives all these social justice pushers [including game developers and reviewers] a free hand in everything without reprise.
1:Unrestrained Policy is the only sane option.
EDIT: I applaud DSO and its crew for taking this route. I find it amazing to see this sort of openness and inclusiveness these days anywhere. Thank you guys !
Ironically enough SJW’s wont like this actual inclusiveness as it will hamper their ability to silence people.
1
People should be able to either fend for themselves, block someone themselves or walk away themselves. Sites needs to stop playing mommy and daddy for weak people.
#3
4. Stick to our (PC) interests 😀
http://i61.tinypic.com/23m6i9v.jpg
1. Assuming spamming is still disallowed that is.
I’d have been more inclined to go with the second option (I think flamewars are pointless and spammy) but I can’t really get behind this bit:
That would just be a recipe for a power trip, considering how subjective that judgment can be and the kind of people who tend to go for moderator positions, so I’ll stick with unrestricted and just block the flamers.
number 2 keep toxicity in check
Unrestrained.
I’ll have to go with 4. I noticed I left another comment with no decisive answer. Sorry. 😛
Unrestrained, still i have my concerns with personal attacks.
4/Only PC gaming related stuff
People are pretty sick, specially this generation. And i’m warning you. Give them freedom and you open a huge gate to chaos.
You were right.
why is this even a question??? ….freedom is dangerous…freedom brings a threat…but it also is more important than ANYTHING…if you would trade freedom for safety them you deserve NEITHER!!!…. Don’t be a coward sissy…afraid of ideas that oppose your own, that just means you’re weak..your ideas are pathetic…if you’re unable to defend your position then you shouldn’t hold it. Always free..no matter what…always open!..I for one welcome opposing ideas, it gives me perspective……if you choose anything other than a big fat number 1…then you need to examine your metal..no insult …I swear…but if you can’t bear to hear an opposing idea, then what are you thinking? this is bigger than just a website, this is life..this is freedom of speech..you should be willing to die to protect it.
Turning this site into unfiltered mode would invite every troll from 4Chan to SA here filling the page with racism just for the lulz.
A very unprofessional move to run a website if you ask me.
So number 4, stick with the gaming stuff, I don’t care what some conspiracy theorist crackpot basement dweller thinks about race. Let that sh*t fester where it belongs, 4Chan or Reddit.
1. Unrestrained
4
And make sure to delete everything the game haters have to say.
Tired of reading only negative comments from certain people about every god damn game.
Seriously let’s stick to only taking about games.
So you want your own Echo chamber?
I vote for number 4: Stick with PC only stuff.
2
I am an advocate of free-speech. However the reason and the spirit of free speech is to spread and challenge ideas. Freedom of speech was never intended to create toxicity. Toxic comment created with the intent to troll and not create discourse or share an opinion is not free-speech. Moderate intelligently.
No, you are not an advocate of freedom of speech. Twisting the word “free” until it becomes meaningless is not advocating freedom.
-3
#4
2.
My choice is the number 3. I don’t think politics fit this site. There are other places /sites for that.
4.
1. Unrestrained Policy
option
2
4. Simply because this is not a forum. Redaction write articles and in the comment section we, the readers, should talk only about the article. That’s all. Anything else is spam, flood or off-topic
????,?????!
3. No BS comments. Let us hope that we can keep this site civil in the first place but also let’s keep the tool for forcing it if need be. I beieve we can do this without needlessly overloading the moderators with tasks.
NR1 BLOCK Angela Merkel and enjoy freedom
well John, you have a verdict
from now on you will meddle no matter in the affairs of the comment section
so is the rules now set in stone? can i finally post a piece of my mind on SJWstien 2?
Although I also thought that the results would be finalized today, it appears that they have added that they’ll close the poll next Sunday (October 1st) – says so now in the main post above.
One more week to go I suppose :/
John is either delaying the inevitable or playing dirty
i could’ve sworn the date was til the 25th!
Option 1. Unrestrained policy.
Free speech is more important than anyone’s annoyance about something.
VOTE : 1
Don’t let the strangers on internet get you. They don’t know nothing about and if they tell you bad thing, they probably are mentally challenged or someone who feeds on hating. And easy to block. We also get too easily offended, chill out. People on other side of screen is probably more retarded than you. We might consider also a 3 month beta for this and vote again. Maybe we are going to chaos with this.
1. Unrestrained Policy
1. Unrestrained
I’m pretty sure disqus has a block function. I just haven’t used it myself.
#4
2.
its fine to taunt someone or something as long as it is not HIGHLY offending.
4.
I would like to speak about how the extreme right policies my country is applying since 30 years old, has taken away my PC gaming money and instead I have to use it on buying food and medical expenses. But I vote 4.
This is not about that ambiguous ” free of speech ” discourse, when even some people here thinks personal attacks are part of their rights, that is why internet is a toxic wasteland, nowadays. Sometimes I understand Neogaf staff.
#2 just because people are jUst going to flood dso with other bullshit i think is more directed towardS gaming which is what we are here for if you need to be racist or rude to people well go elsewhere THIS IS DSOGAMING where you can express yourself but relax, man is gaming!!!
Merkel “won” the “democratic” (((rigged))) elections, it’s funny when a gaming site like
DSO has more integrity than a f**king country!
i choose 1) and i will always speak out against white-hatred and SJW’s
cancerous people they are, anti-democratic and fascistic in nature
democracy is a fleeting concept in our time of strife…
i’ve baked some dank a$$ triggering memes, will publish them as a toast in October
What a noble goal. I believe everyone should speak out against hatred of any kind. Mongrels (such as yourself who think they are white) included. Therefore I commend you.
Though I believe your own Semitic race has a lot of problems which need to be addressed first before your advocacy of other races. True democracy and all that jazz…
If something isn’t going your way its obviously Rigged and Obviously Jews reproducible?!
You see people, this is why I support Option number 1, I dont want Fake Internet friends, i dont want to talk to people be nice with them and in reality they are racists or wear Tin foil helm 24/7.
This is why need full FREEDOM of speech, so normal people could block the non normal people.
a short reminder that Turkey’s Erdo?an was also “democratically”
elected, the illusion veils of democracy are slowly showing their true form
with the people of the country standing idle while their leaders say with pride “these german streets will no longer be german!”
and rooting for their inevitable demise…
Turkey is a huge Muslim country that after Atta Turks revolution was ruled by Military and Republican elites.
But even thou its located in Europe the quality of life there is somewhat like middle east, worse then poorest countries in Europe, worse than Ukraine, the big city centers got industrialized.
People that live in big cities are educated (usually) secular (usually) and basically act like Europeans and want to be part of EU, they see themselves as elite above rest of the country, but the majority was/is living in Villages with sheep and all that, like 200 years ago.
Lets not forget that Turkey is a Muslim country, The muslim majority was repressed by the Atta Turk reforms (which is what every country has to do), Islam was banned from public space, up to the point that women couldn’t cover their hair in governmental jobs and so on, Basically Atta Turk tried to FORCED Europanization on bunch of semi-savage tribal religious people.
Than came Erdogan, Erdogan promised the poor people that he will help them, he promised them to bring back Islam (religious leaders started to advocate for him) and he promised the poor to stick it to the Elites and Republicans, thats it.
Think of Erdogan like Turkey version of Trump, just for different crowd of people: Populist and Religious fanatic.
P.S. You never replayed how it has todo with Jews, why the first thing you think when you think about Markel (which is non Jewish Christian women) and elections you think about Jews? This is 100% antisemitism, is when you see Jews everywhere.
woot???
i never said anything about the jews, the (((_))) was a joke obviously
though it’s pretty obvious the globlist elites (Soro’s for example)
definitely had a hand in the elections and the sorry state Europe is currently in
(esp sweden, that country is beyond salvation)
hell, even jews are fleeing Europe, google
“Barcelona’s chief rabbi urges Jews to move to Israel because ‘Europe is lost'”
as you can see, this is clearly not a jewish ploy, but a leftist anti-chirstian anti-european ploy
to make a country borderless, one langauge, one currency
one empire…
sounds familiar? it sure does, maybe Merkel figured out you can easily conquer nations by outbreeding savages and demonizing their OWN F**KING ETHNICITY, so much so that swedish model got shamed on turdbook for saying she wants to date people from her own race (though this isn’t new, the amount of anti-white $hit that goes on facebook is alarming!)
as for Ata Turk, what he did to turkey was to enlighten their people to push for commerce and science
what is Erdogan doing is bring them back to the dark ages of Islam
#4 This is a PC gaming website after all.
3. For sure
Unrestrained Policy.
The human race would be even duller if we all thought the same thing.
Unrestrained
Comments can be a very foul area of the internet. That being said, censoring opinions, no matter how low we deem them, gives them far more weight than if we refute them well and move on. Overreaction, forced outrage, and censorship are why dialogue is failing so miserably in the states these days. I love this site and enjoy the way it usually covers content.
I choose 1 or 2 with minimum intervention. Moderators should only interven when posts are reported, otherwise people can discuss whatever they want.
Overly unrestrained is equally harmful as overly restrained, it usually will lead to chaos, there is a very high chance the comment section will end up like a cesspool. Have some orders is still better than no orders at all. Besides, freedom is “defined”, not natural existence, I really don’t think abusing personal attack is free speech.
1. This is America we have freedom of speech
4. This site is dedicated to PC gaming, all the articles posted are related to PC gaming, and it is even on the “About Us” page of the site. Politics is one of many sensitive subjects and there are other places more suited to discussions on those topics than on here. The comments section should be for users to voice their opinion on the article they comment on, and have other users reply with their own opinion on the article content, mixing subjects like politics into a debate has no place on this site.
number 1
there is a reason why many of us follow this site, its because it brings all of the PC news at one place without any BS, now that should be a common ground for all of us, we’re just here for the PC news and that’s it, however politics and religion should not be allowed to be debated as it more than often leads to a never ending cycle of toxicity that really just separates us all from the one thing we’re all here for, PC news.
1.Unrestrained Policy
First of all, the decision to let the people decide and mostly those who really matter in this community it’s the best.
Secondly, I vote for the 4th option. I visit this site for its PC related articles and meaningful debates from the readers. Often I found here a community who engaged in discussion and provided useful tips and helped others.
I support free debates without constraining conversation topics as long as they don’t breach common sense or other peoples’ rights but I do chose the 4th option because this site stands out for PC gaming articles and conversations.
If you want to discuss about war, history, politics or any other topics I am sure you cand find plenty of other sites who better in this domain.
1. Free speech is a thing you either have or you don’t. And I prefer to have it.
2. No attacks and racism. Utterly pointless here..
#4
If you want to express your views on women, race, or whatever stupid political side you have. Then there are so many places like 4chan or a blog to blow your load on.
I don’t want to read 5 comments of people explaining the benefits of lyn**ing n**** before i can read Zatara’s comment on why Blizzard is ruining WoW with ever expansion.
1 Unrestrained, free speech is a must especially on the internet imho
Go #4
#1 of course.
Why is that only ONE group of people ALWAYS fight for MORE censorship, LESS Freedom of speech, always wants to restrict and outright change the way people talk AND think!
The same group openly supports Treason and breaking up laws, wants to shut peoples up and either FORCE them to talk in a way THEY approve or not speak at all!
Guess who are these people?
4 Only PC gaming related stuff
Unrestrained.
If you are easily offended or triggered, then go to your safe space. Buck up kiddo, the world is tough.
Well, we may hear from John later today what they decided. I would just like to add one more comment to those that believe they have freedom of speech. Try posting something that could be construed as a terrorist threat or if you live in the USA try posting a threat against Trump and watch how fast the police come knocking on your door. I hope you all know that the NSA and Dept of Homeland Security monitor the internet and certain words and phrases can trigger an alert which an agent will take a look at. Of course those examples are extreme but this is a privately owned site and you don’t have the right to post whatever you want to. A moderator can delete anything they want to without your permission. It’s that way on every site. You can conform to the expectations of the owner or skip commenting if you can’t accept the guidelines.
Whatever they decide it would be a good idea to put up a link on the home page what the terms of use are or guidelines for the comment section so that it’s clear to any newcomers what is expected.
How does Google affect your website? How is it even able to read your comment section? Do they just send out bots to scan pages all day long?
Edit: I’m not mad at your site, I actually interested in knowing how Google seems to have a degree of control over your site (in this case through flagging/fear/whatever else).
Yes of course Google scans the comment section here as well as everywhere else on the internet. Not only that but it records every comment on a database to be available when someone Googles a username. Google records everything. Even the Library of Congress. Did you know that you can type in a paragraph from a page of any book in Google and it will tell you what book it came from?
Google can also keep a site from growing by not putting it in a list of results from a Google search or putting it so far at the bottom that it’s on page # 4,000 of results and effectively no one sees it.
everyone who voted unrestricted are a bunch of morons who deserve to die.
did you see what i did there? 😉
triggered snowflake is triggered
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/61a765f9b009f2834ede6fe5dabef2636e13492979fc48fb3a2d6190a89cdaa7.png
wow. racist AND original. you must be the more inteligent in your family. the only one who knows how to count to 15! congratulations.
i conjure up even better memes if given enough reason
though my talent would be wasted on someone as lowly as yourself
maybe it’s high time you crawl back to your “PC”gamer and Polygon/kotaku
since DSO is a decent site who doesn’t bow down to feminazis or sub-human mongrels
you are a teenager who doesn’t even buy his own underwear, what are you talking about? why are you so scared? OMG women in MY treehouse? how dare they!
really. kill yourself. noone likes you. you don’t have any friends, your mother is sick of your constant whining and deep down you know it. the only reason you are still breathing is you aren’t even brave enough to kill yourself. but really:_ i believe in yourself. go for a walk to the nearest railroad and lay your head in the tracks. everything will end soon.
hehehhehe i love it when you’re upset
delicious SJW tears drive me ever onwards
more memes shall be made just for thee https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c0b98fba0071a16941dcef7bcaf185b68d93b5473ece9b0f49a5c92f05a38a23.jpg
P.S so much for the tolerant left
i hear typing, i don’t hear brains beeing smashed.
“Because we were flagged three times by Google”
stop such a cuck John, google is a $hitty SJW platform and a crap search engine
everyone is switching to duckduckgo, and if you care about google “censoring” your site from search then you are LOST!
bonus points: thought social engineering is just a rumor?
google “white couple” and “white european people”
i assure you the results will horrify you.
I wouldn’t underestimate the impact that Google has on a sites growth. The last I read Google processes around 40,000 searches every second and 3.5 billion searches a day. It is extremely heavily relied on by most people to find what they are looking for.
I was curious so I deleted my browser history and Googled “PC games news”. I got 17 pages of returns and DSOG wasn’t in any of them. I Googled “games news” and DSOG wasn’t in the first 20 pages of returns. I gave up after 20 pages. Usually I never need to go past the first few pages of returns so effectively for new PC gamers DSOG doesn’t exist unless they hear about it on another site or in my case years ago I stumbled onto this site while searching for something specific but I don’t remember what it was now.
If you want to promote this site then google search “PC games news DSOG” and eventually if it happens enough times then DSOG will start popping up on one of the first few pages in a Google search.
so basically google’s threats are empty, they already “censored” this wonderful site
so f**k em, John should not allow himself to be coerced
also the fewer the users the better, since large numbers attract unwanted attention (such as SJW’s and other nasty vermin)
i think it’s fine as it is. i found this site because of Bub&Bob gave me a recommendation
and here i am, on a real non-shill, non SJW PC gaming centered website
though i don’t like John’s cuckery about censoring specific words, censorship goes against what we voted for, and to hell with google’s empty threats
I am happy with this result and thank you again DSO for taking this aproach!
On a side note:
I found this astounding to read “Why are we censoring them? Because we were flagged three times by Google in the past for such a thing. ”
Google flags websites for their use or their users/members words on it ???? Since when does google dictate this sort of thing? I guess googles power extends way beyond that of which i already found awful and corrupt, they are basically in full control of the web when you think about it.
Do they remove you from google searches if flagged too many times?
It should be noted that even though option no 1 has the most votes, 71 votes compared to 46 wants you to moderate racist comments. Seriously, allowing such comments just turns the section into a cess pool of nasty things and it scares off a lot of people from participating in the first place.
What do you mean by it “scares off”…? O_o
It’s a comment section where people express their opinions on videogames and PC related news, not an ISIS propaganda site…jeez!
why not make a separate collum so we can respond to this ?
I’m curious, what words does google blacklist this site for?
I just want good games so I don’t have to write any comments except “Well done dev team!” But man can only dream. Otherwise, no. 1 – the only way.