Just a heads up for the PC guys

We have a new CoC in effect, please read it so you understand the rules.

Your face when your favorite website turns politically correct.

Seems like the new CoC is a little vague. Sounds perfectly conducive for mods to ban anyone they simply don't like and say they're trolling. But it's not my site, oh well.

Let's take for example:

1) "A user that spends its time troll baiting other trolls. Wasting the time of those most intent of wasting the time of others."

How is a user supposed to know that another person's intent is to waste other people's time with an argument? And how do you know the person he's arguing with is purely intending to waste time? Isn't the point of a forum discussion? Do you have to assume the mod's have special mind reading capabilities or are you going to have any sort of corroborating evidence when making these sorts of decisions?

2) "People who blatantly play the fool in an attempt to get people to comment aggressively towards them."

What would constitute as someone blatantly playing the fool? And how does playing dumb automatically warrant aggressive attention?

These things don't seem clearly defined and introduced a clear "if we don't like you or what you're talking about regardless of your intent we will ban you" subtext to it.

Not saying the site's a whole lot worse now (honestly, I never paid attention to it so it could be the same) but code of conduct just seems a little lacking.

I know a good example of the 2nd example: when someone state that A is the right answer, while other people say the right answer is B, but he keeps saying A is the right thing blindly.

I as a modder won't reply aggressively due to respect to my title but other people won't.

As for the 1st example - troll that trolls other trollers - well, I've seen those on some article and video articles - they just argue between themselves on daily - attributing nothing to the article's content.

This^.

Wccftech's comments section is a named example. A total chaos. Argueing for nothing and it usually ends with 2K comments of AMD vs Nvidia flame war...

I even remember a comment from a mod, when he knew that the article had a high chance of turning the conversation in to a flame war, saying that "please be polite and lets not start a flame war again". A supertroll immediatly replied saying: "Shut up, fool! OK everybody, lets kill each other. Let the war begin!"...

....

Thanks, that makes it a little clearer. I don't ever really see many, if any of those people around anyways so I guess I just don't really see the necessity.

All I want to know is, am I still allowed to ask for free cookies on this site?

No Swearing !!! :( oh mane c,mon , ... not even a-words ?

Yeah... I don't know about the no swearing part... It is the way I talk. I got to keep it real. I don't usually swear at others though. I usually just bitch about the state of gaming or something that is broken. A man needs to vent. You can't keep it bottled up inside. Got to let it out. lol.

Dude, you just need to chill for a second, lol. It's only a gaming website, no point getting so worked up about it.

It's not just "no swearing". You're not even supposed to say "butt". Or even "bum"? That word list is ridiculous and fascist. Going by that list, I'm not sure how anyone is supposed to have a decent conversation around here anymore.

This reminds me of back in the day when most of the Gamespotters just picked up and left towards a new forum (System Wars) when the rules started getting stingy around here.

I'm curious if this site's low visitor count may be the very reason things are tightening up around here. Picking up new advertisers with wider target audiences and stricter publishing guidelines? Sounds like their journalism (bribery) skills need work.

I did that to make a point. These rules are ridiculous. And if they don't ban me for using almost every word in their "can't say these words list" then, they are just as stupid as these new rules they've imposed. Hell I insulted and through slurs at them so technically by the new rules I must be banned. I've done this twice now where is my ban? If your unwilling to actually follow your rules of conduct gamespot then your rules of conduct are void IMO.

I am just going to continue posting the way I always have. They will weed out the true trouble makers. I am not too worried about it.

Is the flagging system in effect? Would I get in trouble for flagging every post that says "butt"? Or "bum"? Or possibly posts referencing the words buttocks or nipples?

Just want to make sure so I don't get punished by the flagging system for attempting to help assist the CoC.

Guess I'll have to make up new words to keep things colorful: this CoC is a Caitlyn Jenner.

I flagged your post for offensive content! Can't wait to go around and flag 1000's more.

Uh... emulation and emulators are 100% legal. I can see not discussing pirating of ROMS and websites that offer them, but last time I checked, running a PS2 emulator and putting in a PS2 disc in my PC to play the game that way is 100% legal in the US.

Heck, the library of congress just helped push some new rules about allowing the cracking of old abandoned games in order to preserve them, and emulation is praised by a lot of people in the industry as precisely that: a great way to preserver gaming history. In fact I'm almost 100% sure I learned about the library of congress thing via an article on this very site!

Maybe gamespot is headquartered in a country where it's not legal?

Otherwise, yeah, weird rule.

And I just realized you're just announcing this, not opening it up for discussion. Sorry, was just curious. A simple, 'cause we felt like it, or 'cause we're headquartered in x country, would be welcomed, but of course not necessary.

With regards to the list of words: Not every word on that list is forbidden (common swear words for example). Context is important. As long as you're not using certain words to be nasty towards other users, you should be fine. Obviously, there are words on that list will never be alright to use though. I'm sure you can figure those ones out. If you're not sure on one though, just ask the moderators.

I think too this wasn't necessary.

We have very clean and great forums, they didn't have to change the rules (at least in PC/Mac/Linux Society/PC & A/V Hardware).

I went to the word list and I read a post from @Kuromino:

From what I understand is, that most of these words are forbidden when they 've been used in (personal?) insults.

So you can say "my butt hurts from too much gaming in couch/desk", but you can't say something sexual about someone else butt (with an insult tone).

Any mod feel free to correct me if I am wrong...

This website died long ago, the rule changes only cement the fact that this board has long been dead. All of the unnecessary changes and increased sensitivity around here led to the mass fleeing of many users, most of them helpful. Meanwhile, the majority of the trolls hung around trying to troll each other. As a result, a new COC is born. Marvelous, nice job, Gamespot! Anyhow.. I've been looking for new forums since the convolution of this one when the boards were combined, and the hardware board disappeared, leading to the ultimate mass departure of the pc user base. Unfortunately my search results don't seem to show anything nearly as populated as this site once was, at least on the PC end. Any suggestions of new forums? Reddit seems to be the only thing around with a decent user base, but their whole system is atrocious.

GS moderation policy is just a cycle. Go from strict rules to lax rules back to strict rules and on and on forever. Can't wait for the new rule changes in a year or two!

I post on PCGamer as well.

There is a lot of people posting there but I prefer Gamespot still because PC Gamer has a lot of negative people that are just aggressive.

I only visit this site to watch the wildfires

This was just to publicise the changes, we don't need all this negativity. If you have issues please comment report them in the Bug & Feedback board or Ask the Mods