What's in a name? that which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet; William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet Recently, I was suspended for a day for a post I made that used the word "retardation" in connection with how a group of people express their views. Specifically, I stated that System Wars served a useful purpose because it allowed for groups of people whom I alleged had limited intellectual capacity ("morons" was the word I used but apparently was not a punishable word according to the details of the moderation) to discuss amongst themselves without their "banned word" spilling over to disturb the rest of us. I then proceeded to compare the System Wars forum to the garbage disposal in your sink. Quote: "You may as well suggest getting rid of your garbage disposal on your sink. You may not like how it sounds. Sometimes there are some strange odors coming out from it, but damnit, it serves a useful purpose." For this, I was given a one day suspension. I suspect the pertinent passage of Gamespot's Terms of Use is this one: Communications clearly insulting other users, individually or as a group, directly or indirectly, are not allowed. This includes, but is not limited to: name-calling ("You're an idiot", "You moron"); direct insults and orders ("Screw you", "Go kill yourself"); insinuations ("Are you stupid or something?"); or insults towards family ("Your mom..."). Frankly, by the letter of the law it is true that I broke the Terms of Use of this site. The moderators were well within their rights to suspend me. Let me go on record as saying that while I may not like what happened and feel that it was an overreaction, I certainly broke the rules. However, I still feel that the suspension was a silly one. Moderations should take context into account.



Specifically, would Gamespot suspend me if I said something like "Only retards are fans of the Boston Celtics" because I am a Laker fan? I'd be clearly insulting a group of people on the site (Celtics fans) were I to say something like that. However, I have a hard time believing that I'd be suspended for that statement because I clearly am only talking trash to a rival fan base and don't seriously believe that all Celtics fans are retards. (Maybe 85%...) Moreover, I made the post several days previous. Since I made the post in the "Site Enhancements and Feedback" forum (a bit of retardation on my part not being a bit more careful with my wording in a fourm with a limited volume of posts and a large moderator/user ratio) my guess is that the post in question was read by quite a few people, including probably some moderators, prior to anyone actually taking offense and disciplining me. In other words, it doesn't matter if the first three moderators who see the post decide to let it slide. If the fourth one thinks it needs to be deleted and the writer to be punished, well then by golly that's what's going to happen. Getting back on point, if I had said instead: "I couldn't disagree more. Keeping System Wars open gives the *Happy Campers* a place to spew out their *Special Sauce* without disturbing the rest of us." Would I have been suspended for that? The point expressed is the same one in either case. I'm essentially saying that System Wars serves a useful purpose because it forces people who want to rant away about which platform is best to go and flame each other repeatedly in a designated area without everyone else having to get a migraine sorting through the rampant fanboyism. It's a public health restriction similar to limiting smoking to specified areas.

Strip other things away and I'm actually complimenting Gamespot on having the foresight to include an outlet for things that would disrupt and ruin the atmosphere of the rest of the site if System Wars went away. I guess all of my points sum up into: "Sweet Zombie Jesus Gamespot, why are you ticketing me for jaywalking when there's a murder happening across the street?"

To me, it is over-policing like this that are the greatest threat to Gamespot in the future. Online communities generally fall apart because the users who make positive, productive contributions get ticked off and decide to go elsewhere. It doesn't happen in some sort of mass exodus like what some people suggested after the firing of Jeff Gerstman. It happens one user at a time until one day, people look around and go, "Geez, where did the community that I used to enjoy here go? For that matter, why the hell do *I* still hang out here?" Hundreds of things that are, technically, violations of the Gamespot Terms of Use happen every single day. Most of the time they are accidental and aren't really intended to cause harm. Most of them can also be fixed with less draconian measures than a suspension. A couple of weeks back one of my readers accidentally posted a spoiler about Mass Effect in a blog of mine discussing the characters in the game. Technically, this was against the Gamespot Terms of Use. Presumably, if I had reported him he'd possibly have been punished in some way according to this section of the Terms of Use. Plot Spoilers - Posting "spoilers" (critical plot details) about games, movies, time-delayed broadcast events, or other media in the title of a topic or in a message without a clear notice is prohibited. To discuss such information in a topic, users should leave the title of the topic as vague as possible, ensuring that no mention of the actual spoiler itself is included, and include a warning (i.e. "SPOILER") in the topic title. In a message post in a non-marked or otherwise unexpected topic, users should leave several blank lines in a post after a warning before revealing any vital plot information. But obviously it was an accident and no harm was meant. I suggested he be a bit more careful as some people hadn't yet played through the game yet. He apologized and went back in to edit his post and mark it as containing spoilers. Problem solved! Similarly, if whichever Gamespot mod had banned me had contacted me and asked me to modify the offending language, I'd have certainly done so. Problem solved! It is this sort of action that I suggest moderators take for minor offenses in the future. If the person involved clearly doesn't have a history of disruptive behavior and flagrant violations of the terms of use, then why not cut him or her some slack, send them a PM, and ask them to fix the problem themselves? I suspect the answer is that Gamespot users post hundreds, perhaps thousands, of posts each and every day and there just are not enough moderators around to take this approach. An individual moderator probably doesn't have the time to go back and reread the offending post to see if it was corrected as they asked.