Not a rant at all. It's why I don't bother looking at the comment sections for the more inflammatory "Bait" articles such as this. It's just not worth the mental energy.
Everyone may not agree with what @nessisonett says but I have to admire him for always being willing to speak his mind and sticking to his morals despite the pushback he so often gets for doing so.
Previously known as Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy
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"You don't have to save the world to find meaning in life. Sometimes all you need is something simple, like someone to take care of"
@HallowMoonshadow I agree, and I think a lot of the pushback he gets is simply due to people misunderstanding his point. Hence the arguments we then see unfold.
Good job, Parappa. You can go on to the next stage now.
While the initial point raised was sound and appropriate, the ensuing conversation hasn't been. It's not acceptable to discuss other members of the community in this manner.
100% agree it said more about the publication asking the question, rather than the poor fool answering it in his awkward manner (which people have abundantly mentioned, based on their own experiences, how he is answering in a weird logical way in terms of how art is taught, rather than a normal human engaging in regular conversation)
But also there definitely is a need for everyone, absolutely everyone to take a f***ing day off every now and then. If silliness and humour can't be found anywhere and everything has to be turned in to some morality argument (on a gaming website) then I don't know what the point is even bothering with it.
Every single article doesn't have to be turned into an argument to fight for or against people's core beliefs. I'll happily shout down anyone being openly racist, homophobic, sexist etc on here, but the rest of the time, I'd like to think I can talk to anyone about anything regardless of whether we see eye to eye on every single matter in life, because it doesn't f***ing matter most of the time because the subject at hand is gaming, sports, entertainment and so on.
The Internet is a tiring place though, everyone has to be right all the time, everyone has to be endlessly fighting for their cause, and it seemingly spans every single comments section here now too.
I'm not sure what can be done, unless they just ditch the comment section on most articles that aren't community based, but that would take away some funny moments, and some quality comments. Maybe remove all comments that are geared politically, or are skewed towards other social or political topics that are mostly unrelated to the actual articles to stop any of this happening in the first place? Rather than waiting and removing comments that then go on to attack or counter those posts. It's difficult though, it is.
All I know is we are losing more and more active members in the forums as well as in the comments section, so that is not great.
@Herculean@Gremio108 just to confirm that the feedback has been passed on to the editorial team... it was meant as a fairly light-hearted article about a game that has been very popular over the last 12 months.
@Herculean This is part of the reason I quit today and I didn't even have anything negative to say about the article, more the treatment of various people in the comments section. I slept on it and decided I'm not here to wait for people to mature, or to steer common sense into an argument. This is unfortunately the result of focusing on content that could appear trashy to some (but not all) I've seen the same thing happen in physical publications/magazines. I've enjoyed talking to different people on here, learning about their other hobbies and interests but the pro's are starting to outweigh the cons. I joined to ease myself back into the gaming community and some of what I've seen put me off buying games and playing the games that I already own.
The moderators and team on here do a great job of removing/censoring comments that are completely out of line but they aren't machines, they shouldn't have to spend their weekend monitoring escalating situations. I get that it's 'just the internet' but the kind of hate/homophobia and outright racism that a mod/staff member sees can't be healthy, it's not healthy for a casual poster/viewer, I can't imagine being around it 24/7.
I agree with Ravix, it's good to take a day off. I took a month off and still feel the same way. I'm going to keep my account and lurk the weekend thread. Seeing what people are playing at the weekends seems to always be a positive experience, that's when gaming feels like gaming to me. Too much of the rest is an unknown and if I believed half of the negative comments from people who didn't even play or buy said game then it could influence my own purchases. It's not just one reason, there are multiple and it absolutely sucks to even have to say this, and even worse when I see that I'm not the only one leaving.
These violent delights have violent ends & in their triumph die, like fire & powder Which, as they kiss, consume.
@antdickens It's not so much that single one article, but what feels like an increasing amount of similar articles. It just seems to lead to arguments, and for what? Some barely relevant "news" about a game that's a year old?
Good job, Parappa. You can go on to the next stage now.
@Gremio108 when we look at the (relatively) small number of argumentative comments against the number of views for the article — it's clear the interest level in Stellar Blade continues to be high, especially after the recent PC release and constant stream of updates. Number of comments are only one metric that is used when looking at how an article performed and it is way down the list of priorities, we certainly don't create content thinking "that'll do a lot of arguments in the comments", as that just generates more moderation, which frankly isn't a fun part of our jobs.
@Gremio108 Didn't want it to feel like I wasn't reading these comments.
As Ant already mentioned, Stellar Blade was a massive release for us and continues to be a strong performer. You may say the game's a year old, but it just released on PC, where it got an enormous influx of attention.
I appreciate you didn't like some of the recent articles, although we publish hundreds of things a week and I think you're referring to a tiny minority of content here.
It's never been our style to blandly regurgitate news, and I like to think we've always brought some energy and personality to our coverage; that's one of the things that makes our site stand out IMO and I hope it's one of the reasons many of you have stuck around.
However, I appreciate there are always going to be instances where the tone/vibe doesn't land, and I will take that feedback on the chin and try to do better next time.
I can assure you, like Ant said though, there's never a goal or ambition to cause arguing or anger in the comments.
I think I speak for the whole team when I say our goal is always to: educate, inform, and/or entertain. Ideally an article would hit all three, sometimes it just hits one — but the ambition is never to frustrate or annoy.
As always, I'd really encourage anyone who has a specific issue or concern about content or moderation to use the Contact form. We do read them and will always endeavour to respond.
Of course, this thread is useful too — we do appreciate the feedback!
@antdickens@get2sammyb Appreciate the replies. I'm trying not to come across as argumentative on this, as that would be a bit rich since I'm complaining about people arguing. I just want to clear a couple of things up.
Firstly, I was fine with Sunday's article. I read it and left a daft comment involving Barry White. It didn't impact me personally. It was the comments section that got me, as I don't feel it's representative of this site or its community. I'm not saying stop producing articles like that, it just feels like there has been more of them recently.
Secondly, it's not just about the people who didn't like the article, it's also about those that did. Posting comments like "I'm so glad we can find women sexy again" is a way of pushing their own politics and stance. It's just the other side of the same coin, and for those of us who come to the site to read some gaming news and have a bit of a laugh, the whole coin is tiresome.
Finally, I'm sorry for insinuating that the article was published to bait comments. When I said they're published knowing full well it'll cause arguments, I was more meaning you knew it would cause issues but published it anyway. However I accept this may not be the case, as who could've forseen 170+ comments on an article about a bloke discussing arses?
I don't know what the answer is. As the site grows, it's inevitable that it will attract more people who want to publicly broadcast their stance on all sorts of issues. It's what people love to do on the internet. I guess all I'm saying is don't encourage them! Cheers guys.
Good job, Parappa. You can go on to the next stage now.
@Gremio108 I think, as you almost say... to be fair to @get2sammyb the article was definitely not made to create arguments, it was a throw-away humerous post about how awkward a guy sounded when answering a question about a bottom as an artist, but then people happened. Whether or not an article is needed is preference, but as you said, you entered the comments to make a joke, which was kind of what I assume Push were hoping for, and how it should have probably gone because how could people possibly hate on each other that much for something so meaningless. But then people found a way to turn it into a sexual abuse argument and God knows what other tangents people went on 🙈
I would also say that the comments section turned at a very specific point, and maybe that wasn't addressed, but it was very much the cause as some turned it in to their personal battleground.
The problem is that people on here are now willing to inject all of their politics, beliefs, social justice and whatever else that is irrelevant to the actual discussion itself, and simply just argue about absolutely anything posted here. Yesterday people were legitimately arguing about whether other people had heard of some singer(?) Who was now a brand ambassador for PS 🤷♂️
People genuinely questioning other's moral fibre based on whether they say they heard of a person or not. It's beggars belief and I'm unsure whether that can ever be stopped now, unless Push take a really hard-line approach for a month where anything remotely off topic and not in good humour is removed, but that is next to impossible, I imagine.
@Gremio108@Ravix thanks both, and I agree with you on lots of points.
I think you hit the nail on the head when you said it's often not the article, it's more what certain users decide to bring into the comment section — most people can take a fun article on face value and visit our site to be fun. Others perhaps struggle with that and drag in other "real world" issues.
Those issues are often real and valid, but whether a PlayStation fan site is the place to debate them, is certainly a question mark. It is clear the world is in a tough place at the moment, and naturally that will seep into people's psyche and therefore their comments — maybe even unintentionally.
Moderation is indeed a constant tightrope, and we'll continue to do our best to get a good balance without having to suppress people's views.
Have you ever considered having a central site which contains all the stories from Push square, Pure xbox , nintendo life and time extension in one or just links to the stories from each. As at times it would be nice to see a flow of all the news on all sites instead of having to visit all 4 separately. I understand each site has a fanbase but I am long past the console wars and am more interested in hearing about all the platforms.
My suggestion is the ability to have direct messages with other users, because I was talking with another user about this whole "controversy" around Ghost of Yotei, obviously this conversation went off topic of the article, and the comments got removed (which was understandable) but I was generally curious to see where all this was coming from (even asked for sources), basically what I'm trying to say is I wanted to carry the conversation but move it away from the article and the only way of doing that would be direct messages and I feel that could save comment sections of articles from off topic comments.
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