I agree here... there used to be a time when the "an eye for an eye" rule was deemed too cruel for "modern times" - back in the day it was progress, since it should stop escalations spiralling out of control with revenge and counter-revenge.

Today people and their families are "stoned" in public for what: words (however bad or stupid they are). And this goes up to stalking (dead animals at the door step...) and actual life-threats.

It kind of feels like we went backwards a few thousand years.

This whole situation is a mess. I just don't understand why every company, in this case GOG, is trying so hard to be witty on the social media. These places seem to be an outrage minefield. Anything in there may be interpreted as offensive by some group (that is a group of potential customers). Then all hell breakes loose, the company apologises and distances itself from some movement/idea/whatever that they were not supporting in the first place - and then all hell breakes loose, because the apologies offend another group of potential customers who may identify with said movement/idea/whatever, while the first group may or may not accept the apology anyway. It's a no win situation. Just stay off this social cesspool or stick to generic "boring" entries.

That being said - I haven't always agreed with the way Linko was running things around here, but I'll admit he did a good job of keeping these forums in check (which was a huge achievement in itself). It would be really unfortunate if his (virtual) head was the price of this drama - if you are reading this - please try not to get too stressed by this whole mess (yes, I know it's easier said than done).

Human history has proved times and times again to revolve in an orbit. We always see the same patterns, eventually; right now, the situation is awfully similar to fall of the Roman Empire: privileged classes always more privileged and wasting insane amounts of resources for their own leisure, living on the shoulders of the evergrowing, ever poorer and uneductaed lower classes, mass migrations, consumerism and spectacularization of violence, complete lack of long-term sight in politics, distribution of power akin to a "buffet", central government going one way with huge pushes in the other direction of significant groups, nihilism, hedonism, no civic sense, homo homini lupus...

Brand awareness, getting noticed.

My personal take on this, is GoG has hit an en-pass. Its grown as big as they can driven my Indies and classic titles, nearly enough to start being a real and direct competitor to Steam, but can't get the publishers and the bigger indie titles to back them to keep growing.

They've been pushing the social media and marketing hard, but its just not getting the traction they need, so they've tried harder and made mistakes they simply shouldn't have.

Thanks for the information. I didn't know that.

I just saw Konrad posting (in blue text) about locking the thread (though I managed to view it before the thread actually got locked). So it seems Knorad and elcook are handling at least some moderator duties at the moment.

Edit: apparently the current moderating staff is Konrad and chandra

Konrad has locked 2 that i've seen. And its about time, as I don't want GOG to get like the steam forums are. We need mods!

inb4 this one gets locked, too. I just spent a bunch of time typing out long replies to 2 threads as they both got locked right before pushing "post my message", so i'm a little salty. I'm guessing this is the next one to go.

Consider yourself lucky! You got the last word and no one can downvote you now either. That's as close to winning an internet argument as anyone can get. ;P

Linko on vacation? Or just refueling the flamethrower and getting a new acid dripping sword for the trolls?

You can't suggest you're for free speech while simultaneously prohibiting it. When threads are civil, or at least regained civility after a period of hellfire, locking comes off as feeding the flames, as well. If you honestly want free speech with civility, target users without civility, not topics. I understand, however, that you'd rather not upset the customer base as a business. Fine, cool.

That said, i do believe this implies that the gog forums are not a platform, but a publishing. If you allow all that's legal, that's platform. If you show control over what's deleted (outside of legal obligation), you assume responsibility for what's not deleted.

EDIT: Given the number of steam-key scams, i think then, as a publisher, it's reasonable to say that gog officially supports steam-key scamming, and ultimately scammers. Man, if only my side of identitarianism played by the same rules as the mainstream media.

Don't we all...

EDIT: Also thanks for jumping in.

I think for many people a harmless and witty joke is still a harmless and witty joke. And a bad joke simply a bad joke... *shrug and forget about it*. To reach these people you make... jokes, witty posts. Hit or miss.

The problem on the internet is that there are too many people lurking and waiting that someone steps on their toes. Some of them deliberately place their toes in your way. And I swear some of them have their toes surgically prolonged.
These people have followers with followers, and while they all in all among the millions of users are a minority, they can rally a few thousand people, very vocal people no less.

I don't get the appeal of it, my best guess is some need for tribalism, an urge to belong to a group and team (like football/soccer fans beating each other up over games played by overpaid mercenaries - which I also don't get).
Fighting for a "good cause" like getting rid of transphobia, racism or any structural disadvantage of a group of people is in itself honourable. But this seems to spin out of control all too often, which is very visible especially with feminism - with the big issues resolved at least in the west, more justification is needed and misogyny and patriarchy are suddenly found in the smallest things and instead of talking about it and trying to resolve the issues there's only the call for arms... makes you feel like a real Suffragette I guess.

So while most people probably shrug or smile, depending on the wittiness or fail of some post, there will alway be some one finding a hair your soup. The only options are: serve no soup (become boring matter-of-fact) or continue and "let haters hate".

In past, more sensible times, if you seriously offended someone by accident, they would speak up and you would apologise with "I didn't mean to offend, my bad." and either "I didn't know" or "Sorry, I didn't think". Everyone makes a mistake sometimes, and people used to know and accept this, also with others.
Today, especially in social media, there's always someone offended, it's indeterminable if there's a real issue or just "the usual shitstorm". And you don't get a chance to apologise for real, because the punishment is always immediate public execution.
IMO this is the best way to ruin everybody's life, I would prefer to have all people work together for making the world a better place for everyone. But this would have to start with actually talking and listening to each other.
While the last sentence is not wrong, I can't on the whole agree with you. What Konrad wants is: The problem is, once the poo-flinging has started in a thread, it tends to return even after brief periods of civility (when the poo-flingers are in the restrooms...). So I get it that locking those thread is - as undesirable as it is - sometimes the better way.

So free speech yes. Poo-flinging no.