Honestly I do think that half of the thread on the first page should be locked / merged, while I am not happy about how it was handled we don't need 10+ thread on Devotion or even X different "I leave", "I stay", "I might leave or stay" threads.

If it was for every single forum on the net it would be impossible to enact or even enforce, imagine you start a forum about stuffed dwarf monkey collecting then some troll make a thread about politics in the middle east, and you wouldn't be able to delete it because it would be considered "censorship" because of this law ? It wouldn't be enforceable, it has to be limited in scope to some very specific social media, for example "generic" ones like Twitter / Facebook, etc...

The second part of the question can only be answered by the GOG moderator who did it, I can only tell you that what I did post could have been considered as part of political discussion, even if it was just one rhetorical question, adressed to the user who posted "I love Poland" as reply to the OP. It wasn't anything offensive, but I guess it was political. I wasn't admonished for it or anything though, so whether that had anything to do with the deletion or not is pure speculation.

These laws do have an effect on games and gog. There's the online harm bill being made in the UK which will threaten internet companies. Ironically bitchute is registered in the UK and was blocking the recent protests in Poland against people attacking churches. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/dec/15/online-harms-bill-firms-may-face-multibillion-pound-fines-for-content


https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/online-harms-white-paper/online-harms-white-paper

well i wouldn't delete it , why would I?
gog seems very generic to me

You mean instead of doing the: "What a nice non-political thread you have here... it'd be a shame if anything were to happen to it, like if it were to get political or violate our code of conduct." routine? I think it's time we become accustomed to the fact that the forums are their turf and that they're now policing it. Anything you say here might be used against you in a court of GOG (where honorable judge GOGBear presides).

As to why they are doing it, the message seems pretty clear. They want people to understand they don't think this forum is the right place for political or ethical discussions. I believe the official (para)phrasing is: "This is a place where gamers come to discuss about games and have fun."

As to if this is a good or a bad thing... I'll let you be the judge of that. In your own mind, where no GOGBear judges have jurisdiction.

I would have been fine if they had just closed the topic and edited out the content of every message.

What I am *not* fine of, however, is the deletion of the topic, as that makes it harder to access many of the other topics I've posted in recently.

Edit: Again, why the low rating?

Gog staff seem to just use the rule to remove stuff they are told to remove or stuff they personally don't want here on the forums for the most part.....seemingly because GOG HQ probably only wants game related stuff like the "fluff" you see on big tech posted here, like:

Poster 1: This game is kewl, :D :D :D :D
Poster 2: Yeah, it is....gonna play it all day!
Poster 1: Let's post some game memes nao.
Poster 2: Ok :D :D :D

And that's likely because they don't want bad PR from the perpetually offended types on social media, and likely also don't want the various news rags online to write negative stories about them.

Fact is, nearly ANYTHING can be political....so by GOG's vague definitions nearly nothing is allowed to be discussed here.

(there is a rule in the tos that essentially states they can mod whatever for whatever reason...meaning they can delete anything they want at any time...of course they seem to not do it too much, lest they drive too many users off the forums.

Example: Recently there was a thread on PC culture going overboard in games and media on the forums. A staffer locked it, even though it was within the TOS. Reason given: They didn't feel this was the place to discuss such)

Still better locked than deleted, as deleting it triggers the bug I mentioned in the first post!

Yes, but then if people want to talk about it again, they have to make another new one. Tbh I wish they'd just prune the threads of offending content(posts or bits of posts), and not lock or delete unless it's spam or such.

I'll bute... Why is her avatar against the forum policy?

GOG has a definition of 'political'? What is it?

They don't have one, per se, or at least not one that's clearly outlined and posted for all to see....and in essence, because of that, they have a very vague one(of course that's likely by design so they can have more leeway when modding here).

All it says in the tos/coc is that they will mod things that are "political"....and to most staff, many things are "political", short of "fluff" like talking about the weather or posting in the forum games and such.

They will mod nearly anything that seems to be someone taking a side on most issues(including current events) with two or more stances or sides.

Things like climate change, covid, pc culture in games and other media, etc.....those have all been modded in the past.....even when people were being civil.

Well, cosnidering how they always did react to general dissent, I can't say that is news and there is no barrier for a mod/admin that knows his stuff do wrangle anything to be against forum policy. Anybody that modded for anything knows that.

Was that since always. People just did not notice beforehand. Not sure if it will make the flames go higher.

Still, always reminds me of... DING DONG BANNU.

This site sells PC games, therefore it's to be expected that there'd be PC culture in those games, right?

Politically correct.....not personal computer :)

Also it's usually anything critical of such going overboard in games and other media that gets removed and modded....whereas anything praising it seems to be left alone for the most part.