Open Thread Like It’s 2020

Welcome to Siliconera. We’re a site dedicated to covering interesting video games and all things related to them. We hold our community in high regard and try to make it a friendly, informative place for people. We achieve this by enforcing a carefully designed set of rules and ask that you adhere to them so everyone can have a good time. So whether you’re in the comment section or taking a break from talking about serious business on the main site in the forums, these guidelines will help everyone feel comfortable.

1. Be Self-Aware and Don’t Be Rude: We also will not allow harassment, antagonism, and/or picking fights. Debating is fine. But once we see inappropriate behavior, a warning will be issued.

Hate speech and racism will not be tolerated. This applies to someone you are directing a comment to in a thread, groups of people in general, and our staff. It will result in an immediate ban. It also means statements where people who try to excuse their behavior with, “It’s okay, because I’m [insert race/gender-preference]” won’t be allowed. You don’t have to like or respect other people, but you do have to treat them with common courtesy.

Some swearing will be permitted. That said, any comments using curse words will be held in our moderating panel for review by a Siliconera staff member. Swears may not be directed towards community members, staff members, or companies. We reserve the right to edit or remove swear words from your comments if need be in order to approve them for viewing on Siliconera.

Rampant swearing and five of George Carlin’s Seven Words You Can’t Say on TV aren’t allowed in article comment threads. (“Shit” and “piss” are the two that are.)

You know yourself better than anyone else. Are you posting in good faith? Are you being unreasonable or childish? Are you being a creep? Before you post, ask yourself: “Is what I’m posting the way a mature adult would behave?”

2. No NSFW or Illegal Content: We do not allow nudity, underage objectification, sexual harassment, or obscene behavior in any Siliconera section. This especially applies to things like gifs and YouTube. We don’t allow theft or linking to illegal content.

If we see people abusing the privilege, then we will be forced to remove the ability to post gifs, YouTube videos, and links.

3. Stay on Topic in Articles: For example, if an article is about a game and censorship is not mentioned, bringing up censorship there will get you a warning. Likewise, talking about things like console wars or port begging will get you a warning.

Unless an article is specifically related to platform choices or censorship, refrain from complaining about platforms, what platform a game is on, and censorship.

4. Behave Yourselves in Our Forums: Our forums are a place to discuss topics that might be considered provocative or off-topic elsewhere, like censorship or console wars, but that is still not a license to deliberately troll or antagonize others. Hate speech, trolling, and acting in bad faith are never allowed. Debates can be heated and passionate without devolving into arguments and toxicity.

5. Do your research before you post: Siliconera holds its community to high standards. With the amount of rampant misinformation going around the net these days, it’s more important than ever for us to rely on facts, separate truth from fantasy, and exhibit common sense. If you can’t do this, don’t post.

6. Extreme Circumstances May Occur: We know that a few visitors will try to skirt the rules and make things unpleasant for regular users. We reserve the right to take action to curb your behavior when we feel it’s crossing the line, even if it’s not an explicit violation of the above rules.

In most instances, if someone breaks a rule once, they will be warned. If a second is broken, they will be banned. In extreme circumstances, no warning will be issued and someone will be immediately banned.

…And that’s it. These aren’t difficult rules to follow. Be mature, be tolerant, and we’ll all be fine. Siliconera has always valued having a small, but productive, community over a large, out-of-control one. As such, we aren’t afraid to bring the hammer down on anyone that makes things unpleasant for others, but we would really prefer not to.

If you feel you’ve been unfairly warned/banned, send an email to [email protected] with the subject line “Moderation Query,” and our moderation team will be in touch to begin the appeals process.