Gatekeepin' it real: On the natural condition of fandom

[Azzy]

By what authority do you claim you can decide how other people must use words?

I'm not deciding it, so I don't know what you're onto. Language, itself, evolves as it is used by those that speak it. If a new usage of a word appears and gains traction in usage, that new, appended definition becomes "accepted". You can fight the floodgates all you want, but language evolving is inevitable.

You might be gatekeeping the English language, and the discussion here.

blinks

Or, more likely, I'm pointing out that just because Celebim doesn't like the newer usage of the term gatekeeping doesn't stop the word from having a new meaning (especially when it's gained traction). Also, Celebim seems to be sealioning (at best) in his argument against the chaning tide of language usage.

 

[MichaelSomething]

Now keep all of this in mind while certain posters have been trying to justify that gatekeeping is not all bad. Either through finding the most extreme and bizarre examples to try justify gatekeeping or constructing rambling and ludicrous scenarios to try to justify gatekeeping.

I don't believe in "Gatekeeping" but I do think we need to "police." It's a subtle but important distinction.

When I say "police" I mean "keep out jerks/creeps/bad actors/people who harm other people." A theoretical and extreme example (for the purpose of illustration) would be to not invite a person who carries unstable explosives on them at all times. You wouldn't want the person around your group because said unstable explosives could explode; causing severe physical injury to your group. You keep that person out to keep your group safe from harm.

A more realistic example would be a jerk who acts with hostility. People who argue endlessly over stupid things, harass other players, insult and berates, and act in ways that makes the game less fun and welcoming to everyone.

 

[Xenonnonex]

I don't believe in "Gatekeeping" but I do think we need to "police." It's a subtle but important distinction.

When I say "police" I mean "keep out jerks/creeps/bad actors/people who harm other people." A theoretical and extreme example (for the purpose of illustration) would be to not invite a person who carries unstable explosives on them at all times. You wouldn't want the person around your group because said unstable explosives could explode; causing severe physical injury to your group. You keep that person out to keep your group safe from harm.

A more realistic example would be a jerk who acts with hostility. People who argue endlessly over stupid things, harass other players, insult and berates, and act in ways that makes the game less fun and welcoming to everyone.

The important distinction is also that those who have being gatekeeped out are in situations which are not necessarily only instigated by bad actors.

Another important and subtle distinction is that gatekeepers can act in hostility towards those they consider to be less than worthless in belonging to their particular group but otherwise act cordially with other members.

 

[Beleriphon]

The important distinction is also that those who have being gatekeeped out are in situations which are not necessarily only instigated by bad actors.

Another important and subtle distinction is that gatekeepers can act in hostility towards those they consider to be less than worthless in belonging to their particular group but otherwise act cordially with other members.

I'd point again, I can't remember if it was this threat or not, but the gatekeeper is typically a self appointed position.

For example, lets say I take it upon myself to keep EN World from those weirdos that like the new Deep Babylon Galactica 12: Trek Wars RPG, because really eff EKG for getting a license when East Side Playtime had the best system. If I pop up in threads where that gets mentioned and I say its a dumb RPG for dumb babies and frame everything about how narrative games screw with the player agency and whatever stupid crap I'm claimin, I'm gatekeeping.

Despite the fact that I'm framing what I post as "helpful" advice, and calling out "not true" DBGTW RPG fans for being not real fans, nobody asked me to do that. And I think that's a keep component of this whole thing, not that minimum standards and behaviour are bad but self appointed moral guardians of D&D are taking it upon themselves to determine what counts for D&D and who gets to talk about it and where they get to talk about it.

 

[Morrus]

[Edit: sorry @Esker . only after i posted this did i realized i accidentally replied to the wrong name and not the one i had intended.]
Not to derail things but i wanna correct something. We arent actually more similar to bonobos than to normal chimps. Thats mostly sensationalism meant to garner attention. Preeetty dubious. We are overall mote similar to normal chimps.

Which as it turns out is a good thing. Bonobos only arent genocided by normal vhimos because they are isolated by a river and they exist only on a single latge island bounded by said river. Chimps dont swim and so the bonobos arent killed off by normal chimps that war. Bonobos can score high on some animal-specialized cognitive tests but its due to "ability to attain" related scewing of scores. They are actually mentally deficient. We are much more like normal chimps in just about every way except for tye fact that bonobos have communication capabilities that are marginally closer to ours than normal chimps' are.

Further look up the small handful of strongly matriarchal modern tribes of humans. They are all living in huts or little better and many dont actually have a reliable source of fire because of multiple reasons.

We're hardwired to work best as a patriarchy.

Of course that doesnt mean we cant have civil rights. We are smarter than chimps. But yeah...we are unhealthy when matriarchal.

Ok. Dont let this distract from the topic. The inaccuracy just rubbed me the wrong way.

Don't post again in this thread, and keep your essays about the rightness of the patriarchy to yourself.

 

[Morrus]

Are there no cases where you think someone should be removed from the community or denounced by it?

Celebrim, your deliberate derailment by insisting on using a different definition of the word 'gatekeeping' to everybody else is disrupting the thread; it's pure threadcrapping at this point. Please do not post in this thread again.

 

[Hussar]

I think instead of "police", perhaps, "Moderate" might be a better phrase?

For example, if someone comes on En World and deliberately flaunts board rules, flagrantly posting things that are directly against the board rules, for example, and the mods smack that poster down, that's not gatekeeping. Not in the sense that it's being used here anyway. After all, the rules of the board are publicly posted, freely and easily available. And, really, by and large, (thankfully for my part) Mod intervention tends to simply be to remove a poster from a thread, rather than from the board itself. Now, granted, when a poster repeatedly flaunts board rules, they have been banned. Again, not gatekeeping since the rules are freely and openly available.

On the other side of the issue though, would be if a mod decided that posting in the color blue was a very bad thing, and then booted a user for using blue text. Obviously this is a violation of the social agreements of the board and that mod would be way overstepping his or her authority. There are (to my knowledge) no rules preventing a poster from changing his or her text to blue. Thus, the mod has no authority to boot the user. This would be a clear example of gatekeeping. The mod (and I'm picking on mods here just for the example, I'm certainly not pointing any fingers or anything like that) has decided that his or her personal preferences should trump any other consideration and for very selfish reason is excluding someone from the group.

Now, in between those are all sorts of grey areas. Examples where posters aren't violating any specific board rule, but, are acting in a way that is harmful to the group. Is excluding that person gatekeeping? Well, probably not since it the poster typically isn't censured in any way unless that poster's behavior becomes blatantly obvious, and by and large, that poster has been given every opportunity to self correct. Again, simply acting as a moderator is not gatekeeping. A moderator is SUPPOSED to moderate and part of that means guiding conversations into productive (or at least not destructive) avenues. That's a moderator just doing the job.

 

[Bagpuss]

Am I missing anything??

I have in the past seen some people call complex rules systems gatekeeping, or even a deep setting that takes some understanding.

I don't think they in themselves qualify as gatekeeping, but if you use those as features to keep someone from playing the game, rather than doing what you can to help them learn the rules or the setting, then you qualify as a gatekeeper IMHO.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[billd91]

I have in the past seen some people call complex rules systems gatekeeping, or even a deep setting that takes some understanding.

I don't think they in themselves qualify as gatekeeping, but if you use those as features to keep someone from playing the game, rather than doing what you can to help them learn the rules or the setting, then you qualify as a gatekeeper IMHO.

Complex rules are gatekeeping, but in a more administrative manner and not used as a weapon to keep people out. You can't expect someone to actually play Advanced Squad Leader without delving into a massive binder of rules and that will weed people out.

I think we see complexity turn around into weaponized gatekeeping when the publishers try to tone down the complexity and increase accessibility. While a player might enjoy and prefer the more complex version and advocate for it as part of the game's aesthetic or intellectual appeal, if you see people use the dead giveaway phrase "dumbing it down", you know they're trying to weaponize that complexity to gatekeep.