I’m finding it very difficult to phrase this comment. I want to share my thoughts, but I know that if I am perceived as a bigot, everything I say will be seen as something to be defeated rather than understood. But tiptoeing around the subject doesn’t convey my meaning any better. So please, give me the benefit of the doubt long enough to hear me out.
I think what nexus is doing here is inappropriate. Mods, by their very existence, give players choice. Even this one: it means players can now choose he or she or to not be asked at all. Nexus, by removing this mod, is exerting what influence they have to eliminate that choice.
Nexus has considerable influence. For many games, particularly Bethesda games, they are seen as the default and complete source of mods. When looking for new mods to install, most people wouldn’t bother checking other sites since everything is on nexus. If players aren’t aware a mod exists, in other words they are unaware an option exists, that hinders them from making that choice. Also, their vortex mod manager makes installing mods from nexus super simple. By removing the mod from their site, they are making installing the mod at least a little bit more difficult.
I have seen multiple people posit here that removing the mod is fine because it does something so silly and pointless that no one should care about it. But we all care about silly, pointless things from time to time. I have spent days comparing all of the ways of getting unified GTK and QT themes on my desktop to try and get them just right. That was entirely pointless. But I wanted it that way, so I made it that way. I don’t have to justify it to anyone, and neither do the users of this mod. Installing the mod will only affect their game, no one else even has to know about it. Nexus’ decision does effect other people. They do have to justify themselves. Removing the mod is telling people they must select a pronoun. If it is really so pointless, nexus shouldn’t have bothered removing the mod.
People also claim that the political implications made by the mod are dangerous, and must be suppressed. I know you’ll roll your eyes at me, but yes: I’m making the free speech argument. It really is important though. If we, as a society and as individuals, accept suppressing speech for it’s ideological contents, then we are begging the question: which ideas are ok, and which aren’t? The ability to control public discourse is powerful, and highly coveted by anyone who wants to bend society to their will. It has been done before, and we know how horrible the consequences can be. It is incredibly dangerous. Answering that question at all is only justifiable in the face of a comparable danger. Is the idea of not being asked one’s pronouns really a comparable danger? Nexus seems to think so.
Of course, free speech also protects Nexus’ right to control what they put on their platform. I am not saying they shouldn’t have that right. But nexus is a platform, not a person. They position their site not as a place for them to share their own content, but for others to share theirs. Any modification to the contents of their site is a modification to other people’s speech, not just Nexus’s. They ought to use their capability in this regard responsibly and sparingly. Their actions here are neither.
I thought that others here on Lemmy believed in the same principles I do. That people should have total control over their own software and activities with it. That neither corporations nor governments should take any action to unduly control what they do with their own property. The belief in FOSS and decentralization seemed to go hand in hand with that. But if something like this can make you all turn on those principles, then maybe the resemblance wasn’t even skin deep.
“Free speech” means you will not be captured by the cops because of your opinion. Private entities are free to enforce any restrictions they want on their site. If you disagree with them, simply stop using the site, like we did with Reddit.
It wasn’t removed because of the pronouns though. It was removed because the mod description violated their community policies.
There are plenty of mods just like it that the site keeps up. Dozens of mods even remove black characters from games, which is way worse. The difference is, those mods don’t write long rants about how much they hate minorities and liberals in their descriptions.
To be entirely fair, if it’s not the mods content itself, but the description, that got it removed, that should probably be clarified front and center. That’s a pretty big shift from the mod being removed based on it’s simple existence.
This finally explains it. I was about to write something similar as the comment you are replying to, because it did felt like a totally unnecessary PR stunt of another corporation that only exploits the issue for publicity, and I really hate that.
But if the mod description was as bad as you say, then removing it was the right move.
It wasn’t removed because of the pronouns though. It was removed because the mod description violated their community policies.
There are plenty of mods just like it that the site keeps up. Dozens of mods even remove black characters from games, which is way worse. The difference is, those mods don’t write long rants about how much they hate minorities and liberals in their descriptions.
if that’s true then it makes sense
Edit: I just found out about the spider man pride flag removal mod debacle and read the official statement by Nexus Mods: www.nexusmods.com/news/14733
In regards to the replacement of Pride flags in this game, or any game, our policy is thus: we are for inclusivity, we are for diversity. If we think someone is uploading a mod on our site with the intent to deliberately be against inclusivity and/or diversity then we will take action against it. The same goes for people attempting to troll other users with mods deliberately to cause a rise. For our part, we will endeavour to do a better job of moderating our website to this ethos ourselves.
We aren’t the authority on what users can and cannot mod. Us removing a mod only means it cannot be found at Nexus Mods, nothing more, nothing less. We also note that we are not the only site that has removed this mod from their platform. As a private business, we have a right to choose what content we do and do not want to host on our platform. Respect this right the same way you want respect for your rights.
By Nexus Mods’ own words they will take action against anti diversity/inclusivity mods and actively take a stance on what kinds of mods are allowed on Nexus Mods.
So regardless of what the mod descriptions may or may not have said, it seems Nexus Mods would’ve deleted this pronoun removal mod as well.
These aren’t mods I would’ve bothered using (and I don’t even play these games either) but Nexus Mods trying to police what mods players are allowed to use is pretty shit.
The great thing about mods is they only affect the people who choose to get them and gives everyone more choices to change games to what they want, and I don’t think anyone should try to force what kinds of mods are allowed or not.
The whole point of modding is that you find something you don’t like or think could’ve been improved in some way, so you change it to your preference.
The fact that you wrote that wall of text just to not get attacked speaks volumes of the current state of progressivism in this place, you can’t say anything and you are walking on eggshells.
And are these “progressives” in the room now? No, they’re clearly not. Nobody is attacking him and he’s not even being downvoted.
He wrote the wall of text because he has the self awareness to know that the comment he is writing is functionally identical to what a far-right reactionary “hiding their power level” would write.
He wrote the wall of text because he has the self awareness to know that the comment he is writing is functionally identical to what a far-right reactionary “hiding their power level” would write
This paragraph is the funniest shit I have read today.
if you’re having trouble comprehending what he wrote in a few sentences, perhaps your bot needs more tokens to parse what he’s putting out, for humans it’s incredibly straight forward.
Did they edit your comment too where you quoted them?
In case you edit your comment, the quote was
He wrote the wall of text because he has the self awareness to know that the comment he is writing is functionally identical to what a far-right reactionary “hiding their power level” would write
This is not a place of acceptance. This is a left wing echo chamber. You either tow the narrative or GTFO.
I think of myself as very moderate. I’m neither supportive of right wing horse shit or the lefts batshit insanity. I’ll get downvoted into oblivion every time for pointing out this place being extreme left, or for making any comment that doesn’t align strictly with the narrative taking points.
what exactly is the left’s batshit insanity in this instance? literally that the game lets you pick your pronouns?
did you know that fallout: a post-nuclear role playing game (1997) also allowed you to do this? a few other games that have let you do this are fallout 2 (1998), mass effect (2007), fallout 3 (2008), mass effect 2 (2010), skate 3 (2010), the elder scrolls 5: skyrim (2011 and also every year since), mass effect 3 (2013), fallout 4 (2015), sonic forces (2017), mass effect andromeda (2017), cyberpunk 2077 (2020), trackmania 2020 (2020), and literally every other game ever to feature a character creator. if this is batshit insanity, then i can’t wait to find out what you think of unions.
Dude I thought reddit was leftist and then I came here. Funny thing is I’m a pansy lefty European (believe in social healthcare, UBI and all that good stuff) yet this place is a bit much for me.
What narrative talking points? Gay people exist, trans people exists. There’s nothing political about that. If you think otherwise you need to adjust thinking of yourself as a moderate.
I think what nexus is doing here is inappropriate. Mods, by their very existence, give players choice. Even this one: it means players can now choose he or she or to not be asked at all. Nexus, by removing this mod, is exerting what influence they have to eliminate that choice.
I don’t think you’re a bigot, but I also think you’re off the mark.
First off, the mod has quite literally zero value. Installing it is more work than ignoring an option during character creation. I constantly ignore options I don’t care about during character creation, it really isn’t hard. It’s hard to interpret the intent of the creator of the mod, as well as its users, as anything else but being out for blood.
That alone though isn’t a reason to remove the mod – Nexus is full of useless mods. But something neat happens when you do nuke the mod: Bigots come out of the woodwork, you can ban them in one fell stroke, and thereby lessen your moderation load in the long term.
I am now totally confused as to what is even going on. After reading multiple top level comments, many responses and then reading the article (gasp I know… blasphemy) I can’t tell if conservatives are mad about pronouns being an option or not being an option. Many of the comments made it sound like they added pronouns, the way the article is written makes it sound like they removed the ability to choose pronouns.
So which is it. Who is mad, and why exactly?
Edit: Okay, maybe I understand now. Someone created a mod that removed pronouns. The place that hosts mod downloads, removed that mod from their list of downloads. Now people are mad it was removed. Do I have that right? If so, my only remaining question is if one were to use the mod, does it mean others not using the mod can’t see their pronoun(s)?
I think this is the reply that prompted me to reply at the top of the post. Does your edit mean I was of some help? You appear to have the right of it, yes.
As to your second question: what mod loadout a player has will have zero bearing on another’s experience. If one were to use the mod, others would not be affected.
Apparently it defaults to the one matching your phenotype. The game gave you the option to change it if you felt like it. The mod removed that option and may have had a rant against the existence of LGBT+ people in its description and that description was the cause for removal (I can't verify since it was removed, but that's what others have said).
Selecting the sex of the PC has been a standard feature in practically every RPG with character creator ever, and definitely in Bethesda RPGs, what they added is an option to change pronouns the PC is referred to by NPCs from the default. If you want them to match you simply don’t touch that option, done.
From a developer’s perspective it’s dead simple, similar in triviality as allowing people to mix+match any voice to any body type. Cyberpunk’s free choice of genitals needs some implementation care but if you’re planning for it from the start it’s also easy.
Where things get more complicated is things like dresses for male bodies, especially if you don’t have any shape keys in place. But if you use one body mesh for everything and simply shape key it into male and female then it’s again no issue (you also need to lerp animations then, probably, male and female bodies walk differently because hips). Basically it’s hard if your asset pipeline is simple, if the pipeline is sophisticated it’s easy.
Removing the mod is telling people they must select a pronoun.
No, it defaults to body type.
This option is literally nothing to people who don’t care - and the people who care enough to dislike it, are assholes. They have their private reasons and their private reasons are bad. Bigotry is not an OK idea. We’ve had that discussion, it went very predictably, and it has a right answer. We don’t need to endlessly litigate whether we’ve been too harsh about demonstrable bigotry.
A website saying ‘no thank you’ to an act of petty bigotry is a non-event. There is no fucking danger in moderation excluding that. That’s what moderation… is. That’s why we have human beings reviewing stuff, instead of offering an unfiltered pile of everything all the time.
In this context of moderation: game modifications must successfully and safely do something useful. This fails on two out of three points. It successfully removes a feature. But that feature is easily ignored with no side effects or consequences, and the blindingly obvious motivation behind its removal is overt sexual prejudice. While safe in the sense that it won’t brick your computer, it’s plainly a threatening message to the people who use this feature - it is dehumanizing. It is treating the possibility of their existence as something intolerable, to be excised. To be physically removed.
You can still install this stupid mod. It hasn’t been erased from reality. It’s just not approved on one website with clear rules against exactly that sort of thing. Making bad things harder to do is not some betrayal of your right to make terrible decisions. A lot of things that are possible have barriers for good reasons.
And none of you grasping at freedom as an excuse to entertain bigotry seem remember - we all have a right to freedom of association. We don’t want to deal with that shit. You can’t make us, and still pretend you care about choice.
I’m pretty sure the vanilla game has the option to choose pronouns that conform to whatever your feelings about gender are. So choose that option and play the game.
Why should Nexus devote resources to a mod that removes options from a game? There’s no point to this mod for anyone that’s of sound mind. The only reason for it’s existence is some petty bullshit from people that hate trans people so much they will install a mod in a feeble attempt to feel like they hurt people in some small way.
If the mod just totally skipped character creation and the goal was to just save time, I could see the purpose. But its clearly not there to save anyone time; its just there as an excuse to tirade against certain demographics for existing.
I’m pretty sure the vanilla game has the option to choose pronouns that conform to whatever your feelings about gender are.
If you’re a hardcore heteronormie, congrats, the default behavior of the game conforms with your worldview. Simply choose a male or female body, and don’t even touch the pronouns. They’re automatically what they’re “supposed” to be.
Oh lord what a bunch of cringe. Who fucking cares? About any of this? There’s so much awful shit in the world and so many people spending their time worrying about the absolute nothing issues of the world.
So what about people who do want to use they/them? Adults could install software like this for their kids and use the mod to deny their kid the right to choose what pronoun they want to use.
People are welcome to mod games in whatever way they want, but Nexusmods has zero obligation to host anything, let alone content that violates their TOS.
It’s not the first time they banned mods like this. Nexus had the same shit storm last year when they banned Spiderman mods that tried to remove pride flags. It’s mentioned in the same article here as well.
The only reason it is getting this much outrage is because of the same reason last time, this is the hottest game on the market right now, just like Spiderman was when it came out for the first time on PC.
Huh, just considering practicality, how many new characters would one have to create in order to save rather than waste downloading this? Given the time required to download, read, and set up, I’d guess somewhere in the range of 20-30 characters.
Speedrunners might download a mod to skip setup entirely, not a single option. Of the millions who purchased starfield, perhaps a few dozen might use this ergonomically. Neat.
Practice mods are occasionally used if, say, there’s a tricky section 1.5 hours in. With route highlighting or landscape deemphasizing, if necessary. Speedrunning has slowed to a crawl in the last decade so that seems unlikely.
It is not a big deal. It doesnt have to be. Its just a small mod with a small change that some people apparently wanted for their experience. They didnt demand to change the game. I dont see problem with choosing pronouns, but I also dont see a problem with changing pointless stuff in your game.
Just pick your pronouns when you create your character. These are people getting their panties in a twist because they are being reminded that other people can choose different pronouns.
These are people getting their panties in a twist because they are being reminded that other people can choose different pronouns.
That’s nothing new. The vast majority of far-right reactionaries know exactly zero trans people. They’re getting upset because a stranger, who exists entirely in their imagination, may have an opinion about their own body that the far-right have not approved as “okay to have”.
Of course, there’s probably deeper reasons that they won’t say out loud. What if they accidentally find a “man” attractive? What if they have to treat a casual acquaintance with basic human decency?
I'd imagine for some, the problem is being reminded they too can choose. And they've had the option to choose for a long time.
Honestly, that was my biggest issue the idea of asking other people their pronoun was sort of a trend (at least according to the rightwing media? idk; I've never once seen a person ask another person their pronouns in IRL). For some reason I never wondered why I, as a "cis man", I'd be afraid of such a question (especially since I was the type to like when people mistook me for being gay, so it wasn't like I was afraid of having my "masculinity questioned" or was anti-LGBT).
Bash.org used to have a “worst of” section, for the lowest-voted quotes. It was mostly racist garbage. At some point the worst went something like, ‘that’s where black people belong: back of the bus, bottom of Bash.’
They nuked that shit shortly after, because why the fuck would you want that on your server?
Moderation exists to identify and exclude people who are being absolute cocks.
You don’t need any grand philosophical statement about values. You don’t need to defend the paradox of tolerance against absolutist demands for unrestricted expression. It’s perfectly fine to say: you were doing some diet Nazi shit, that’s awful, fuck off.
I dont know who is the most pathetic group here, if nexus mods for taking down a dumb harmless mod for ridiculous reasons or the moders that made a mod that takes out a dumb harmeles feature for ridiculous reasons. Nexus mods sucks either way and the mod devs suck too.
Considering their policy doesn't allow for other stuff like this, yeah I am not surprised.
Content that may be generally construed as provocative, divisive, objectionable, discriminatory, or abusive toward any real-world individual or group, may be subject to moderation. This includes but is not limited to content involving politics, race, religion, gender identity, sexuality, or social class. We tolerate content related to real world issues and events as long as the appropriate tag ("Real World Issues") is used and the content is handled in a tasteful, respectful, and non-inflammatory manner. Users who do not wish to see such content should make use of our content blocking feature.
Reminds me of the time when a Spiderman mod removed the VERY few instances of a pride flag in a recreation of NEW YORK CITY and a Skyrim mod that removed any potential gay romances that only occur when wearing a very specific amulet (including a single dead skeleton couple off the beaten path.)
Those got booted as well cause.....come on now. Its blatantly targeting a group of people about their sexuality and gender who have BARELY any presence to begin with in these games.
Starfield is even more egregious as its LITERALLY just a menu option and the rare use in dialogue....
Really pathetic and sad people would even feel the need to make them to begin with. Let alone feel the need to upload them to a platform.
This is all fine and well, but am I the only one a bit concerned about how NexusMods is practically a monopoly in the modding scene? Why does literally every modder have to use a rate-limiting host as a platform, especially when Github exists?
Mods uploaded to github does really suck for discoverability though. There’s the roguelike Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead. The modding scene exists entirely on Github and you’d basically never find them unless you go searching for mods on their Discord channel.
That's even worse though. Plenty of games (e.g. Stellaris and RimWorld) are also available on platforms like GOG or, ugh, Epic. But if you want to use mods and you bought the game on any platform other than Steam it's fuck you.
I know it is, developers can block downloads unless the user is signed into a Steam account that owns the game. But as an end-user that's distinction without difference.
steamworkshopdownloader.io never gotten this to work myself but I put the least amount of effort in as possible. There may be others as well but I remember when I did my research a couple years ago that it was a real trudge and almost not worth it.
I know there are workarounds, but this is true. There are very little games I buy (at least directly) through steam nowadays, because I didn’t like what it became after the Greenlight/Direct debacle and I didn’t want my library to be that dependent of them anymore.
I have playnite as a unified game library launcher (with GoG, itch.io, humble, Ubi, EA, even Amazon Prime and freaking EGS just for the free games), so where I get my games from doesn’t matter much for me now.
But workshop integration is basically the only thing that makes me want a Steam copy for a game.
Though among the games in that case, there were Rimworld and Dwarf Fortress, and for both if you get a copy directly from the developers, you get DRM-free and a Steam key. So, that’s what I did.
There’s a couple issues with it. I mean, it’s simple for games where you’re not using a bunch of mods, but at some point it just becomes excessive. Not to mention that when a mod updates, the mod will automatically update breaking your game sometimes, or when you’re trying to play a game, a mod just doesn’t update causing it to break the game that way too. There’s just a lack of control that’s often necessary when modding.
For beatsaber (which doesn't use steam workshop), the there's no steam integration and its a pain to deal with.
For terraria (which uses steam workshop), the modloader is smart enough to know which mods don't work with the current version of the game and disables them and steam lets you easily change which version of the game you have by using the "beta" options. Only time I've had issues with updates breaking things since 1.4 release was during beta-builds of 1.4 tmodloader (and those were generally easily fixed by going to the discord and finding the file to fix it). Since then, no needing to find files and paste them over the existing files, etc. No trying to install one mod at a time out of a dozen or two until you find which one breaks it and redoing the whole process over again. Pretty sure it also just uses the version of mods that support the game version you have, deals with dependencies automatically, etc.. The modloader will also direct you to things like the non-steam pages for mods (sometimes forum posts, sometimes discord, etc).
I don't think the steam integration is needed for such a seamless mod experience, but its certainly compatible with it. And terraria is an outlier because the game devs encourage mods and has a huge and dedicated community. For smaller games with devs that don't like mods, simply trying to keeping things working may take so much work, so that time that making a good integrated user experience is probably difficult.
Let’s be real here though, Terraria is an unfair comparison considering it’s modloader is integrated into the game itself and holds significantly greater support than most other mods with Steam Workshop support. (Oh and that the modloader is basically a community made mod manager anyways and is akin to using the community mod managers for the games mentioned below)
Stellaris, Rimworld, Divinity: Original Sin 2, Total War: Warhammer 3, Binding of Isaac, Dwarf Fortress, Space Engineers, Cities: Skylines, all of these very popular games with massive modding support are still plagued by the issues I mentioned above. And you know what? It has the issues you mentioned as well. Did you subscribe to an outdated mod? Oh, well, good luck figuring out which one that is. Forgot to download a dependency? Crash. Did a mod update and Steam just didn’t update the mod? Figure out what mod that was and unsubscribe to it and subscribe to it again. Did a mod just update and Steam updated the mod, even though the update breaks save compatibility? Well, unless the mod author uploaded the older version of the mod, good luck trying to have fun.
I think it’s just the internet being the internet. Or at least how it’s been for awhile. There are big sites that a lot of people crowd to and that becomes the default. Like auctioning things off online. Ebay. That was where everyone went to. Need to order a few different things online? Amazon. Are there other online stores? Plenty. But Amazon is seen as cheap and convenient.
Nexus mods is just the popular site, but the moders have other options.
Yeah, an alternative using git would be good probably, but maybe don’t use github. Preferably though, it’d be agnostic and just target some git repo anywhere. It’d pull from a description file for the page to ensure a uniform appearance preferably, and it’d show and manage versions from some uniformly named folder on the repo.
I was really hoping thunderstore and mod.io would take off more since they seem more platform-agnostic and FOSS-like with their integration with git and versioning (and for some games they have), but people just prefer convenience of nexusmods and steam workshop unfortunately. They just have a bigger community and better discoverability in the end
I don’t think that term really applies here. It’s not like the barrier to entry for a webservice hosting game modification data is all that high. It’s very different from the railway, waterworks and power grid markets.
Also there are at least the competitors Loverslab, Curseforge, ModMD and Modrinth from the top of my head.
Indeed, it applies as much as accusations of monopoly. Two sides of the same coin. Really, it’s not a monopoly situation or any kind at all. It’s just by far the best of its kind and it has no competition.
Network effect creates barriers to new competitors, regardless of quality. Either for the upstarts or the leaders. See: Twitter. Once some choice is the default, anything else faces an uphill battle.
Does any one of those integrate with Mod Organizer or do I have to download the mod (often also with an annoying wait time) and then point Mod Organizer to it. Do they have an API that enables “a new version is out” notifications, or do I have to hunt everything down manually.
It really wouldn’t be that hard, but none of them cares. Nexus kinda has itself positioned well there as they would not have to support any third-party API endpoints in Vortex, but Vortex isn’t even the popular choice for many games.
Well, for one thing, Nexus gives modders a share of ad revenue. Under a different name, I have a mod that’s a backend requirement for a big, popular mod, and that nets me a reliable few bucks a month.
That said, a good portion of the modding community also exists on Gamebanana. If you want BotW, ToTK or Source engine mods, GB is the go-to.
Wait I have a stupid subscription to nexus and idk why I haven’t canceled it (used it for one month for some mod back in the day). I use nexus for all mods. Should I keep my sub then because all I care about is modders getting something.
R2Modman and thunderstore.io has grown it’s catalogue quite a bit as of late, but it’s mostly (don’t know if it’s entirely or not) unity games. It’s my favorite modding platform with features that make sharing modlists for multiplayer a breeze.
There’s stuff like Curseforge, but it’s only for some games, mostly Minecraft. The problem, if someone considers it a problem, is really that communities for games generally centralize around one site for their mods for the most part, and Nexus has garnered a lot of trust and therefore has more pull/inertia for communities working those things out.
As for Github, I believe the vast majority of mods have Github pages, but Github itself doesn’t really have a UI suited for mod downloaders, and no real incentive to implement one. So sites like Nexus and Curseforge are still a necessity.
Nice! Personally I don’t have any particular issue with Nexus, but it’s always nice to see diversity. Monopolies are pretty much never good for end users.
My only issue with Nexus is that I have to create a login to download mods there. I don’t want to sign in to websites just to DL something. Curseforge is good for Minecraft mods and doesn’t hassle me with a login prompt
Nexus has the lions share, but only for some games, I had a premium subscription but still found for like half the games I mod that nexus either didn’t have a modpage for them or that most modders for that game used other sites to host their mods
Not really sure curseforge is better. Its another of those sites with an sketchy bloaty overwolf launcher that makes you jump through hoops to load mods onto a server.
It’s concerningly hard to avoid overwolf in modding
There’s also steam workshop. Neither are shining examples of a free modding community. I think nexus mods starting out better and slowly enshittified but I don’t know the extent of it.
Their rate-limiting isn’t bad at all, their integration into everything is excellent, and for games without much of a community Vortex is often the only mod manager. Their API isn’t closed down, so Mod Organiser can integrate with Nexus just as well, and they probably would also do it with other mod sites if those ever bothered to set up a version check etc. API. They have an excellent search function.
In short: They provide a good service. Like the most annoying part about Nexus as a freeloader is the five or what seconds wait before your mod manager picks up the download.
And, no, their rate limiting really isn’t bad. 1.5MB/s for people with adblock, 3MB/s for people without. How often do you download gigabytes worth of mods it’s not like they’re bullying you into a subscription.
Github has other ways to make money, and Microsoft capital to back up everything. And granted Nexus could use a better bug tracker, but you won’t see them getting into the private repository business any time soon.
Removing the mod is imposing a political viewpoint, and it's also completely performative. Why should NexusMods care if the mod exists? Everybody mods their games at their own consent.
No non-conforming people were protected by this move.
Rejecting bigotry is not supposed to be a political viewpoint.
Addendum: "YourContentSucks" just went through my profile and downvoted everything lol what a cuck A2: Actually now that I think of it the username does kind of check out
Rejecting gender ideology isn't bigotry. Also, like I said, nobody installs mods they don't want. It literally affects zero people who don't want it to affect them.
No, sorry, I'm not willing to play your stupid little word game where you try to semantically differentiate a demographic from the "ideology" that that demographic meaningfully exists and should have the right to pursue happiness in society.
The set of ideas that you refer to includes the ideas that transgender people exist as transgender, and non-binary people exist as non-binary.
The concept of "trans" is part of gender ideology. They are people with an identity disorder. Conceptualizing them as "trans" can only exist if you subscribe to the concept of gender in the first place, and gender only exists as an abstraction in the minds of gender ideologues (and people who don't know any better, who have been duped by gender ideologues).
False. Like, completely and totally wrong. The science is clear, and you are on the side opposite of it. There are experts on one side, and you on the other. It is amazing just how many incorrect statements you are barfing out.
How come you're only defending the people putting this hateful shit on there? You aren't impressing anybody on here by "seeing both sides" if you're only seeing the modders side.
Nexus removed a mod that may be (and has obviously been, because otherwise nobody would be making posts about it) perceived as hateful by others and you're over here defending the modders that put that shit on there because "it's political" from Nexus to take the obviously political mod down.
On the other hand you're probably the type preaching about "Well Twitter is allowed to encourage hate speech on their site because it's their website and they're allowed to do whatever they want, you don't have to use it if you feel attacked by that", but Nexus is not? Nexus' site-wide rules don't count because they're "pushing leftist agenda" by removing mods that were never allowed there to begin with?
"Why should NexusMods care if the mods exist?" why do you care so much if it doesn't exist any longer? If you feel that attacked by the removal of an anti-pronouns mod you can just make a new one yourself or download it from somewhere else. Or just not give a fuck/be happy like every other normal functioning human being.
Would you care as much as to reply to this post, if they had instead instead removed a mod that added pronouns to a game? Would that not be imposing political views as well then? Or would you just not care because you care more about making non-binary people feel excluded rather than included?
You're not making a point here. We are making this network a place that is inclusive to people all over the gender spectrum. Defending those that do not, is not making a point.
I do not care to read any more of your replies as your points are easily dismantled even by someone that's as stupid as I am.
If you do reply, just say yes or no to the following question, that I had posed earlier: Would you care this much if they had removed a mod that added pronouns to a game?
Try to think as hard as you can, I do not want to read any excuse for either answer. Just imagine yourself in that situation and tell me.
It's not hateful shit, and I'm not trying to "see both sides," either. I have no quarter for gender ideologues. However, I do think that any person or business (that doesn't have any kind of monopoly status over critical services) has the freedom to refuse to serve anyone they want for any reason they want, so GN is free to take down whatever they want and they don't really owe any of us an explanation.
And, really, I'm not defending the people who made the mod and put it up. They don't really need a defense. I'm just pointing out that the removal of it makes GN either petty activists, or scared of the left.
Obviously gender ideologues perceive it as hateful, but so what? Gender ideologues perceive literally anything they disagree with, no matter how slightly as hateful. It's their entire brand. Would GN host mods for a game if the game itself was "hateful?" Absolutely not. And if a mod whose only function is to remove the ability to arbitrarily select your pronouns is hateful, then why isn't every single game which is supported on GN that does not offer that functionality considered hateful and have all support for it removed? The answer is simple: GN are petty activists and this is performative.
My views on Twitter (et al) haven't changed even after its ownership changed hands from someone who I don't like to someone who I don't like a little bit less. Not that it's on-topic, but I think platforms like Twitter need to decide if they are publishers or platforms and then play by the rules set forth for those that they decided to be, no mixing and matching. §230 of Title 47 needs an overhaul.
I really don't care that much about the mod and this event, in part because I can't afford the game nor the hardware needed to run it. But, I do have opinions on gender ideology and the behavior of public-facing organizations with respect to gender ideology.
I'll reiterate my point: GN are petty activists (or afraid of the left).
Yes, I would care the exact same amount. It's crummy behavior, no matter where it comes from. I can exist in the presence of ideas I don't agree with. I don't have the urge to stamp out, by fiat or coercion, every trace of any belief that differs from mine.
True, but the act does show everybody that they are political activists. Either that, or they're afraid of the left. Either way, it's worth pointing out. It carves out a space for competition.
Removing the mod doesn't make Nexus decent human beings. It makes them petty activists who can't bear the thought of the existence of people who don't subscribe to the same ideology as they do.
Lmao, bruh we already know you’re an asshole, you don’t have to explicitly say you put your ideology above treating people with dignity and respect, we got it.
It's literally gender ideology politics. Outside of that, there is zero reason to take down the mod. It harms nobody. It doesn't even violate their own TOS.
Gender ideology is literally sexual politics. The inclusion of the ability to select your pronouns (as opposed to what, I don't know, them being fixed according to the sex of the generated character?) is sexual politics. Modding that choice out is sexual politics. Removing the mod is sexual politics. Every action taken by all parties in this story is sexual politics.
Sexual Politics - the principles determining the relationship of the sexes; relations between the sexes regarded in terms of power.
Now, tell me where removing the options for pronouns in a video game fits within that definition.
Apparently you can just add “politics” to the end of anything to try and justify discrimination. My mod that removes all black people from the game is just “race politics”, so it’s okay!
All of gender ideology is sexual politics. It's an attack on the conceptual model of the sexes as they are intuitively understood — an attempt to hijack the language that is used to describe the sexes in an attempt to push gender ideology into the mainstream.
I’m sorry man, I wish I could help you. But this… I think you’re in a bit too deep.
Nobody is “hijacking” anything, and nobody is forcefully pushing ideologies on anyone. It’s as simple as groups of people wanting to be treated just as well as anyone else - it’s not any more complicated than that.
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And it is their platform, that's why they care. They can dictate what is and isn't allowed there.
No non-conforming people were protected by this move.
By taking this down, NexusMods communicated that they care about non-conforming people far more than if they had just said it. They are creating an environment where bigotry is removed rather than accepted. Nobody is saying you can’t be a bigot in private with your game, we are saying if you’re going to be a bigot we don’t want you to do it here with us because we care about the people you are excluding/hurting.
Rejecting gender ideology isn't bigotry. Removing it from a game where its present also isn't bigotry. Removing the mod is just performative slacktivism and does nothing to help anyone.
Yall said the same shit about gay people a couple years ago. It was all the same talking points, it’s just slightly modded to fit trans people now. It was bigotry then, it’s bigotry now.
When I say "the alphabet mafia," I'm not talking about gay people, bisexual people, etc. I'm referring to the bully activists who go around stirring shit and spreading lies about society and claim to represent gay and bisexual (etc.) people.
Correct. Because I don't rant against gay people and people telling me to stop are effecting a slander against me. It doesn't help me, and it doesn't help gay people. All they are doing is stirring shit and profiting from it.
I mean, look— I don’t like holier-than-thou activists either, but you need to make a distinction between them, actual activists, and the groups they’re representing. The former is an extreme minority.
Instead of being distrustful of the movement and making yourself look like an ass by preemptively attacking, your energy is better spent not bothering. In the event you encounter a nutjob, go troll them or tell them to pound sand. I promise you, as long as you aren’t on (formerly Twitter) or Tumblr circa 2016, it’s not as common as you think.
There are no "actual activists." There are no causes. The only thing left to fight for is the right to indoctrinate very young school children into gender ideology and show them, graphically, how to be gay.
So no one was homophobic before? The Stonewall Riots just happened because gay people were bored? The big numbers in hate crimes? The government openly saying that they wouldn’t do anything about AIDs because it affected mostly gay people? I’m guessing it was gay people who wrote the laws that got us kicked out of the military. And made it so we couldn’t get married.
I never said that and I don't believe that. But the people who fought for civil rights for gay people aren't today's alphabet mafia.
Oh, and the gay men who fought in the stonewall riots are the reason the G should have always come first, because it was gay men who set the foundation for civil rights for non-straight people. Not the alphabet mafia, and not lesbians.
State interference with and regulation of marriage is, and always was, an abomination. Marriage is a religious and societal institution, and the state only got involved to prevent miscegeny.
The Christian church isn't going to recognize gay weddings, but anyone else is welcome to.
I'd be happy to advocate with you in the pursuit of getting the state out of marriage.
And since the state has been involved for a long time, that means it should be open to anyone. Just as it’s been open to others such as atheists. They weren’t doing it for religious purposes. Nor were kings and queens when they would marry their children to unite kingdoms. Or people who basically married their children in exchange for cattle.
My point isn’t to get the state out of marriage since at this point it is more so a legal document and something that couples do out of love for each other. But the idea that it’s a religious thing is ridiculous. Not to mention its hardly an argument since that means that gay people have even more rights to get married, since some church’s, including Christian ones, will do it. If anything the idea that being gay is a sin has been slowly falling out of Christianity in the same way that interracial marriages were something many Christians were against at one point. So the idea that it’s somehow an argument against same sex marriage is absolutely false, and would only open the doors even more. It doesn’t even have to be religious. Being married is just being married.
“But some church’s wouldn’t count it!” Funny. I was raised Mormon. According to them most straight marriages don’t count either since they weren’t don’t in a Mormon temple. I don’t see others complaining that their church doesn’t recognize it.
Not only was this just moving the goal post, but it also is one that has been discussed many times and has always been torn apart.
I think kinship ties should be and should have always been available to declare or establish at the state level, and calling it a marriage just confuses the issue. I also don't think it should be restricted to couples, either, but it is.
I think the churches should have their business and the state should have its own business. Modern marriage really only serves to invite the state into the bedroom, so I don't even think about it as something that should be fought for. I mean, have at it if you want it, but I think you'll find that it just invites more problems than it solves. I don't recommend anyone ever get married in 2023.
Marriage refers to two things - (1) a legal contract between two people, mediated by the state, and (2) societal and/or religious acceptance of two people as a married couple. Nowadays, in most parts of the world, only the first matters for most purposes. So the state should recognise all marriages, but religions and society are free to have their own conditions as long as they do not harass people they don’t like.
Being black isn’t political, until bigots like you make it political.
Being female isn’t political, until bigots like you make it political.
Being queer isn’t political, until bigots like you make it political.
Every “identity” I’ve ever been given has come through violent conservative oppression. Sometimes I’m the group they like - sometimes I’m the group they hate. But I’ve never fucking asked for the distinction.
Gender, religion, sexuality, ethnicity… these matter as much as hair color, until some asshole decides there’s a right answer. Every flavor of “identity politics” that conservatives screech about is an abuse they invented and hurled at people until those victims stood up and shouted “Motherfucker I am.”
You don’t need pride until someone’s tried to make you feel lesser.
Get our of our goddamn way, and stop imagining you’re the good guy. You are the entire problem. You can stop, at any time.
No. You’re just a bigot who doesn’t like to think they are. You like the ideas, but have a problem when a negative term gets attached to it. It’s like when people weren’t “racist.” They were “race realists.” It was racism with a new logo. Similar to how when people were homophibic, it wasn’t “bigotry”, it was “Think of the children” and “the gay agenda.”
Everybody has an agenda. Gender ideologues are the bigots, not those who reject it. Gender ideologues maintain their fantasy of not being a bigot by accusing everyone around them of not only shit they aren't guilty of, but shit the ideologue, themselves, are guilty of. Gender ideologues are sick people, and everyone around them is not the way they say they are.
Today's gender ideology and race baiting bullshit have nothing to do with actual civil rights. Today's race-baiters are literally, openly calling for segregation.
It’s the exact same. You think trans problems are dumb, you don’t understand why “separate but equal” is problematic, and you spent too much time licking lead paint in your formative years.
Because the mod itself is intended as a form of political grandstanding. So that bigots can download it thousands of times and then hold it up and say 'look how many people are modding the woke out of BG3' in an attempt to discourage inclusive content in other titles.
Well, sure. Lots of people don't want woke garbage in their games. When it tops the download list the number of people who reject gender ideology is revealed. That's the real problem with it. It scares the shit out of the left because it breaks the illusion of social acceptance the left fights so ferociously to maintain by force and fiat.
When you decide at your choosing what they are, instead of by a deterministic set of conditions, they are, by definition, arbitrary. That's what arbitrary means. It means you choose them.
Here's the thing: They are chosen by a deterministic set of conditions. Just because you don't understand what those conditions are does not make the terms arbitrary.
Also, that's not what "arbitrary" means, either. For somebody who seems to be so uptight about the definitions of words, you sure do invent a lot of your own definitions.
No, they are chosen by "I identify as..." and then they make their choice. That is literally arbitrary. I don't know how you have been using the word, but you could look it up in a dictionary to see how people have historically used the word.
So you acknowledge that there are deterministic sets of conditions after all. Great, we're making progress!
Also:
based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system
It's not random choice or personal whim. There is a reason and a system. Again, just because you lack the understanding does not mean the rest of the world is as riddled with brain worms as you are.
Not how it works. Clearly you've never actually met a trans person and actually had a conversation with them and tried to understand their life, have you?
There are a couple of "trans" people in my life. They have one sex but feel as though they are the other sex. I feel sorry for them the discord they feel in their identity, but beyond that I really don't give a shit. One of them works with me and the other slices my lunchmeat at the deli. I don't press them about anything, and I don't talk about it. I actually use their preferred pronouns because I respect them both as individuals, but internally, I believe they are both men who think they feel like women. I'm not even convinced they actually feel like women. I think they've been lied to scummy activists all throughout their public education. Gender is made-up bullshit.
I respect them both as individuals, but internally, I believe they are both men who think they feel like women. I’m not even convinced they actually feel like women.
Clearly, you don’t respect them.
I have more trans friends than you probably have friends, and it’s never once crossed my mind to question their identity. Even if you’re not saying the quiet part out loud, you’re sure as shit thinking bigoted thoughts.
Wow, you are a hateful piece of shit. Do you honestly think that people just decide one day to make an extreme life change, knowing that they’ll endure lifelong ostracism, ridicule, and condescension from brainless bigots like you, all for attention or “ideology”?
I sincerely hope you have trans kids who end up marrying black and brown communists. Hail Satan!
Bigots usually haven’t. It’s easier to spew hate when you’re not standing in front of someone who will happily knock your lights out for being an asshole.
If I feel like eating pizza today, that desire comes from deterministic conditions. Me choosing to have pizza is still an arbitrary choice. If I had a cheeseburger instead of pizza because it's cheeseburger day, even if I want pizza, that's deterministic. You could argue that the schedule is arbitrary, and that's fair, but deciding for yourself what pronouns you are going to have used in your regard regardless of your sex is arbitrary.
I understand better than gender ideologues the difference between sex and gender, and unlike both the left and the right, I meticulously never use them interchangeably.
I can understand that having pronouns or nonbinary or trans characters in games can be a bit of a culture shock. As a culture we're beginning to grow more overall accepting of these people that have been here all along, but never felt comfortable to "be a seen part of society" out of fear. The same sort of thing happened, or is still happening, with homosexuality, though that's further along the acceptance curve than trans/nonbinary.
Eventually it won't be so obviously "woke garbage" that sticks out to you as something noticeable and startling, and it'll be just another feature of the game like anything else, just another NPC like any other, but that one gets called "they" instead of him or her. It takes time for it all to become normalized and not be something you raise eyebrows at and feel upset by. You may always wonder sometimes what gender someone is identifying as when it may not be obvious, but it will become easier to simply ask them, or be okay with not knowing, it's okay to not know.
I'm not going to pretend that mentally working through these things isn't a part of this whole process, but trying to somehow fight back against it by calling it all garbage and refusing to extend the hand to understand where it's all coming from is... inappropriate, we all need to get along, we all live on this planet together and the only way to make it the best it can be is to try and understand each other.
Sure, you may have a point in there about desiring a platform where people can upload any mod they like, and that could totally be a thing, Nexus Mods doesn't want that to be their thing, specifically, and whether you're okay with that or not is your perspective, and I'm okay with that, but you should try and understand why Nexus is taking that stance. Nonbinary and trans people are on the back foot, culturally, so it's clear that many places will take a stand to hard defend their representation because they're so far behind the "biological genders" and could use a helping hand.
I didn't say that understanding and agreement are the same. What I wanted was for that user to understand where the other side was coming from, and acknowledge that, and if they still had a different opinion, then okay, but I just wanted to try and explain the side I'm on in a less directly hostile way than the other commenters are.
You make some logical points, I won't go into my opinion since it already seems clear, hope you have a nice night, genuinely, people should be able to discuss this stuff maturely.
Hi, woke garbage here. Very trans. Enby too. Just sitting here existing at you. Existing so hard, it probably hurts you just knowing about it. I hope it does, 'cause you're a prick and you deserve it ^.^
Wow, I'm the only person that bellend didn't reply to. I feel special 🤣 Everycritter else gets a fresh pile of horsecrap, I don't even get a downvote. Works fine for me, I guess.
I asked them a yes or no question and they replied with a rant, that I still didn't bother to read (because they didn't reply with either "yes" or "no") and now they're accusing me of actually having read the rant. Very reasonable people 💀👍
Bigotry is a political opinion, but the idea that all political opinions deserve identical respect is really dumb.
Some people’s ideas are bad, actually. It is fine and good to tell them where to shove it.
The kneejerk demand for “civility” confuses polite responses for appropriate responses. Some people are monsters. Some people need to hear, “fuck off.” That is the correct attitude for a worrying number of online interactions, and if moderators won’t step up and proactively remove the bigoted propagandist time-vampires who deserve it, the least they can do is stay out of the way. ‘What you chose to say is fucking awful’ cannot possibly be more of a personal attack than being told ‘everyone like you is inherently broken.’
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