If the primary objective here is to engage in constructive dialogue, then name-calling and overgeneralization serve no purpose and only fuel the fire. The issue at hand has been conflated to be about political affiliations like Republican vs. Democrat, when that’s not the core point of discussion at all. We’re here to debate the merits and drawbacks of mod removal, not to stereotype one another based on our political leanings or otherwise.
I must point out, albeit reluctantly, that much of the stereotyping and overgeneralizing in this thread seems to be coming from those who are in favor of the mod’s removal. This does little to advance a constructive conversation and only serves to deepen divisions.
If we’re truly interested in finding common ground or at least understanding the other side of the argument, we need to stop dismissing each other’s viewpoints out of hand. Only through respectful and open discussion can we hope to reach a resolution that considers the full complexity of the issue.
Everyone showing up late to go ‘well I don’t see why they removed it!’ –
You are why.
Trolls escalate. They keep pushing until they get smacked down, then cry and scream and pretend they’ve been proven right. Being ignored doesn’t just embolden them, it bores them, and tells them they need to get worse to get attention. No matter what happens - no matter what anyone says to them - they get to use it in their stupid little word game.
The nature of bad faith is that there is no right answer.
You have to simply get rid of it, and the sooner, the better.
I understand your point that the behavior surrounding certain mods can escalate and create a toxic environment. In that sense, it’s not just the mod in question but the kind of interactions it may foster. However, that leads us into a very slippery slope. If we start removing mods based on what they might encourage rather than what they actually do, where do we draw the line?
Note that mods can be used for multiple reasons, not all of which are nefarious. Some people may genuinely appreciate the option to customize their experience in a way that the mod allows, without any intention of engaging in toxic behavior.
Your argument seems to be based on the idea of acting pre-emptively to negate potential harm, which is a valid point. But this can also set a concerning precedent that may affect the open nature of modding communities, by limiting what can and cannot be customized.
So the question then becomes, how do we balance preventing potential harm with preserving the user’s freedom to customize their experience? It’s a complicated issue, but one that deserves open dialogue rather than summary judgment.
Look I’ve got no skin in the game here, what’s wrong with having a mod that removes a selector in a character creation screen?
I get that some people are upset if they get misgendered or whatever (as I would be…my chosen pronouns just happen to line up with what everyone assumes they are…comfy living) but is it really necessary to force everyone to have a pronoun selection option if they don’t want a pronoun selection option? You’re not going to make someone blinded by hate see any clearer by forcing them to do something that only affects them.
Edit: I’m sorry if my questioning hurt some folks, that wasn’t my intention. I couldn’t see what the big deal was, but thanks to those who made the effort to engage with me, I have a more informed view and I can appreciate why the mod was removed and why its existence was upsetting.
This is not the first time something like this happened, some months back someone upload a mod that removed all rainbow flags from the spiderman game. Im guessing its the exact same thing like the last time: Someone made a new account to upload a mod that was only made to spark controversy. The mod itself didn’t matter, the author is just a troll that wanted a reaction from this. They knew they would get banned so they made a new account. Nexus has the same stance on this as last time: they don’t platform trolls so they removed it. It’s not about the mod, it’s about the authors intentions, which are to harm the platform
Was going to comment the same. How is this mod hurting anyone? Isnt this the point of modding, to tweak it a little bit to suit your tastes? Its not like its a rape or child molesting mod. Those things should get deleted. But this? Such a petty thing to do.
Imagine there was a group of people in your school, in your workplace, in your city who for some reason feel that Kazakhspy should not exist. They’re not allowed to kill you, that’s against the law, but they would if they could. Instead, they say fuck Kazakhspy, go kill yourself Kazakhspy, I can’t stand you Kazakhspy. Hearing that kind of thing on a regular basis might be a little hurtful. Now imagine some game studio heard about this and thought hey, let’s include Kazakhspy in our game. And then that group in your community was like “what the fuck is this! I hate Kazakhspy and now they’re shoving Kazakhspy down my throat in a videogame? I will not stand for this.” And goes through the effort of making a mod to remove you from the game and puts it on the website. You hear about this and see that it’s up there with a few downloads. You might be a little hurt to know some people hate you so much they’ll mod a game to spite you just because they don’t like your existence. Then the website owner is like, “Wow, this is weirdly hateful and doesn’t belong on my website. Let’s not perpetuate hate against Kazakhspy.”
That’s why. In context it’s hurtful to people because the intention of creating it was to hurt people through hate.
What’s wrong with having a mod that removes the skin color selector? I get people care about race and stuff, but is it really necessary to force everyone to have a skin colour selection option if they don’t want a skin colour selection option? You’re not going to make a racist see clearer by forcing them to do something that only affects them.
You have it in your own question. It is hateful. It was made by the hateful for the hateful to perpetuate a hateful idea. You might even call it a kind of hate speech, which probably means it violate Nexus’s terms. Even if it doesn’t, it’s icky af. And Nexus is entirely in their right to refuse hosting it. The nod creator is still free to use their own mod and share it in other ways, but Nexus should not be forced to host it.
I used to have a lot of respect for Az from HeelVsBabyface as a content creator back when he did WoW videos. Many of the fanboys who play Blizzard games dismissed him as a whiny bitch when he complained about issues with the game long before other more respected creators (i.e. Bellular, Asmongold, Sodapoppin, Preach) jumped on the very same ‘fuck Blizzard’ bandwagon.
Watched him a lot less after he branched away from WoW stuff because his content was more anti-woke and not really of my interest.
His two minute anti-pronoun rant made him look like a clown and was the last straw that made me unsub to his YouTube and unfollow him on X.
What people like Az seem to forget is that Starfield is set hundreds of years in the future. I can understand why a pronoun selection menu would look out of place in a medieval setting like The Elder Scrolls, but not in a game set 300 years in the future.
Also, nobody is forcing you to play as a trans or non-binary character. This is not discrimination against white men as Az pointed out in his nonsensical rant. You can make a white male character that identifies with he/him pronouns and not be placed at a disadvantage in the game.
The crazy thing is that in TES, people don’t know what a UI element is and we can hide it from the NPCs. Everyone wins. Most games don’t directly feature bigotry in their content, certainly not TES, so there’s no real reason not to include such ab thing.
His two minute anti-pronoun rant made him look like a clown and was the last straw that made me unsub to his YouTube and unfollow him on X.
Part of me wants to have a “NO PRONOUNS” option. Just replace all uses of he/she/they/you/etc with the characters name, no matter how awkward that makes it read. Give Az exactly what Az wishes for.
No one will ever refer to Az by a pronoun again, Az will simply be Az regardless of if referring to Az in that fashion sounds weird as fuck and not like the way anyone would ever actually talk. But then Az will have to find another issue for Az to complain about, likely that other people are allowed to play as they see fit, even though Az is also allowed to play as Az sees fit.
Sorry this is stupid all round. People are stupid for getting annoyed that you can set pronouns in a game, but Nexus are stupid for removing the mod that allows players the ability to if THEY wish to choose so.
Nexus just hosts the mod, if anybody is offended they could just not download it.
Hosting implies complacency. They have to draw a line somewhere, and the longer they wait, the harder it becomes. This was obviously a bigoted mod, and even though it could be considered “harmless” to leave up, it leaves the door open for further mods. These bigots will not stop slowly eroding away features they think are “woke”, and they will only get worse and more egregious. Stopping them now, letting them know it’s not acceptable behavior, is the only way to end it.
Hey bud, don’t tell me how I should play the game I spent my hard earned money on. If I want to remove a certain feature I don’t like, you and I both should have the freedom to do so.
You have the freedom to do so. Start your own hosting site or learn to code. Nexus doesn’t have to host shit they want to. Stop being a bitch and forcing those to do what you want.
What I was trying to convey is that gamers should have the freedom to customize their gaming experience based on their preferences. It’s not about forcing anyone to do anything, but rather having the option to make changes if we want to. It’s all about personal choice and freedom in how we enjoy our games.
Removing a harmless mod is a slippery slope because then moderators are just removing mods based on their political ideolagy. Kinda ridiculous if you ask me.
When a mod is removed entirely, the choice is taken away from everyone, limiting the overall freedom for customization. The aim should be to find a balanced approach that respects both individual freedom and community guidelines.
I acknowledge they have a freedom not to host the mod. But, coming from someone who’s used Nexus Mods for the past 6-7 years, it’s sad to see them start to take this route. We can have a mod to kill children but god forbid we have a remove pronouns mod.
I’m stating my own opinion on the situation, I’m not forcing them to reupload the mod. I’m just trying to debate with you guys. Would you like to debate or no?
No, I would not like to debate. Debating would be futile. I’ve looked through your comment history, and I don’t believe that it would be worth my time. You want to bitch and complain cause the woke police are coming after your vidyas, then go for it, but you are on the wrong side of the argument, and you won’t find many good-hearted people over there. Life is hard enough as it is. I implore you to rethink your positions on pronouns, gender identity, and sexual identity. Those that appreciate choices like these in the game are the people that are having some of the hardest times in their lives. They don’t need you to come in and tell them that you feel like their decisions aren’t valid, especially when it has zero actual affect on your life. Don’t want to set a pronoun? Then fucking don’t. That’s your choice. But when you support mods and the bigots that create them that try to limit the abilities of those that need to have some comfort in their life, those that need to know that society is moving towards a broader acceptance of their identity, then you are the bad person, and that’s how the world at large sees you. Be a better fucking person than that.
I agree that platforms like Nexus Mods have a responsibility to consider the broader societal impact of the content they host. However, they also have a responsibility to preserve the freedoms that have made such platforms valuable to so many. The challenge lies in finding a balanced approach, which is never easy.
It’s worth mentioning that I fully support your right to view and critique mods based on their societal impact. At the same time, it should be acceptable for others to evaluate these mods based on different criteria, such as user freedom, without being labeled as “bad persons.”
Would it not be more constructive for us to have an open dialogue on how to balance these competing interests rather than dismissing each other’s viewpoints outright?
Would it not be more constructive for us to have an open dialogue on how to balance these competing interests rather than dismissing each other’s viewpoints outright?
There’s no slippery slope. It’s a hosting site and they can host what they want. If you don’t like that go mod and upload to your heart’s content on another site. You have that personal choice and freedom. They have choice and freedom to tell you to fuck off just like I do. Fuck off.
Removing a harmless mod is a slippery slope because then moderators are just removing mods based on their political ideolagy. Kinda ridiculous if you ask me.
Removing a harmless feature is a slippery slope because then modders are just removing features based on their political ideology. Kinda ridiculous if you ask me.
It’s just as ridiculous the other way around though.
You’re point is valid about the two-way street that is ideological moderation, whether it’s done by modders or platform moderators. While some argue that removing certain features serves to make a political statement, the same could be said for removing mods themselves. Both actions can be seen as influenced by the ideological beliefs of those making the decisions. In this case, the main question is: who gets to decide what crosses the line and what doesn’t? And should these decisions be open to discussion within the community?
You’re still free to remove what you don’t like, but you’re not entitled to have the mod hosted on any site you want. The site owners decide that, and they don’t want it on their site. That’s not infringing on your freedom, but forcing it to be hosted on their site would indeed infringe on the site owner’s freedom.
We can play the slippery slope game both ways. You say: if you dont remove a harmless mod, then bigots will start adding harmful mods.
I say: if we let moderators remove harmless mods because of their political ideology, they will start removing more and more mods that are not made by bigots, but disagree with moderators politics. Like for example, if player wants to play as a billionaire and exploit poor workers.
How about instead of playing the slippery slope, we just deal with actual harmful mod as they come. I mean, ffs, there is a mod that lets you kill children in Skyrim. Is removing pronoun selector really worse than that?
I mean, ffs, there is a mod that lets you kill children in Skyrim. Is removing pronoun selector really worse than that?
Yes.
The people this bigotry hurts are not in the game. They’re real. And they’re the only possible target of removing a checkbox that most people won’t even notice.
One way is how trolls always escalate, because their entire fucking deal is pissing people off for attention.
The other is a textbook fallacy that plainly has not happened, since the last time Nexus removed some right-wing bigotry signal. This is not the first time. This won’t be the last time. The line will stay about where it is, because they don’t want to deal with this woe-is-us horseshit unless they have to.
Nowadays everything seems newsworthy… I would not be mad about it if Bethesda did not include a pronoun setting, i am not mad someone made a mod to remove said option, i am not mad nexus keeping its sovereignty to decide what they host…
What is everyone mad about? Just let ppl do whatever they do.
Ok, how am I against pronouns now? I agree with the fact that people should have personal preference whether they agree with having the pronoun feature in the game or not. It’s not about being against pronouns, it’s about freedom of individual choice.
Now, I’m not forcing them to reupload the mod. But, if a moderator just solely removes the mod based on their own political idealogy, then you’re stripping the freedom away from everyone else. We can have a kill children mod but god forbid we have a remove pronouns mod.
I’ve used Nexus Mods for the past 6-7 years, I’m honestly just sad to see them take this route.
Nah man I totally agree, I just mean when you said “it’s a game, not real life”, some people could take it wrong. Nothing against you but I guess my message came across wrong too
I am, like, mildly upset about it being removed, at most. Seems like moderation team is going a bit overboard, deleting something that seems extremely mild.
Lets worry about real homophobic/ transphobic problems please. I won’t go into whether the author of the mod was giving a middle finger to ppl or just always wanted the pronouns of the perceived gender for their game. Without reading the description, it is pure speculation. Even with the description, it will likely be a good amount of speculation.
In my opinion, we should worry about things that are not argumentative. Because that muddies the pool and makes future arguments harder…
Horseshit. It targets a feature right-wing cranks are frothing about, and it has exactly the same effect as ignoring the option. Stop feigning ignorance about what diet Nazi trolls openly despise.
Nobody cares about your willful apathy on this topic. If you don’t care, stop talking.
Look i am about done arguing here, so don’t expect further comments here from me.
You and I probably have similar political interests. However, at least to me, your aggressive approach is off-putting and does not invite for discussions. It reminds me of what is happening in Germany: The far right crazy party is being excluded by a ‘firewall’. Whatever the right extremist party wants is categorically rejected, even in the rare case that it is nothing stupid (like rise funding for a public theater). It does not solve the problem, but further radicalised the members and even gave them a boost in voters. What they are presented with, is that they have to achieve more than 50%. Otherwise those far rightists wont achieve anything. Politics is about discussions and finding the path that is the most agreeable for the largest amount of people possible.
Mind leach above made an extremely good point so I’m just gonna copy paste it.
Trolls escalate. They keep pushing until they get smacked down, then cry and scream and pretend they’ve been proven right. Being ignored doesn’t just embolden them, it bores them, and tells them they need to get worse to get attention. No matter what happens - no matter what anyone says to them - they get to use it in their stupid little word game.
The nature of bad faith is that there is no right answer.
You have to simply get rid of it, and the sooner, the better.
How are these people not seeing that they are actively trying to censor shit with the shyte excuse “keep politics out of my games”, and then turn around and yell censorship as soon as people ignore their bigoted crap.
The rhetorical question highlights the complex nature of the debates around modding and game customization. The term “censorship” can indeed be used selectively to further one’s viewpoint, whether it’s calling for the removal of political elements from games or protesting the removal of a mod.
However, maybe it’s worth considering that people may hold these opinions without necessarily harboring bigoted intentions. The desire to keep politics out of games, for some, might stem from the view that games should be an escape from real-world issues. Conversely, concerns about censorship could arise from a belief in preserving the open nature of modding communities.
What we’re really grappling with is how to balance the broad spectrum of user needs and societal responsibilities. Accusations of bigotry or censorship often serve to shut down dialogue rather than facilitate a nuanced discussion about these complex issues.
So while your question is rhetorical, it does bring to light the need for more open and honest conversations about the competing values that are in play here.
In my opinion this entire debate is not political at all but is simply made to be a political statement because people don’t understand it.
Having someone forbid the use of cheese in video games because that person doesn’t like cheese is just never going to happen. If cheese comes out to be an extreme health hazard like smoking it can become political but if the only argument is “because I don’t like it” you are always going to be wrong.
Your arguing about taste and feelings. There is no point to it, as there is nothing to convince. At that point you are just telling someone their taste or feeling is wrong.
But for some reason people think they can influence someone else’s own feelings about how they feel when they get addressed as their birth gender. And for some reason it is made into a political problem because of how strongly people think they have to have control over this. It doesn’t affect them, and the only possible outcome is that a minority will suppress their emotions. There are no competing values in any way.
I don’t like cheese, but you won’t hear me bitching about people eating cheese next to me in a restaurant even if I don’t like the smell. And you especially won’t see me making this political, because that is so incredibly selfish and ignorant that it wouldn’t even be something I’d ever consider.
Rule of thumb - if there are two sides to the issue, but one side is only supported by heartless idiots, and these heartless idiots happen to be identified with the political camp you oppose - then it’s a political issue.
That really applies on both sides. This is such a nothing issue - it defaults to what you’d expect for a cis character, so you can literally ignore it if you aren’t going to play a character whose pronouns and body type do not align.
But, someone modding their game doesn’t effect anyone else playing it, whether that’s removing the pronoun selector in Starfield, adding a pronoun selector to Skyrim (even supporting multiple pronouns with different frequencies for each), turning every hold banner in Skyrim into a pride flag, removing pride flags from Spiderman, turning Skyrim dragons into Thomas the Tank Engine, or adding the ability to fuck Skyrim dragons. All of those are mods that exist, BTW.
And this only makes the claims that “this is not a political statement” more absurd. There may be room to argue that the original decision to let players select their pronouns is not political, but both the mod that removes it and the removal of that mod from Nexus are just pathetic attempts to get back at the other side. Can’t get more political than that.
Of course this is political - because bigots made trans people’s existence a target of their politics. Defending them against that hatred and abuse is not somehow equally wrong, compared to that hatred… and abuse.
The part that confuses me a bit is that it’s a mod that removes functionality from a single player game. Usually features get added, not removed. When something is removed it’s usually to improve stability or performance. Or to rebalance the gameplay. This change falls into none of these categories.
Well I guess if the mod author did it to garner attention or make a point he/she/they succeeded.
To confused people exploring from all Communities trying to understand what the hell is going on:
Bethesda is a game studio who does a decent job of giving people choice to do/be whatever they want in their games. Out of the box they included the option to choose your pronouns in a new game called “Starfield”.
They also make it possible to modify their games to make very drastic changes to the player experience.
Nexus is a site that hosts thousands of mods to all sorts of games. People make mods, upload them to Nexus and players download them.
Someone made a mod to remove the option to choose pronouns from Starfield.
Nexus decided they don’t want to host this mod. It’s hurtful to people and goes against their values of inclusivity.
That’s about it. Most of the people whinging about censorship don’t even play the game. They’re just here to whinge about how the world is moving on from old bigoted ways and they want to stay in the past and be jerks to people for merely existing. If they actually cared, they’d just download the mod from some other site. The mod itself is probably not much bigger than this reply.
In undue fairness, a mod to downgrade nudity or vulgarity would kinda make sense, if someone personally didn’t want to see that. (Or if they were concerned about it for streaming. Or they had kids in the room.) For example, there’s some racial slur graffiti in Bioshock Infinite that is used for highly effective shock value and characterization, and I could see someone wanting to tone it down.
The root issue is what’s being removed: the abstract possibility of characters being called “him” or “her” independent of their appearance. To people who won’t use the feature, it is literally nothing. It simply does not exist beyond a checkbox they’ll scroll clean past. The game part of the game will work exactly as they expect, from start to finish.
They’re whining about censorship because the real purpose of this mod is to signal that they’re against anyone else having that option.
They are performatively upset by this trivial separation of character model and branch condition. Because they hate trans people. There is no other possible motivation, because this pointless change is simple and direct.
This removal is a website telling those bigoted trolls: poop in someone else’s yard.
I’ll add that my understanding is that you aren’t even prompted to choose a pronoun in-game – it defaults to one or the other based on your character creation choices, and you can then change it if you want to. It’s literally a non-issue.
Happens all the time IRL to me. I use both he and she pronouns and ignorant people always ask why bother just pick one. Well, I did, they’re my PERSONAL pronouns and I chose both these.
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