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.
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.
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.
They need to force their views on others. If anyone believes what they believe, then they are suddenly just like everyone else instead of the bigot they know they are deep down
They aren’t really forcing their views on anyone though, they’re just jacking themselves off. No nonconforming person is going to download this and inflict it on themselves, and they have no reason to use it themselves unless they’re just really closeted and lack the will to not express their own nonconformity. It can literally only exist to rile people up who sought out the mod specifically, which includes only them.
If they weren’t trying to force their views on others they’d just make their character a guy and move on. They go through the trouble of coding this mod to push their agenda on others.
What I’m trying to say though is that most of them just do make their character a guy and move on. They don’t need the mod and the people who they think do need it aren’t going to install it. It’s not just a transparent attempt to ignite culture war arguments online, but it’s a stupid and ineffective one.
The point of the mod is not to change something in game, its to appear in the list of mods and remind some people that they are hated and bigots will never stop hating them.
I have trouble imagining enough people wanting to download a mod to do this to get it to appear on anything but the most recent releases list, and to only be on that list long enough for some other mods to get released.
Well, the type of person that would do this wouldnt be opposed to spoofing the number as well. And they can just keep reuploading the mod so it’s always appearing in the list.
The point is, their ineffective methods still worked a little. Ruining someone’s day, hour or even minute is validation enough
Apparently nexus mods has some sort of ad sharing with mod makers. Could be a grift. Grift is popular among right wingers, possibly because they are on a fundamental level stupid.
Some grifter makes an anti “woke” mod that probably took 5 minutes. A bunch of stupid chuds download it to pwn the libs. Grifter makes money. Chuds feel good about their shitty lives.
Insisting that Nexus Mods should host this bigoted mod is the losers who walk in fear of “woke culture” trying to enforce their bigoted views on the rest of the world. The assholes are still free to install that mod but Nexus Mods is just as free to not host that trash.
Because it's not actually about the pronouns. These people aren't actually angry about pronouns.
They're angry about trans and non-binary people. They're angry that people are growing to accept these people, who they do not think should be accepted. They are angry that a group they don't think is normal, is being accepted as normal.
I don’t think it’s even about that, they’re angry because the want to be angry. The why doesn’t matter, if the current right wing outrage du-jour had been… I dunno, left handed people rather than trans people, you’d see all the same people working themselves into a screaming tantrum if a game or movie had a left handed person in it.
Who the hell are you to say that I hate black and gay people? You’re overgeneralizing a group, how much different are you in this case? Stop with that man, this is why we can’t have actual debates.
And the "replaced white people". And the female leaders. If someone wants a taste, go through the Steam forums for the game. It's a complete deranged mess.
It's not "about trans and non-binary people," it's about the injection of identity politics into video games. The removal of the mod shows that activist fiat is necessary to present the illusion that people buy into gender ideology.
Pronouns, gender, genitals, etc. in player-character customization are just yet another option for someone to tailor their gameplay to whatever experience they want.
The only identity politics comes from the people politicizing it.
The existence of trans and nonbinary people is not an injection of identity politics into video games. The fact that they exist and a video game is acknowledging their existence is not political.
did a bot write this? what are you even trying to say?
Are you one of those people that thinks anything that’s not straight cis white is “identify politics”? That anything that isn’t your world view is “political”? If so, please go fuck yourself. If not, I have no idea what you’re on about.
Not a bot; just a bigot. If you scroll to the very bottom, a good 30% of the total comments are this guy digging a hole trying to prove it’s “woke” society that’s the problem and not him.
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.
“Identity politics” always seems to mean “I am upset that different people exist.”
This is a nothing option in a video game. Nobody’s rubbing your nose in it. It doesn’t affect you, at all, but it’s a neat little extra for other people. Do you give a shit about other people? Or does the mere possibility of anyone distinct from you, the protagonist of reality, fill you with emotions you can’t handle? There’s no third option, here. It’s a checkbox for how NPCs choose voice lines, in exactly the same way they’ve done for decades. It’s just separate now.
But of course one glance at your profile shows you’re an unapologetic bigot, and what you mean by “gEnDeR iDeOlOgY” is exactly what every other diet Nazi means by it: you hate queer people, and you want it to be their fault.
Yeah, having that "he/she/they" toggle and calling sex "body type 1 and 2" instead of male/female sure is political. You know when it became political? When people saw them and went "REEEEEEEEEEEEE" because they're bigoted dumbfucks.
The crazy thing is how hysterical they’re being over something you can fail to even notice is there. It gave me male pronouns as I choose the male body type, and the button prompt to change it is hidden way down at the bottom of the screen. It’s literally on screen for a few seconds and then never mentioned again in a game with hundreds of hours gameplay.
Yeah, it took me ages to realise the prompt was at the bottom of the screen, I didn’t even want to change them, I was just wondering why it set off such a wobbler with the bald bloke.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I can get behind the whole: “i’m playing games to escape from the world, stop dragging the real world politics into games” sentiment, but!
I made a trans character in cyberpunk because haha look a penis and boobies, Apparently Diego is now in a gay relationship with Sam…something about Sam and Cora (i find them adoreable, i’m just sad i can’t give her all the books i steal) made me prefer them and…well i’m gay it seems lol.
Gender identity is only political because conservatives made it political. Choice of pronouns shouldn’t be political. What gender you are shouldn’t be political. These people make it political and then it has to be removed from apolitical discussions. Just like how climate change has been made political, it’s not, we’re all going to fucking die, that’s not political.
I, for one, am very upset at seeing politics in muh game that includes mercenaries, piracy, loan sharking, corporate espionage, religious extremism, terrorism, war crimes, gang warfare, drug addiction, poverty, shoplifting, mass shootings, genetic engineering, environmentalism, atheism, corruption, philanthropy, smuggling, …
I can get behind the whole: “i’m playing games to escape from the world, stop dragging the real world politics into games” sentiment, but!
If you’re playing games for escapism, play a simple puzzle game, or a racing game, or maybe Minecraft. Flight Simulator. Tetris. Rocket League.
Any game that attempts to build a believable world is going to get political occasionally, because a believable world has class politics, war, struggles between technology and the natural world, etc. etc. etc. Even a game like Ratchet & Clank doesn’t shy away from the politics inherent in its world-building. Truly incredible how “Gamers” have gone from an edgy subculture that reveled in right-wing panic to a seething mass of bloated man-babies who can’t even handle being confronted with ideas.
These people would prefer if you use random made up politics in line with the world it is set in.
Instead of real world politics dragged into a fantasy setting. That’s why i can understand their point just because i understand where they come from doesn’t mean i agree with it or support them.
Heck i made a transgender in cyberpunk because i can, a lot can be said about that too. I don’t give a damn about what people want, just do it but accept that not everyone is going to like it nor agree with it and if you can’t deal with that then do not do it…you are not strong enough to cope with the downsides.
I’m guessing your first language isn’t English, in fact judging by your comment history, I’d say you’re Dutch. Anyway, those words are adjectives in English, and using them as nouns is often perceived as impolite. You’d want to say “I made a transgender character” instead.
I do not understand this debacle at all. 100% of people against the inclusion of pronouns—USE A PREFERRED PRONOUN. I guarantee if I called one these man children a “her” they’d lose their little minds.
I can tell you definitively that yes, this debate hurts people. Sending the statement that it’s a valid point of view to consider trans people mentally ill (or worse) harms people. If you look at how our existence is being debated and the consequences of that you would have to be very privileged to not see a problem.
This isn’t a court of law and I’m not arguing the statutes. I don’t like unilateral censorship in any form and I’d be equally butt hurt if they banned a mod to include pronouns.
Bear in mind we are both here because of the actions of a private corpo.
Imagine if they removed a mod that included pronouns.
A mod that makes other people feel included is NOT on the same level as a mod that deliberately excludes them. There’s a massive difference here.
The pronoun removing mod is a pretty blatant message of hate and deserves to be moderated as such. People can go on about freedom of speech blah blah blah, but no one is required to include you in their community if you’re being mean and hateful. That’s exactly what happened here.
If you don’t want to feel excluded then don’t install the mod.
I don’t understand why people argue for less options that don’t affect them.
No one is forcing the mod on you. Is it really that harmful that it exists?
I don’t give 2 shits if a mod exists that makes everyone in the game trans or gay or anything else. I’m just not going to install the mod unless it improves the game in some way or it sounds like it would make the game more interesting with alternative play styles or something.
I’m never going to argue that the mod I’m not interested in should be removed because it’s not reinforcing my beliefs.
Tolerance goes both ways. I tolerate your beliefs and you tolerate mine.
That tolerance doesn’t exist in this woke reality we are enduring at the moment. Anything that doesn’t repeat the correct narrative is subjected to cancel culture. It’s always my way or the highway.
No one is forcing the mod on you. Is it really that harmful that it exists?
Yes, in very much the same way that hate speech is moderated out of communities, and for good reason. Allowing this stuff to exist is basically saying that this is okay when it frankly isn’t. Imagine if there was a mod out there that removed your entire race and culture out of the game. How would that make you feel if you were just scrolling through the list of mods? It’s just a shitty statement to make.
We moderate things like the N-word and antisemitic Nazi bullshit out of forums all the time. This is the exact same thing and if you can’t see that, well frankly you’re probably in a position of privilege.
Tolerance goes both ways. I tolerate your beliefs and you tolerate mine.
This argument is frequently used by the intolerant to justify their actions. The one’s who identify as they aren’t the ones going around telling those who identify as he or she that they’re wrong. It’s the other way around. You’re completely misidentifying who’s being intolerant here.
I don’t know how to do the cool quote thing you did but I’ll answer in order.
I don’t care if you want to edit my race out of your game. It has zero effect on me. It’s your private game. Why would I care? If I don’t like the mod it I just won’t install it. I’m never going to intervene to stop you from enjoying your game the way you want just because I don’t agree or like it.
This argument is just trying to find reasons to be offended.
I’ll give you an example that will definitely trigger you. I play HOI4. That game is a historical WW2 game. The game does not have an accurate flag for Germany because it’s symbol is not allowed to be shown in Germany. I always use a mod to put the proper Nazi flag in the game because I want my historical game to be representitive of the period. Denying me the ability to use it doesn’t make the historical event suddenly not happen. It happened. Am I suddenly a Nazi supporter because I want my war game to reflect reality?
Im not out Heil Hitlering, or calling for the deaths of millions of Jews. I’m just playing was war game in the privacy of my own home.
I’m not American so the N word has very little meaning to me. I think it’s stupid that people can’t even write the word without being banned. How are you supposed to talk about it. It’s rediculous. If your skin colour is the right shade then you can go around saying the forbidden word at will?? Honestly I’m never going to say it because it’s not part of my cultural norm anyway.
In Australia the racist word people used for indigenous was ‘coon’. I’ve never used it and I never will. Ive not even heard anyone use it since maybe the 80s when a kid was trying to be an edgelord. Do I think the word should be banned internationally just because some wankers used it 30+ years ago? No. If you’re using it in a hateful way against someone or a people, then sure, that bastard should face some consequences.
I’m just never going to support blanket banning activities or words for everyone because of a few bad actors.
I think that’s a terrible idea.
Now we are onto the apparently oppressed rich western people that want to be called some idiotic pronouns like xi, or horse person or some other BS. I’m not doing it. It’s too stupid.
If someone wants to be called she instead of he, then whatever, I’ll call them it. It causes me no harm and I really don’t care. Live your best life.
Blocking a person from modifying their game because you don’t like the idea? That’s Nazi book burning philosophy right there. If you can’t see it irony then I don’t know what to say to you. You think your in the right, but your actually to oppressor, even if you think it’s with good intentions.
If you’re using it in a hateful way against someone or a people, then sure, that bastard should face some consequences.
That’s exactly what the creator of this mod intended and its hilarious that you don’t see that.
In Australia the racist word people used for indigenous was ‘coon’. I’ve never used it and I never will.
Think about it this way. There’s a reason why you don’t use it, right? There’s a reason why your friends don’t use it. If one of your friends uses it all the time to hate on others, would you be okay with that? If its as offensive as you say it is and I have no reason to doubt otherwise, would you want to be associated with that? Probably not. You’re making conscious decisions every day about who you want to hang out with, who you want to be associated with. You’ve cultivated your own community of people who you like and want to hang out with.
That’s exactly what Nexus Mods is doing. They want to cultivate a community that’s gender inclusive. They don’t want to deal with people who aren’t, nor give them a platform to do so. They’re within their right to do so.
Just because Nexus Mods is an online community doesn’t mean it’s different from real life. That’s what people fail to understand.
The reason some things get downvoted, is that they’re factually incorrect, morally intolerable, or just plain incoherent. Reasons matter. The fact it’s “your opinion” means nothing. Some opinions are bad, actually.
What you’re doing is a finger-curling argument. ‘Oh what, is curling your finger a crime?! I’m in trouble cuz I went like this?!’ Sir - you shot your wife.
How about names. Do you call Muhammad Ali still Cassius Clay? Just because that’s the name he was given at birth. Should people not have the right to change their name? Like it is here in Germany. And what exactly do you consider stupid about the pronouns them or they? I think they (!) are just normal pronouns, aren’t they? And for quite some time they are regularly used to replace single persons, if the gender of that person isn‘t known. I know that because when that started I was totally confused because I had learned different at school in the 70s.
My only take on the pronoun thing is please don’t get mad at me and go into lecture mode if I forget your preferred pronouns for a second. It’s essentially muscle memory, and I will already feel bad about it just by your facial expression from the mistake.
People generally shouldn’t get mad as long as you’re behaving in good faith. It’s like accidentally calling someone by the wrong name, you just apologise and correct your mistake.
Trans and non-binary people often get portrayed as if they’re monsters, but most are reasonable people who can understand mistakes and are capable of accepting apologies.
The more I think about all of this, the more rude I find even using pronouns instead of their name in general… are there certain sayings in English that generally require defaulting to pronouns? I am having a hard time coming up with many.
(Yes I am aware of the fact I used a pronoun to type this, but it’s not directed to a specific audience)
Generally speaking, it’s awkward in English (or even weird) to constantly use the Proper Noun every single time you refer to a person.
Simplest example is “Jim got into his car”. “Jim got into Jim’s car” is strange. And that’s within a single sentence. Properly in English, we use gendered pronouns for all unambiguous references to a person several sentences in a row. For example:
“Jim got into his car. He turned it on, and hit the gas. When he saw a red light, he stopped quickly. Jim got impatient, and honked on the horn”. That would be entirely proper, and virtually none of those pronouns should be replaced with Jim’s proper name.
Thank you. This explained how pronouns would be used, at first I always imagined you would be taking to “jim”, bur after reading I could see where you may be telling a story about “Jim” to others as a third party. I know that sounds dumb, but I never claimed to be smart.
I appreciate you taking the effort to comment instead of just downvoting like some others.
Not a problem. People don’t usually think about pronouns. We could circumvent a lot of confusion if there were an agreeable gender-neutral pronoun in English… But people have gone back and forth about the only one we have (“they”) enough that it rubs both sides wrong. Gendering a person in a sentence rarely disambiguates… it only maters if you have a conversation with exactly 1 male and female subject and ZERO genderable objects.
A man and a woman sitting in a boat, for example, and “her” still might be ambiguous.
Personally, it’s nbd when people slip up - especially people who’ve known me for a very long time pre-transition. Oftentimes they correct themselves, and I usually feel worse that they feel bad about it. It’s pretty easy to tell when it’s intentional or not, and I reserve my ire for people who clearly mean disrespect.
Though, I should say, that’s now - early on in transition, it was certainly a bit harder to take. It reminded me of very fresh family abandonment and abuse over my identity. That’s not on the people who accidentally called me by the wrong pronoun, but it certainly could put me in a pretty bad place and I’m sure I wasn’t the friendliest in those moments. The more that trans folks are supported by their friends and family, the more secure they feel and the less likely they are to react strongly to being accidentally misgendered, imo.
But what the anti-trans people tend to miss when making the “offended every mis-gender” is the wide gulf of difference between being hurt and being offended. I’ve known people in Emergency Services who had PTSD triggered by off-color comments that reminded them of something they lived through (things like “he’ll have your head for this”… you can imagine why).
They weren’t offended by those off-color comments. They were hurt. And those of us who care about them are careful not to say things that hurt those we love. But if we do slip up, we know and they know that it wasn’t out of malice, and nobody is offended.
…except the people who want to call you by your deadname because hurting you makes them feel good. They are offended, and they want to hurt you. And nobody should be making excuses for them. Dozens of people here are, and that’s a shame.
NexusMods is a private company with their own conditions for using their services.
You are not entitled to anything on others’ properties, including your ability to speak.
There is no freedom of speech here on lemmy.world either for you, they can restrict and block your posts from being seen by others, still their rights to do so.
People say Lemmy isn’t a hivemind but the reaction to your comment proves that this is not the case.
I’m pro choice either way. If people want to identify as they, them, it. It’s up to them. If people want the option to remove that from their game it’s also up to them. Who cares either way.
This is the wrong take tbh. It isn’t about censorship. The mod itself is a message of hate and deserves to be moderated as such, just like on any other platform.
Imagine if you were scrolling through NexusMods and you saw a mod that removed characters of your ethnicity or race from the game, or maybe a mod that added say Nazi symbols or something. How would that make you feel? Mods get removed over inappropriate content all the time, this is no different.
or maybe a mod that added say Nazi symbols or something.
You know there are WW2 games that have mods that do exactly this, right? Specifically because they don’t use Nazi imagery to refer to Nazi Germany because that imagery is illegal in Germany so they use substitute imagery that’s Germany-safe to represent Nazi Germany, because that’s cheaper than managing two editions where one is historically accurate and the other is Germany-friendly. For an example of this, see Hearts of Iron.
Then you get mods that restore the historically correct imagery.
Lol I feel like you’re just proving my point. The question isn’t whether these mods exist. Of course they do. But an entire country has made such symbolism illegal specifically because its a bad part of their past and they find it offensive. They’re within their right to do so and so is Nexus Mods. Nexus Mods are allowed to remove whatever content they find offensive to cultivate the community that they want.
It’s not censorship when private groups are doing it. Moreso, I think the entire world has figured out the right answer to the Paradox of Tolerance is intolerance (yes, even censorship).
There are two reasons said censorship is okay.
Those who hold to these extreme beliefs are happy to censor the opposing viewpoint whether we censor them or not. They see the idea of trans human rights as unworthy of protection.
So long as you allow a false belief to spread, there will always be adherents. When it is a harmful belief, that makes even innocent-seeming propagation of that belief genuinely harmful… which by every moral tradition (and most legal ones) is sufficient to override freedom of speech.
Remember, there is no free speech absolutism where all speech is protected. Anyone who claims otherwise is lying or ignorant. What we’re arguing about is whether to draw the line at malicious behavior that is already more harmful than speech many of us are already against.
And from your “don’t want stupid pronouns in my game”, you show you’ve fallen for bullet point #2.
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.’
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).
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