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Why is NeoGAF more far-left compared to most sites/forums?

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Combichristoffersen said:
From an American POV it might be far left, but from a European POV it's more like centre-left. Being inclusive and anti-racist/anti-bigotry/anti-discrimination isn't far left, it's being a decent human being.
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Being anti-racist, anti-bigotry, and anti-discrimination in the US makes you either Centet-left or just Left, not Far Left.

I would classify NeoGAF as Center Left.
 
Combichristoffersen said:
From an American POV it might be far left, but from a European POV it's more like centre-left. Being inclusive and anti-racist/anti-bigotry/anti-discrimination isn't far left, it's being a decent human being.
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From a Latin American POV, Neogaf is too much far left. Sadly, here what Republicans think is what most of the population think too.
 
Arkeband said:
Penny-Arcade's forum is further left, and their commendation system really feeds that dopamine drip of gunning for social points rather than creating and continuing thoughtful discussion. GAF might go overboard sometimes with people re-quoting great posts or meme gifs, but there's nothing worse than every single post being an attempt at affirmation.
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Forums with a rep or like or thanks system are the worst.
 
sphagnum said:
SomethingAwful's debate board is more left than NeoGAF and especially used to be so when the openly communist sub-board Laissez's Fair was around.

NeoGAF is not far left. It is a very technocratic liberal site with progressive social leanings. There are a number of us socialists here but we are outnumbered. We're tolerated rather than banned however because the far left has good intentions and can be debated with while the far right does not and can not.
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Almost everyone thinks they have good intentions, they just disagree about what makes an intention good. Because GAF is centre-left, the extent of the disagreement about what the good is tends be relatively small with the far-left and the centre-right, to the extent there is some basic common ground to have discussion within a limited framework. That common ground doesn't exist w.r.t. the far-right, so you can't have any real discussion.
 
Crab said:
It's a video-game forum. Video-games tend to be consumed by the younger demographic, the younger demographic tends to be more liberal. In addition, the moderation team are very punitive towards those who transgress certain liberal norms, which even further reduces the number of non-liberals; and conversely this attracts certain minority groups protected by liberal norms who feel threatened in other forums.
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I'd say this isn't really true of the gaming community, as evidenced by the vileness of many large gaming communities on the internet. NeoGAF stands out among gaming communities for a reason.

Echoing the comments about strict rules and registration and honest and continued attempts to be a welcoming place for all genders / races / ethnic backgrounds.

Also don't believe NeoGAF is far left at all.
 
teruterubozu said:
It's hard to say really. First and foremost this is a gaming site so a majority of posters do not discuss politics. Most GAFfers don't visit OT and an incredibly small percentage even know that PoliGAF OT exists. Furthermore, those who frequent OT know that right-wing politics is discouraged.
It's easy to think that a few hardcore posters in PoliGaf/OT is ALL of GAF, but it's hardly the case at all. Most people here would rather talk about Pokémon Go or Final Fantasy.
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Exactly.

I would also add Gaming GAF is definitely conservative. OT GAF is progressive but more on social issues than economic ones.

IMO, too many progressives in OT still define their self-worth by what they do for a living.

Just look at all the minimum wage threads or the uproar about fast-food workers demanding a livable wage.
 
The Albatross said:
NeoGaf is not inclusionary. It's a tightly controlled membership with frequent bannings and fairly strict rules (in comparison). It's definitely exclusionary. I like it the way it is, but it's not inclusionary at all.
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I'm pretty sure the poster meant inclusionary in terms of accepting people for who they are: gender, sexual preference, lifestyle choices, etc...

The right tend to be less accepting of these things than the left.
 
Hivemind!!!!

Real answer is the right, by default, is filled with a good amount of sexism, xenophobia, racism, and general nasty shit which the mod team quickly takes care of. Also, NeoGAF is not far left as some have pointed out, considering Clinton is the candidate of choice for the politically active. Although there are reasons that happened that would be best to not dive into. The left on this site are actually pretty diverse between moderates, left leaners, extreme left, socialist, some communists and such.

The left has it's own idiots, but you deal with anti-vax, anti-science type of stupidity with liberals, not insane hate/racism/sexism that the right so very much has attached it's identity to (although horseshoe theory and all that)

So those who subscribe to that ideology will tend to say the wrong thing at one point, and that is a pretty quick death.
 
God Dayumm said:
NeoGAF is not far left. Only a few loudmouthed posters may be, but think about it: most of us abhor things like socialism. Even someone like Bernie Sanders, who is not that far on the left to begin with, is looked unfavorably here.
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Passing you my "Prove it ticket"


It almost has to be far left to be able to accept all the walks of life that play games and common decency. I'm not left at all but the only way GAF can work as well as it does is if it is tolerant to the differences that bind us. Maybe it is a vocal minority that makes is seem that way. Rather that than a bunch of hate speech bu t this place is pretty liberal to me.
 
NeoGAF is not far left. It's center left. Moderation dictates that you can't be an asshole to people just because you hold liberal values.

Some especially sensitive right leaning crybabies overestimate just how much of an asshole you're allowed to be on NeoGAF because they can't stand to be challenged and resort to false cries of hiveminds when several people at once call them out on bullshit.
 
Tech Enthusiasts typically lean Liberal/Progressive or Libertarian; which the current GOP is not. Gamers seem to me a subsection of that group.

Also, the GOP increasingly is drifting hard right and leaving behind a lot of people that might have agreed with them if they were more centrist.

I currently caucus as a Progressive firmly planted on the Democratic Party, but 30 years ago would probably have identified as a Rockefeller Republican in the Reagan Coalition.

Caucusing with the current GOP is out of the question if you truly are a small c conservative IMO.
 
Crab said:
It's a video-game forum. Video-games tend to be consumed by the younger demographic, the younger demographic tends to be more liberal. In addition, the moderation team are very punitive towards those who transgress certain liberal norms, which even further reduces the number of non-liberals; and conversely this attracts certain minority groups protected by liberal norms who feel threatened in other forums.
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"Certain liberal norms" meaning don't insult people to their face or say something overtly bigoted/discriminatory/sexist/racist/homophobic?
Slayven said:
Far left can be racist and bigoted too. Shit we saw that shit just this year.
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Without question. We see that every day.
 
Zakalwe said:
I'm pretty sure the poster meant inclusionary in terms of accepting people for who they are: gender, sexual preference, lifestyle choices, etc...

The right tend to be less accepting of these things than the left.
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Well that's debatable. I do notice that religion-bashing gets a bit of a free pass here unless it gets really out of hand.
 
Because NeoGAF is a more global forum than most and American politics in general is right-slanted compared to most other western countries.
 
cartographer said:
I'd say this isn't really true of the gaming community, as evidenced by the vileness of many large gaming communities on the internet.
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I think that tends to be a very vocal minority, though. Off the top of my head, most large predominantly gaming forums I can think of - GameFAQs, NeoGAF, SomethingAwful, even /r/gaming by the surveys they used to have in there - lean liberal. They just don't look it because most people don't really care enough about politics to talk about it. So people associate say /r/gaming with GamerGate even though it was a consistently minority opinion that was just very loud and used /r/gaming as a platform to organize. The only thing that separates GAF is that GAF bans that vocal minority.
 
So from what I gather, the number one reason is moderation and how the community is put together. This in turn, causes discussion to be higher level and lean more towards the left.

As far as how left it really is. I think my point was more if you create a straight line, with 0 being center, -10 being left and +10 being right, NeoGAF would be closer to -10 than a majority of websites. How close to -10 is another question.

But my other question, do those of you who are involved in political discussions here feel like your views have become more polarized because of how many other here tend to agree with you? Does this make you less tolerant of opposing views (no matter how vile)?
 
The Albatross said:
NeoGaf is not inclusionary. It's a tightly controlled membership with frequent bannings and fairly strict rules (in comparison). It's definitely exclusionary. I like it the way it is, but it's not inclusionary at all.
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It's inclusionary because despite gender, race, creed, sexual orientation, discrimination of those people is not tolerated. As long as people abide by basic human decency they can stay and GAF welcomes individuals like this. This also includes conservative leaning individuals that can follow the very basic mantra of not being bigoted assholes. Just because someone might lean to the right doesn't mean they have to be bigots or that they bad mouth minorities. There are many right leaning people that understand how to be decent humans to others, and they would be welcomed here because they arent nuts.
 
Crab said:
Almost everyone thinks they have good intentions, they just disagree about what makes an intention good. Because GAF is centre-left, the extent of the disagreement about what the good is tends be relatively small with the far-left and the centre-right, to the extent there is some basic common ground to have discussion within a limited framework. That common ground doesn't exist w.r.t. the far-right, so you can't have any real discussion.
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Well yeah, but I didn't feel that I had to put "in my opinion" in there.

Basically I can run around with a hammer and sickle avatar because the mods know that socialists have a number of things in common with them and don't automatically want to gulag millions of people despite history, while they would probably automatically ban someone with a swastika avatar because you know where that poster is going.
 
Ray Wonder said:
Is there a site that's futher left than this, that you could give an example of?

I feel like this site is ultra progressive/left.
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Tumblr. Although they are so far up their own asses that they've come full circle and sometimes you cannot make the distinction. Look up "Tumblr vs Stormfront" on Google for some laughs

Soapbox Killer said:
Passing you my "Prove it ticket"


It almost has to be far left to be able to accept all the walks of life that play games and common decency. I'm not left at all but the only way GAF can work as well as it does is if it is tolerant to the differences that bind us. Maybe it is a vocal minority that makes is seem that way. Rather that than a bunch of hate speech bu t this place is pretty liberal to me.
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NeoGAF is very liberal, but liberal does not mean far-left. Libertarians are liberal and they are not far left, some are even quite right-leaning.
 
The right wing tends to yell the loudest in any conversation, so they tend to dominate in places where they're free to yell.
 
Crab said:
I think that tends to be a very vocal minority, though. Off the top of my head, most large predominantly gaming forums I can think of - GameFAQs, NeoGAF, SomethingAwful, even /r/gaming by the surveys they used to have in there - lean liberal. They just don't look it because most people don't really care enough about politics to talk about it. So people associate say /r/gaming with GamerGate even though it was a consistently minority opinion that was just very loud and used /r/gaming as a platform to organize. The only thing that separates GAF is that GAF bans that vocal minority.
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No, GAF bans are pretty straightforward. The difference is GAF bans bigots.

Tolerating bigots and letting them use your platform to further their bigotry is not a good "this place isn't full of bigots" defense.
 
Gattsu25 said:
"Certain liberal norms" meaning don't insult people to their face or say something overtly bigoted/discriminatory/sexist/racist.
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I don't think it actually does mean the former. GAF makes generalized and insulting comments about certain groups - particularly poor and working class white males - frequently, despite the fact those groups probably post on GAF quite a lot. Meanwhile, a generalized insult about LGBT people or minorities will get you banned instantly. So GAF can be quite selective about which insults it polices. That can be a good thing - we live in a world of white privilege for example, so ensuring extra protection for minorities is just balancing the books given how much hate can be given elsewhere. But it does mean that "liberal norms" isn't quite the same as "no insults".

And I like liberal norms. They're great, I wouldn't change them for the world. I'm just pointing out that they're very definitely liberal norms and not more general norms about politeness.
 
Because we're all about equality here. The right isn't all bad it's just that their far right is way too vocal... and insane lol. It's not cool to try to deny human rights to gay/trans/non-white/females and that seems to be the for rights thing right now. On top of that they rely too much on religion, in 2016 it's really hard to take someone who denies things like evolution seriously.
 
Soapbox Killer said:
Passing you my "Prove it ticket"


It almost has to be far left to be able to accept all the walks of life that play games and common decency. I'm not left at all but the only way GAF can work as well as it does is if it is tolerant to the differences that bind us. Maybe it is a vocal minority that makes is seem that way. Rather that than a bunch of hate speech bu t this place is pretty liberal to me.
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Make a poll asking how many people are socialists and how many people are liberals. You'll see that it's more the latter than the former.
 
It's "far left" in the sense of American politics, maybe, but you're still gonna have your threads full of people defending lolicon and whatnot.

But yeah, the fact it's not easy to register (not all emails work, plus you need to wait) means it's hard to let your inner bigot fly. In order to foster a forum that's welcome to all types, the person that talks about why they don't like that type is more likely to meet their end.
 
pizzacat said:
Because you choose the people there, this is an echochamber made by the mods, that's an echochamber made exclusively by you

I don't really get the comparison either
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well that's along the lines of what I meant by my post. a personally curated feed cannot be compared to a message board.

God Dayumm said:
Tumblr. Although they are so far up their own asses that they've come full circle and sometimes you cannot make the distinction. Look up "Tumblr vs Stormfront" on Google for some laughs
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again, not a great comparison. curated feed as opposed to a message board. there are definitely right leaning and far right people on tumblr too. just some parts of the "progressive" side of it has been made into an internet joke, therefore everyone using tumblr must be of that level.
 
I don't think it's about moderation, as I'm on another very well moderated forum in the UK that leans to the right. In both cases, I think it's more to do with the average age of the contributors and the dogpiling of anyone who doesn't go along with the majority opinion. In GAF's case, the most vocal contributors skew young and tend to speak more from an academic perspective than a real world experience perspective. On that other forum, the most vocal contributors skew older and tend to place less value on academics and more on life experience (which is why it's a tough forum on which to express my views on Brexit). In both cases, both sites hold majority opinions which make it difficult for people with differing perspectives to feel respected and willing to contribute. (Note that I'm generalising, I'm not saying any one individual meets these descriptors, it's more of a collective tendency.)

I've often thought it would be interesting to see the most vocal people from each forum debate one another, celebrity deathmatch style.
 
As a Mexican who has seen "far-left" government in Latin America you guys in the US have no idea what far-left is. Its just that with all the Trump shitshow and the rise of the alt-right (aka far batshit-insane right) whatever leftist ideals the democrats have looks like far-left in comparison when, in reality, they'd be called center-left in Europe or Latin America.

There's no far-left in mainstream US politics. It's all skewed to the right and the left is barely that.
 
Ray Wonder said:
Simply because the mods are far left.
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Members with outspoken right wing, conservative views on various subjects (gun laws, political correctness, social justice, immigration, race...) usually don't last long, in particular when there were (and maybe still are?) mods who banned posters they really disagreed with.
 
I don't feel like neogaf is far left to be honest. If I look at our political parties, I usually get more of a mid-left or even mid feel, depending on the topics at hand (The Netherlands).
 
Prax said:
I heavily applaud the moderation for the upkeep of forum discourse.
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I think that job has been automated though. Now the former mods are hosting Trump rallies while the Modbots pretend to be former people accounts.

#ModbotTruthers


But in honesty I would argue it's more centric while still being on the right on some things, by European Socialist Scum standards. Which is pretty much US politics in a nutshell anyway.
 
Freeza Under The Shower said:
I think that job has been automated though. Now the former mods are hosting Trump rallies while the Modbots pretend to be former people accounts.

#ModbotTruthers


But in honesty I would argue it's more centric while still being on the right on some things, by European Socialist Scum standards. Which is pretty much US politics in a nutshell anyway.
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Modbot for socialist overlord 2016
 
NeoGAF is pretty left on social issues (due to moderation).

Everything else is a crapshoot. You'd have a lot more Republicans here if they weren't assholes about social issues.

Taxes, gun control, foreign wars, etc. all have had threads with varying opinions.
 
1. It's nerdy internet people.
2. It's young folks.
3. It's mostly college educated folks. (I assume because of the e-mail address needed to register)

All those things are recipes for left-leaning views. Not that it bothers me at all though. I honestly find a lot of the discourse, particularly in off-topic GAF, refreshing compared to a lot of the other places I spend time online. Also, right-leaning people get banned more easily because many of them can't find a way to argue their side without being rude for some reason.
 
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