Modding and Social Issues

[ottemis]

Modding and Social Issues

With the rise of social justice groups advocating for the proper treatment and inclusion of minority and/or under-represented demographics in movies, games and tv, this has also become a hot topic with regards to modding. I understand that for marginalized groups it’s not fun and may even be considered offensive to see a mod surface that changes aspects of a character they identify with, and this resonates with the community on current social issues.
I believe that modding should, to a reasonable extend, be exempt from being directly associated with such social issues. Games can touch on social issues and canon representation is important, but as modding and which mods you use is a personal choice for reasons that can have nothing to do with said social issues, I don't feel certain mods and modding your game a certain way should automatically be considered problematic.

Modding exists not just to add diversity to games and cater to those least catered to, it is there to offer everyone equal choice and equal chances. Modding is very personal, and most importantly, modding does not erase Canon. How someone else mods their game does not affect you directly, nor do mods take anything away from your gaming experience, rather than offering options to add to it in places you (or anyone else) feels a need. Any mod that wouldn't improve your personal experience can simply be ignored.

While you could make all characters in a game black or white, gay or straight, whatever your personal preference, personally identify with or feel most comfortable with, you do this within your own space. Your motivations are yours alone and can be extremely diverse. As such, creating a mod that changes the sexual orientation or skin colour of a character doesn't automatically make the author racist, bi-phobic, homophobic or hetero-phobic. Nor does it do users of said mods as long as they don't openly state to do it for reasons that are considered problematic.

I realize this is a bit of a controversial statement, as this is such a hot topic and people are easily offended. I probably would be too if I belonged to a marginalized group. Although I suppose I actually do being a woman, but I am white and straight and I could have it much worse. Still, I didn't form this opinion in a vacuume. I've seen these issues flare up and I've been personally involved on multiple occasions.

For your consideration, here are views of some well-known figures in the gaming/modding world that largely reflect my own:

David Gaider:


Source

Source

Mike Laidlaw:

ON MODS IN DRAGON AGE, A SNIPPET FROM "PLAYERS LIKE ME - REPRESENTATION IN GAMING" PANEL

He says that as a general rule, he likes mods. He appreciates the effort that modders take to add or extend the world, as it is the ultimate compliment. He says that in someone releasing a mod changing something fundamental, that "does not in itself bother me". He also referenced the Cassandra bisexual mod as well in this context. Because the end user has to install this, and it is not built into the game, that's not a problem. That does not an offense.

However, where the mod "goes off the rail" depends on the modder's language. If a modder has the language like "I have fixed the character by..." and follows it up by the change they have made in their mod, that's where the problem lies. The idea that they "fixed" that individual. Laidlaw does not mind changes being made, and people opting into that change. But if a modder were to do so, with the assumption that changing one's sexual identity is a good thing, "that's a disturbing line of thought." 
Source

The Nexus:

Even though located in the UK, Nexus Mods is run as a multicultural modding site and aims to keep an open mind about content submitted by people from all over the world. While we acknowledge that differences in tastes inevitably exist we strive to ensure that the ‘content shared with like minded people’ principle is enforced and mod authors enjoy an environment where they can share their creations without hassle and harassment from those less tolerant of an individuals personal tastes.
Source

The DAI Tools Forums:

It is up to you what you see online. It is not anyone else’s place to tell you what you should or should not consume in terms of content; it is not up to anyone else to police the internet so that you do not see things you do not like. At the same time, it is not up to YOU to police fandom to protect yourself or anyone else, real or hypothetical. There are tools out there to help protect you if you have triggers or squicks. Learn to use them, and to take care of your own mental health. If you are consuming fan-made content and you find that you are disliking it - STOP.

Everyone likes different things. It’s not up to you to determine what creators are allowed to create. It’s not up to you to police fandom. If you don’t like something, you can post meta about it or create contrarian content yourself, seek to convert other fans to your way of thinking.
But you have no right to say to any creator “I do not like this, therefore you should not create it. Nobody should like this. It should not exist.”

and that includes modding… Don’t like the mod, don’t use it, rant about it, discuss it with like minded souls but NEVER HARASS THE MODDERS
Source

DAI Tools Coder, Dawn:

I don’t have many rules concerning the mods.

a) Don’t give an advantage to multiplayer players.
b) Don’t allow DLC content to be added to the main game without owning it.

EVERYTHING else is fair game. If you don’t agree with a mod for whatever reason, don’t download it. That’s it. Period.
Source

The hate the modders get isn’t just focused on the controversial stuff like the sexuality mods. It’s about… EVERYTHING. They get hate for hair mods, armor mods, cheat mods, complexion mods. ALL THE MODS.They get hate even though they have nothing to do with the controversial stuff. Because they think it’s ugly. Because they think it contradicts the lore. Because it’s not how they wanted it. Because… I don’t know, man. They had a bad day, I guess? And this has been going on for a VERY long time. Way before I was even involved in the project. The hate has been there from the very start, pretty much, and it breaks my heart.

Modders: If even only one person likes your stuff, your efforts were worth it. If YOU like your mod, it was worth it. The only comments that should matter are the positive ones Throw all of the negative ones in the trash and light it on fire. They don’t matter. Not even a little bit.
Source

Callout posts and Anonymous Hatemail

Callout posts and anonymous hate are both extremely problematic Tumblr fandom past-times that have the potential to hurt people quite severely. If you choose to consciously inflict harm on another rather than ignore whatever it is that might be vexing you when it's not directly aimed at or affecting you, you are wrong. Without exception.

If you see a mod whose existence you personally find problematic and you feel the author might lacks perspective on certain issues, you can always choose to send the author a private message about this. If they engage with you publicly, it's perfectly fine to respond, but don't turn it into a witch hunt. People that see it can form their own opinion and act accordingly.

Keep in mind that while speaking your mind is good, it doesn’t automatically mean you are right and they are wrong, however strongly you might feel about a certain subject. It is your right to open a healthy debate about it and share your opinion, as it is theirs to either engage with you on the subject or refuse to do so. You're not going to sway someone whose not willing to listen, and when they are not it's simply not worth the time and energy you would spend on it. Take a leaf out of Obama's book and engage them in a constructive manner. Take a look at this video interview if you don't know what I'm referring to.


But what if...

Users express homo/bi/hetero-phobic or racist motivations explaining their use of a controversial mod, or generally employ hate-speech?
They would be assholes. Still, this doesn't give you permission to publicly burn them at the stake and doing so is extremely unlikely to change their minds rather than just cause them to either double down on said problematic views or self-harm. Do you feel that, when any individual has truly problematic views they then lose the right to live freely? Do you feel anyone with truly problematic views is automatically incapable of learning and no attempt should be made or that all actions made against these people are warranted, even when they might threaten their life? I don't.

Mod authors express homo/bi/hetero-phobic or racist motivations explaining their decision for creating a controversial mod, or generally employ hate-speech?
Again, assholes. As above. Feel free to report them to the administrators of whatever modding site their mod is hosted on. That's what they are there for. You can bet your ass it will be against their ToS. 

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That's my take on things. Feel free to (dis)agree with me and discuss this subject here. Please read this blogpost. It should give you perspective on how far these things can go and how important it is to openly have this discussion. 

[giftfish]

Jan 17, 2017 1:55:45 GMT ottemis said:

While you could make all characters in a game black or white, gay or straight, whatever your personal preference, personally identify with or feel most comfortable with, you do this within your own space. Your motivations are yours alone and can be extremely diverse. As such, creating a mod that changes the sexual orientation or skin colour of a character doesn't automatically make the author racist, bi-phobic, homophobic or hetero-phobic. Nor does it do users of said mods as long as they don't openly state to do it for reasons that are considered problematic.

I personally disagree with this statement, though, it depends somewhat on context.

Example. One Saturday morning I was on Nexus and in the "Recent Uploads" area there was a new mod called "No Redguards in Skyrim". TES players know that redguards are the "black" race of Skyrim. To go along with the mod was a picture of a redguard male with stereotypical "black" facial features. Onto this screenshot, the modder had photoshopped a crooked, straight-brimmed baseball hat worn with the brim facing the front. This was accompanied by the slogan "Yo Dawg, No Redguards in Skyrim". The objective of the mod was to remove the redguard ("black") race from the game. This, essentially, makes the land of Skyrim completely anglo (white)... with the exception of the khajits and argonians. There was also a brief description that I can't quite remember the details of, but it was also extremely offensive.

This mod author was very clearly racist. Without a doubt. You don't make a mod like that even as a "joke", and not have it be racist. Making a mod is a purposeful action. And in this case, that action was racist.

Could I have engaged the mod author? Sure. Did I? Hell no. I was horrified. I hit the "Report" button and typed an explanation as fast as I could, shaking the whole time. Would I have blamed any other Nexus member for verbally attacking the modder via comments? No. Would that modder have deserved it? Hell, yes. A mod like that is actively promoting hate. If the modder is going to be stupid enough to share it, then they can also deal with the community's swift response.

Needless to say, Nexus removed the mod... quickly. Nexus has a tolerant policy on mods, but anything that clearly promotes hate, they will not tolerate.

Had this modder kept this mod to themselves, then I don't see it as a problem. I still find it repulsive, and the creator even more repulsive, but what you do in your house to your game is your business.

Now, if the modder had wanted to change the race *of a specific character* that's something else. I don't necessarily see that as racist. However, this mod was derogatory. It's goal was to exterminate an entire race from the game, and the photo made it very clear what the author thought about redguards/black people.

So, yes, sometimes you can tell by the mod if the author is racist. And, yes, sometimes mods themselves contain racist content. (And that will apply to any other form of discrimination, as well).

I have a bit more to say on this, but it's unrelated, so I'll put it into a separate post.

Jan 17, 2017 1:55:45 GMT ottemis said:

Callout posts and anonymous hate are both extremely problematic Tumblr fandom past-times that have the potential to hurt people quite severely.

Okay disclaimer. I'm about to sound like a serious curmudgeon.

I honestly see a lot of this as a byproduct of too much social media. People get way, way too obsessed with what's going on on these sites. Always drama, all the time. Tumblr I view as worse than most b/c of its format. People use it as their personal soapbox, become extremely self-involved, and then get irritated when someone else comes along and slams their opinion. Well... welcome to the internet. If you don't want to deal with drama, then don't post. You'll be amazed at how much more free time you have, and you'll also find out how none of that stuff actually matters at all. No matter how upsetting you find it, 99% percent of the time it won't matter.

Are there exceptions to this? Sure. But, social media basically didn't exist 10 years ago. Nobody forces you to use it, and the world will keep going if you don't use it. So... just say no. Lol.

[ottemis]

The Redguard mod is a good example of an inherently racist mod AND a racist author, yes. I wouldn't say either was ever in question. Nexus moderators didn't remove it for nothing. I see no issue posting comments on such a mod, pointing out the issues with it and reporting it goes without saying. I just have issues with people being nothing but rude, using derogatory terms and/or making threats. Aside from whether or not you or I might feel those types of comments were warranted, or whether we felt an urge to do the same, not doing so means you placed yourself above this individual. You didn't stoop to their level, and that's something to be infinitely proud of.

We've never seen such extremes in terms of modding in the ME or DA modding community. It's good to examine such extremes though in light of this discussion.

As to Tumblr, it's around, a lot of modders are on this site and this site alone. Not liking the general crowd or the atmosphere doesn't erase these facts nor does it erase the impact hate on that medium can have on people.
Aside from this, this kind of behavior obviously doesn't purely exist on Tumblr. Tumblr i feel is a place where people grow into adulthood. It's very hard to gain perspective on things, when the world is as big and issues are as diverse. It takes time for anyone to grow into their best self. So yeah, it's a shitfest at times, but I feel it's also a good place for people to grow and learn faster how to act, what's appropriate and how to engage with others. Nothing is ever all bad.

[giftfish]

Jan 17, 2017 2:58:01 GMT ottemis said:

As to Tumblr, it's around, a lot of modders are on this site and this site alone. Not liking the general crowd or the atmosphere doesn't erase these facts nor does it erase the impact hate on that medium can have on people.

No, it doesn't erase it, but both are problematic:

1. Using tumblr as a surrogate mod hosting site is a bad idea.
Tumblr is a blog. It's crap as a mod hosting site. Mods should be hosted on a legitimate site that is built to support that specific purpose. Nexus, ModDB, whatever. Modders should have a single, static page for each of their mods with a clear versioning system, and where the mod's description, changelog, photos, and readme can easily be found. More importantly, the site should have a robust way for their users to be able to get support for the mod. That means a robust method of commenting. With this, the existing community of the site will help lighten the load on the mod creator by fielding questions. And, pertinent to this discussion, legitimate mod hosting sites like Nexus will not tolerate personal attacks on modders. They will lock that shit down as soon as it starts. So, events like this that happen on tumblr literally cannot happen on Nexus. Mods should not be hosted on tumblr.

2. People choose to be on tumblr.
The internet is the perfect vehicle for people to spew hate, b/c they can do it anonymously. Social media, by it's very nature, magnifies this ten-fold, since the focus is on everyone's personal information and life. I'm a strong advocate of simply disengaging, or never engaging in the first place. Remove yourself from that equation. Once people do, they often find that what they were so wrapped up in, in their "online life", wasn't nearly as important as they thought.

Along with that last statement, I do want to be clear about one thing: I am not excusing or advocating the extremely poor, and sometimes criminal, behavior that has been and continues to be directed at some modders. I am very aware of how out of control the userbase can get and how cruel the mob can be. I'm saying that the modder often has more control over the situation than they realize, and sometimes difficult decisions need to be made. Presence on social media in support of your mod is not obligatory. Ask anyone who made mods for Morrowind back in 2002. Or before that, for PC games in the 90s.

Jan 17, 2017 2:58:01 GMT ottemis said:

Aside from this, this kind of behavior obviously doesn't purely exist on Tumblr. Tumblr i feel is a place where people grow into adulthood. It's very hard to gain perspective on things, when the world is as big and issues are as diverse. It takes time for anyone to grow into their best self. So yeah, it's a shitfest at times, but I feel it's also a good place for people to grow and learn faster how to act, what's appropriate and how to engage with others. Nothing is ever all bad.

Nope, it doesn't. Social media is a cesspool for it, and now that it's been around for 10-15 years we're finally learning that excessive engagement in it is not a good thing (and if you can't put down your phone for 5 minutes without feeling compelled to check for notifications, I'd put you in that category). The thought of anyone being "raised" on the shit that goes down on tumblr (or anywhere) is something that I find fairly revolting. If tumblr is having that much of an impact on a kid/teenager/whatever, the parents are not doing their job. If a kid doesn't have a parent (or a good parent) in their equation, for whatever life circumstance, they likely have much bigger problems than what's happening on tumblr.

I'm not saying tumblr is all bad. I'm saying that social media is a recent invention, and due to that and our current state of society, we are allowing it to have far more importance than it deserves.

[ottemis]

People post mods on Tumblr because they are less interested in supporting their mods rather than just share them with a small crowd of people. Largely, they are not interested in hosting on Nexus. Often not until they either start 'serious' modding (from their own perspective) or they for some reason feel a need to grow beyond the loose nature of Tumblr hosted mods. I know that even people that tend to host on Nexus, will still release some to Tumblr only, because it in a sense absolves them from keeping track of them, and they care less about what happens to those particular mods, having tossed them into the 'void'.

As a sidenote, the mods causing these problems aren't solely hosted on Tumblr, but their creators do often have a Tumblr presence. 

Tumblr is a collection of smaller clicques and people start real friendships there. Find like-minded people that think and feel like they do. Especially for teens discovering who they are and finding it hard to connect to anyone because they might go against the grain of their particular IRL environment, Tumblr is extremely valuable. Tumblr is all about not being alone in who you are. But that has a flipside, as anything does. Tumblr or social media I suppose wouldn't be as appealing if it wasn't filling a void. So we can jump high or low, it's here to stay.

And no, parents aren't doing their jobs (to a degree, heavily generalized statement here also, obviously). Parents also become isolated more and more, while it was never supposed to be their responsibility alone. There are too many other factors for them to counter effectively. I've felt this for years now looking at the behavior of kids and teens around me. Then again, peer pressure is important from a certain age onward regardless, so this is a choice you make. Whether you want to promote that change in them by being the example, or not, by opting to just stay away from places where these issues arise as they are potentially toxic.  I opt to stay and reflect the change I'd like to see, but that's not for everybody and that's fine too.

[sil]

This is one of those threads about a minefield of a topic. I could make a long post about my views, but I know better than to step too far into any thread that has the words "social justice" anywhere in the opening post . So, I think I'll just post a response to one section:

While you could make all characters in a game black or white, gay or straight, whatever your personal preference, personally identify with or feel most comfortable with, you do this within your own space. Your motivations are yours alone and can be extremely diverse. As such, creating a mod that changes the sexual orientation or skin colour of a character doesn't automatically make the author racist, bi-phobic, homophobic or hetero-phobic. Nor does it do users of said mods as long as they don't openly state to do it for reasons that are considered problematic.

I agree with this paragraph; if someone mods the game it is their choice over what they incorporate into it. I don't particularly care whether they turn Miranda into a lesbian, Legion into a Human, or Steve into a Boeing 747, it really doesn't matter to me as long as they enjoy it. I can quite happily ignore it. We play games for entertainment, for fun, and I mod games for the same reason. I don't want social issues to become too much of a part of it as, frankly, social issues are everywhere now, and although it is important that equality is reached, I get tired of hearing each new "controversy" that comes along, especially the times when something tiny is blown way out of proportion. To some that would be considered wrong, but you get worn down by it. Modding, and games, are a method of escapism for me. I know we all differ, so that's my take. I don't feel social justice should come into modding much, except in cases like the aforementioned Redguard mod where the person was being blatantly racist for the purpose of being racist.

But we have to be careful over what is judged to actually be offensive; awhile back there was controversy when a modder was changing all the portraits in a game to only show white people and he was called out as being racist, but mods that were changing all portraits to feature only people of chinese descent (and mods for various other nationalities/ethnicities) were not being challenged as being racist, a few were even praised as being progressive, so at what point does something become racist? What about those mods that would change all the avatars to being female only, would that be sexist, progressive or a non-issue? Would it be the same if it was a mod that changed all the avatars into men? Were all those mods racist/sexist, just one mod, or were all the different modders just making a mod? I can't really answer, I didn't dig deep enough into it to see the reasons -why- they were making those mods, but I wouldn't stand in their way because I value freedom of choice. I'd just hope they make something more interesting in the future that I'd actually want to use.

I am curious about something though; if a modder removed the Redguard population from a town in Skyrim because they believed that the Redguard wouldn't be there lorefully, is that to be considered racist or is the person attempting to make the game feel loreful (in how the modder interpreted the lore to be)?

[ottemis]

sil  --  I'd say not, personally. Depends on the project description I suppose.

And yeah, this stuff is definitely a minefield but I've seen it hurt so many awesome people in the modding communities I'm in it's heart breaking.
Recently something popped up again for someone I've known for quite a while and I felt I should bring it up.

Luckily it's not really something that hits us in the ME modding community as we're quite small comparatively, but outside of this little haven it's ugly.

[giftfish]

Jan 17, 2017 19:24:36 GMT sil said:

I am curious about something though; if a modder removed the Redguard population from a town in Skyrim because they believed that the Redguard wouldn't be there lorefully, is that to be considered racist or is the person attempting to make the game feel loreful (in how the modder interpreted the lore to be)?

There is certainly context and motivation to consider.

In this particular case, the removal was accompanied by both a derogatory picture and explanation, and a clear parallel to an existing human race outside of the game. The modder himself made it clear what his motivations were.

If there's a lore debate involved, imo, that's something else entirely. For example, a ME modder could come along and remove all the drell from ME2 b/c the race wasn't introduced in ME1 and they think it disagrees with ME1 lore. I'd have no problem with a mod like that, though I certainly wouldn't use it. Ha.