Feedback Thread (GENERAL)

[Axx°N N.]

Thank you for taking the time to hash this out.

I wasn't referring to negative feedback, I was referring to mod intervention, threats of bans, etc. I've never had a user reach out to me in a post or in a PM indicating they found me lacking in context, it's always been a mod and always in vague terms.

It feels like the minute I have something not praiseworthy in my language too much is assumed about the intention behind it--it feels as if I'm being strawmanned or having words put in my mouth. By Eva's rampant commercial success, I was referring to things like Eva branded washbuckets. Is it really mandated that I use positive language to describe the commercialization of Eva when it's often ridiculous? This doesn't seem like an uncommon opinion and I don't see others policed for referring to certain Eva offshoots in this way. I wasn't meaning to connote the merchandising to Anno or the film production, they're clearly separate things and Anno has said as much. Is it really necessary to mandate users never use negative language, or have negative opinions related to Eva, ever? I understand there are those with the opinion Rebuild is a cash grab, but I don't enjoy being treated like I'm of a hivemind when it's not my actual opinion. At this point, it begins to feel like I'm supposed to anticipate and apprehend every possible reading, interpretation, or assumption in advance, but at that point all of my posts become not only not participatory, but basically just essays.

I want to present my ideas with clarity and detail, and I want to engage others politely while still being honest. It's discouraging to be treated like my attempt to do so is wrong, not be given enough explanation as how to correct myself, and left with the overwhelming notion that I'm stepping out of bounds merely by acts of perceived wrongthink.

[::KL7::]

Am I out of touch?

No it’s the mods who are wrong.

…. Why does this thread even exist? I’ve never felt any bias or wrongdoing on your guys part. I trust all of your judgement, keep up the good work.

[Blockio]

Axx, the problem is not what you say, but how you say it. All of your posts have a very noticable undercurrent of toxicity, constantly presenting yourself as representing the objective truth on matters of personal taste and interpretation, usually on why something someone else likes is terrible and how they are wrong about liking it.
This is not acceptable behaviour.
We have warned you about this at least twice, once in DMs and once in public, probably a handful of other times that I'm forgetting about, so your claim about threats of bans without prior warning is simply untrue, and one of the very mischaracterizations you are so eager to point out in the posts of others.

[Axx°N N.]

I don't understand where it was I stated that there have been threats of bans without prior warning. "Mod intervention" would be warning.

Toxicity is not my intention when I post, and I don't view myself as having some kind of objective infallibility. I don't see how my posts demonstrate either of those things. Can you show me an example of me telling someone something they like is terrible and that they're wrong for it?

[Blockio]

Can you show me an example of me telling someone something they like is terrible and that they're wrong for it?

A notable example would be this post here.

and anyway, this is a good opportunity to point out how much of a bubble EGF is. I've met 0 people irl who thought anything but that Mari served as a detriment to NTE's storytelling

Or the time you effectively told someone that their entire, reasonably in-depth interpretation of Shin does not clear the bar for being more than empty chatter.

Granted, both of these are older examples and you have become less overt since then, but you do still have the general tendency to be overly competitive when taking part in debates. I'm not saying this is all you do, and you can definitely argue your cause; however, I do ask you to tone down said competitiveness.

[FreakyFilmFan4ever]

I'm not saying this is all you do, and you can definitely argue your cause; however, I do ask you to tone down said competitiveness.

Honestly, this is all we’re asking here. I’d go even a step further and say we’re really not looking to create an atmosphere of debate, but rather one of discussion. No one needs to “win” a discussion, and if a piece of trivia is in dispute then it doesn’t need to be repeated in other conversations.

[Axx°N N.]

I understand there's a difference between participatory discussion and chasing after rhetorical wins, and I fully admit I can always improve on understanding and valuing the difference. But I'm not sure that's the whole point of contention here.

A notable example would be this post here.

I'm still not understanding how this post is what you say it is. How is this post me telling someone something they like is terrible and that they're wrong for it? It's me sharing what I've seen of other's opinions, some of it is speculative, the next poster agrees with some of my points. What I recall about this post, though, is that my word choice of "bubble" was seen as problematic and that I was issued a warning over it, but that I proceeded to explain my intentions in PM and clarify where I was coming from. I think it would be in poor taste to relay things said in private, but you could ask BernardoCairo how productive that talk was.

Or the time you effectively told someone that their entire, reasonably in-depth interpretation of Shin does not clear the bar for being more than empty chatter.

Again, I don't see how my words reflect your interpretation of my words. I never characterized their post in such a derisive way as you put and as I explained in my next posts, my intention was to invite them to share more of their thoughts, and they agreed to do so. To be totally honest, that whole exchange feels like a double standard. Isn't their post exactly what my posts are consistently characterized to be, except with a positive take? If their post was negative, opening with "NTE is a failure, IMO," and ending with "I can't put into words how dissatisfied I am," I don't think it would have passed your muster. Your post immediately afterward here is what I feel I'm not being offered, and the only difference I can see is that my ideas are perceived as inherently hostile. It feels like the beginning of a problem and the shutting down of a conversation rests on someone having the 'correct' opinion on a positive/negative binary. Even then, this feels to me to be an issue of a perceived category, as I don't consider my posting to be for or against NTE; I view my posts as exploratory, but the aforementioned mod interventions consistently peg me as being on some kind of 'anti-NTE' team of some kind. In other words, I feel like some of the arguments being made here rest on false premises, and they're forcing me into making defenses that, in the act of defending myself, implies me to have intentions I never had and opinions that I don't.

I understand moderation, as any communication, is an imperfect art, and I wish to honor the discretion, but I feel actively prevented from doing so when words I never said are used as the basis of anything.

[nerv bae]

I hope that the moderation community and Axx°N N. can reach some mutual understanding so that he keeps posting on EGF, whether that entails the moderation community being more lenient or Axx°N N. being more upbeat, because I've found some of his posts to be very illuminating. For example, this post is in my EGF top-10 and really made me think about how I think about NTE lore generally and Asuka specifically.

[BernardoCairo]

On behalf of myself, basically, I come here to ask you guys a couple of questions regarding the NTE section of our forum.
Over the past year we've received some complains regarding the way discussions have been developing over there.
Some people argue that the negativity surrounding a couple of users are affecting the enjoyment factor of these discussions themselves. Others argue that, in the past, we've been too strict and that creates this atmosphere in which people are scared of posting.

What do you think? Personally, I don't see a problem with people discussing their takes on the movies as long as it is in the appropriate thread. My personal idea is to move some of the threads we already have on the subject to the graveyard and transform the "How do you feel about NTE..." in a place for you people to discuss whatever you want. Would that make everyone happy?
For those who don't like the movies: you don't need to transform every single discussion in a "is it bad or no" type of thing. It gets old pretty fast.
For those who like the movies: you need to understand that people might have different opinions from you. As long as they're bringing arguments and not being assholes, it's fine. You're not obligated to read anything.

As mods, we can't take sides here. All we can do is offer a way for all discussions to take place and for you to feel comfortable to post. I'm going to make this very clear: Aside from some very specific cases, we don't ban people for what they say. We do so for how they say.
No one cares if you like NTE, NGE, Sadamoto's manga, Anima, Asushin, Kawoshin, so on and so forth. As long as the discussion is healthy and in the right place, it's welcome here. You don't need to fear us. We don't even agree on all things EVA, so why our users should.

[FelipeFritschF]

I understand we're quite literally in a loop (lol) when it comes to NTE discussion. Ironically I've seen this same pattern in most Eva communities now, it seems discussion isn't really going anywhere.

But locking the threads seems overkill. It seems everyone has already agreed that this specific discussion (overall quality and ship discussions) are contained in those two threads, so let them remain there. They're very pertinent to discussing the movie as a whole so I suppose they're going to spill out to other threads if they're not constrained. And nobody is offending each other over it, it's not toxic or anything. For better or worse it is driving forum activity, which brings those members and others to also read and post in other threads. It doesn't really need moderation if nothing is wrong there besides repetitivity. Let the threads be.

[nerv bae]

Feedback on this:

So, since that thread had become a mess, I decided to merge it with the quality containment one. Here you'll have more freedom to express your opinions about Mark VI and everything else really.

I wish we could find a way to rehabilitate the "What was the point of Mark.06?" thread on its own merit, instead of merging it in to the "Quality of NTE containment thread". If we keep turning to this solution, it's going to transform the "Quality of NTE containment thread" into a dumping ground for other threads that fail to respect the quality containment rule, which I think will interfere with intentional quality conversations.

[BernardoCairo]

That's the point of the contention thread... That said, I understand what you're saying. But first I have to check with everyone what to do next as that thread was a mess and I don't want the drama to interfere with the discussion anymore. However, I also want you to continue submitting feedback in a more appropriate place, like here.
Thanks for reaching out

[BernardoCairo]

Just so I can give you a proper answer, this thread will continue to be merged with the quality containment one as the discussion is going smoothly there. But I will take your advice into consideration in future occurrences.

[Angel]

From the poll thread...

Even the most absurd and ridiculous comments like "Asuka is canonically homophobic" were not deleted.

And yet, a post consisting exclusively or almost exclusively of actual canon facts about Asuka (such as "she physically and verbally abused Shinji" and "she refused to retreat from Zeruel and Arael even when ordered to") WAS deleted.

Blockio is a mod and he called you out

...while simultaneously threatening to punish me for answering that call. "I can make up shit about you but you'll get banned if you stand up for yourself" is UNDENIABLY an abuse of power.

Also, sorry to say this, but basically there is no "blue team" anymore.

Not on this forum, you mean. Not anymore.

[Angel]

Can you show me an example of me telling someone something they like is terrible and that they're wrong for it?

A notable example would be this post here.

Excuse me? That post is literally just two paragraphs of "here's how the Evangelion fan community as a whole, not just within the EGF bubble, has responded to Mari", without even actually saying that Mari is a terrible character or that anyone is wrong for liking her, just that she got kind of ignored for 3 movies and then was suddenly made important out of nowhere.

Or the time you effectively told someone that their entire, reasonably in-depth interpretation of Shin does not clear the bar for being more than empty chatter.

A whopping six sentences of "interpretation", if we can even count things like "Who would have expected farmer Rei LOL" as "interpretation", sandwiched between two sentences of flat-out opinion, is hardly "in-depth". Axx was 100% justified in suggesting that it's more reaction than critical analysis.

[Angel]

Blockio's behavior as a mod has consistently been unprofessional, especially on the Discord server, where it is typical for him to explode at members simply because he is annoyed with a particular topic or user. And maybe those topics or users might be annoying, but I expect mods to handle that with maturity and not dive straight into cussing at and belittling posters/members.

The fact that the rest of the moderation team consistently chooses to publicly ignore this behavior is disheartening.

Oh good, I'm not crazy.

[BernardoCairo]

Angel, I'm banning you. Sorry man, but I warned you. I would like to make it clear that it has nothing to do with the fact that you're an Ayanami fan. Kendrix is probably the greatest Ayanami fanatic I've ever seen and all of her posts are well intact. Not only that, but her account is preserved.
No, I'm banning you because of your lack of comum sense, spammy behavior and noisy/impolite posts. Did you seriously change your signature just because Blockio called you out? Did it bother you that much?
I don't know which thread you're talking about, but no "canon facts" were ever deleted. The idea of someone going out of their way just to defend the honor of fictional characters like that is unbelievable to me. First of all, bitching about how Asuka hurt your feelings isn't "canon facts" and even if it was, Blockio nor anyone else have deleted any posts regarding this. There are thousands of posts exactly like that one you've described all over our site. They're even somewhat repetitive to be honest. You can find it all over the place and don't even need to look for it that much.
I'll also reaffirm that there's no such thing as a "blue team" anymore and it's not only here. The 2000's are over. No sane being will lose their time arguing who's the "best girl". Especially when one of these girl's main rival is now a dude, apparently.
Even if there was a blue team and a red team, I'm happy that they're not a part of our community, as fetishizing over some fictional teens and their relationships is, honestly, depressing and leads to very limited discussions.

When I asked you to use the feedback thread, I didn't expect you to go out for a single individual and even send PMs about it. I expected us to move on, like you were saying. For that and all the threads your behavior was dubious at best, you're banned.
Happy holidays and I wish you well.

[Axx°N N.]

The discussion here rubbed me the wrong way. Particularly this post:

3) "Themes" don't make a forced, hamfisted ending not forced or hamfisted.

....................
I really can't blame the people who jumped ship on the forums anymore if that is the state of media literacy shaping debate on here. Jesus christ.

Blockio uses ad hominems throughout the thread, makes several disingenuous reductions of someone's argument, strawmans multiple times, the list goes on. An entire page of a derailment because he latched onto the usage of a term he would only accept his particular opinion about.

I struggle to think of a better example of bad faith discussion. The bulk of what Blockio is discussing are opinions that aren't in the thread itself but are some kind of imagined consensus elsewhere, and then Blockio responds to the present argument as if it's those arguments elsewhere. This is not only not productive engagement, it's contradictory. He finds issue with the user not substantiating their opinion (which I don't agree they did, anyway), but then refuses to add supporting argument beyond making something out to be self-evidently stupid. Meanwhile, the point he seems to want to make in the above quote is that the presence of intended themes means that an ending is automatically well-written. Is that not the point he's trying to make? Who knows, because he's content to insult instead.

The entire back and forth is basically Blockio putting words into someone's mouth, that person trying to defend their position, only for Blockio to default to ad hominems in almost every response and end on the above ad hominem. It's not only rude, it exemplifies a kind of hypocrisy I've noticed: Blockio is suggesting (to this person's face) that they're a drain on the forum and that they're bad, their posts are bad, they're turning away users, they're responsible for the supposed sorry state of the board.

I don't find it difficult to imagine, though, a person interested in posting here reading this discussion, being turned off by the attitude of not only this poster but this poster being a mod, and feeling that it's totally pointless to post here because a mod will insult them and punish them based on imagined grounds. Why would anyone be compelled to go into detail about their opinion if a mod will then call their points "a complete nonstarter of an argument," only engaging from the start with the seeming motivation to shut down discussion?

There are two veins to complaints about this site, as one can see browsing through the past few pages:

The board is in a sorry state, people are being turned off.
Blockio is hostile.

I'd suggest these two things are not unrelated.

[Blockio]

I will admit that my final response in that thread was not in good form; however I also assure you that this is not merely some empty strawman, that is a sentiment that has been expressed to me in no uncertain terms by several people who used to be driving forces behind debate here, but have since left (Reichu, Derantor, BlueBasilisk, to name a few) precisely because they felt that actually engaging in productive debate was no longer possible, for precisely the things that happened in that thread.

The bulk of what Blockio is discussing are opinions that aren't in the thread itself but are some kind of imagined consensus elsewhere, and then Blockio responds to the present argument as if it's those arguments elsewhere. This is not productive engagement.

I am confused by this point - all I said in that thread, as I believe I have stated quite plainly multiple times throughout, I was pointing out why the specific use of terminology is counterproductive to the kind of debate we wish to nurture on the site and explaining what terminology once used to mean before it had been twisted beyond recognition, suggesting that for the purposes of this forum, we ought to return to that usage instead of simply tossing it around as an unspecified killer argument.
Let me remind you - this started because Asunji attempted to shut down someone else's theory by throwing around the notion that Mari is merely a hollow, meaningless character that does not deserve further analysis, and would indeed later attempt to fortify that position by throwing around the buzzwords that would move to become the lynchpin of this matter.

TBH, I think this is reading into her character waaaaaaaay too much.
[...]
Aka, let's put in a new character to make $$$ on merchandise. Anno, more or less, believed the character had no basis to exist beyond that.

This is behaviour that is not, nor has ever been, acceptable to this forum, and which I attempted to rectify through debate rather than disciplinary action.
The fundamental idea of this forum is to try and learn things about Eva through debate; this is the precise opposite of that.

The entire back and forth is basically Blockio putting words into someone's mouth, that person trying to defend their position, only for Blockio to default to ad hominems in almost every response and end on the above ad hominem. It's not only rude, it exemplifies a kind of hypocrisy I've noticed: Blockio is suggesting (to this person's face) that they're a drain on the forum and that they're bad, their posts are bad, they're turning away users, they're responsible for the supposed sorry state of the board.

I severely object the notion that I put words into anyone's mouth. I broke down arguments to their logical conclusions, and pointed out problems within them, but at no point did I purposefully misquote or twist anyone's words

[Axx°N N.]

I will admit that my final response in that thread was not in good form; however I also assure you that this is not merely some empty strawman, that is a sentiment that has been expressed to me in no uncertain terms by several people who used to be driving forces behind debate here, but have since left (Reichu, Derantor, BlueBasilisk, to name a few) precisely because they felt that actually engaging in productive debate was no longer possible, for precisely the things that happened in that thread.

Yes, but aren't those naturally posters that would reach out to you? Having an issue with posters is kind of a one-way-street solution. But if a user is being driven away by mod hostility, I'd imagine they would just silently dip out or write the community off; too much trouble. There would be fear of retaliation if they did otherwise, or even just a self-defeating sense of pointlessness. A community is its mods. I mean, I didn't want to post this because I was worried I'd get banned.

I am confused by this point - all I said in that thread, as I believe I have stated quite plainly multiple times throughout, I was pointing out why the specific use of terminology is counterproductive to the kind of debate we wish to nurture on the site and explaining what terminology once used to mean before it had been twisted beyond recognition, suggesting that for the purposes of this forum, we ought to return to that usage instead of simply tossing it around as an unspecified killer argument.

The thing is that their usage of the term wasn't used as a killer argument in itself, because they substantiated their perspective outside of using the term. You claim they used the term wrong, but it matched how they substantiated it--take the term out, their argument remains. So what's the problem?

The other thing is that there was disagreement on the correct usage of the term, and there remains one. Several users disagreed with your definition--so did the dictionary--but your argument is basically that only yours is correct. I don't think your idea of how the term should be used (let's say, "originalist") inherently lends itself better to an analytical context. The fact that so much discussion was generated over how to apply either definition in the case of Mari specifically attests to the fact you can be analytical with either usage. I don't think the term is the problem. The fixation on the term, in addition to just not hearing out contrary opinion, compounded on each other.

The fundamental idea of this forum is to try and learn things about Eva through debate; this is the precise opposite of that.

I agree; they were flippant in their original comments and I respect that you pushed it into a higher standard of discourse. It's worth noting, though, that within their original comments they linked to production interviews that put a fair amount of doubt on the OP's theory. If we're supposed to have an academic standard, weighing theories against production realities should be a worthwhile endeavor. It's pretty plainly on the record that Mari was incorporated in a "figure it out as we go" approach. That doesn't mean meaning can't be added retroactively, but it should be considered when the OP is making the claim that certain creative decisions were made because of reasons they're attributing just so their theory bears out.

I broke down arguments to their logical conclusions, and pointed out problems within them, but at no point did I purposefully misquote or twist anyone's words.

I don't mean to sound catty or sarcastic: yes, you broke down arguments to their logical conclusions ... as you saw them. You made assumptions several times about the motivation and intent of terms and arguments. I'd go point by point but it would end up looking like the entire discussion.

Claiming that someone using the term Mary Sue is doing so because of sexism is a pretty big one. It's just not a fair accusation at all, and it ignores basically every point they had substantiated previously. It just makes it seem like you weren't considering their opinions at face value, and that tone continued.