Nexus Mods Fine With Bigots Leaving Over Removed Starfield ‘Pronoun’ Mod
Nexus Mods Fine With Bigots Leaving Over Removed Starfield ‘Pronoun’ Mod
The site says it stands for ‘diversity and inclusion' and wants to promote a ‘positive modding community’
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.
Moderation exists to identify and exclude people who are being absolute cocks.
You don't need any grand philosophical statement about values. You don't need to defend the paradox of tolerance against absolutist demands for unrestricted expression. It's perfectly fine to say: you were doing some diet Nazi shit, that's awful, fuck off.
I swear to god, every time i hear about conservatives getting upset about gay and trans rights I'm more convinced it's projection. They want to have the freedom to follow their own preferences but have been taught by someone in their family and/or society that certain preferences are completely unacceptable. Rather than go against the grain, they lean into the hate side of it. "If i can't have that, you sure as hell can't--and if you do, you're gonna pay dearly" seems to be the philosophy. All this because they want to explore their sexuality but they decided the social price is too much. Not allowed to have what they crave, now they just scorn those that are brave enough to face the storm they themselves avoided...or they just hate people having freedom. Probably both.
Considering their policy doesn't allow for other stuff like this, yeah I am not surprised.
Content that may be generally construed as provocative, divisive, objectionable, discriminatory, or abusive toward any real-world individual or group, may be subject to moderation. This includes but is not limited to content involving politics, race, religion, gender identity, sexuality, or social class. We tolerate content related to real world issues and events as long as the appropriate tag ("Real World Issues") is used and the content is handled in a tasteful, respectful, and non-inflammatory manner. Users who do not wish to see such content should make use of our content blocking feature.
Reminds me of the time when a Spiderman mod removed the VERY few instances of a pride flag in a recreation of NEW YORK CITY and a Skyrim mod that removed any potential gay romances that only occur when wearing a very specific amulet (including a single dead skeleton couple off the beaten path.)
Those got booted as well cause.....come on now. Its blatantly targeting a group of people about their sexuality and gender who have BARELY any presence to begin with in these games.
Starfield is even more egregious as its LITERALLY just a menu option and the rare use in dialogue....
Really pathetic and sad people would even feel the need to make them to begin with. Let alone feel the need to upload them to a platform.
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.
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.
Of course is Kotaku coming with a whole tempest in a teapot over this.
Kotaku is an absolute joke, but that's not new, they are the laughing stock of game journalism for a reason.
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.
I'm fine with it too!
Nexus Mods has had some controversy in the past but they seem generally solid.
Tbh I don't even know why the option even exists. I have 2 days worth of playtime and not once does it go on about pronouns or anything like that. So to me the menu seems completely pointless. If i can recall i also don't think the NPCs have even referred to me as male or he/him. Maybe Bethesda added it last minute or something to try to appeal to a larger group of people idk. I'm just enjoying my spaceship man.
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.
Even more layers to roleplaying yay.
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.
problem solved
Oh lord what a bunch of cringe. Who fucking cares? About any of this? There's so much awful shit in the world and so many people spending their time worrying about the absolute nothing issues of the world.
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.
Let the people who play the game decide if a mod is worth downloading or not. Stop expecting corporations to manage your head for you.
Rule of thumb - if there are two sides to the issue, but one side is only supported by heartless idiots, and these heartless idiots happen to be identified with the political camp you oppose - then it's a political issue.
Lmao of kotaku defends this shit
What difference does it make to anyone that people are doing this in their own game? It's not like this mod takes the option away for everyone. It doesn't. It only effects their own private game they're playing in their own home.
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.
