Avoiding drama, but also moderation?

[Malta1978]

I have had some really bad experiences here on BGA with players from a particular country. The flag of the particular country - and another, which is closely connected to it - cause me a great deal of pain. It brings up bad memories of games that have been ruined by people basically trying to affect others at the table with political propaganda and similar behaviour (I have reported at least one such incident). It is also hard for me to keep thoughts about what is going on in the world away when these flags are present. I have played games with players that are from that country, but have chosen to use a different flag for their profile (about as far as a citizen can go in protesting that country's behaviour without endangering youself, I guess...) without problems.

Sadly, it leads to moderation that I explain I have a problem with the flag, even though I feel that is appropriate to let people know why they are removed from tables I host, so they are aware it's not *them* I see as the problem. Even this can apparently "insult" people and lead to moderation. It doesn't seem like there's an understanding among the moderators that some people might not be interested in having a significant risk of gaming tables being "hijacked" for a totally different purpose and that this is a significant risk at the moment. I'm perfectly aware the individual can't do much in a dictatorship. But I want to enjoy the games I play, not spend every second worrying about if or when the drama will begin.

There is no way to ask for advice/guidance when you get moderated, so I will try asking here. I hope it isn't perceived as "challenging a moderation" as that is not my intention here. I'd like to avoid being moderated in the first place. Is there a better way of dealing with this? It doesn't seem like the site offers any option to limit access in a way that doesn't exclude many others too.

[RicardoRix]

you could try and use custom css to stop displaying flags.

https://boardgamearena.com/preferences?section=advanced

Code: Select all

.bga-flag { display: none; }

[Meeplelowda]

Sadly, it leads to moderation that I explain I have a problem with the flag, even though I feel that is appropriate to let people know why they are removed from tables I host, so they are aware it's not *them* I see as the problem. Even this can apparently "insult" people and lead to moderation.

So you have identified what is getting you moderated. Great.

Is there a better way of dealing with this?

Yes. Stop doing the thing that's getting you moderated.

You can expel someone from a table for any reason whatsoever and don't need to explain it. So take some time for self-reflection and ask yourself why it really is you just have to tell people why you are removing them from the table. Is it really just so they know "it's not you, it's me," or are you actually hoping for them to change their behavior by, for example, removing their flag? If you really have no deeper motivation, then you should have no problem simply using the fix RicardoRix gave you and you won't have to see their offensive flag again.

[JoysJoy]

You already have an entire paragraph on your profile talking about this, if they care to look. You don’t need to do more.

I do find it suspicious that your icon looks a lot like the Denmark flag, yet you still complain about others doing the same thing: displaying the idea of their flags

And I truly don’t understand what you mean by someone being able to “convert you “by showing their flag. You can’t be converted into a Russian or a Chinese. You either are or you aren’t a citizen of that country. I have never had anybody ever ever ever put anything religious in any chat to try to convert me to their beliefs. And I have played well over 6000 games here just like you. I would imagine if it was a big problem on this website. I would’ve run into it at least once by now.

But either way this is your problem, not theirs. I don’t think this is a rational reason to kick somebody out of a game. And that would be why it would upset other people. People don’t like being discriminated against. It makes no sense to some people.

However, you figured out to not let them play games with you to fix it on your side. That fixes it for you and not speaking to the other people about it makes it a little step less worse for them.

What else can you do?
1) Add a red thumbs down to those that you boot. So that you don’t have to click them out again. No conundrum in yourself anymore about not telling.
2) Start friending people that you do want to play with so you don’t have to go through so many random people every time you want a game. Pre-choose your players rather than asking for random people to play
3) Create your own interest group. You could call it the “no flags allowed” group and only those without flags as icons can play in your group. Maybe you aren’t alone? (but you would have to change your own icon to fit into your own group at that point)
4) Add the extension that lets you block all chat. Then you don’t have to worry about whoever you’re playing trying to “convert you “ (I still don’t understand what you mean by that comment). I think this extension causes all kinds of other troubles for people, but at least you wouldn’t have the problem of what anybody says in the chat causing you mental anguish.

But I think this is a valuable explanation for the many many other threads where people say ‘why am I just kicked out of games? Why would anybody do that to somebody else? I don’t understand why this is happening to me?’

Now we know that sometimes it is simply a personal, emotional issue on the side of the person kicking people out. That they have something going on in their own heads that they attach randomly to other people based on symbols or thoughts and feelings at the moment.

it both is and isn’t personal against other players when you do it. I hope I can remember to find this thread for the next time we get yet another question here about where someone asks why they have been randomly kicked out at the start of a game.

[JoysJoy]

Just opened up my next game to play and realize that BGA always puts the flag of the country that someone is in next to their icon for every game. Is this the flag you were talking about? Or do you mean that symbol that people use to represent themselves, the thing I am calling the icon?

Nobody can stop the flag of their country from being next to their name when they play a game. You would be best off creating or finding a playgroup for people that do not come from those countries if you need to avoid seeing that flag. I don’t think there is any other way to get away from that as it is a BGA standard

[JohnnyCyclops]

Someone actively choosing to use a national flag (Malta) for their profile picture is not on strong ground to then complain that BGA imposes flag icons against all players, whether or not those players desire to have a flag associated with them.

[Jellby]

A flag does not indicate endorsement of any government's actions. A flag in BGA only indicates, as long as users are "honest", the location of a player, which may be relevant for (informal) timezone matching or cultural references (e.g. in games that may use them like Just One). It does not indicate citizenship, or language, or political standing. Moreover, since not all users are "honest" (myself included, to be honest ), it does not even mean that, so a flag actually means nothing.

[Meeplelowda]

Nobody can stop the flag of their country from being next to their name when they play a game.

They actually can by setting their country to "unknown" (or any other country for that matter) using the Your Country setting in the My Profile tab of Preferences. How that gets initially set I don't know, but it can definitely be changed. But your other points are still valid and it shouldn't matter whether someone can change their flag.

As an aside, a fascinating thing is that in the replay of a game the flag shown will be based on what it was at the time you played that particular game, but in games you're actively playing (at least turn-based games) it will dynamically change with the setting.

For example, here's a turn-based game I'm in where the flag is changed to the "unknown" blue and white flag: https://boardgamearena.com/10/orleans?table=594028580

But here is an archived game where it is set to USA: https://boardgamearena.com/archive/repl ... s=85477595; (I chose a game I lost to avoid accusations of humble bragging )

I guess making this static avoids a database query for that info every time someone views a replay?

[Kayvon]

Using CSS to hide all flags would be a perfect solution for you. It avoids drama and lets everyone enjoy the game.

I just can't handle playing with such flags present. Please respect that and don't bother trying to convert me. I believe in boring things like science, facts and honesty and that's not going to change.

Might I suggest that you could avoid drama by not insulting people who honestly feel differently than you? Even people with other opinions still believe in science, still believe in facts, and are honest. Assuming evil motives invites drama and arguments.

[Silene]

Nobody can stop the flag of their country from being next to their name when they play a game.

They actually can by setting their country to "unknown" (or any other country for that matter) using the Your Country setting in the My Profile tab of Preferences. How that gets initially set I don't know, but it can definitely be changed. But your other points are still valid and it shouldn't matter whether someone can change their flag.

I tried to set my country to unknown. But it doesn't stick. Whenever I log off for any reason (like deleting cookies etc.), and re-login, my country is set back to germany. So please be aware that not everyone having their flag shown, does so voluntarily.