Hey, cool. Just heard about this, been supporting you guys for the past five years or so. You can write me off as a customer for good now. I don't even consider myself an "MRA" I'm about as politically moderate as you get, but you don't beat bigotry with more bigotry and intolerance - You might as well have just said you don't want blacks purchasing your game. This isn't the company I supported five years ago.

I wish I had more money to spend on your products, but all I can give right now is a note of support. Good for you.

Bugger freedom of speech, some things don't deserve to be aired, and certainly not in a place like this. If you want to stomp your feet and whine about women's rights catching up to men's, go do it somewhere relevant.

I've always thought you could have an interesting discussion about "harmless" topics like RPGs with nearly anyone, no matter what political or ideological views that person holds, but, holy shit, those MRA types are really their own special kind of crazy... So yeah, a good and necessary decision from Posthuman Studios!

I also approve of your measures and commend your boldness in addressing this topic. This decision shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone who has read the faction descriptions in the Core rulebook. For anyone who thinks this is a blanket attack of some kind, I recommend looking at locked threads on relevant topics to see that MRAs are not singled out, poor behavior is. There is a pattern to conduct problems on this forum, and a (not the) source has been identified.

Thank you. This makes me feel good about playing your game and talking it up to others.

This bit is particularly important, I think: No matter how MRAs may like to cloak their beliefs in the language of inclusiveness and equality, they support neither, and instead fulminate against the loss of privilege long afforded one half of society at the cost of another. Those who must attack the idea of another's equality to better preserve their own benefits are not the sort we wish to encourage. They're likely to do more harm than good in their toxic concern trolling and false equivalencies. I haven't visited this forum in quite some time, largely because so many interesting threads got hijacked. Your statement is a welcome one, though I know it must have been a difficult call to make. At the end of the day this is your forum, and if people want to promulgate their MRA views they can do it in their own forum.

TheDarkFiddler wrote:

As such, I no doubt lack a lot of context on this issue. However, as an outsider this seems like a potentially toxic stance to take, and whether or not it's a good one depends on the answer to one question, as far as I can tell. If militant feminists (or any group that claims to be for equality but has extremist fringe members) started to become an issue, would the same happen? Would the same statement be made against feminists? Or, I don't know, members of the LGBT community (I'm sure you know the extreme types that unfortunately can be all to vocal, the "die cis scum" type). Obviously, there are toxic, vocal, and disruptive members of the MRA movement. But there are just as many in other groups that, if you ignore the extremist fringe members, can be a force for equality. I only want to know if, under the circumstances that a similar group committed similar disruptive actions, would they be spoken out against?

From what I've seen here the moderators have been very gentle with differing opinions. But what they've lost patience with is a pattern of abusive, dehumanizing derailing by toxic, vocal, and disruptive members of the MRA movement that has been taking over and which managed to drive off a very good moderator. I don't really doubt that the mods would take a stance against any group that began the same pattern of behavior here.

+1 @-rep

I am someone some consider an MRA, hell, one someone a feminist a few times, however I do not support feminism, I more so support the MRM. I find your statement here to be the fine reason why so many people reject the group you advocate for (feminism), your hypocrisy. You claim to be inclusive, however you claim that those that oppose your ideology are not welcome. How you could not realize this blatant hypocrisy when in your thought process baffles me, however in my experience it is not uncommon and is also the same type of hypocrisy that the MRM and anti-feminists notice a lot from feminists, that is including their stance on equality and their hypocrisy to create more sexism. Basically, what you are doing here is censorship, showing that you are close-minded, and that's a shame. As a supported of MRM and a self-labled anti-feminist, I always listen to the side of feminists regardless of how ignorant, offenssive, or radical they can be, and all I do is expect the same in return, listen to my side. This would result in a trading of perspectives and reach a better understanding of the issues we face in society, however it can't happen if people such as yourself are being close-minded and only accept people like you and think like you. It is a primitive mindset that if held would result in us not having half of what we see today. Yes, there are self proclaimed MRAs that are misogynists, I will never deny that, just as there are self proclaimed feminists that are misandrists. Using that as an excuse to not hear anyone in the groups such people claim to be in support of will result in ignorance, it's an excuse. "Feminism's basic princible: Women are people". This is not exclusively a princible to feminism, this is a princible of common decency, and something you and many other feminists need to comprehend is that you cannot claim things like common decency and "equality" as feminist made concepts or concepts exclusive to feminists. The problem with your statements on why you are feminists is that you do not explain "why" you have those beliefs, as if you close yourself off from discussing the issue. Now, this may not be the case and I hope it isn't, however this is what it appears to show to me. Why do you find the politics of the MRA toxic, offensive, and completely removed from equality? Why? How? I have convinced feminists of how and why they are wrong before with an open mind for them to change my views, too, so I am hoping you are also that type of person that is open to altering your beliefs when presented with information and reasoning feminism does not give you. "We do not appreciate that MRAs are driving other fans away from our forums". How are MRAs doing this? What is causing these people to go away? If they are merely presenting their beliefs as MRAs, then the reason others are leaving is their lack of accepting diversity, other "ideas" and "beliefs" offend them enough to stay around. If that is the case, would your action be the same if it was the case of blacks coming on to this forum and other people on the forum are driven away due to there being blacks? No? Why not? I would only assume it is because diversity should be acceptable, not made to be a villain. If it is the case of assholes spouting hate talk, then that has nothing to do with being an MRA, and not all MRAs will act that way, so you are punishing an entire group for the actions of a few in that group. Would you support gaming coming to an end simply because a certain amount of gamers were assholes online? No. So why do the same in this situation with MRAs? "We want the Eclipse Phase community to be one that is inclusive of all viewpoints" You can't be inclusive of all view points while censoring people that deviate from your beliefs and telling them to get out. That is not how being inclusive works, it is hypocrisy. By banning a group that deviates from your views you are the opposite of inclusive, you're being exclusive. If your view, as a feminist, of being inclusive is being exclusive of those that deviate from you, then how can you expect others to believe that your group is for the things you claim to be when you cannot comprehend when you are the opposite or doing the opposite of what you claim to be promoting? The existence of the MRM is to help men and boys in terms of equality. Feminism is part of the problem that is harming boys and men, and if feminism is about boys and men aswell as men, then the group that is about boys and men will have involvement with that group if what that group is doing is harmful. You cannot attack the MRM for opposing feminism when feminists have broken laws and human rights to create problems for the MRM, in order to prevent the MRM from their goals. Ofcourse, I am speaking of the case of the Warren Farrel speech for boys and men where women and men were welcome which was on issues such as male suicide, in which feminists broke laws and human rights to prevent the speech from happining or from people attending. You cannot expect one group to look kindly upon another group that prevents helping half of the population while expecting people to think that group preventing help for that half of the population is equally helping them. You say you are looking forward, to the future, but sadly your future is humanity's past in the process of being open-minded and accepting opposing beliefs, to engage with such people to reach a better understanding of issues like a civilized society. "No matter how MRAs may like to cloak their beliefs in the language of inclusiveness and equality, they support neither" You believe that being inclusive is excluding people that deviate from your beliefs, then you expect me to look upon your criticism of groups you claim are exclusive with legitimacy? Your credibility on this part is at the zero mark, so the only thing you could do in this case is to prove your point with reason. Your speech of privilege is something I do not agree with, and here's why. The group you claim is of the privilege class are the ones that: - Can, to this day, still be drafted (forced to fight, kill, and die against their will). - Make almost half, if not half of the domestiv ciolence victim statistics. Men are also 80% less likely to come forward about their abuse, so if men are almost half or half in terms of victims and yet men are very much less likely to come forward, yet still make 50% or a little less of the victims that have come forward, you could assume men make the majority of D.V victims. The part on privilege is that despite this, less than 10% of shelters are for men. - Male genital mutilation is still common practice (legal). - Males gain more prison time for the same crimes under the same circumstances as women. The list goes on and on, and yet none of these issues are eing fought by feminists, none of these "systematic" issues of discrimination are being fought against by feminists, things like calling women a cunt, or calling women bossy is more important. So when you claim feminism is for equality, or that men are a privileged class, then I simply have to ask for your proof on this, because the statistics and issues men face indicate otherwise. "Those who must attack the idea of another's equality to better preserve their own benefits are not the sort we wish to encourage." This is my problem with your idea of equality as a feminist...You don't or simply cannot grasp the concept of equality. You are claiming to be for equality all while doing the same as the thing you are opposing here; being exclusive. You haven't grasped that by being exclusive of an entire group for some in that group being exclusive, that you are being equally wrong. You cannot grasp that you are being equally wrong, otherwise you could realize you were being wrong in your actions. This is why people do not support the feminist idea of equality, because when you are being equally bigoted, you don't see it as being equally bigoted, you can't make that connection that your actions are the same, and then you expect people to be behind such a group that cannot even understand equality, what it is? "Here's our stance: If you self-define as an MRA, please fire yourself as an Eclipse Phase fan. We don't want you. We want our forums to be open and inclusive, and we don't see the point of debating with you anymore. You have other places on the internet where you can wallow in the awfulness of your male privilege." "We are a very inclusive forum! So if you deviate from what we accept, then we don't want you here!" ...I have no words...If you cannot understand your hypocrisy when it is that blatant, I don't believe you ever will. "While we will not be actively rooting you out, be forewarned that spouting offensive MRA bullshit will get you banned from our forums." "We are inclusive, but if you spout anything that deviates from what we believe, we will censor you and make you leave". ... ... ... ... You really can't pick up on it, can you? The reason why feminism is rejected is because of things like this, friend, and your complete incapability to see it. You claim such people are privileged all while using privilege of admins to silence opposing views. Does your view that feminism is allowed to freely speak about their beliefs while MRAs are banned for it not show that you are giving feminists a privilege and refusing men that same privilege (which is again, would be opposing the idea of equal treatment)? Now, I'm no fool, I know this will most likely get deleted, it's a common thing for feminists to censor those they do not agree with or people they can't refute, however given I just recently found one feminist that was actually open-minded and would not use censorship to silence people who are able to reasonable argue against them, so I am hoping you are like she was, the type of feminism that people can get behind, but if not you only serve as part of the reason why feminism is opposed so widely. You'd be part of the problem. Thanks.

LatwPIAT, I am open to being convinced. Please show me where feminists have tackled or attempted to tackle these issues as a movement and taken action to oppose these things, otherwise my criticism holds. Thank you.

*tips hat to OTP* Got it in one. ;) In this case - you can absolutely fight against things that are harmful to human beings without a deep-dive into harming other humans to do so.

@ SpikedYum The overall experience these forums have had with MRAs have been very much bigoted and toxic. If there any tolerant MRAs out there, I don't think we have seen them (I don't always hang around, so I can't be sure). The problems caused by these people has been sufficient to drive away a moderator, and get the game developers to tell the MRA folk to go away (as they are doing now). Quite bluntly, they go about talking about rights, respect, hypocrisy, and so forth while they beat people with them. We haven't had anywhere near these kinds of problems from feminists. I think that should speak volumes on this matter. P.S. Please don't write such long posts. I don't think it adds much (especially if people don't want to read something that long). In fact I suspect it is being used as a tactic to make us not read what you are saying, so you can accuse us of not reading your post.

I also agree with many points the MRA movement makes. I also agree with a lot that is said by the NRx crowd. I hold stock in multiple companies that profited from the holocaust. I eat a diet that's killed more people this century than lead paint. That doesn't mean I self-identify as any of those things. They are not core concepts in my library of self. I don't wake up and think, "Female progress is what's keeping me down, if only I could make unidirectional sexism acceptable somehow..." I also don't wake up and think, "The Nazis did a lot of good things, if only we could reproduce that without the death camps..." But self-identifying folk have, and do, and post it here, and say it's other forumites' fault. Do you think a group of human beings should be treated as less human than another group? Do you define some groups of humans as not human? No? Good. Welcome. To me that's all that matters.

If the MRAs you see are very bigoted and toxic, then I understand if those MRAs displaying such vulgar attitudes to face the concequences, however that depends on if what an MRA is actually toxic and bigoted rather than the opinion that it is bigoted and toxic due to opposing the group. If they are merely discussing their beliefs in a way that is not misogynist (hatred of women, not hatred of feminism), then I do not agree with those people being banned. As I said myself, some consider myself an MRA, the only thing holding me back from claiming that title is that I have not acted as an activity in protests, etc. So, for the most part, I am an MRA and I do not feel I am being intolerant at all. There are many tolerant MRAs out there, yes there are a bad ones, but the primary people in the movement are nothing like the MRAs feminists like to describe, which you can see by watching people such as GirlWritesWhat, VictorZen, and so on. Hell, the MRM took $4000+ out of their own pocket to put towards reward money to find the attacker of a feminist that was attacked near the time she was protesting the MRM, if that's not telling I do not know what is. Ofcourse, they also asked feminists to put some money in the pot for the reward money to finding the person but no contributions were made (Yet Anita Sarkeesian can get the amount she was by coning people to release terribly researched content, but not the safety of their own members, yet MRM can put money towards looking out for the safety of not only their supporters but their opposers). If you haven't seen them, then I don't think you have looked hard enough, friend. You'd be surprised how many people bash the hell out of someone for misogyny in the movement. Those MRAs represent themselves and those that allow their representation, they do not represent the movement or others in the movement, so to push away everyone in that group due to a few of the bad ones is either stupidity (failing to understand what I said about representation) or are using this to limit the people that do not agree with them from a gaming pleasure. "Quite bluntly, they go about talking about rights, respect, hypocrisy, and so forth while they beat people with them." I haven't, nor has the other person that may be a potential MRA above. You're talking about a few in a large group of people. Should feminism be banned from voicing their opinion as a whole because of their bad apples? Ofcourse not, in any area not just this area, so why can't the same courtesy be given to MRAs? Why are they not entitled to equal treatment? "We haven't had anywhere near these kinds of problems from feminists." Well, that completely depends on why the MRAs done what they done in the first place. Seeing this post I am not off to the possibility that something incredibly deconstructive was stated that riled them up enough to make them do what they done. I am not condoning their actions or opposing them, as I have no idea on what caused their reaction, I would need to know the action their reaction was towards.

The self-stated core tenets of the Men's Rights Movement are that men are systematically disadvantaged and deserve compensation, and that society has been feminized and feminization is detrimental. The activist part includes engaging anyone who dissents with aggressive win-by-any-means tactics, frequently picked up from the PUA sphere. Is it really difficult to understand how this could cause a problem and why it would make a group unwelcome?

You're linking articles about how MRA is bad .. but those articles are from feminist sites? I can easily link you many articles about how feminism is bad from MRA sites. Non-biased sources please :) IMO feminists can be bad people who don't care about equality. MRAs can also be bad people who don't care about equality. In reality if all feminists cared about actual equality there would be no need for MRA. I wish this were the case. I've been ejected from the feminist community for speaking up about legitimate gender issues that impact men. Many MRAs have. There are feminists who are bigots. There are MRAs who are bigots. If you ban something on this forum, please ban bigotry instead of equality. OT: Religion has caused much strife in the world, why not ban those who follow religion on your forum? Because they aren't all the same. Everyone has biases. Ban bigots not movements.

I urge you to reconsider. (Also, ew, red font? Ouch.)

Thanks Kindalas. Duly noted and moving on. "While we will not be actively rooting you out, be forewarned that spouting offensive MRA bullshit will get you banned from our forums." This is the crux of my support for the policy. If past warnings are any indication of future moderation, then this announcement won't even matter. "Don't be a jerk or put down other people" is already in place. EDIT: Not that my support is of particular importance, but it's there. Posthuman Studios continues to be a company that I'm as excited to tell people about as the games you make.

Eo adding to the mix. As clearing stated in the opening post, and as free will dictates, no one needs to declare. I am not going to declare what I am and any such assumptions are wrong until proven otherwise.

Quote:

If you self-define as an MRA, please fire yourself as an Eclipse Phase fan. We don't want you. We want our forums to be open and inclusive, and we don't see the point of debating with you anymore.

Simply said and marked as such, and reinforced by additional posts. There is no need to purposefully cause an issue just because your ideals or thoughts have you believe that they right and the only option. If your ideals don't force you to think you are entirely right then you are able to keep your opinions to yourself.

I was going to break my rule of wading into an argument on the internets but really, I've been good for several years now. If anyone wants to take this up, I can't speak for the other Posthumans but find me at Gencon or somewhere else in person and I'd be happy to have a civil discussion face to face about our decision, how it fits into my beliefs (again can't speak for the others), and anything else related to this. But I do too much of this in my day job to be doing it online where it's an endless well and half the time it's not at all clear that all the parties are arguing in good faith and not just being trollish. For me it's about creating the kind of community we want here, but also being able to stand up and do the right thing and not just talk about it. As Rob has pointed out, this was not a sudden reaction on our part to recent events, this has been a long time coming and in response to our attempts to find other, more equitable solutions.

I Support the decision as posted in this thread.

A move I fully support.