“Resurrected to be killed (then maybe born again)”
April 28, 2024 7 Comments
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OK, I admit I thought of the phrase first then found it in a song by a metal group called Protest the Hero.
But this has nothing to do with music, it’s about Boardgamegeek (BGG) shenanigans and it’s bothering me more than perhaps it should.
Some time last November, someone on Boardgamegeek.com started a thread called “The Israel-Hamas war as a wargame” or words to that effect. The OP (original poster) was not posting a trivial or sensationalistic question, their enquiry was how one would seriously explore the problem, and after the initial fluffing and clucking about designing on a current conflict there was actually some sensible back and forth about the merits of trying to address it, then the thread went dormant the following month.
This weekend, after four months of being buried the thread was resurrected (or “necroed” if you prefer) by a one-liner post saying this topic was a travesty and this thread should not exist… this post brought it up on the subdomain where it attracted a melodramatic post by someone else agreeing with the first poster, and stating that if the BGG admins did not delete it then they would delete themselves from BGG. Cue several posts in response by me and others who were on the original thread explaining in what I thought was non-confrontational language what the thread was originally supposed to address, professional gamer relevancy, game-based journalism, etc. and comment on how the war has in the last 4 months moved away from being worthy of ludic consideration like this. I went out to lunch and returned to find that the thread had been entirely deleted.
As I understand it, this is something that I believe only the BGG administrators themselves can do. Moderators on BGG lock threads, usually after one or more warnings. Even if an OP deletes their original question or post the replies to it remain. I’ve been on BGG for 20 years and one week and this is the first time I’ve seen something like this happen to a discussion, as I said normally threads are simply locked when the conversation gets ugly.
This is a pretty minor thing, in the great scheme of things. I’m not going to formally complain to the admins (it wasn’t my thread) nor am I going to engage with the drivers-by. But it bothers me that a drive-by posting on a serious discussion that quietened itself four months ago will get it not just shut down but removed from existence entirely… to assert, in this negative way, that no serious consideration can be, should be, or will be given to the topic. I wonder what was said to the admins?
Anyway, unlike the song the thread won’t be born again. Waste of time and too many keystrokes already.
About brtrain
brtrain 
Hello Brian, Sadly this is not surprising. Instead of rational respectful discussion we get censorship. Old buggers like me are immune to this sort of stuff, there’s really nothing the pitchforkers can do to me.The young’uns can’t speak out, they are afraid of the mob. It does not augur well. Regards, Pete
That’s disappointing to see. Also the first I’ve seen that happen. And there have been many heated discussions in the past.
I certainly did not expect a swift deletion of the thread entirely, with no lock and no warning.
More broadly, in searching the BGG forums for use of the words “Hamas” and “Gaza” I don’t find them in any threads save for one on “the morality of gaming current conflicts” and which was last active in mid February.
Now maybe I am not searching correctly, and the function is not that great to begin with, but I am curious whether there is some kind of general directive or advice from the top of BGG that this particular conflict is not to be discussed in any shape or form because of its very sensitive nature.
Thanks for sharing.
How ridiculous and disappointing.
For some time BGG has sought to avoid real wargame debate which is red in tooth and claw in favour of something else. The BGG State Apparat find this best for those posters they seek to attract. I have concluded it is a place for certain items (updates on designs, reviews without response, and lists) but perhaps not for a discussion. To resist is to rage at the void.
Well yeah, I do have better things to do with my keystrokes but over the last 20 years I have had some worthwhile discussions on BGG, despite BGG being BGG.
Another user on the thread discovered that the user who originally complained and necroed (necro’d?) the thread had never posted in the Wargames forum, has no wargames in their collection and hadn’t posted anything at all for a year.
The other users objecting to the thread were likely responding to the bump but it seems as if the first user had had to purposely look for it.
Anyway, it’s gone, I’m not going to complain – the lesson is clear: their house, their rules, their enforcement, and there are other places to have discussions on topics like this. This could easily have happened on some wargame-related Facebook page … and I think probably has many times, recalling the energetic “no dam’ politics in my antiseptically apolitical wargames!” blare that recurs pretty often.