From the Foundation board


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:warning: Make especially sure to not break Code of Conduct while discussing this heated topic. :warning: Use it to answer confusions and share your thoughts amongst other community members. Do not use it to share complaints with the Foundation, especially about individuals - for that, you have to email :email: conduct@godotengine.org :email:. We will moderate this channel accordingly.

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So there cannot be general discussion about godot management? Official annoucements can’t be challenged?

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Reposting what I’ve said before in a now locked & hidden thread:

IMO there are some serious management changes needed. Reconsider the way the CoC team is setup if they don’t respond to anything anyway. Get a proper Community Manager with actual management or PR experience. Define proper moderation rules and get a Lead Moderator in place for every moderation team.

Any random small Minecraft server has its own moderation team hierarchy setup with people you can always contact directly about moderation concerns. But a community driven project of this size doesn’t?

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Ahh, post not approved, nor will this one be likely.

Glad to know there’s some moderator on the other end reading these and deciding what to hide from public view.

It must be powerful to proclaim that this is a free space to openly discuss the situation when you get to control what’s actually being said.

Under the guise that you’re “protecting the community”.

News flash: We’re the community.

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Moderation can improve but I don’t think the changes have to be as drastic as you mention here. The management in place can improve and go on. Instead of demonizing moderators or anyone else, we can all do better as a community.

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Context is important. Its not about Godot’s support of minorities or LGBTQ. We get that, there are no people standing against that as a general principle that are worth listening to.

The Community Manager self labeled Godot as a woke product. Woke and supporting LGBTQ rights and/or minorities are on opposite side of the room, although you have your twitter trolls labeling anything as woke for clicks and views.

It gets those clicks and views because its a negative pejorative. It represents a group of people who believe that one group of people is better than others, and that group needs to be taken down by blocking them out in the name of inclusiveness.

This is a difficult and nuanced political topic to navigate if you are going to take it seriously, which most do not and just use it to trade insults on Twitter and other social media.

The correct response was what most responses to the Godot Tweet were. Stop being political. The Godot twitter account violated Godot’s code of conduct by doing this attention seeking behavior, posting political rage bait.

But those people were banned, and some were backers and another were quoting Godot’s original creator that expressed this very sentiment. Some were trolls but this is the internet.

This conduct expressed very vividly how ‘woke’ at least the community manager is. The ideology does not tolerate questioning the ideology, you are with us or against us. A level of morality that is childish, the world is full of grey areas, not this binary view.

The official resposne by Godot is to gaslight the community that the fan discord they do support isn’t their’s. Godot links to Godot Cafe in their relevant social links.

With this, they also didn’t unban anyone then re-ban any actual offenders during this time period. Yes, they should be banning the trolls and instigators, but the ban wave had much more than that and if they were to put actions behind their apology it would be blanket unbanning for the time period and individual review.

Of course, forcing people to ask to be unbanned for their own bad actions saves them money on the time for an analyst to work 1 shift reading the posts. But it costs them PR.

My conclusion is simple, Godot pushed politics and doubled down by that with the ban wave then tripled down with an empty apology and defenders of these actions are just reciting the woke talking points woke is known for, which is ‘If you aren’t with us, you must be against everything we stand for.’

If Godot expect support from hobbyists like me who just mess with it on their free time, actions like this that actually pull me into the community just to get my negative impression of Godot’s actions is not the way to do it.

They could fix this by publicly stating that it was wrong to push politics, that Godot supports minorities LGBTQ rights, etc and will continue to do so but is not in the business of activist clickbaiting and will refrain from doing so in the future.

They dont need to fire anyone, but leadership needs to make it clear that this sort of thing is not okay. Post your pride flags and support black history month like every other company and move on. There are more important things to do, like making your games better that can express your views in a way that entertains and reaches a wide audience.

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The majority of you guys wouldn’t freak out over political statements that you agree with. There’s no problem with Godot making a political statement. I’m glad they show their compassion and support for LGBTQ+.

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You’re creating a false binary here. The issue isn’t whether people agree or disagree with specific political statements; it’s that many want the focus to stay on the software and development, not politics - regardless of the position.

Oversimplifying it as people being intolerant misrepresents valid concerns about keeping the community space neutral and focused on it’s purpose.

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The most fundamental problem is political statements.

What’s the point of this thread then?

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The only people who are focused on politics are you guys who continue to complain about it.

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Genuinely, I agree with you. All of your arguments are solid. Reasonable discussion should be the goal. When people use strawman tactics, it’s counterproductive. Your perspective remains clear throughout. None of these diversionary tactics help the conversation.

It’s important to stick to the core issues. Sometimes it’s best to call out poor debate tactics.

Anyone who avoids genuine engagement loses credibility.

But we should continue working towards understanding. Opposing views can still lead to meaningful discussion. One must avoid tactics that misrepresent. That’s the only way to ensure honest dialogue.

Look, we both know strawman arguments only derail progress. I agree that focusing on the facts is key. Critical thinking should be the foundation of any debate. Keeping arguments fair and clear is crucial. Engaging respectfully will always yield better results. Reason should always guide our conversations.

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That’s not useful to the dicussion unless you want to call out someone specific for being a hypocrite, and I am not here for that.

Argue the topic on its merits. It would be just as bad as coming out as pro-woke, as if Godot came out as pro-life or even pro-maga.

It is different from generic political stances that are relevant to Godot’s industry like the environment in some computing context, freedom of speech, copyright and patents, generative AI, or other subjects that would affect Godot’s business.

Being pro LGBTQ/minorities is expected and presumed, being woke is political.

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I would not have though that my following post was worthy of banning seeing as it was mainly about a series of logo’s that a user had made. But I was very concerned about Godot’s future. Not totally surprised though.

“This logo looks great! I am pretty new to Godot so not really attached to the logo they are currently using. This one looks a lot more professional. However, at the moment I am worried about the future of Godot with all the happenings going on at the moment. With the foundation banning “funding” members of the project, I am worried that it won’t survive and I’ll need to go back to Unity - again!”

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Godot, you really need to tread carefully. As far as my, and I’m assuming most individuals, experience with this controversy started with your tweet.

  • Your CM brought an off-topic and frankly unprofessional topic to the forefront of everyone’s feeds.

  • Bringing up a moderator whom can’t be directly linked to your first/original tweet just adds more fuel to this fire.

  • The usage of the word “unexpectedly” is either a lie or supremely naive. Anyone who reads the original tweet can absolutely detect that it would lead to a wave of harassment.

  • To embrace FOSS, you need to let the community sort out the bad apples. Yes remove spam and harrassment. But if the foundation themselves bring up something off-topic they should not remove comments or ban individuals that are following the topic, regardless of side.

As a personal note, it saddens me that now when I bring up Godot to friends they will learn about this and think my usage of the engine is a political statement. Please just focus on improving the engine, open communication, and your currently tarnished image.

Stay far away from anything political and especially do not introduce political topics. It detracts everyone from the Godot project.

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Welp

Back to Unity I go…

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Man, I am so hoping that I don’t have to do the same :worried:.

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I made a promise to myself. If I decided to go with godot, I would fork the code and pretend the management never existed.

None of this surprises me.

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It’s depressing. Godot has been a huge part of my life the last few months, and this controversy is so ugly. It’s bringing the worst out of prominent members of the community. Well, and many others.

The division over social issues in this day and age leaves nothing unspoiled it seems.

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You guys are making a mountain out of a molehill. For people who complain about politics so much, that’s all you’ve been focused on. Time to move on. There’s nothing stopping you from staying with Godot. Work on your games. Be productive.

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