I have decided to post this complaint here because i'm concerned about the direction that chat moderation is headed, following my experience today.

I joined the channel today, and responded to some comments on the chat channel regarding OOP. Certain individuals immediately jumped on me, telling me I was wrong and OOP is 'crap'. I was quickly told that If i didn't stop talking that they would do it for me. I believe those individual have been given moderator privileges. Within 5 minutes I was banned. People started accusing me of insulting them, I made it clear that i wasn't insulting anybody. Accusing somebody of fascism, is not an insult, and I didn't say that any individual was a fascist, although I maintain that the oppression i felt today comes from fascist power. Fascism is simply a style of government/moderation where certain powerful individuals control and suppress others. I mentioned that there were fascists in chat, yes, and by the looks of it I was right, because hey, i WAS shut up and wasn't allowed to talk because somebody didn't like what i was saying (that OOP is a good tool). I will try to get a copy of the chat transcript to talk about the particulars if necessary.

If i look up fascist i see ..
a. A system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator, a capitalist economy subject to stringent governmental controls, violent suppression of the opposition, and typically a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism.
b. A political philosophy or movement based on or advocating such a system of government.
2. Oppressive, dictatorial control.

I particularly feel that 2. applied to the HH chat channel today. That certain individuals didn't want me to speak because they don't like OOP, and they are not going to let anyone talk about it for that reason. I notice a lot of other topics being talked about too, and they are not being censored. It seems to me that the chat is being controlled very forcefully by certain individuals.

I have bought Handmade Hero and I love the project, but I was really put off today by the treatment I received in chat. I have a right to speak about the game, about code and about the surrounding topics. I have a right to respond to other comments. I have a right to say "OOP is a valid paradigm". I have a right not to have my free-speech threatened. I was threatened today, and that threat was realized.

Casey, I won't tolerate being banned from a channel because i want to talk about OOP. I'll leave the discussion to this thread for now, but if I'm banned again, I will file a formal complaint to Twitch about the chat channel.

Thank you.

Edit : And please lift the 'permanent ban'

[strike]Please post the chat log where this happened.[/strike]

Found it with ReChat (cleaned up by removing irrelevant stuff). Note that this was happening during a stream.

deadstackrisesagain: how can you fail oop design, do you know understand the universe you live in ?
drive137: deadstackrisesagain, oop does nothing but clutter and complicate things, end of discussion,
deadstackrisesagain: BS
deadstackrisesagain: OOP is a better way to build projects.
grizzly_ninja: better in what respect?
abnercoimbre: no, it's not. deadstackrisesagain
deadstackrisesagain: @Abnercoimbre You're in denial.
drive137 Warns that the OOP fight needs to end until the end of the stream then it can continue
abnercoimbre: deadstackrisesagain: sure.
miblo: deadstackrisesagain: Abner knows his stuff.
deadstackrisesagain: He may know his stuff (in some regard) but to write off OOP is being overly opinioinated and dismissive of foundational principles.
abnercoimbre: !compression deadstackrisesagain
hmh_bot: @deadstackrisesagain: Casey programs using an approach which he often calls Compression Oriented Programming, in which he will code things in the most straightforward way first, and only loft up common functionality into higher level structures as it becomes apparent that it is necessary. You can read more about the approach here: http://goo.gl/rVgCHI
abnercoimbre: !cleancode deadstackrisesagain
hmh_bot: @deadstackrisesagain: 'Clean Code' can at times be misleading or dogmatic. See http://goo.gl/N4AJdu or http://goo.gl/xqUMK0
shadowrelic: ooh foundational principles, those sound tasty
abnercoimbre: deadstackrisesagain: http://www.abnercoimbre.com/blog and check out the programming resources there.
drive137: deadstackrisesagain, hes a rocket engineer ya no stop the yelling about oop till after the stream
abnercoimbre: After you've read these things, and only if you have equally-compelling arguments, I'll listen.
deadstackrisesagain: no, just because this is HH, doesn't mean OOP is off-topic.
deadstackrisesagain: I see OOP throughout HH
drive137: deadstackrisesagain, no you don't, you see compression oriented, you see collections which are used in oop thats it. but end it or I will end it for you until the ned of the stream
starchypancakes: @Deadstackrisesagain Actually, being mods, whatever is on and off topic is completely up to them
abnercoimbre: deadstackrisesagain: We gave you some interesting reading material that's worth at least a check. We also get hundreds of people supporting OOP with little backing. So forgive our rash reactions, but be understanding and give "our stuff" a chance.
drive137: starchypancakes, agreed, I don't mind the disccusion but its not related to whats going on currently so it can be done after the stream if it wants to continue.
drive137: since its more of a arguement
shadowrelic: or before the stream :P
abnercoimbre: deadstackrisesagain: In the mean time, we're done.
deadstackrisesagain: Our stuff ? I'm here to see HH, and im reacting to the stream.
deadstackrisesagain: you would threaten me ?
deadstackrisesagain: this is a public stream.
friskyy87: sigh, obvious troll is obvious =\
starchypancakes: @Deadstackrisesagain nah this is twitches stream
deadstackrisesagain: Moderated by facists by the looks of it.
deadstackrisesagain: ** don't mention OOP or we'll shut your mouth for you **
deadstackrisesagain: That's the message im getting
friskyy87: @DeadStackRisesAgain, "don't mention OOP or we'll kindly request you ask after the stream during the QA"
deadstackrisesagain: Hangon... so what about all the other banter ?
garlandobloom: deadstackrisesagain The issue is that we have had this discussion like 100+ times already.
bgamerl0l: yeah the OOP discussion is tired.
abnercoimbre: deadstackrisesagain: I said forgive our rash reactions because OOP is ALWAYS an all-out war, when we rather focus the chat towards the current stream.
ezyfool: dead: grow up and actually read what people are saying. that fact you seem attached to one particular methodology shows you have precious little experience from which to draw.
drive137: deadstackrisesagain, corner until you stop insulting us. the agruement is fine and I feel we can have that agruement as adults but yelling about it does nothing but show no mannerism. you need to look at it from multiple sides and understand the other methods to say which is best or not good. so after the stream we can continue until then lets drop the agrueing.
friskyy87: i hope you mods are aware you're arguing with a troll
abnercoimbre: And we provide you with counter-arguments that Casey himself endorses, deadstackrisesagain
abnercoimbre: and you call us fascists
deadstackrisesagain: Drive ... back off mate
abnercoimbre: so you are, as Casey has allowed us, banned until the Q&A, and if you have an issue, take it up with him.
drive137: protongaming, we don't need more oop talk, hes timedout for 40min so no need

Afaik fascism is used only in political or government sense. So in this context you are clearly insulting them. Moderators simply asked to postpone this discussion after stream (or before). Stream on time is not about ranting. We had already so many streams before with rants about best editor, best programming language, best XYZ stuff. That's why you were banned for 40min.

I don't see place where you "made it clear that i wasn't insulting anybody". I see that you clearly said that all moderators are fascists.

And who exactly is threatening your free-speech? Freedom is speech is not about allowing to speak whatever you want whenever and wherever. You have always an option to say whatever you want on your own time/place/blog/watever. But insulting anybody or not listening to what mods say (postpone specific discussions after stream) on-stream will lead to ban. It's not a difficult concept to understand.

I'm sorry to hear that you got banned and I hope they unban for the next show. To be fair, I been a regular in the chat and the ops there are really cool but when it comes to time for the stream, the chat gets crazy due to it being pushed on the front page so the mod get annoyed with all of the same question being asked and all the trolls coming in and just starting topics like this. Sometimes it's hard to tell whos trolling and who serious and sometimes they push the wrong button to ban the wrong person. It's just crazy.
Besides, these topics of "blah isn't good" is a really senstive topic to some of those. It really get me fired up when I talk about these things, esp when I remember an bad experience that went with that experience and it's hard to ignore it. The problem is, there no "right" solution when these topics come up..err at least I haven't found a way to have say "blah sucks" and not have to go into an emotion flame. What can I say it's hard from both sides, but I guess we all have opinons and if we didn't then we would be just boring.

Well, I said 'Moderated by fascists by the looks of it.' - that was just my observation, when I'm being told to shut up about a topic because somebody doesn't agree with me, or else I'll be made to shut up. That's kind of aggressive. It was an off-hand remark and if you're carrying the big stick, you shouldn't be insulted when someone calls you out for using your big stick or making threats to use it. I never intended that anybody be insulted.

And besides, that's not the main issue here, nor is it the reason i was banned AFAIK. I think I was banned because i responded to somebody else's comment about OOP ("oop does nothing but clutter and complicate things, end of discussion"). If the leaders/moderators had have just left the topic alone, it would have been done in 30 seconds. Or else if the discussion did continue, then clearly there are new people or people who don't frequent the chat, such as myself that ARE willing to discuss it.

drive137 says "deadstackrisesagain, corner until you stop insulting us." - Even if it's accepted that I was insulting with my remark about the moderators. I don't see how I was continuing to insult any person in particular, nor a group? Meanwhile I'm copping it in stream ...
friskyy87: sigh, obvious troll is obvious =\
friskyy87: i hope you mods are aware you're arguing with a troll

Did frisky get banned too ? Just saying .. wouldn't want him to be banned, because I understand that some people think that people taking a stance can look like trolls. But I'm not a troll, I was sincerely shocked by an educational IT stream telling me I can't talk about OOP... a lot of people wouldn't believe it.

I take it from the comments below, that it was abnercoimbre that banned me? Not sure, would just like to establish a fact :
abnercoimbre: and you call us fascists
abnercoimbre: so you are, as Casey has allowed us, banned until the Q&A, and if you have an issue, take it up with him.
drive137: protongaming, we don't need more oop talk, hes timedout for 40min so no need

I guess the exact reason for the ban isn't actually clear, perhaps the person who banned me can decide upon a reason, and put it up.

You know, banning someone is a real slap in the face, and there is so much chatter in the stream, it's hard to accept that my responding to someone writing off OOP constitutes any kind of offense. And when I read the chat log, I'm not really pushing any particular issue here. There are about 5 people responding to me, that make up most of the log. And who know's which ones are moderators ...

And yes, I will take a look at some of the material you guys linked too. We are all (or mostly) here to make games after all.

Thanks C0D3 .. it was really upsetting for me at the time, It's good to hear that I'm not the only one who finds this all quite confrontational.

I do understand that they are trying to keep the chat alive with rich/relevant chat. But it wasn't me that made the strong anti-OOP comment. I was just reacting to that ... there I go again, trying to defend myself.

I think I was banned because i responded to somebody else's comment about OOP

No, you get banned because you kept "rant" topic during stream. drive137 told you right in the beginning:

Warns that the OOP fight needs to end until the end of the stream then it can continue

It's right there - "then it can continue". He asked you only to stop this OOP talk only during the live stream.

If the leaders/moderators had have just left the topic alone, it would have been done in 30 seconds

Yeah, that's a good life moto. Blame others. What if you have just left the topic alone? What would then happen? As far as I can see, only you kept topic alive.

Or else if the discussion did continue, ...

What discussion? :) Discussion was only you ranting about OOP and everybody else disagreeing with you.

perhaps the person who banned me can decide upon a reason, and put it up.

Yes, that's a good point. If mods don't see this topic, I'll bring this up in chat whenever I'll be there.

You know, banning someone is a real slap in the face, ...

So is ignoring message from mods to keep topic off live stream.

Well, I said 'Moderated by fascists by the looks of it.' - that was just my observation,

Sure and their observation was that you insulted them. I don't know if you are a regular viewer, but the amount of spam that stream gets is a lot. And mods are doing their work completely for free. So I hope you understand how it looks to them when somebody on chat says they are fascists...

Lol, I always love these "I thought this was America" ban complaints. Especially from people who act like dicks.

Especially the "I thought this was a public place" stuff, hilarious. Go try to go around various malls and bars, etc. and accuse the security of being fascists.

Handmade Hero is for learning from-scratch C programming. My only concern regarding the moderation of the chat channel - which is done entirely by volunteers who do it as a helpful service - is that people are able to effectively ask questions about what I am doing on the stream and have those propagate to me eventually. Since this issue has nothing to do with that, I leave it to the moderator's discretion. If they wish to un-ban you, they will, if they do not, then they won't.

Regarding free-speech rights, unfortunately this is a topic that most people do not seem to understand particularly well, so just to clarify: the Bill of Rights is a set of restrictions on what the government can do. Originally it was only the Federal Government, but later it was extended to apply to the States as well. It has never by any court been construed, and will likely never be construed, as restricting corporations or private parties from doing things. It is, in fact, the opposite: it grants corporations, to the extent that they are treated as people under the law, those rights so enumerated.

As such, you have literally no free speech rights whatsoever on the Twitch Chat. As it is an interaction between two private parties (you and Amazon), it is governed only by those laws passed by the state and federal governments which apply thereto. At the moment, there are no laws which prevent a corporation from removing your speech from its servers, or from preventing your speech from being broadcast to its other users.

If Twitch themselves had a policy which governed when and whether a moderator could ban a chat participant from a particular channel, then those rules would apply here to the extent which Twitch chose to enforce them. But thus far, they have issued no such policy and have given no indication that they wish to be involved in an individual channel's collective decision as to who is banned and who is not. They have clear rules of conduct that speak to when Twitch themselves will come and ban you, but that is the only thing they have codified thus far. So while you are certainly free to take the matter up with Twitch, it does not appear that they currently have any interest in a procedure by which people petition to be reinstated outside the discretion of the moderators for a channel.

I have no particular opinion at the moment as to whether any of that is good or bad. But I just want to point out the actual legal truth of the matter here, so that there's no confusion about who has what rights where. In the US, where Twitch is homed, this is simply not a gray area. It is crystal clear First Amendment doctrine that is not at the moment under any sort of review of which I am aware.

- Casey

I'm not American, I was talking about a general principle that we have a freedom to speak about topics that are raised, or that we choose to discuss. I didn't raise the topic of OOP, other's did, and one particular negative comment was made, and they were not warned, I guess it's OK to snipe out comments to attack a paradigm but not OK on HH to defend a paradigm, I know where i stand now with the HH community.

@mmozeiko drive137 started the fight with his comment ..

drive137: deadstackrisesagain, oop does nothing but clutter and complicate things, end of discussion,

That's an abuse of power wouldn't you say? .. No you probably wouldn't

Afaik he is a mod. It is his decision to moderate live stream - what gets discussed and what not. You clearly don't understand general principle to have freedom to speak. It's not about you speaking whatever comes to your mind wherever you are. Otherwise we would have a lot of people swearing/insulting, verbally abusing anybody who they don't like (not only HH, but in general). There are written or unwritten rules you following in each community you are participating. You always have option to create blog/twitter/whatever and speak about your OOP there. You are even allowed to do that off-stream, but you ignored that. This community decided not to use OOP, but you doing that during live-stream is against mod rules - because we already have done that hundred times.. what's the point doing that again? Doing that is just unfair and impolite for regular viewers (and wasting their time).

@cmuratori thanks for the info, it's good to hear how this works in practice, and how it's actually applied.

This whole experience has really put me off HH, particuarly the community side of it, but I will try to respect the instructions of the admins in the future. But it might help if they are not permitted to attack other peoples techniques and experience and if they open a topic then it's open for discussion. And ending a sentence with 'end of discussion' shouldn't be a mandate to say whatever the hell you please, and ban people when they respond.

@mmozeiko "You clearly don't understand general principle to have freedom to speak"

I understand a few things about freedom and about freedom of speech. But keep invalidating my world perspective. Try to make it a little bit more personal next time though, since you don't know me, it would further validate your own comments about me.

DeadStack
But it might help if they are not permitted to attack other peoples techniques and experience and if they open a topic then it's open for discussion. And ending a sentence with 'end of discussion' shouldn't be a mandate to say whatever the hell you please, and ban people when they respond.

The moderators are ordinary people, just like everyone else on the chat, and they may attack other people's techniques and experience from time to time just like everyone else. They are moderators because they volunteer their time and do a good job of keeping the Twitch chat under control, which can be a daunting task when we're on the Twitch front page and the view count spikes into the thousands. They are not trained adjudicators or professional community managers. To be overly blunt, it is not their responsibility to be your friend or to ask you to do things politely. If they do, great, but if they don't, you're still expected to honor their requests. If you do not wish to do so, and they think you need to be banned, then you will be banned and that's the end of the story.

For some reason, and I am not sure exactly what it is, OOP proponents seem to really feel the need to tell people about OOP in the middle of Handmade Hero streams. Regulars on the chat are well past sick of it at this point, hence the moderator's request in this instance for you to save your arguments until after the stream was over. This, in my opinion, was a very reasonable request with which you refused to comply. Complying with a simple request from a moderator to save an argument for the end of the stream is part and parcel with being a good Twitch chat participant. Other people are trying to use the chat to talk about the episode, and rehashed arguments can quickly clog up the chat and make it useless.

I can see from the log mmozeiko posted, and from your original post, that you have a short temper when confronted. So do I, so I can certainly empathize with your desire to extend the fight here to the forums. But realistically speaking, arguing about OOP is never going to end well on the Handmade Hero chat, and heaven help you if I see it myself; many times I've gone off on OOP in the pre-stream, and there's no way for you to argue back since I'm the only one whose microphone broadcasts to the stream :) So if OOP advocacy and/or defense is very important to you, I might suggest that the Handmade Hero chat is going to continually frustrate you, and you might want to look for other avenues. An obvious example would be starting your own Twitch stream, of course, where you could talk about whatever OOP things you want, not to mention setting the chat moderation rules that you prefer.

- Casey

If the person doesn't read the technical articles that the moderators pointed to, that person is clearly not interested in OOP discussion, but on discussing for the sake of discussion.