Criticism of BoardGameGeek
From Wikinfo
BoardGameGeek (BGG) has been criticized for numerous reasons.
Contents |
Unfriendly Behavior
"It seems that there are moderators who defend the abuse of threads by people who would be called in German 'kindische Selbstdarsteller' - childish self-promoters." -- Ralf Gering (2008).
While Scott Alden envisioned a friendly community where people 'play nice' and keep the bickering to a minimum, in fact, many users post irritating and annoying posts in the forums (supposed to be "humorous" at best) that detract from the actual topic of the thread and thus making serious discussion impossible. When critisized, they behave like "middle schoolers" (quoted from a discussion on BoardGameGeek) bullying those who strive for a meaningful discourse.
Censorship
"I think that Board Game Geek has every right to censor, suspend or ban people as it sees fit. What I find deeply dismaying is the lack of transparency around how it is done. It doesn't have to be even-handed � it's just secretive and has a Kafkaesque feel to it." - Akhnaten (2008)
Along with the growing membership at BoardGameGeek, a controversy has developed regarding how much individual users should be able to post controversial or potentially offensive content, and moderators have become more vigilant regarding what is and is not appropriate. This has led to the locking or deletion of various GeekLists and forum posts which were perceived as excessively hostile to individual members. Critics have argued that the posts were not intended to be taken seriously and that these acts constitute censorship.
In March of 2007, BGG founder, Scott Alden banned a user for the first time in the history of the site on the grounds of violating the code of conduct. In subsequent weeks there was considerable debate about whether the offending behavior constituted "personal attacks" or merely satire and banter, as well as the ethics of preventing a member from contributing to the website.
Some games (e.g. Football Tactics 2006, Ninja Galaxy) were removed upon the request of their producers because they received negative ratings.
Sexism
"BGG is their site, and it's a site where sexism is allowed. If you don't like it, leave. I found it deeply disturbing." -- Liz Rizzo (2007)
Male BoardGameGeek users are often accused of being overly giddy over cleavage and general images posted that involve females, at one point even angering one of the subjects of these photos to the point of almost leaving the site.
Bias
"I thus understand that inserting (...) different traditional mancala games with separate entries is not well accepted." -- Maurizio De Leo (2007)
Games often receive negative ratings because they are "just not my type of game". This is particularly true for abstract strategy games. Many BoardGameGeeks write that they don't like abstract games (even to the extent that they "hate completely abstract games"), which they find "boring", although they often admit at the same time that they don't understand them. Blatantly wrong statements abound. For instance, the game of Go is described as "unbalanced", "repetitive", and having "zero player interaction".
Many BGG users are also biased against party games, and will often take points away from such games just because of their genre, often not even wanting to admit that they may have liked one.
It has also been said that BoardGameGeek is biased in favor of adult games over children's games.
The vast majority BoardGameGeek users are Americans or Europeans and it appears that almost no BGG member lives in an Arabic or African country (except South Africa). Therefore, games that are not well-known in the USA are inadequately represented. The BGG community is US and eurocentric.
As BoardGameGeek is a commercial site, non-commercialized ("unpublished") games are underrepresented and most traditional games are missing in the database.
| Boardgame Family | Games on BoardGameGeek | Games on Wikinfo | Estimated Number |
| Traditional Mancala Games | 4 (Bao, Omweso, Oware, Um el Bagara) | 253 | >400 |
| Modern Sowing Games | 21 | 121 | >120 |
Fanaticism
"To list all the errors would be to copy the article verbatim." -- Meat (2008)
The BoardGameGeek community attracted its share of fanatics who would dismiss in a sweeping manner whatever had been said by those who found something wrong with BGG. The talk page of this article gives an example. Criticism is perceived as an "accusation", which endangers the self-esteem (and maybe even the identity) of group members. Affective blindness towards something as unimportant as BGG has resulted in vandalizing this article.
External Links
Bannings critisized
- Who watches the watchmen? Censorship and Bans on BGG
- The banning of Michael Barnes
- Petition: Bring back Michael Barnes
- This may be Aldie's place, but we're not just guests.
Bias
- Splitting Mancala and Checkers
- "mancala" nonsense on Board Game Geek
- Go getting bad ratings for being (too) abstract
Serious discussion versus bullying
Sexism
The "Ninja Galaxy Fiasco"
- Publishers have BGG game pages taken down.
- Deleted Games! SteinThompson Gone?
- What happened to Soccer Tactics World?
- What happened to Stein-Thompson games?
Partly adapted from the Wikipedia article, "BoardGameGeek" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BoardGameGeek (and its talk page), used under the GNU Free Documentation License.
