No, Me Not Inviting You to My Key isn't Gatekeeping

Was a whisper or a email, not a thread.

But you can stop them from entering your group, hence.
You don’t need to prevent them from ever participating in M+ in order to be gatekeeping because you’re gatekeeping by deciding who you allow into your group.
And gatekeeping isn’t inherently toxic or bad, it’s just having specific standards. There are cases where the standards can be bad, but simply having standards at all isn’t nor will it ever be.

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Actually it is gatekeeping, even if you want to pretend it’s not. All premade groups are based on the party leader selecting the party members he wants to invite. That is the definition of gatekeeping. The only groups that are not formed with gatekeeping are those that are formed automatically by the random dungeon finder or LFR. And even they have gatekeeping designed into the system, because they may have a minimum ilvl, the system selects the right number of players of the right role, and levelers may need to have the correct phase of chromie time selected to get into the dungeons they want.

Any player who starts a group and selects the first 4 applicants is practicing less gatekeeping than anyone else or even the system. But even he is making a choice.

I don’t understand how someone can delude themselves that the selection process they utilize every day is somehow not gatekeeping.

You controlling who you accept into your group is gatekeeping, even if you just randomly accept the first 4 applicants. Gatekeeping is how a group is constructed. That is how the system is designed.

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It’s still gatekeeping. You’re getting hung up on the fact that no one group is the only option. We’re not talking about gatekeeping all groups, just the one a given person is gatekeeping. General, specific, it doesn’t matter. It’s gatekeeping.

I’m going off the definition you gave. If you’re going to act high and mighty and throw around definitions, the least you can do is stand by them when it’s pointed out that you’re full of it.

General accessibility isn’t being limited. So, again, by your definition it doesn’t constitute gatekeeping.

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But its impossible to allow everyone into the group.

And “gatekeeping from one singular group” isnt the argument you think it is. Its completely irrelevant. Because thats not how “gatekeeping” is typically being talked about.

Until m+ groups allow infinite players to join, then bringing up gatekeeping for specific groups is just a distraction topic.

See what I just said.

“WoW does not allow infinite players into groups and instances” is a red herring in the gatekeeping conversation.

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I have to disagree with you. Gatekeeping is what you do every time you form a group and choose members. The only players who do not practice gatekeeping are those who never form groups. The idea that “it’s not gatekeeping as long as I am not imprisoning someone in their home and shutting off the power so they can’t get into the game” seems to be your definition of “gatekeeping”.

TIL the G in LFG is Let’s find Gatekeepers

Also, if this is always the norm, what’s the opposite of gatekeeping?

Hence you set your own standards, thereby discerning who to let in and who not.

It’s completely relevant, because it is still gatekeeping.
And it’s still not a bad thing.

Distraction from what exactly?
If it’s anything other than what I suspect it to be I’ll be surprised, but it’s not often people here surprise me.


Not applying your own standards.
With no standards for entry, no reasons whereby you would a gate keep, then you’re not gatekeeping.
You might then bring up the limitations of forming groups, whereat it becomes a question of intent: Are your actions motivated by anything other than filling spots in your group, are you seeking a specific class / role for a spot, basically what standards are you applying? If none, then no, you’re not gatekeeping and any exclusions is just the result of the system’s limitations.

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Gee, it sounds like you’re trying to be clever here and failing. Did you not carefully select group members? Whether you use good criteria or bad criteria, you are still using criteria to decide who to accept and who not to accept.

I know people who never start groups. Start there.

That’s just being selective, not gatekeeping.

What would be the negative connotation of gatekeeping if gatekeeping is sometimes not a bad thing?

As I mentioned a couple different times, my definition is the one that was linked in the original post I responded to.

The activity of controlling, and usually limiting, general access to something.

Someone declining you from a group isn’t limiting your general access to the content. You still have access through either creating your own group, or joining a different one. So no, by that definition, it isn’t gatekeeping.

And you’re confused that I treat you the way I do. I’ll refer you to what I said to someone else;

So, gatekeeping is only when a player decides to start a group? What if the player has a keystone and never decides to start a group, or, decides to only invite their friends, not even listing in LFG. Is that gatekeeping?

What if i took the first 4 that showed up, regardless of class. Is that gatekeeping? How do you define ‘carefully select group members?’

Why are you saying the initial state of groupmaking is by itself gatekeeping. This is paradoxical. Because by electing to make a group, thus creating access to content - allegedly by you - you’re also not creating access for others. You’re stating that it’s both creating access and not.

In order for gatekeeping as a term to have any meaning, there needs to be some qualification behind it. If gatekeeping ‘just is,’ what’s the new word for when you purposely try to limit access from certain people instead of it happening as a function of the limitations of a game?

This is your made up definition. It makes you feel good, because you want to think you’re a good person, even though you may be one who whispers some random applicant who didn’t meet your standards and tells them to delete wow from their computer.

Being selective of who you let into your group is gatekeeping, and it’s not a bad thing.

That people perceive it to be arbitrarily exclusionary, that they might think it based upon some immutable characteristic such as race or sexuality or such.
Hence I say that gatekeeping is fine, but the standards whereby one does it can be bad.

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Are you okay?

I didn’t post any definitions.

Yeah, I agree that we can create restrictions for our groups, but I argue we’re watering down the term ‘gatekeeping.’ But, I know this is just going to be a semantic debate. I just can’t reconcile how someone can both create access and not at the same time - if the act of making a group is gatekeeping, that just seems as though folks choose the ‘glass is half empty’ perspective, as opposed to saying that creating a group is ‘glass is half full.’

If this is what you’re referring to it being a matter of perspective, i’m tracking.

But now I wanna know why folks would be frustrated by not being picked by a group when they can create their own group.

Ofc, because people like Maurdeth and Boomdoggle never have a point. They just want you to be wrong and them to be right, regardless of context.

Well, I’m being semantic, too, ultimately my position is the term gatekeeping has had a negative connotation, much like barring or restricting, where the individuals or individual are actively engaging in limiting another individual or individuals from accessing something. But in this context, the game limits the group leader even before they list it to pick people up. it’s gatekeeping all the way down, which makes even a 4 player limit in candyland experience gatekeeping…and I just hope we come up with a new term to address active, ‘malicious’ restriction, but, well, I digress…

Thus, if everything that has ‘rules,’ or ‘restrictions’ is gatekeeping, we start to lose the nuance of language and meaning. And then it also invokes a paradox that a group that is formed is both simultaneously creating access and not. It just seems very “here’s a rule that cannot be circumvented logically, that is intrinsic to the game mode, but that also connotes someone as being righteous or selective.”

I’ve run dungeons with maur, dude’s awesome. I don’t have any negative vibes with or towards him. And I think I’m tracking with their perspective. I’m sure I can eventually see things Boom’s way, too, but, right now, I can’t reconcile the duality of group-formation as being the genesis of access and the termination of it. :thinking: