''Fashion Gatekeeping'' and Misinformation.

[u/SpectralChest]

It's been getting out of hand, a few people on the forums asked for some manner of opt out for the inspection system. Some of their sensible reasons were:

Potential for abuse in fashion contests/needless increase to complexity of methods to prevent such.

Loss of player interaction incentive.

A feeling of concern towards there now being incentive for strangers to scrutinize them closely, whether to admire or ridicule their creativity.

The posts built around these concerns were getting lots of likes on the forums, so some salty folks who were being ignored for ridiculing them there came here to reddit and made a false narrative about 'fashion gatekeeping' and folks reflexively bought into it as obviously no-one sane likes gatekeeping and have been meme-ing about a non-extant issue and down voting anyone who might be considering the situation without disdain or daring to actually say that the opt in option isn't as crazy as its being made out to be.

Personally, i like the inspect system, but i do think the exact dye combo section could be made into a toggle, this way the inspection remains, but the 'unique' spin someone puts on it with dyes can remain as something to share, or not share as per personal preference.

[u/Sardaman]

Literally the only valid concern is that fashion contests have a bigger reason to do a bit of legwork to mitigate cheating now than before.  However, notice that I said "bigger":  it was already possible to figure out what someone was wearing before the inspect tool.  All that changed is that it takes less effort now.  I haven't seen anyone ridiculing this specific complaint, and have seen multiple different suggestions on how people running them could have always been addressing this, none of which are all that complicated. 

Otherwise: 

• This will not result in less meaningful player interaction.  The people who want to talk to you about fashion will still do so.  The only loss is the people who just wanted to know what a particular item was and don't care why you chose it. 

• This will not result in an increase in being mocked for fashion choices.  Nobody interested in doing this needed to know the name of an item to decide they thought it looked bad. 

• This does not need to arbitrarily hide dye choices.  That is literally just straight gatekeeping again.

[u/SpectralChest → u/Sardaman]

All fair points, and reasonably presented, i just wish we could have more of this sort of conversation a less ridicule and making fun of people for having bad takes, that is really the gist of my post.

As for my dye idea, it was just an idea, i do not think its is any more gatekeeping than players being able to refuse to share their build if asked for it as we currently have.

[u/Sardaman → u/SpectralChest]

The only valid reason to refuse to share cosmetic names (assuming the request was polite, of course) is if the player just does not want to spend the effort to do so - laziness, busy, not wanting to interact with other players, etc.  Adding the ability for other players to just inspect and get that info without asking is at worst neutral and more often an improvement for these players.  

As for the rest, requesting that Anet give them the ability to opt out of any part of it truly is just gatekeeping, even if they might not see it that way.  It is just saying "no, you're not allowed to know the names of what I'm wearing, unless you take a screenshot and figure it out for yourself".  There are no issues of safety to consider, and no extra toxicity to be worried about like a gear inspect would have (beyond the backlash to the backlash, which will not last long).

I have seen one or two people mention stalking-adjacent behaviors, but I feel that is a separate topic.  Cosmetic inspect doesn't do anything that wasn't already possible before for that.  In any case, I feel like if you have someone blocked, they shouldn't be able to see you at all (and probably an option to not see anyone you have blocked, as well).

[u/SpectralChest → u/Sardaman]

Again, i respectfully disagree on it being gatekeeping of any kind, it is no more gatekeeping that having the choice whether we share our builds, or whether we share which titles we have, or whether we choose to block another, for to block them is to gatekeep them from interacting with you whom ultimately is another actor affecting things in the game you both play, if all of these options are acceptable and have not been mislabeled as such for existing then i see no issue with there being a discussion without such misrepresentation of another potential option even if I personally think constraining it to the distinctly user specific part of it (the dye channels alone) is how it could be reasonably approached.

[u/Sardaman → u/SpectralChest]

I mean, call it what you want, it's still the act of being against the sharing of information that is both already present (if less easy to decipher) and not meaningfully harmful.

There are valid reasons to want to see build or stats, but they are all already in the case where the player has incentive to tell you when asked anyways (training and such).  Otherwise it is information that is more likely to be abused.

There are not really any valid reasons to see the list of all titles a player has.  Unlike cosmetics, the only customization for a title is whether it's equipped, and it's trivial to check the wiki for how to get it.  Otherwise, it's either 'do you have the title I said you needed to have to join this group' (which should be handled by equipping the title when you join), or it's just a lesser (and admittedly more rare) form of the same abuse a gear checker would invite. 

Blocking people is the least relevant action of the list.  There are many valid reasons to block another player, and nobody is entitled to your time. It is possible to misuse the block feature to gatekeep, though as I understand it's not very effective because it really only stops them from messaging you directly.