At the risk of touching the proverbial third-rail of twitter discourse, I have been seeing some familiar communication challenges associated with gatekeeping.

At it's heart, We are discussing the process in which relatively experienced and predominantly privileged designers/publishers erect professional wall through their speech or actions.

Generally I see this appear in three distinct forms with radically different impacts and intents. The most common and harmful form of this is when an established figure actively blocks the progress of a new creative getting into the industry by flexing their power.

This is uniformly terrible behavior which reinforces prejudice in the form of sexism, racism, homophobia, transphobia, ablism, and colonialism. This is where the mediocre cis white het dude stymie some of the brilliant new creatives.

Sometimes they are perpetuating this behavior subconsciously via microaggressions, tone-policing, or other measures to keep out "troublemakers" or "firebrands" who are disturbing their comfortable ignorance. Still, this is the worst form of gatekeeping I see.

The second form of gatekeeping is far less malicious in nature. Many designers and publishers have witnessed or experienced horrific experiences over the years. There have been a lot of folks in the industry who have made mistakes that have led to financial ruin or burnout.

Some of these experiences have left proverbial scars on the old guard, and from these old pain comes a desire to keep others from suffering the same fate. Many of the please to "keep your games small" or "don't print too many copies" are from here.

That is not to say that this is a good approach. The challenges of a cis white man of privilege designing their first game in the early 2000's are radically different from a female or non-binary creator of colour in 2020. Cultural and technological factors change the landscape.

The intent is a good one; to erect a fence to keep promising new creators from falling into concealed pit-traps of publishing. It can however be paternalistic and lead to the impression they are trying to keep the underrepresented talent small.

There is one more, quiet form of gatekeeping that is nearly invisible and is an unmitigated good. There are often a handful of toxic, clueless, prejudiced, or outright dangerous cis white dudes that try to seep into our space.

There are a lot of good and established people in the industry who will block some of these worst offenders in the shadows. Bad apples still sneak in, but a small amount of gatekeeping is quietly performed to keep them out for the good of the most vulnerable among us.

Those of us in a position of power and privilege need to absolutely stop the first form of gatekeeping, provide resources rather than orders for the second, and get better with the third. We can all do better to make it a healthier space. /fin

As a small addendum, I know that I have inevitably made mistakes and overlooked additional problems in the context of this thread. I welcome DMs so that I can make the appropriate corrections and clarifications.

As an example, classism is another significant area of marginalization that is often overlooked. We need to ensure that folks whose time or funds are limited can still be welcomed in rather than establishing structural barriers.