@SevenSidedDie No. You're not just a janitor. Janitors don't make administrative decisions about how an organization works, enforce policy, or mete out discipline. A janitor isn't an "ambassador of trust."A janitor isn't a position of authority.

Maintaining a healthy relationship with the community you have authority over is part of your job. That's not an extra. It's vital to being able to do the rest of what you're trying to do. There's no nice way to say this: if that's how you feel, then no, you might not be the right person for this, and I don't foresee things improving.

And if that's the opinion of the rest of the mod team as well, then... I can see how we got to this point.

this is a distressing way for a mod to decide to take this issue

The amount of work the mods are currently facing in repairing the community's living space is certainly unusual, because there's a lot of patching up to do. In the future, I'd expect that the baseline level of effort required to maintain that relationship will be much reduced--but never trivial, or we'll wind up here again.

I do see certain possible reasons to not want to engage with this whole thing, but "not wanting to engage with it" is not the best universal response for the mods as a whole to have

I am not mad, I am disappointed if the mods all have decided to consciously and actively wait this out

waiting this out will only make the users as a majority, or as a whole, lose faith in the moderators

that can't be allowed to happen

otherwise we have all already lost

I agree with Pixie on this, but I also agree with BESW

this can't be an easy thing to deal with

but that also doesn't mean not dealing with it is any kind of reasonable option for the mods to take

We may be misinterpreting SSD's statements. It wouldn't be the first time.

mm

this is a possibility

but if that is so I apologize in advance

And if he's really not able to do this, then it would be reasonable and mature to recognise that. It's certainly not something I'd be able to do at this point in my life--that's a major reason I didn't put my hat into the ring.

if it is not the case then I am still alarmed by the position

I wouldn't want to deal with this either

maybe some time several years from not I would feel like I could

but I didn't sign up to be a mod

heck, when I first got here, not so long ago, I was only on the site to talk to you and all the people you talked to

(To be clear, I'm not calling for any resignations; I'm as confident in all the mods' capacities as I can be from a third-party perspective.)

then I posted a couple questions and answers and got more active in chat and started showing up every day, but still, I never decided modding was my thing, even if someone had decided to invite me or vote for me or wtv the process is

@BESW I don't want to call for any resignations either

it is veeeeeery early for that kind of thing

no mod has struck me as deserving that

at the very least not yet

but I am still reserving my right to be distressed about the current situation

at the very least, the mods seem to continually misunderstand the actual crux of the issue

this is only from what little I have seen myself, and some possibly either unreliable or not in depth enough descriptions from other people

but using SSD as an example, he seemed not to understand either the depth of the issue or the actual issue itself as we wanted him to

I don't honestly blame him

maybe there was too much noise on the subject

but until the mods understand why people are actually distressed, and no I don't mean the removal of some silly tag or some single comment, this will continue to be a problem

personally, I am only upset that no leeway seems to have been made in an understanding of what is going on

@BESW Yeah. I should clarify, I'm not calling for resignations either. I think it's worth reflection on the part of the mods: are they willing to accept this part of their responsibilities? But I'm not looking for a culling.

It is just very troubling to me if a position of authority and stewardship is viewed as simple janitorial work, without acknowledgment of the responsibilities therein.

I agree with that

wholeheartedly

does it mean I think SSD should in any way be looked at badly for saying a thing to that relative seeming effect? no

at the very least I think he was stressed out by being the only mod in the room at the time to look at a mountain of things a few users were saying

that could not have been easy

I'm sensitive to that, too. I've been in moderator positions before. It's difficult, time-consuming, and stressful. This is a big site, maybe not in SE terms, but big to be handled by a team of three.

I have never been a mod for anything before

but I have plenty more than just a taste of how it feels to feel really bad about social interactions with others

It's certainly bigger than anything I've ever handled, and that was hard enough. I really do respect and appreciate the time and effort the mods have volunteered for the site.

especially a lot of people talking at once

I used to feel a LOT of stress just from pleasant conversations with other people, especially anyone I had never met or only met once or twice

Heh. Do I ever know that feeling.

I still am relatively shy around new people, I can't approach anyone for the first time myself without some pretty bad anxiety

not the worst anxiety, I am better off than some in that department, at least now

but it's still bad enough

I have gotten a lot better at talking to someone if they approach me first though

I used to have major problems even with that

Talking to my best friends can be an irrationally scary experience. It's a weird mix of happiness (I like talking to people! I like having friends!) and terror.

it used to be that way for me

I am so glad that isn't the way it is for me anymore, sorry you still go through that :(

I'm glad you've improved! I have too, really, and as long as I'm able to maintain and enjoy my friendships, I'll be okay.

@Pixie My Little Pixie: Friendship is Terror.

@BESW It's so true.

I don't personally remember it, but my parents tell me that when my siblings were brought home for the first time I basically told them to "go home"

Aww. xD

it was their home of course, but I had meant "leave this place"

course, that in itself is probably not toooo overblown for a firstborn kid who has never met his/her siblings before

And they were a twofer.

yeah

it took me long enough just to get used to engaging socially with my own parents

but as an example I am sure I mentioned before

it eventually occurred to me that two people who wouldn't stop saying things like "you need to stop reading a book while crossing the street" were people who had every interest in my well being and safety

When my first little sister was born, I didn't want her to have my bassinet, despite having no real attachment to it. I was around 2 years old. I have vague memories of this, but there's more to the story that I can't recall.

My anxiety likely developed as a result of interactions with my family and my peers. It seems odd to put it like this, given all the problems it causes, but in some ways, anxiety functions as armor.

@Pixie I think a lot of folks have this "anxiety armor," but they express it as cynicism.

mm I had only one major bully as a kid, and he taught me, indirectly and unintentionally, how to really ignore people

he certainly didn't teach me how to stop

I had to learn that one mostly on my own

XD

It's a way to protect yourself. When you have reason to be cautious, you can start to be cautious all the time, and when getting close to people harms you, you put distance between yourself and them.

I think it looped around into my "ignore me" armor

@Pixie sounds about right to me

as an assessment

After this kind of conflict, I might spend a while feeling sick to my stomach and wanting to hide and never bother anyone again. It doesn't interfere with my ability to talk to people at the time. It's just after. That's what I meant earlier when I said there's a cost. And that happens because in my mind, on some level, social interaction has been understood as dangerous.

I can totally understand that

After last night I just wanted to eat ice cream and watch Pitch Black.

it wasn't the best day

Heh. That's not a bad idea.

it was a pretty neat movie

and ice cream is always appealing to me

I didn't have time or ice cream, so instead I watched Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre skits for half an hour.

though I really ought to cut back on that sort of thing

Today was a "screw it, donuts" day.

That did not necessarily have anything to do with recent events, but it definitely was. Donuts and an unintentional five hour nap.

I had one of those days last week Wenesday

a screw it doughnuts day anyway

all my naps are intentional

or at least most of them

I will admit occasionally having unwarranted difficulty staying awake, nothing like your descriptions though

I tried to resist, though I knew it would happen sooner or later. I woke up grumbly because I'd fallen asleep in the middle of a conversation with my boyfriend, although he was equally sleepy at the time and still around afterward. xD

and not common by any means

I have two settings: either I cannot sleep at all, or I must sleep. Immediately.

Speaking of which, I should nap a bit before work. See you all.

night

or wtv sleep time it is

I am personally thankful that I have only very rare sleep troubles in either direction

I have other problems, but no need to complain about them here

XD

plenty of them are my fault anyway

XD

@Pixie my three year old asked if we could get donuts on the way to his daycare this morning, didn't hesitate to say yes.

@trogdor @BESW @Pixie I do think I understand the depth of the issue, and that is actually one of the reasons for suddenly realising that the crux of it lies at a depth that is out beyond my job description.

Have I lost the community's trust? Some of the community's trust? Possibly. How, though, I have to ask, in navigating this current mess. And I recall what I've been told: for not listening.

Now, I have to ask: what is my job? Is it to do as I'm told? No, of course not. It is to be an exception handler: to do what the community either can't (for technical reasons) or won't (for other reasons) do itself. That is the core of my job. To do that job requires that the community trust that I'm impartial and fair. Do I think I've lost that trust? No, by the comments of the very people who are saying I've lost their trust more generally.

So, then, what trust have I lost then, and how, I ask myself. A decision was made that prominent community members didn't understand. Angry demands were made that we reverse that decision. Being the holders of the community's trust to be fair and impartial, we refused to fold in the face of that stiff wind. Later, more moderate demands were made for us to reconsider our decision. But it turns out that the request was rooted in misunderstanding practical facts underlying the decision:

so holding fast was the correct course.

The community later ratified the decision as a correct application of the principles, history, and other relevant context surrounding the issue. A dialogue was also had between the most prominent objector to see how the issue could be avoided next time; the result being to try to be more diplomatic, and attempt, where possible, to anticipate misunderstandings and furnish appropriate context to ward off misunderstandings.

Are these unreasonable things to do? No, they're very reasonable, sensible requests. But did we ever deliberately hide context, or lazily not bother to provide as full context as we could? No, that's silly. We have, and will continue, to try to explain what motivates decisions that are made when acting as exception handlers. That's part of our job, for reasons that are obvious to us. If we fail to anticipate necessary context, that is not from willful omission, nor negligence.

Failing to predict the future happens, and will happen again.

So no, I don't feel responsible for not listening: I listened. I acted with integrity, respect, and following high-minded and practical principles of moderation and community interaction. If the failing lost me the community's trust, then there is nothing I can do about that past loss.

There's also little I can do about it now. Apparently listening at the time doesn't count now, having expired for some reason. All I can do is continue to be fair and impartial, and to do my job with integrity. If that is not enough for some, I am truly regretful that they are suffering, but it is evidently not something in my power to fix, so I will not accept that impossible burden.

I honestly think that's all you agreed to when you took the position. Just make the site run smoothly so good questions are formed and good answers get posted.

And other issues keep getting shoehorned into the 'job' via discussion/meta/chat.

@MadMAxJr Exactly. The alpha and omega of the site is the answers and questions; lots else is important, including community trust and the community's need to functionally make decisions, but those things matter because they support the core purpose of quality answers to well-asked questions.

If there are community objections that cannot be resolved without the moderators basically reneging on their core job description, then there will be community objections that go unresolved. The existence of outstanding complaints is not evidence of moderator malfeasance, it is, unfortunately, an expected by-product of moderators existing in order to handle things the community can't or won't.

I'd like to be able to freely ask, for example, a Pathfinder, state that I'm interested in an answer that uses the rules (RAW). I would like to get answers, not extensive debate. The site in its current state seems to polarize over such things, and I've been directing my players elsewhere with their questions as a result. This is an example, not the full scope of the problems.

@MadMAxJr Wow, yeah, that sucks. I've been unhappy with the fuzzy border between RAW questions and other questions, and that's a major reason why the sudden push to get clarity on how to use the tag. But it didn't occur to me that it was causing disservice to those who are asking questions within the tag's purview.

I really, really want the tag to be useful to those who use it. Hence my frustration over vocal users within the tag's coverage being so adamant that it not be touched.

We've had polarizing topics since the site went up and got out of beta. "You're too 3.5 biased.", "You're too 4E biased.", "You don't do enough to prop up indie/smaller RPG titles.", "You shun narrative based questions.", "You shun rules-focused questions.", etc etc. Lots of bickering because some people value one element of RPG gaming more than others.

I can't tell if it's neutral ground anymore here or interest groups fighting to make sure their preference becomes the rule. And I have no interest in debating who is right either. I just want to answer some obscure interaction of two rules in d20 based combat.

@MadMAxJr Typically I argue that SE does contentious better than the rest and I'm kind of trying to figure out why its breaking down so hard here.

Over on gaming.SE we came across a big issue. People posting minecraft crash logs. This issue polarized the chat and meta communities.

Ultimately a discussion started with the focus, "Well how do we best help people with these problems, since we get so many?"

A few weighed in and brought up some key points. Vanilla minecraft is well understood. The crash logs in it generally point to a handful of known breaking points. We will help with those. People who have modded minecraft can create less common, less identifiable issues and obscure hybrid problems by combining X mod with Y mod. We ultimately decided we do not allow asking for help with modded minecraft crash logs as the points of failure are far too high.

So for modded crash logs we agreed directing the user to their mod maker forum/support site for help will get them answers more on topic, and likely quicker than a generalized gaming Q&A site like gaming.SE.

It still causes ripples of discontent in parts of the moderation of the site, but it's been a mostly working solution. We don't have the site falling apart over it.

This does not directly translate to what's going on here, but the point is we had a community splitting issue and we didn't let it cause operation and moderation to come apart at the seams.

@MadMAxJr Yeah, and my interest as a moderator lies in making sure everyone has room on the site. Trying to make their preferences the global norm is unwelcome, whoever is doing it, and misunderstanding my pushback to that has made me perceived as an enemy of RAW questions/community, but really I just want the RAW community to be satisfied with co-existing.

@MadMAxJr I'm familiar with that—it was my meta Q!

And for the record, I have no blame directed at you @SevenSidedDie. You could prefer your RPGs be played with a pen containing a rabid badger and six numbered pieces of raw meat instead of dice for all I care.

@MadMAxJr I appreciate that! And I think we're kindred on that point then.

Now please keep your badger on your side of the virtual chat space.

@MadMAxJr Exactly so. :) Yeah, this is why I'm distressed that the community is deadlocked on the RAW tag; even if some don't see a problem and fear it being touched, it does have a problem and moderation can't continue overlooking that problem. I'm (sad but also) reassured to hear that someone like you, invested in RAW as a thing but less invested in the status quo of the site, can corroborate the problem.

And, unfortunately, breaking the deadlock—doing our jobs—would be seen as yet another imposition by the mods. Damned if we do and damned if we don't. And another reason why the current storm is an unwelcome sideshow to tackling the practical issues the community won't/can't.

It's not out of spite for RPG.SE, honestly. We were a good site in beta. I guess this is a bad time to say I kinda miss having Brian oversee day to day operations.

Not because of his opinions or stances, but simply that I think he helped drive some efforts to solutions (while using us for neat research topics for his doctorate).

I'm going to throw in with Pixie at this point and say screw it, I'm going to go get a donut.

@MadMAxJr I miss Brian too. He did a great job, but burned out on it. I'm not hearing spite, for what it's worth. I hear a practical concern about the functioning of the site.

I am now going to go think about the randomized distribution of a hungry badger and numbered-meat based RPG systems.

I suspect 2dBadger rolls could be messy.

@MadMAxJr I felt similarly compelled to do a thought experiment on its effectiveness. Meat placement and appearance would be really difficult to get right, and you've have to have a blind badger-selection process to avoid unconsciously selecting a badger with a favourable behavioural bias.

@SevenSidedDie the number of iterations required to assure randomness may result in calls to PETA as well.

@waxeagle And an over-fed badger wouldn't being an effective RNG in any case.

@SevenSidedDie To avoid polarising issues and making people feel like they can co-exist comfortably, avoid using words like "junk" when describing their tags. I know it's describing the tag, not the person or the playstyle, but that's not a distinction it's easy for everyone to make and avoiding that kind of judgemental language is a simple way the mods can make the community more inviting.

This is the sort of thing I've been asking for all along: just be more careful about how we use our words. The things the mod team has been doing are the right things, almost every time. The way the mod team chooses to express itself, however, can be needlessly confrontational.

We're role-players, we know that rhetoric matters: the way you say something is as important as what you're saying, in terms of how it gets received.

And no, not everyone will agree that's the big problem here. I certainly don't think it's the only problem. But in terms of what the mods can do to regain trust and to de-escalate the other problems we're facing, I think it'd be useful to work on presentation.

The citizens of the site will have a tendency to polarise over editions and playstyles, because the Internet is awash with that kind of thinking and major flagship Internet communities for our hobby are particularly vociferous about it. This means we need to be actively pushing back against that kind of dichotomous antagonism, in our deeds and in our words.

@SevenSidedDie I just want to point out that you have not lost my trust, but I am aware that the mods as a unit, regardless of how fair it is or how much the mods actually deserve it, have lost some of the communities trust

and I may have misinterpreted something you said along the line, who knows, but I don't hate or distrust or dislike you

or any of the mods for that matter

I have met no one on this site who I don't like at least a little

no one here has been anything short of at least accepting and reasonable here, with some possible lapses on the part of a very small number of people who I don't believe meant to harm anyone else (none of those few have been mods, by the way, at least that I have personally witnessed)

no one on this site deserves or gets my ire, and no one will unless they inexplicably choose to personally insult me or even mess with someone else here intentionally

and I have no reason to believe or expect either of those things to happen

they could, but I don't expect them

and if it did I would think it to be much more likely to come from someone completely new to the site

I say all this because I want it to be clear that I have not decided to write off the mod team, nor have I actually lost faith over this

I see this whole issue as a misunderstanding by a lot of people

do I possibly include that some mods misunderstood some things? I do think that is certainly possible

but I don't choose to ascribe blame for something like that regardless

and I certainly don't think any mod intentionally set a fire, or anything like that

if it has looked at all like I am especially mad at any mod or all the mods, then I appologize to all of you

doesn't matter if you spoke to me yourselves or even see this

if that was at all the case of what anything I said looked like, then I truly apologize

if anything I have said has hurt you personally, don't be afraid to tell me. I didn't mean for that to be the outcome of anything I said, but if it was the outcome I will actually apologize again for the misunderstanding.

@BESW Loosely related, I entered a discussion about Homestuck fans invading the comments on some YouTube video and managed to find a meeting point with the opposing part where the guy actually told me "I'm glad we got to agree on this". So happy now. Zachiel 1 - Internet z- ok, more like Internet 254378 but who cares.

Grats!

I wouldn't touch YouTube comments with someone else's ten-foot pole.

it's always nice to have a win like that

@BESW same

I watch youtube, but I don't have any interest in those comments

I have read them a few times a while back, and all they ever were was random stupid things, and yelling at the person at the other side of the screen

not useful information at all XD

Sometimes, people just ask legit questions down there, like "how does one become a triangle player, anyway?" (A: you don't. You graduate as a percussionist.)

yeah, but those are drowned out generally

and don't quite always have anything to do with the video at hand

XD

@BESW Keep in mind that not every meta by a mod is from the mod team. The question about whether the RAW tag is useful is a good example: that's not a question that came from team deliberation; it was equally the first time I saw it as when you saw it. So when you have criticism about how "we" communicate, it's useful to ensure you're actually talking to someone responsible for what you're criticising.

Oh, I'm aware that the team doesn't collaborate on everything each mod says. Everyone, mods and citizens, should be making this effort. I think I've had this conversation at least once with each moderator now, and with several citizens.

@trogdor I appreciate that, and the general sentiment of the messages preceding the one this is responding to! I can say I don't feel personally attacked in general, least of all you personally. I do feel like I'm in a dark room and having a hard time telling who is talking to whom when criticisms are happening, and it's disorienting but not insulting.

mm I can see that

I think I may have mentioned something to the effect of thinking maybe you were overwhelmed by the number of people talking

somewhere up there in that mess of things people said

Thing is: Citizens can't tell when the mods are speaking on their own and when they're representing the team. I assume Mxy's use of "junk" and sarcasm quotes was his own choice, but he gave the impression that he was making those posts on behalf of the team--and so the language he chose represents the team.

So I don't think it really matters if I'm talking to the individual who made that particular choice. I think the mod team as a whole should be thinking about this. It's not so much a criticism as a solution: my answer to "What can the team do to repair the damage?" is "Be more proactive in figuring out how to say things 'gently but firmly' and in a 'respectful' way."

@trogdor Yep, that nearly happened. Since I was the focus of conversation for a bunch of people though, I barely hung on and managed to maintain the threads I was responding to. It was certainly a high energy expenditure, though I learned useful things.

Thank you for that effort. It's part of the solution, I think.

I don't envy anyone who is the focus of that much attention

@BESW The thing is that I do think about it; wording is pretty much the essence of my career on this site the last five-going-on-six years. Except for a few failures, I do choose my words quite carefully, and lament that it's not a more widespread habit.

Aye, there've been a lot of misunderstandings in communicating with you but never disrespect. I do recognise that, and it's one of the reasons I'm reaching out to you in asking the team as a whole to put more effort into choosing its words more carefully.

@BESW My impression of that post was that he was making it on behalf of the site. It's a site issue, not a mod issue.

It's a curious problem: how to not appear like a phalanx when you're not even trying to be, or even aware that you might be perceived that way. I still need to talk to Emrakul about how it was managed on puzzling.

@SevenSidedDie That's a distinction which is lost on a lot of people. And is frankly irrelevant; mod or not, team representative or not, it was a poor choice of words for anyone to use on a topic that we know is so fraught.

I'm just asking that the team and its individual members work on improving that part of communicating with the site going forward.

@SevenSidedDie It is a jiggly tightrope.

Moderators' actions on the site are always Blue Diamond actions, regardless of whether it's something they would have done anyway without the Blue Diamond.

That's not fair, but it's inevitable.

Happily, what I'm suggesting is effort that I expect of myself and everyone else, not just the mods. It's just got a bigger ripple effect when it's mods.

@BESW I think these kinds of things are best brought up without assuming they're explosive. A comment saying "hey, 'junk' is going to be inflammatory, can we have a different title?" would have gone a long way. I do understand that it might not have been obvious at the time that it was where the issue lay though; sometimes that's only in retrospect.

Reflecting on how things went after the fact is vital. So long as there's learning from it which is used going forward, any effort was not in vain.

@BESW Oh yeah, certainly. But we have all these lovely tools lying around that I'm somewhat confused aren't being used. A judicious comment can go a long way when there's an objection to phrasing; I don't see the need to treat phrasing as set in stone, or as reflecting entrenched positions that aren't changeable.

I'm trying not to criticise for blame's sake--though my frustrations can lead me to slip up. I'd like to help support the reflection and learning.

@SevenSidedDie I... [sigh] Yes, you're right. But when it's Mxy, there's pushback: I've had this exact conversation about moderator actions and choosing words carefully several times over the last few years and most of the time he tells me I'm wrong, overly sensitive, and too demanding.

@BESW He's got a rough, shoot-from-the-hip attitude at times. At times it's useful; others it's a liability. Rather than butting heads with him over that, you can pull in a second mod opinion.

So I when I saw "junk" in the title, I considered leaving a comment. But in the light of past attempts, I couldn't see what good it would do. I chose not to derail the comments in pursuit of another chastisement for being too sensitive and self-righteous.

I'm aware that's not necessarily an obvious, discoverable option, so I want to put that out now if it wasn't already visible.

@BESW I do understand that response. There are only so many spoons, and avoiding a possible confrontation is a sound spoon-preserving strategy.

@SevenSidedDie You're right, it's often not something which even occurs to me. That is what I think Emrakul can help you with.

@BESW In presenting the visible image of approachable, separate minds. That makes sense, yeah.

So again, I'm not asking for major changes in policy or decision-making. Just that the mod team works to be more respectful and personable in how those things are shared and implemented. I don't expect magic, but that effort will begin to de-escalate the other problems festering on the site, including the edition and playstyle conflict amongst citizens, so that they can be addressed rationally.

And, yanno. In the future, if you've got someone with a "shoot-from-the-hip attitude" and someone else who's been working for years to choose words carefully, consider which is more useful to tap for a site policy post.